As usual, a Manichean approach is applied to the current flare-up in Gaza/Palestine, so of course this is turned into yet another battle between "good vs evil." And, as always, the US and its allies, in this case Israel, are the good guys, and the bad, evil, "human animals" are the Palestinians. This way of thinking is so backward, so frankly insipid, that it is hard to believe anyone still falls for it. Anyone with a functioning brain could have foreseen that, by turning Gaza into an open prison, one day the people living in Gaza would eventually be forced to rebel against their oppressors. Or are people just supposed to accept occupation and second class status forever? Unfortunately, to analyze the situation and understand the history and causes behind the Palestinian resistance is simply verboten, because it might lead to the wrong conclusion. Instead, and just like with all the other wars--Ukraine/ Vietnam/Libya/ Syria Afghanistan/Iraq, etc.-- a simplistic "good vs evil" story line is fed to the US population 24/7 by the mainstream media. It's all they know how to do. I just wonder---when this is all over, will Gaza be transformed from an open prison into an open mass grave?
having recently deracinated from 3 months as a volunteer teacher in 4 different palestinian refugee camps surrounding nablus in the israeli-occuppied west bank, i erumpently applaud and perfervidly agree w/ you, dennis merwood. the perpetually incarcerated and humiliated palestinians are more desperate than you can possibly wrap your brain around. after nearly 8 decades of their humiliations and imprisonment as sub-class citizens in their own homeland is a crime beyond endurance for anyone who cares about human rights and dignity.
Israel gets a taste of what it has been doing for years and shows its true colors: "human animals" which doesn't even make sense allowing for difficulties in translation, but does show the Israelis for the warmongers they've always been. And with even more help from Uncle Sam and the UK, they appear on track to get what they want: the elimination of every Palestinian above ground. And no, they haven't forgotten what the Nazis did. They've been playing that card for all it's worth since before I was born, and I'm pushing 70.
I drove to metro NYC today. I do not use google maps for traffic, I grew in the metro, and listen to traffic/news radio.
The medieval warrior type pronouncements from Israeli officials was repeated every half hour. The slant against Palestine was repeated.
The alleged Iranian part was also pushed, as if the better target was Tehran not Gaza city.
In 1973 I was in a C141 unit and all our cargo plane were ferrying the latest smart weapons to Israel to turn the tide. We later enjoyed the gas lines.
Someday the USA may take a moral stance, not in my lifetime, it seems.
behemoth buckets of gratitude to you, CASSIEKNOWS, PENELOPE, and FIREMAN, for deigning to read, absorb, and respond w/ anacrustic erumpency to my 'cri de coeur' on behalf of the besieged, beleaguered, and invidiously demonized palestinians. one of my PROJECT HOPE NABLUS assignments was to volunteer in a refugee camp that housed the only autism centre for the entire purlieu of camps surrounding nablus in the west bank. our autistic students, which included adults, relied on highly regimented and entrenched routines to remain even half-functional. when, after 2 months w/ them, the israeli military bombed and blasted into rubble massive ares of the jenin refugee camp, the lethiferous israeli 'IN'security forces peremptorily surrounded and closed down several other of our surrounding refugee camps... so hermetically and draconianly sealed off, that our autistic students were unable to be bussed to our autism centre. w/ their prevenient routine so precipitately distorted in their already confused minds, the autism manifestations in their behavioural parametres were beyond devastating for them.
Israel has acted like Nazis for 60 years. Gaza is a concentration camp. If Jews in Nazi concentration camps busted out and fought their oppressors, would people say they take no sides?
I am ALWAYS on the side of the oppressed. Palestinians are the oppressed and Israelis are the oppressors. Palestinians have tried non-violence and the result is few in the West care about the open air concentration camp of Gaza.
I support Hamas and hope nearby states do too. This could be a major turning point in the disgusting book of Israeli slaughter of Arabs.
