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Post by Haighus on Feb 12, 2024 3:49:49 GMT -5
I keep finding myself thinking of the phrase "two wrongs don't make a right".
Proportionality doesn't mean carrying out the genocide the other side wishes they could do, and as mentioned we expect states claiming to be a rules-based democracy to achieve a higher standard, especially when they claim to be "the most moral army in the world".
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Post by herzlos on Feb 12, 2024 3:50:53 GMT -5
The solution there is trying to make Hamas redundant and letting Palestine get a more responsible government. That's not going to happen whilst Israel is doing Hamas' recruiting for them.
Germany is a good example here. After WW1 the a lot of the punishment doled out left Germany resentful and potentially lead towards the rise of the Nazis and WW2. After WW2 a lot of effort went into rebuilding so didn't seem to result in the same resentment. I know it still wasn't great with the split country and wall but Germany seems to have recovered both politically and economically.
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Feb 12, 2024 3:57:26 GMT -5
Eh, I wouldn't say Germany has recovered politically and economically as a whole. There are (other) reasons that the AFD is so popular in what was formerly East Germany.
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Post by Haighus on Feb 12, 2024 4:07:30 GMT -5
Oh, and to go back to WWII- the Allies did a lot of warcrimes against Nazi Germany, some of which have since been banned (strategic bombing against civilians, for example). But they didn't commit systematic genocide in return*, unless you count a cultural genocide against Nazi ideology after victory. However, someone could still be a cultural German.
*I am sure there are individual episodes that could be reasonably considered genocides at a local level, equivalent to Srebrenica, but I mean at a senior level.
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Feb 12, 2024 4:13:51 GMT -5
Culture is technically not covered by the Genocide Convention. The problem is that we still have a patchwork of international laws and rules, which haven't all been in place before WW2.
If we go by the 'casual' definition of genocide, it certainly was comitted to an extent by the Soviets at a senior level with the ethnic cleansing of 'Greater Germany', up to the modern eastern borders of Germany.
But if you ask most people about it today? Very few people would say genocide was committed against the Germans.
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Post by Peregrine on Feb 12, 2024 4:22:35 GMT -5
Hamas being such a threat doesn't present Israel with carte blanche though.
Of course not. But any discussion of the situation that doesn't consider the fact that both sides are genocidal fanatics that want the complete extermination of the other side is doomed to failure.
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Feb 12, 2024 4:34:09 GMT -5
Hamas being such a threat doesn't present Israel with carte blanche though.
Of course not. But any discussion of the situation that doesn't consider the fact that both sides are genocidal fanatics that want the complete extermination of the other side is doomed to failure.
But it is also doomed to failure if we don't acknowledge the vast power difference between the two. Only one is in the position to do so and slowly doing so on the West Bank. |
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Post by Haighus on Feb 12, 2024 4:36:22 GMT -5
Culture is technically not covered by the Genocide Convention. The problem is that we still have a patchwork of international laws and rules, which haven't all been in place before WW2. If we go by the 'casual' definition of genocide, it certainly was comitted to an extent by the Soviets at a senior level with the ethnic cleansing of 'Greater Germany', up to the modern eastern borders of Germany. But if you ask most people about it today? Very few people would say genocide was committed against the Germans. Ah yes, I did forget about the forced relocation of a lot of ethnic Germans from much of Europe. That would qualify as at least some state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing, if not genocide against Germans following WWII. I meant cultural in the sense that even the Genocide convention recognises that you don't have to directly kill people to destroy a people, it can be done through other means. They don't explicitly mention it in the Genocide Convention, but they do talk about taking children to be raised in a different culture, which is essentially a form of cultural genocide. |
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Post by herzlos on Feb 12, 2024 4:43:28 GMT -5
Eh, I wouldn't say Germany has recovered politically and economically as a whole. There are (other) reasons that the AFD is so popular in what was formerly East Germany.
True, though I was comparing it to Palestine or post 1918 Germany. We bombed a lot of Germany into rubble (as much as we felt necessary at the time) but the victors largely helped rebuild infrastructure.
