Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Why do you put defensive weaponry in quotes? Do you think Israel is going to disassemble interceptors to harvest HEM? Even putting aside the genocide claim, it is different, because it is defensive, designed to protect civilian targets that the Arab states have historically targeted. I don’t even know how I can elaborate on this further to make it very plainly different and morally righteous.

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Anonymous OP 1w

because objectively speaking you are supporting a genocidal nation. the point is literally that you are complicit in the commission of genocide. under international law aiding or assisting in war crimes is itself a war crime.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Removing a defensive capability that protects civilians, which would result in mass civilian casualties, seems like it would aid or assist in a war crime also, no? Supplying defensive capability that protects civilians does not aid or assist in offensive action. In fact it limits its necessary scope tremendously. If you think Israel’s committing genocide now, check back on what that region looks like when they don’t have the Iron Dome or related tech.

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Anonymous OP 1w

holy islamaphobia batman. if your whole argument is ‘arabs are frothing at the mouth for the blood of israeli children’ then you’re just racist.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Is that what I said? I feel like you’re arguing with someone else, maybe in your head. Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran (who are not Arab, btw), and other groups have historically been largely indiscriminate in what they target. This is a fact. And this is what you and a lot of anti-Zionists don’t understand yet, but you will. The Iron Dome and other defenses we fund do not protect Israelis in Israel. It protects Arabs from the version of Israel that has no method of defense besides offense.

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Anonymous OP 1w

However I should not have said “Arab states” because that actually is incorrect since the 70s, I should have specified terrorist groups that reside in some Arab states specifically Lebanon and Syria, and the government of Iran.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean, you did mention arab states targeting things, so maybe I read more into that than I should have. so often arguments in favor of israel rely heavily on islamaphobia, and I apologize if that was a ‘false flag’ from me. I generally disagree with the notion that it’s the US’s obligation to make a genocidal ethnostate feel safe enough that they maintain the currently limited scope of their genocide. that’s world war two era appeasement by a different name, and that didn’t really work out.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

I believe the mistake you may be making here is that you view the different possible policies we can adopt as a dichotomy between genocide and not genocide. What in fact exists is a lot of policies that lead to many possible genocides on a spectrum of magnitude, and relatively few policies that lead to good outcomes. This number shrinks every time Trump does something stupid that fucks up years of progress in the region.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean the civilians in Israel don’t deserve violence, but neither do civilians in Gaza, and civilians in Israel have overwhelmingly more opportunity to leave that dangerous situation.

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Anonymous OP 1w

To me the best case scenario right now is that Herzog does not pardon Netanyahu, he is convicted in his corruption trial which is nearing its end, Likud loses their coalition majority in October, and a Democrat wins in 2028 who wants to condition aid on their behavior. But Iran is unfortunately a wild card in this scenario that Trump completely fucked up ten years ago and nothing can undo that.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean I agree with that, but the current policy of giving Israel military aid unconditionally, and not doing anything to make that aid leverage to compel an easing of the ongoing genocide is definitely a poor choice, as is illegally starting a war with Iran by assassinating their sovereign leader in violation of international law.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

“Israelis should just leave their country” is not a reasonable solution, and is in fact an endorsement of ethnic cleansing, which you should reexamine and be ashamed of. An overwhelming majority have no foreign passport and cannot leave for longer than they can obtain a visa for, which admittedly you are correct is more than you can say for Gazans.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

I agree. I wish our country hadn’t elected a leader without a strategic thought in his head who is very likely being blackmailed by one or more foreign entities, of which Israel may not even be one. I listen to Hillary Clinton talk about policy in the Middle East and weep for what might have been. Unfortunately we have to move forward with the President we have.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I didn’t say they should leave. I said they have far more opportunity to remove themselves from this conflict. Your argument here hinges on ‘their country’ which you take as a given, and it’s clearly a hotly contested question, that’s been raging for years. You’re backing a colonial power who have maintained apartheid control on marginalized people for decades.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

I’m not going to argue with you about whose land it is, because frankly it’s an unanswerable question as far as I’m concerned, but saying forcible displacement is ethnic cleansing while advocating for Israel is, imo, an inherently contradictory position. You say calling for Israelis to leave is advocating for ethnic cleansing, but the Israeli government has spent years forcibly displacing Palestinians.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