Always ask yourself, "who is the oppressed, and who is the oppressor?"
please be aware, sir astore, of the inveterate duplicity practised for decades by the zionist israelis via hanging an oeillade at anthony james hall's article:
WorldBEYONDWar.org asks: WHO BENEFITS FROM THE NEW ESCALATION IN PALESTINE, THE ONGOING QUAGMIRE IN UKRAINE, THE VIOLENCE IN NAGORNO KARABAKH, AND KASHMIR, AND SO MANY OTHER PLACES?
And then provides the answer: THE MERCHANTS OF DEATH! (U.S. WEAPONS MANUFACTURERS WHO KNOWINGLY PRODUCE AND SELL PRODUCTS THAT ATTACK AND KILL NOT ONLY COMBATANTS BUT NON-COMBATANTS AS WELL.)
But they will be put on trial online beginning November 12th, and you are invited.
Please join us Sunday, November 12th, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. (EST) for the livestreamed Opening Session of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, holding U.S. Weapons Manufacturers accountable for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.
World BEYOND War will be hosting this Opening Session of the People's Tribunal.
Once the Opening Session concludes, the entire Tribunal will be streamed via video links over consecutive weeks examining War Crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Gaza, and Yemen.
The role of Lobbying, Think Tanks, the "Revolving Door," and other means by which these predatory capitalists enrich themselves through war will be explored.
Testifying will be Cornel West, Richard Falk, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Norman Solomon, John Pilger, Jeremy Kuzmarov, Christian Sorensen, WILLIAM ASTORE, Aisha Jumaan, Matt Aikens, Marie Dennis, Dr. Kelly Denton-Borhaug, and numerous others.
The Tribunal Judges will deliberate on the evidence presented and render a verdict at the conclusion of all testimony.
It's free and open to the public and not to be missed.
Deescalation is not possible at this point unfortunately imho due to the taking of Hostages. There is no honor in that. I abhor violence to set that straight right off, and I am not Political. I would rather see a Planet w/o Borders at all... A very sad situation for all involved. Excruciating to watch because I have Friends who support both the Palestinians as well as the Nation of Israel.
Dehumanization is part of it, but it's not always necessary. Soldiers can respect their enemies and still kill them. It comes down to training, obedience, and "kill or be killed."
Dehumanization just makes matters worse; it leads to greater atrocities. More/worse war crimes.
Having been first an infantryman and then an assault helicopter door gunner in Vietnam in 1966-68, i can totally and completely confirm what You write, Bill.
There is also the added factor of Belief: The Belief by that soldier that what he or she is fighting, killing/maiming, and possibly getting killed/maimed for is worth it because it is Right, True, and Necessary.
Thank you for this. I'm unable to understand why so many journalists and policy-makers and so on feel the need to jump immediately into an analysis and subsequent actions based on the geopolitical. To me, all that matters now and for some near (I hope) future is that the violence stops. Hamas needs to be stopped at this point, period. Turning Gaza into a mass graveyard won't actually do anything useful or 'good.' The violence needs to be stopped.
With War in general one thing that strikes me is the idea that Americans and other Nations, or Peoples utterly fail to ever learn anything from their pasts. Our pasts show that time and again thinking our Hi Tech. Mil. can beat a lesser loser type Third World Country, and we always seem to fail. If we go into any Wars we must go all in, or just bug out completely. The Middle East we should offer peaceful solutions and Peace mediators, but since there is Oil in the M.E. I doubt if that will happen. Marines, Air Men, etc. Civi's. children, toddlers, i.o.w. Collateral damage will continue to die because we fail time and time again to learn and respect our History...! Sad commentary.
"Let's just bug out and call it even, OK?" Pvt Hudson in "Aliens"
"Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Ripley in "Aliens"
The typical U.S. response (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) is to wage unnecessary wars for decades until we grow tired or bored or ready to fight somewhere else for greater profit.
