> That is genocidal language where you are holding civilians accountable.
The entire situation is deeply regrettable and it's hard to find any heroes here, but I feel like we forget our own history so easily.
The United States, within living memory, conducted a firebombing campaign of Dresden, which had limited military value, killing over 25,000. We interned over 100,000 of our own citizens of Japanese ancestry. We conducted a firebombing campaign of Tokyo, killing around 100,000 civilians and leaving over a million homeless.
And of course we dropped two atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing mostly civilians and causing deep scarring both psychological and physiological for the survivors.
The reality is that these rules of war are more like guidelines. There is no one to enforce them if you win. When a nation feels existentially threatened, the gloves tend to come off.
I don't seek to excuse anything, what is happening is a tragedy and as a matter of public policy there needs to be more diplomatic costs associated with unnecessary loss of civilian life. But there are not many countries that truly occupy a moral high ground in this regard.
Basically that what matters are international norms rather than international laws, and while Israel is plainly breaking international laws, it's less clear that they're breaking international norms.
That's a somewhat fair thing to point out, but it's also a bit thick to think that what people find so objectionable about Israel's retaliation is that it breaks international law or norms or any other such standard.
It's about the basic morality of its imposition of collective punishment on the population of Gaza, while of course its population rages incandescently on the collective punishment Hamas sought to inflict on them, and stuff like that.
Collective punishment is rarely a moral answer.
Luckily, in this thread, we seem to have no people who are deranged enough to approve of Hamas's attack. But we do have people deranged enough to approve of Israel's response and who want everyone to think that when a Palestinian is killed, it's either a lie, or just tough, just collateral damage, but that when an Israeli is killed, it justifies the killing and further dispossession of hundreds and thousands of Palestinians in recompense.
I entirely agree, and I feel moreover that it's the moral obligation of the United States to use our substantial foreign policy influence with Israel to compel a more humane treatment of Palestinians.
Nevertheless when people point out that this is a "genocide" or that Israel is committing "war crimes" I wonder what point is actually being made. If it wasn't against international law, would that make it ok to collectively punish Palestine? I certainly don't think it would.
At some level it just feels like weaponization of language, or at the very least like lazy thinking. One party is breaking laws, and breaking laws is bad, so that party is bad. But that logic would've applied to the USA in WWII, so as far as I'm concerned it's not at all elucidating.
People can make an argument that it is a genocide, and there is a reasonable defense that it is not. If, based on the facts, it doesn't seem to you like a genocide, then that's fine, but it's not like there is no rational basis for those assertions.
With war crimes, I recall there being some specific evidence thereof, potentially from the UN. It was brought up during PMQs in Ireland, I think.
> But that logic would've applied to the USA in WWII, so as far as I'm concerned it's not at all elucidating.
I think most of us:
a) Do not think this should prevent us from calling a spade a spade;
b) In any event, can see quite a few differences between the two situations, such as the relative power disparity between the 2 sides in the middle east, the fact that Germany had taken over or was engaged in active hostilities with...most of Europe, etc.
Maybe the US was wrong to bomb Dresden; maybe it was a war crime, and maybe it could have won the war without doing that, and without dropping atomic bombs. But that doesn't mean we have to hesitate before calling out similar crimes in the future just because we live in the US.
It’s not a maybe. By current international law, the US government is guilty of war crimes. It is most definitely guilty of genocide against Japan with the wanton and unnecessary killing of Japanese civilians that can only be seen as a stark retaliation and collective punishment for the preventable events of Pearl Harbor.
That’s how the law is written. There is no maybe about it.
However, the fact that people are largely sympathetic to the US implies that maybe the law is a little too harsh, and does not provide any caveats for situational violence.
International law today is a perfect ideal. It’s like a criminal code that bans murder, but doesn’t include any leeway for self defense or reduced sentences for manslaughter. Only perfect people can hold to its standards and no one is perfect.
> In any event, can see quite a few differences between the two situations, such as the relative power disparity between the 2 sides in the middle east, the fact that Germany had taken over or was engaged in active hostilities with...most of Europe, etc.
But this is exactly my point. The moral imperative was clear in WWII, but the same pejoratives ("war crimes", etc) would equally apply.
These terms are at best uninteresting and at worst distracting, which is what I'd originally intended to highlight with the quote referring to "genocidal language".
We can be against those past misdeeds and against these current misdeeds as well. Please don't divert attention to other examples right now, because this current one is ongoing and we can appeal to our representatives to do something about the future, even if we seem helpless right now.
>The United States, within living memory, conducted a firebombing campaign of Dresden, which had limited military value, killing over 25,000. We interned over 100,000 of our own citizens of Japanese ancestry. We conducted a firebombing campaign of Tokyo, killing around 100,000 civilians and leaving over a million homeless.
The United States was the most powerful country by far at the time. Israel is tiny in comparison; it can't afford to just disregard public opinion and make enemies with all its neighbours, because the US won't be able to protect it forever.
“Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering.”
Einstein in his letter to Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, Nov. 25, 1929, AEA (Albert Einstein Archives) 33-411.
He's not alone in this sentiment. Other prominent Jews like Hannah Arendt were anti-Zionist too.
As are many present day Jews both inside and outside of Israel. And not all of those are of the same plumage either, there are moderate anti-Zionist Jews as well as Ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist Jews. It's all pretty confusing, from what I understand it has to do with different opinions on how the state of Israel came into being for the latter.
That has no bearing on what I said. Israel exists due to this goal to establish a Jewish homeland. This is where we are.
Einstein's vision was not followed and his fame as a Nobel prize winner doesn't automatically mean he had the best answer.
If only everyone were kind-hearted and well-meaning and acted in good faith and etc, then maybe we wouldn't need religion or government. That, however, is not the world we live in and being too "nice" can mean you just enable the bad behavior of people less nice than you.
> The entire situation is deeply regrettable and it's hard to find any heroes here, but I feel like we forget our own history so easily.
What exactly is your point? Are you saying that genocide can happen, have happened and so nothing here is a big deal. I would prefer to stand against genocidal language and call it out. I would prefer to avoid a moral nihilism stance personally -- maybe something better like "Never Again": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_again
The entire situation is deeply regrettable and it's hard to find any heroes here, but I feel like we forget our own history so easily.
The United States, within living memory, conducted a firebombing campaign of Dresden, which had limited military value, killing over 25,000. We interned over 100,000 of our own citizens of Japanese ancestry. We conducted a firebombing campaign of Tokyo, killing around 100,000 civilians and leaving over a million homeless.
And of course we dropped two atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing mostly civilians and causing deep scarring both psychological and physiological for the survivors.
The reality is that these rules of war are more like guidelines. There is no one to enforce them if you win. When a nation feels existentially threatened, the gloves tend to come off.
I don't seek to excuse anything, what is happening is a tragedy and as a matter of public policy there needs to be more diplomatic costs associated with unnecessary loss of civilian life. But there are not many countries that truly occupy a moral high ground in this regard.