I mean“their country” in that most were born there, have spent their entire lives there, have no other nationality, the political entity Israel exists, and a national identity of Israeli exists. Whether you view their possession of the land inside those borders as legitimate isn’t particularly relevant to any of those things. They consider it their rightful home, for their own lives if not for thousands of years, and many will die before leaving.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Yes, Israel ethnically cleansed around 700,000 Arabs in 1948 and had continued to encourage emigration through a variety of means. That was bad then and it’s bad now, I don’t view this as contradictory. I would not have been a Zionist in 1948, but this isn’t 1948.

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Anonymous OP 1w

And many palestinians consider gaza their rightful home, and will die before leaving. Many of them have lived there for years in spite of the apartheid regime they live under.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean it continues to this day in the west bank, Israel actively funds settler colonies, and chooses not prosecute crimes committed against palestinians by settlers. I’m not talking about 1948.

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Anonymous OP 1w

and do the ~60,000 civilians killed in gaza not count as ethnic cleansing?

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

And I support Palestinians right to self determination in contiguous territory in Gaza and the West Bank in a way that promotes regional peace, justice, and security. You definitely won’t find me defending the deep territory settlers or the country’s position here, they’re maybe the worst example of fucking redneck losers you could find in any country including the USA. But unfortunately Netanyahu built a coalition with these Kahanist losers and no one from outside forcing them to act right.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean I’m glad you appreciate these deeply immoral actions, but it exacerbates the argument that the current Israeli government need to be either removed from power or kept in check, I’m not going to say the US should involve themselves in any regime change (Israel isn’t a latin american country that democratically elected a socialist leader), but the ‘oh please sir take all the weapons you want, we will fight your war with iran’ approach the US government is currently taking is piss poor.

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Anonymous OP 1w

And I’m all for calls to condition weapons, including defensive weapons, on Israel not doing ethnic cleansing, or like doing 3% less apartheid than they’re currently doing.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Ethnic cleansing isn’t a matter of statistics but specific intent and outcome. If Israel’s goal is to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from the region, they seem to be forgetting about the 2.1 million Arab Israelis who are full citizens with full rights and passports living in Israel proper, not in Gaza or the West Bank, who are Palestinian in all but name as they increasingly choose not to associate their ethnic identity with the political movement. Why does Gaza get such hostile attention?

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Anonymous OP 1w

It’s already been determined by international bodies that Israel has demonstrated ‘genocidal intent’ in Gaza, so I don’t really want to hear this ‘it’s about intent and outcome’ thing.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Civilian casualties of any number in a combat zone, since the true number could be higher or lower, are very sad but can’t in and of themselves speak to the intent of the government. I think some unhinged statements from IDF and political leaders do that much better, but even these are not reflective of the government’s actual actions, so drawing a connecting line between a few people (who do definitely have genocidal intent) and the government’s policy (which they do not implement) is hard.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

But again, I agree, our policy towards Israel since Obama has been dog shit because it’s largely been made with no regard for long term regional strategy and the people controlling it are half of them Evangelical bloodthirsty end of days nut jobs who are actively trying to instigate a rapture and the other half are the most absolutely insane Islamophobes you could ever hope to find in secular or religious communities.

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Anonymous OP 1w

The UN report speaks to large-scale systemic acts, in addition to patterns of action by individuals. When you conduct attacks on previously designated safe zones, multiple times, it’s hard to say your goal isn’t ethnic cleansing.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

I’m glad your shy of regime change but I’m hopeful the Israeli courts and public will take care of that problem on your own, and then we’ll just need a President who is actually competent and has good moral priorities.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean in terms of literal meaning, a change in regime is exactly whats indicated, imo, just not one instigated by a meddling foreign party.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I have little faith in Israeli courts. If their rulings on well documented systematic mistreatment of palestinian detainees are even remotely indicative of their ability to be impartial.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Large scale systemic acts like blocking aid and turning off water are either very short in duration or slightly more nuanced than they appear. Also, when you say “previously designated safe zones” that is an important distinction, because designated safe zones change from day to day in active combat zones, and civilians are expected to make every possible effort to relocate when they’re notified of this for their own safety. 1/2