You mixed your metaphors there. Hamas didn’t defeat the IDF because that wasn’t their intent. The entire operation was about opening the way into Israeli towns for Right Wing Palestinian death squads to murder, kidnap, rape and torture civilians. While you’re worried about policing Israeli descriptions of Hamas, and its Palestinian soldiers, you forgot to point out that since the Nazis nobody has murdered more Jewish civilians in a single day. So if you’re actually worried about Nazi like behavior, wake up. You got a clear example of what Palestinian liberation is all about.
Do you remember how the democracies of the world responded to Nazis attacking them?
I didn't say Hamas "defeated" the IDF. You said that.
I did denounce war and the way it turns us into murderers, rapists, and torturers; the way it feeds fear and hatred on both sides. War enables atrocity. We see it throughout history.
I'm well familiar with the Holocaust, having taught a course on it for several years, and having attended the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to prepare to teach that same course.
Ah so your familiarity with the Holocaust makes your Tsk Tsk admonishing of a _government official_ odd, but you used a general “the Jewish people” in place of a person, because apparently we all say that now. When you generalize an entire people like that you make them all seem blood thirsty, and making generalizations is wrong according to you. Are all Israelis blood thirsty monsters? Maybe you'll concede that most Israelis know the Holocaust as well or even better than you, visited Holocaust museums more than you, and perhaps like me have a grandparent who survived it. Just saying, when it comes to familiarity with the causes and horrors of the Holocaust, it's much more intimate, and when we see genocide on the Hamas charter, unlike most Leftists, we take it explicitly.
And how would you personally refer to Hamas and their Palestinian death squads who went straight for civilians after breaking through the border? You must be familiar with the role of SS Einsatzgruppen in WW2. From what you’ve watched these ‘not animals’ Palestinians do to Jewish children, parents and grandparents (ironically including some Holocaust survivors!), how would you define them and their actions? Were SS Nazis ‘just Germans’? Were they ‘German militants’?
And finally, you’re a man against war, but remind us how the Nazis were stopped? Was it through negotiations? Were they given land, allowed to remain intact alongside the countries they invaded, where they murdered civilians? After October 7, when the most Jews since the Nazis were massacred in a single day, maybe Israelis have a legitimate reason to fight and destroy Hamas. I know that the Left only likes dead Jews, like the martyrs of the Holocaust, but even then Jews fought for their lives. Do yourself and us the favor, and don't deny the need for a similar solution.
Well, if you sincerely want answers to these questions:
1. I never said all Israelis are "blood thirsty monsters." You did. They obviously aren't.
2. Hamas: obviously committing heinous acts of terrorism against innocents.
3. SS Nazis were murderous fanatics.
4. SS Nazis as "German militants"? Those are your words.
5. The Nazis were stopped by World War II. I am anti-war but I'm not a pacifist. Defeating Nazism didn't make WWII a "good" war. But it was a necessary one.
Regarding (1), I can quote where you forgot to mention it was one or more Israeli individuals using "human animals", and instead admonished "the Jewish People" about their forgetfulness of dehumanization. I'll use your definition for Hamas then - "murderous fanatics". The article probably can use a correction.
Trust me that nobody wants war in Israel. The Left absolutely loves to equate Isralis to Nazis as a way to both rob Israel of the right to respond to Palestinian terrorism, and at the same time minimize the Holocaust as one reason the state exists, but in fact Israelis hate wars. As opposed to most Western democracies with the exception of South Korea, Israelis have a lot on the line. Israel fights at home, not across the globe. Israelis have themselves, wives, children, and extended family at risk any time that happens. This war was started by Hamas. It came after increasing 'normalization' of Hamas's rule of Gaza - increasing daily worker entries to tens of thousands, allowing cash infusions from Qatar, and so on. Clearly normalization is not possible with murderous fanatics. So while Israelis are intimately aware of how much it'll cost them, and having no blood-thirsty nature as opposed to what Leftist propaganda loves to portray, this is a deeply nauseating war, but a necessary one. Not necessary to the ghouls on the Left celebrating this massacre, and standing with the idea of continued 'decolonization' by a genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jews as Hamas promises (and the majority of Palestinians support). But necessary for the largest group of Jews in the world to continue to exist. The gleeful-for-Jewish bodies Left doesn't get to dictate that.