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Post by Peregrine on Feb 12, 2024 4:52:58 GMT -5
But it is also doomed to failure if we don't acknowledge the vast power difference between the two. Only one is in the position to do so and slowly doing so on the West Bank.
Sure, I grant that of the two groups of genocidal fanatics only one of them currently has the ability to achieve its goals. But we need to acknowledge that any space given by Israel backing off from their military domination will be used by Hamas to kill Israeli civilians and attempt to achieve as much genocide as possible. The idea that Israel can simply stop killing people and magically there will be peace is wishful thinking.
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Feb 12, 2024 4:59:20 GMT -5
But it is also doomed to failure if we don't acknowledge the vast power difference between the two. Only one is in the position to do so and slowly doing so on the West Bank.
Sure, I grant that of the two groups of genocidal fanatics only one of them currently has the ability to achieve its goals. But we need to acknowledge that any space given by Israel backing off from their military domination will be used by Hamas to kill Israeli civilians and attempt to achieve as much genocide as possible. The idea that Israel can simply stop killing people and magically there will be peace is wishful thinking.
You call it wishful thinking (and I agree on it with Hamas), but what terrorist organization runs the West Bank? Hamas is too often used as a shield by Israel to distract from other behaviour not in the slightest applicable to Gaza/Hamas. Of course Israel not killing people will not bring peace, but they're doing a lot more than simply killing people. |
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Post by herzlos on Feb 12, 2024 5:07:09 GMT -5
But it is also doomed to failure if we don't acknowledge the vast power difference between the two. Only one is in the position to do so and slowly doing so on the West Bank.
Sure, I grant that of the two groups of genocidal fanatics only one of them currently has the ability to achieve its goals. But we need to acknowledge that any space given by Israel backing off from their military domination will be used by Hamas to kill Israeli civilians and attempt to achieve as much genocide as possible. The idea that Israel can simply stop killing people and magically there will be peace is wishful thinking.
Further than that. One side doesn't have the ability to achieve it's goals and is created and maintained largely based on the behaviour of the other. You can't claim that Hamas exists in a vacuum or is the only governance that Palestine could ever have. It's likely the only governance Palestine can have under Israeli oppression.
There is of course a lot of work between "Israel simply stopping killing" and "awkward peace", but none of that can be resolved by Israel continuing to kill. Israel giving Palestine control over it's own food, water, electricty and medical supplies and stopping expansion would go a long way towards making Israel look like it's defending itself and making Hamas look unreasonable.
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Post by Haighus on Feb 12, 2024 5:08:30 GMT -5
No one is saying that we should magically hope for peace though? People are suggesting that Israel could back off from violent oppression and instead support an alternative for Palestine that isn't Hamas and involves a material improvement for Palestinians on the ground. This could even be done in the West Bank alone initially to show that Hamas is not helping Palestinians.
Instead, the Israeli government has blocked alternatives that materially improve the lives of Palestinians and actually supported Hamas for awhile in order to foster further divisions within Palestine. Their actions are counterproductive to increasing the safety of Israelis unless they manage to go all the way and fully genocide Palestinians. Currently, from a Palestinian perspective, Hamas are the only ones fighting back as they get murdered and displaced off their land, so Hamas have popular support.
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Post by Least censored on the planet! on Feb 12, 2024 6:51:24 GMT -5
This whole discussion started because of the mix-up between the two. No |
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Feb 12, 2024 7:30:15 GMT -5
This whole discussion started because of the mix-up between the two. No I'm not sure how you can say Germany was not an existential threat to the French Third Republic during WW2? Germany literally destroyed it, instated a fascist puppet state in the south and directly annexed a significant portion for German settlement. The fact that the Allies liberated the state/territory of France in 1944 does not take away from this intent, just because Nazi Germany didn't genocide the entirety of France. Edit: Nazi Germany was an existential threat to France as it was, just not a genocidal threat. Hamas wants to be both an existential and genocidal threat, i.e. go beyond destroying Israel as is, by also wiping out the people. It just lacks the power to take on Israel and win the war. |
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