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Anonymous OP 1w

I don’t know the details of every strike on every locality on every day of the past 2 and a half years, so it may be the case that there have been strikes on areas that are currently classified as safe zones, I don’t know, and that would be bad, but my guess would be that they occur infrequently enough that they’re better explained by bureaucratic fuck ups or singular rogue agents than they are by a broad intent of the Israeli government to occasionally bomb the wrong locations, 2/3

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean have you seen the video of west bank settlers destroying truckloads of aid while the IDF idly stands by and watches? It’s not hard to see that at just about every opportunity, the Israeli government chooses to be cruel, and to impose additional suffering on innocent people.

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Anonymous OP 1w

but not often enough to actually genocide the population, only often enough to make themselves look really bad on the news.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

These are military courts that handle these cases, which I agree uphold justice terribly, but it’s a different system from the one Netanyahu is being tried under, and that Netanyahu has formally asked President Herzog for a pardon indicates he already knows the verdict that’s coming his way.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I mean, forgive me if I’m misreading this, I think your 2/3 post vanished for some reason, but it kind of sounds like you’re saying “it’s not genocide because they’re too incompetent to actually accomplish genocide”, and if that’s a viable argument, then one could start arguing that Hamas lacks the capability to match the military might of the Israeli military

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Anonymous OP 1w

Ah, I haven’t been following that one, what have they brought him up on? I saw the ICC charges, but what’s the domestic stuff?

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Hmm, I still see my 2/3 post, idk what’s happening there, but no - the argument is that definitionally genocide requires a specific and special intent to exterminate a people in whole or in part, and that while I don’t know the details of every strike in every location, the pure numbers and the fact that they do designate safe zones, prewarn nearby buildings to evacuate, or do roof knocking, seem to indicate that they are not deliberately exterminating the population.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

The charges are bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, tied to his alleged trading of regulatory favors for gifts and favorable media coverage in his relationship with several businessmen and media publishers. Same trial that’s been ongoing since 2020.

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Anonymous OP 1w

i’m gonna make a shitty argument because I think it’s interesting here: did the US dropping leaflets in japan before the atom bombs make that any different? I know they weren’t accused of genocide for that, but imo it was absolutely a war crime. While it’s not directly related, it raises an interesting point about the grey area in pre-warning, and I’d argue it demonstrates that the mean effort of prewarning isn’t exonerating.

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

My answer probably depends on what you mean by “make that any different.” Could you elaborate? Do you mean “Does our dropping leaflets warning the population of impending total destruction make it less bad than if we had just dropped the bomb by surprise?”

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Anonymous OP 1w

I think I can best elaborate by explaining my answer: while in some sense prewarning does make a difference, at some level of violence/destruction, it’s arguably inconsequential, especially if there are scenarios that make people highly unlikely, or unable to remove themselves from danger based on prewarning information. The atom bomb is an extreme example, that isn’t directly comparable to anything Israel’s done (unless they’ve kept some really good secrets), but in japan leaflets were 1/2

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

dropped in a massive area, which indicates an effort to match the scale of warning with the attack. If Israel does the same, in moderating their warnings based on the severity of the attack, without any other factors it does have a mitigating effect. However, when you consider that it is dangerous and difficult to travel in Gaza and occupied territory (I know there are roads palestinians can’t use but I don’t recall whether that’s in the west bank or gaza), and the movement of the 2/3

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

palestinian people is heavily restricted by general policy in the region, it tips the scales a bit in my view. To grossly oversimplify it, I don’t believe it’s very meaningful for Israel to offer warning when it’s extremely difficult to act on said warning, because of a set of conditions created by Israel. feels a little bit ‘stop hitting yourself’ 3/3

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

thought of a simpler explanation/additional angle: you shouldn’t be able to engage in a pattern of warning behavior that functionally only creates plausible deniability and doesn’t meaningfully limit the actual impact of your actions

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Gotcha. I’ll address this in order. I think I agree that leaflets in Japan were inconsequential but for multiple reasons that don’t apply to Gaza. The Japanese had already seen Tokyo firebombed by that point which was arguably worse than Hiroshima/Nagasaki, and knew what we meant by “complete destruction.” When we tell them to leave the city, this forces people to completely uproot their lives under what at that point was a military and religious dictatorship and go far, far away. 1/?