All wars are "deeply nauseating" for that is the nature of mass murder. Even when it's necessary, as I believe it was during World War II.
The "human animals" comment was spoken by the Israeli Defense Minister, not some random person on the street, as a matter of government policy. Perhaps this statement "can use a correction"?
War and mass atrocities are driven by dehumanization. Certainly, Jewish people experienced the very worst of this during the Holocaust. We don't only kill what we hate (through dehumanization); we come to hate what we kill. That's an insight I learned from Henry Friedlander at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Collectively, we need to ask: Why do we come to hate the people that we kill? And how do we put a stop to it? An eye for an eye and we both end up blind.
Of course, Israel should defend itself. Of course, Hamas terrorists must be stopped. But at what price? Should we, in the words of Tacitus about the Romans, allow Israel to create a desert and call it "peace"? Is that permissible because the war is against "human animals"?
Think here of the U.S. response to 9/11. It didn't stop at eliminating Al Qaeda. It led to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and indeed a GWOT that was akin to a jihad. It was disastrous. Think Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the collateral murder video, the PATRIOT Act, etc.
Israel must be on guard against a response driven by vengeance that makes matters far worse not just for Israel but for the entire region.
I meant that they're deeply nauseating for me and many I know, because we were strong believers in a peace process and a two state solution. I personally feel that I made a mistake, that what the Right in Israel has always said, that the Palestinians are not trustworthy, that they're genocidal maniacs that are looking for an opportunity to build bigger and bigger military bases under their populations used as human shields, that the majority celebrate this type of genocide - their's ended up being the most realistic view of the conflict.
It's not just that I want to see this modern incarnation of Palestinian Nazism (same as the 1940s in British Mandate Palestine and Iraq under the genocidal efforts of Palestinian leader Hajj Amin Al-Husseini) evident in Hamas smashed, I aslo have a hard time trusting Palestinians not to repeat the acts they either celebrate or keep completely mum about (no condemnation from Fatah/Palestinian Authority or almost anyone else). That's why this specific war is nauseating. After WW2 the US had a democratic framework in Germany to fall back on. No such thing exists in the Middle East. There is no rooting out antisemitism, like there was for Nazism - antisemitism is a deeply held, multi-generational belief of the majority in the Arab world.
I don't hate Arabs, no matter what the anti-Zionist Left constantly yammers about. I grew up in Haifa, which is full of Arab Israeli citizens, has always been a heavily mixed city. We go to the same beaches, gyms, soccer matches, restaurants, night clubs, work at the same places. The propagandists bleating 'apartheid' don't know what they talk about (or choose to lie about it).
I also don't hate Palestinians, or at least I didn't hate most of them until this massacre. I understood their point of view, I voted and protested for their right to have their own nation. Through their actions alone did the Palestinians ensure that no Center-Left government can win and do anything to restart the peace process. That is a deeply depressing reality. I expect Netanyahu to lose a lot of votes due to his ineptitude, but I still dont' believe the peace camp in Israel will gain a majority in the next years or decades even. The Palestinian's need to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews has promised a much longer conflict. At this point I cannot look at people who celebrate a genocide and see them as anything but enemies that cannot be trusted with not finding new ways to murder Jews.
Understand that if Israel does not smash Hamas, this will simply repeat in a couple of years. Nobody but pro Palestinian ghouls wish for that. I 100% agree that it should be done with minimal casualties to civilians, maximum casualties to Hamas (and BTW, don't trust casualty reports from Gaza that conveniently never separate the two). I don't agree with cutting off water, but that's about it. The end of Nazism did a lot of good for Europe. The end of Palestinian Nazis will do a lot of good for the possibility of peace. Without it, there is never going to be any peace.
As usual, a Manichean approach is applied to the current flare-up in Gaza/Palestine, so of course this is turned into yet another battle between "good vs evil." And, as always, the US and its allies, in this case Israel, are the good guys, and the bad, evil, "human animals" are the Palestinians. This way of thinking is so backward, so frankly insipid, that it is hard to believe anyone still falls for it. Anyone with a functioning brain could have foreseen that, by turning Gaza into an open prison, one day the people living in Gaza would eventually be forced to rebel against their oppressors. Or are people just supposed to accept occupation and second class status forever? Unfortunately, to analyze the situation and understand the history and causes behind the Palestinian resistance is simply verboten, because it might lead to the wrong conclusion. Instead, and just like with all the other wars--Ukraine/ Vietnam/Libya/ Syria Afghanistan/Iraq, etc.-- a simplistic "good vs evil" story line is fed to the US population 24/7 by the mainstream media. It's all they know how to do. I just wonder---when this is all over, will Gaza be transformed from an open prison into an open mass grave?
WAIT! There is much MONEY to be made here!
After all, our CHIEF EXPORT is DEATH; isn't it?
Human civilization was nice while it lasted, Ray.
As long as we leave out that Anthropocene extinction part, Bill.
Sledge-hammer conclusion, Bill. And inarguable, imo.
Also agree about the insult to non-human animals---they don't wage war. My thought? They're much too smart for that!
Exactly. I too support neither Israel nor Hamas, but I do support all the peaceworkers.
How absolutely desperate are those people when they know that the vengeance unleashed against Gaza will be unimaginable in its horror and scale?
having recently deracinated from 3 months as a volunteer teacher in 4 different palestinian refugee camps surrounding nablus in the israeli-occuppied west bank, i erumpently applaud and perfervidly agree w/ you, dennis merwood. the perpetually incarcerated and humiliated palestinians are more desperate than you can possibly wrap your brain around. after nearly 8 decades of their humiliations and imprisonment as sub-class citizens in their own homeland is a crime beyond endurance for anyone who cares about human rights and dignity.
Israel gets a taste of what it has been doing for years and shows its true colors: "human animals" which doesn't even make sense allowing for difficulties in translation, but does show the Israelis for the warmongers they've always been. And with even more help from Uncle Sam and the UK, they appear on track to get what they want: the elimination of every Palestinian above ground. And no, they haven't forgotten what the Nazis did. They've been playing that card for all it's worth since before I was born, and I'm pushing 70.
I drove to metro NYC today. I do not use google maps for traffic, I grew in the metro, and listen to traffic/news radio.
The medieval warrior type pronouncements from Israeli officials was repeated every half hour. The slant against Palestine was repeated.
The alleged Iranian part was also pushed, as if the better target was Tehran not Gaza city.
In 1973 I was in a C141 unit and all our cargo plane were ferrying the latest smart weapons to Israel to turn the tide. We later enjoyed the gas lines.
Someday the USA may take a moral stance, not in my lifetime, it seems.
again, a repetend of tnx, fireman.
Thankyou so much my friend Greetings from Rhode Island, USA
behemoth buckets of gratitude to you, CASSIEKNOWS, PENELOPE, and FIREMAN, for deigning to read, absorb, and respond w/ anacrustic erumpency to my 'cri de coeur' on behalf of the besieged, beleaguered, and invidiously demonized palestinians. one of my PROJECT HOPE NABLUS assignments was to volunteer in a refugee camp that housed the only autism centre for the entire purlieu of camps surrounding nablus in the west bank. our autistic students, which included adults, relied on highly regimented and entrenched routines to remain even half-functional. when, after 2 months w/ them, the israeli military bombed and blasted into rubble massive ares of the jenin refugee camp, the lethiferous israeli 'IN'security forces peremptorily surrounded and closed down several other of our surrounding refugee camps... so hermetically and draconianly sealed off, that our autistic students were unable to be bussed to our autism centre. w/ their prevenient routine so precipitately distorted in their already confused minds, the autism manifestations in their behavioural parametres were beyond devastating for them.
I support Hamas.
Israel has acted like Nazis for 60 years. Gaza is a concentration camp. If Jews in Nazi concentration camps busted out and fought their oppressors, would people say they take no sides?