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Anonymous OP 1w

By contrast, typically the IDF warns civilian targets in a small area around a strike target and tells them to move several hundred yards away. This is an inconvenience and the hours at which it often occurs reduce its effectiveness, but all in all a much more reasonable ask than “Go to another state and don’t come back.” The roads thing you mention is largely only in parts of Hebron, which is the most apartheid-y part of the West Bank, but not Gaza. 2/?

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Anonymous OP 1w

This warning does match the severity of the attack in scale and makes civilians removing themselves from harm’s way much more achievable, which makes them morally imperative in a way I don’t think our leaflets on Hiroshima or Nagasaki necessarily were (that is to say that they don’t affect the moral judgment of the atomic bombings basically at all.) No one would argue that it isn’t hard to live in a warzone though, and as the infrastructure broke down and Gazans were largely homeless 3/?

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Anonymous OP 1w

obviously that changes the calculus somewhat, and you kind of have to use the designated safe zone tech and give people time to pack their stuff up and move larger distances, hopefully maintaining corridors where they’re allowed to move freely though I know on several occasions this was done poorly, or was deliberately interfered with by Hamas to try to keep civilians in the danger zone, because nobody benefits from dead Palestinian civilians more than they do. 4/?

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Anonymous OP 1w

But overall I think that some IDF warning practices have been more effective than others, they’ve largely stopped roof knocking just because it doesn’t work, but although we can’t know the true death toll I think the death toll being what it is for a two year urban war is in itself a demonstration of the effectiveness of their warnings, but maybe I’m giving too much credit. 5/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

Obviously if there’s a census in Gaza and we find out there are now only 1.5M people there instead of the ~2M we expect then I am completely wrong on this and the death toll is much higher than even Hamas claims, but until then their numbers are the worst that reasonable people are claiming so we can go by that.

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Anonymous OP 1w

I think there’s an important analysis on the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths, which scholars put at about 80% civilian. Such a steep imbalance imo indicates a probable disregard for proportionality in the conflict, which is deeply problematic. Yes some noncombatant deaths are inevitable, but I find it hard to believe that each and every combatant killed was worth taking the lives of 4 civilians. There’s an important dynamic in that the Palestinian people aren’t exactly willing 1/?

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

participants in this conflict. While there was that election in 2005, the majority of the current population couldn’t vote then, or weren’t alive. Hamas are also immoral belligerents in this, and Palestinians aren’t allowed to leave. If Israel truly did not have an agenda against Palestinians, Israel wouldn’t be operating an open air prison, as I see it. 2/?

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

I think it’s disingenuous to decry the use of palestinians as human shields (which the IDF also has a documented history of doing) and then create a system where palestinians aren’t allowed to get out from between the two people fighting. Additionally, I think it’s dangerous to try and set an absolute number of casualties that would or would not make this a genocide. I’d also love to hear your take on my plausible deniability thing from earlier 3/3

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

There is an important analysis in that ratio, but it has to be approached with this in mind: in almost every other modern example of urban warfare, civilians were mostly evacuated from the city beforehand. This was the case in Fallujah, Grozny, and Mosul, which still had civilian-combatant casualty ratios between 1:1 and 5:1. In Aleppo it 2 or 3:1 and created a refugee crisis so severe that it destabilized European politics for a decade (so far.) Between 1:1 and 3:1 is sadly normal. 1/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

Many Gazans are unwilling participants, true. Many also hate Israel more than Hamas and let that guide there actions. There are recordings of people being warned of imminent IDF strikes refusing to leave so that their children’s deaths hurt Israeli PR. I am not joking. Some of the most fanatical, disgusting stuff I’ve ever heard. Between that and Hamas being willing to kill their own people if they can blame Israel, the ratio does not surprise me a bit. Of course that’s not every Gazan. 2/2