I am ALWAYS on the side of the oppressed. Palestinians are the oppressed and Israelis are the oppressors. Palestinians have tried non-violence and the result is few in the West care about the open air concentration camp of Gaza.
I support Hamas and hope nearby states do too. This could be a major turning point in the disgusting book of Israeli slaughter of Arabs.
Always ask yourself, "who is the oppressed, and who is the oppressor?"
please be aware, sir astore, of the inveterate duplicity practised for decades by the zionist israelis via hanging an oeillade at anthony james hall's article:
https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/the-gaza-prison-break-and-the-prospect?
utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1274843&post_id=137785105&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=plbzb&utm_medium=email
WorldBEYONDWar.org asks: WHO BENEFITS FROM THE NEW ESCALATION IN PALESTINE, THE ONGOING QUAGMIRE IN UKRAINE, THE VIOLENCE IN NAGORNO KARABAKH, AND KASHMIR, AND SO MANY OTHER PLACES?
And then provides the answer: THE MERCHANTS OF DEATH! (U.S. WEAPONS MANUFACTURERS WHO KNOWINGLY PRODUCE AND SELL PRODUCTS THAT ATTACK AND KILL NOT ONLY COMBATANTS BUT NON-COMBATANTS AS WELL.)
But they will be put on trial online beginning November 12th, and you are invited.
Please join us Sunday, November 12th, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. (EST) for the livestreamed Opening Session of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, holding U.S. Weapons Manufacturers accountable for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.
World BEYOND War will be hosting this Opening Session of the People's Tribunal.
Once the Opening Session concludes, the entire Tribunal will be streamed via video links over consecutive weeks examining War Crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Gaza, and Yemen.
The role of Lobbying, Think Tanks, the "Revolving Door," and other means by which these predatory capitalists enrich themselves through war will be explored.
Testifying will be Cornel West, Richard Falk, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Norman Solomon, John Pilger, Jeremy Kuzmarov, Christian Sorensen, WILLIAM ASTORE, Aisha Jumaan, Matt Aikens, Marie Dennis, Dr. Kelly Denton-Borhaug, and numerous others.
The Tribunal Judges will deliberate on the evidence presented and render a verdict at the conclusion of all testimony.
It's free and open to the public and not to be missed.
You may register here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/us-weapons-makers-to-be-tried-by-war-crimes-tribunal-beginning-november-12-2023
[Note that Bill will be testifying.]
Deescalation is not possible at this point unfortunately imho due to the taking of Hostages. There is no honor in that. I abhor violence to set that straight right off, and I am not Political. I would rather see a Planet w/o Borders at all... A very sad situation for all involved. Excruciating to watch because I have Friends who support both the Palestinians as well as the Nation of Israel.
No... Unequivocally!
I have not been in the military, but I suspect that dehumanization is about the only way you can get people to do to each other what war demands.
Dehumanization is part of it, but it's not always necessary. Soldiers can respect their enemies and still kill them. It comes down to training, obedience, and "kill or be killed."
Dehumanization just makes matters worse; it leads to greater atrocities. More/worse war crimes.
Having been first an infantryman and then an assault helicopter door gunner in Vietnam in 1966-68, i can totally and completely confirm what You write, Bill.
There is also the added factor of Belief: The Belief by that soldier that what he or she is fighting, killing/maiming, and possibly getting killed/maimed for is worth it because it is Right, True, and Necessary.
So "what Hamas believes is Right, True, and Necessary," is it? On what basis do You make that statement of faith?
Let me know when You're over being "sick of condescending Yanks," Dennis, and we'll continue the conversation.
Thank you for this. I'm unable to understand why so many journalists and policy-makers and so on feel the need to jump immediately into an analysis and subsequent actions based on the geopolitical. To me, all that matters now and for some near (I hope) future is that the violence stops. Hamas needs to be stopped at this point, period. Turning Gaza into a mass graveyard won't actually do anything useful or 'good.' The violence needs to be stopped.
With War in general one thing that strikes me is the idea that Americans and other Nations, or Peoples utterly fail to ever learn anything from their pasts. Our pasts show that time and again thinking our Hi Tech. Mil. can beat a lesser loser type Third World Country, and we always seem to fail. If we go into any Wars we must go all in, or just bug out completely. The Middle East we should offer peaceful solutions and Peace mediators, but since there is Oil in the M.E. I doubt if that will happen. Marines, Air Men, etc. Civi's. children, toddlers, i.o.w. Collateral damage will continue to die because we fail time and time again to learn and respect our History...! Sad commentary.
"Let's just bug out and call it even, OK?" Pvt Hudson in "Aliens"
"Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Ripley in "Aliens"
The typical U.S. response (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) is to wage unnecessary wars for decades until we grow tired or bored or ready to fight somewhere else for greater profit.
I much prefer the Term "Artificial Person" Bishop, Aliens!!! And.., that is why we fail...
Such a memorable movie with so many great lines ...
You mixed your metaphors there. Hamas didn’t defeat the IDF because that wasn’t their intent. The entire operation was about opening the way into Israeli towns for Right Wing Palestinian death squads to murder, kidnap, rape and torture civilians. While you’re worried about policing Israeli descriptions of Hamas, and its Palestinian soldiers, you forgot to point out that since the Nazis nobody has murdered more Jewish civilians in a single day. So if you’re actually worried about Nazi like behavior, wake up. You got a clear example of what Palestinian liberation is all about.
Do you remember how the democracies of the world responded to Nazis attacking them?
I didn't say Hamas "defeated" the IDF. You said that.
I did denounce war and the way it turns us into murderers, rapists, and torturers; the way it feeds fear and hatred on both sides. War enables atrocity. We see it throughout history.
I'm well familiar with the Holocaust, having taught a course on it for several years, and having attended the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to prepare to teach that same course.
Ah so your familiarity with the Holocaust makes your Tsk Tsk admonishing of a _government official_ odd, but you used a general “the Jewish people” in place of a person, because apparently we all say that now. When you generalize an entire people like that you make them all seem blood thirsty, and making generalizations is wrong according to you. Are all Israelis blood thirsty monsters? Maybe you'll concede that most Israelis know the Holocaust as well or even better than you, visited Holocaust museums more than you, and perhaps like me have a grandparent who survived it. Just saying, when it comes to familiarity with the causes and horrors of the Holocaust, it's much more intimate, and when we see genocide on the Hamas charter, unlike most Leftists, we take it explicitly.
And how would you personally refer to Hamas and their Palestinian death squads who went straight for civilians after breaking through the border? You must be familiar with the role of SS Einsatzgruppen in WW2. From what you’ve watched these ‘not animals’ Palestinians do to Jewish children, parents and grandparents (ironically including some Holocaust survivors!), how would you define them and their actions? Were SS Nazis ‘just Germans’? Were they ‘German militants’?
And finally, you’re a man against war, but remind us how the Nazis were stopped? Was it through negotiations? Were they given land, allowed to remain intact alongside the countries they invaded, where they murdered civilians? After October 7, when the most Jews since the Nazis were massacred in a single day, maybe Israelis have a legitimate reason to fight and destroy Hamas. I know that the Left only likes dead Jews, like the martyrs of the Holocaust, but even then Jews fought for their lives. Do yourself and us the favor, and don't deny the need for a similar solution.
Well, if you sincerely want answers to these questions:
1. I never said all Israelis are "blood thirsty monsters." You did. They obviously aren't.
2. Hamas: obviously committing heinous acts of terrorism against innocents.
3. SS Nazis were murderous fanatics.
4. SS Nazis as "German militants"? Those are your words.
5. The Nazis were stopped by World War II. I am anti-war but I'm not a pacifist. Defeating Nazism didn't make WWII a "good" war. But it was a necessary one.
Regarding (1), I can quote where you forgot to mention it was one or more Israeli individuals using "human animals", and instead admonished "the Jewish People" about their forgetfulness of dehumanization. I'll use your definition for Hamas then - "murderous fanatics". The article probably can use a correction.