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Anonymous OP 1w

Conditions in Gaza were bad, true. The blockade, justified from Israeli perspective to slow Hamas obtaining weapons and HEM, made life pretty miserable. Egypt closing the border made international travel basically impossible since Israelis have seen too much 9/11 footage to let them build an airport. They were at least issuing work permits, but 10/7 likely ended that permanently. From a perspective that addresses Israeli security concerns, I’d love to know what the alternative is. 3/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

Like I said, I think the existence of designated safe zones and corridors of movement indicates that people were able to get themselves out from between combatants by and large. I also agree, no absolute number of casualties will make this a genocide or not, because the definition is completely based on intent, not death toll. However, a death toll lower than what would occur in indiscriminate bombing, let alone targeting bombing of civilians, to me implies a lack of intent. 4/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

As to the plausible deniability thing, that framing seems cynical. What would be the difference observable to an outsider between warning people so that you have plausible deniability against accusations of genocidal intent, and earnestly warning people and it being less effective than “perfect” or “50/50”at preventing civilian casualties? I don’t think anyone would be able to tell the difference, so either the IDF is extremely committed to that cover or its genuine desire to minimize death. 5/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

When I mention plausible deniability, i’m referring to a legal definition of genocide, not public opinion. And on Israeli security concerns and allowing people out of Gaza, I’m honestly pretty cynical: Israel confined them there, and is responsible for getting them out if they want to leave, people have a right to self determination, and being forced to live under occupation and apartheid is pretty harsh punishment without evidence of any crime. If Israel is too scared to build an airport, 1/?

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

that’s their problem, and it’s on them to find a way to not imprison people without any reason other than their being palestinian. I’m inclined to say you don’t get to complain about the security implications of mitigating an illegal situation that you yourself created. And to get ahead of an argument on Egypt having closed the border, Egypt didn’t force anybody into Gaza. Sure it was convenient for Israel when the Egyptian border was open, but having not created 2/?

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

The root problem (by which I mean the quasi incarceration of Palestinian people, not the conflict as a whole) Egypt has avoided responsibility for resolving it. I believe that there’s an ethical and moral conversation to be had about Egypt closing its border, but it doesn’t rise to obligation in my view. 3/3

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Anonymous poopsock.pdf 1w

Whether you mean public opinion or legal definition, either way - I still don’t know what the observable difference in behavior would be that you could point to and say “This proves it’s plausible deniability” or “This proves it’s genuine.” If you can give me one I’m open to thinking about it, but (and this sounds kinda bad to say) I’m not sure it matters what their motivation is for giving the warnings - that they give them at all matters. 1/

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Anonymous OP 1w

Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 in response to the Second Intifada, no longer considers it occupied, & consider themselves under no obligation to do anything. If Gaza was an independent state officially and that border was closed, what would the difference be? You can dismiss their security concerns if you want, but you’re the ones who want them to do something, and give them no reason why it’s in their best interest. 2/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

Meanwhile they have many years of terrorism demonstrating why it’s not in their interest at all and assuring them that concessions will only lead to more violence against them, reinforced by the deadliest day for Jews globally since the Holocaust, on which Hamas’s tactics deliberately invoked the memory of the Holocaust. If Gazans could’ve gotten concessions on any of these things before 10/7, that ship had now sailed for probably at least a generation. 3/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

IMO you let Egypt off the hook far too easily. Egypt, by invading in 1948, claiming Gaza around armistice lines, and then refusing to let anyone leave, setting up UN Refugee Camps which persist to this day (Khan Younis, Rafah, etc.) initiated the status of Palestinians as not only permanent refugees but prisoners in their own land, a problem they happily handed off after attempting to destroy Israel again and failing in 67. How is it that Syrian refugees can be 4/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

absorbed by their host nations and even given paths to citizenship if they want it but Palestinians don’t get this opportunity anywhere in the Middle East? If you acknowledge the answer, that Palestinians have a right to live in their ancestral land, then you have to acknowledge that the persistence of the Palestinian refugee crisis is completely of the making of the Arab states, especially in Gaza, though this is less at issue in the West Bank. 5/5

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Anonymous OP 1w

I’ve spent way too much time on YY today so I’m gonna go get some work done but I’ve enjoyed talking to you about this.

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