Trust me that nobody wants war in Israel. The Left absolutely loves to equate Isralis to Nazis as a way to both rob Israel of the right to respond to Palestinian terrorism, and at the same time minimize the Holocaust as one reason the state exists, but in fact Israelis hate wars. As opposed to most Western democracies with the exception of South Korea, Israelis have a lot on the line. Israel fights at home, not across the globe. Israelis have themselves, wives, children, and extended family at risk any time that happens. This war was started by Hamas. It came after increasing 'normalization' of Hamas's rule of Gaza - increasing daily worker entries to tens of thousands, allowing cash infusions from Qatar, and so on. Clearly normalization is not possible with murderous fanatics. So while Israelis are intimately aware of how much it'll cost them, and having no blood-thirsty nature as opposed to what Leftist propaganda loves to portray, this is a deeply nauseating war, but a necessary one. Not necessary to the ghouls on the Left celebrating this massacre, and standing with the idea of continued 'decolonization' by a genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jews as Hamas promises (and the majority of Palestinians support). But necessary for the largest group of Jews in the world to continue to exist. The gleeful-for-Jewish bodies Left doesn't get to dictate that.
All wars are "deeply nauseating" for that is the nature of mass murder. Even when it's necessary, as I believe it was during World War II.
The "human animals" comment was spoken by the Israeli Defense Minister, not some random person on the street, as a matter of government policy. Perhaps this statement "can use a correction"?
War and mass atrocities are driven by dehumanization. Certainly, Jewish people experienced the very worst of this during the Holocaust. We don't only kill what we hate (through dehumanization); we come to hate what we kill. That's an insight I learned from Henry Friedlander at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Collectively, we need to ask: Why do we come to hate the people that we kill? And how do we put a stop to it? An eye for an eye and we both end up blind.
Of course, Israel should defend itself. Of course, Hamas terrorists must be stopped. But at what price? Should we, in the words of Tacitus about the Romans, allow Israel to create a desert and call it "peace"? Is that permissible because the war is against "human animals"?
Think here of the U.S. response to 9/11. It didn't stop at eliminating Al Qaeda. It led to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and indeed a GWOT that was akin to a jihad. It was disastrous. Think Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the collateral murder video, the PATRIOT Act, etc.
Israel must be on guard against a response driven by vengeance that makes matters far worse not just for Israel but for the entire region.
I meant that they're deeply nauseating for me and many I know, because we were strong believers in a peace process and a two state solution. I personally feel that I made a mistake, that what the Right in Israel has always said, that the Palestinians are not trustworthy, that they're genocidal maniacs that are looking for an opportunity to build bigger and bigger military bases under their populations used as human shields, that the majority celebrate this type of genocide - their's ended up being the most realistic view of the conflict.
It's not just that I want to see this modern incarnation of Palestinian Nazism (same as the 1940s in British Mandate Palestine and Iraq under the genocidal efforts of Palestinian leader Hajj Amin Al-Husseini) evident in Hamas smashed, I aslo have a hard time trusting Palestinians not to repeat the acts they either celebrate or keep completely mum about (no condemnation from Fatah/Palestinian Authority or almost anyone else). That's why this specific war is nauseating. After WW2 the US had a democratic framework in Germany to fall back on. No such thing exists in the Middle East. There is no rooting out antisemitism, like there was for Nazism - antisemitism is a deeply held, multi-generational belief of the majority in the Arab world.
I don't hate Arabs, no matter what the anti-Zionist Left constantly yammers about. I grew up in Haifa, which is full of Arab Israeli citizens, has always been a heavily mixed city. We go to the same beaches, gyms, soccer matches, restaurants, night clubs, work at the same places. The propagandists bleating 'apartheid' don't know what they talk about (or choose to lie about it).
I also don't hate Palestinians, or at least I didn't hate most of them until this massacre. I understood their point of view, I voted and protested for their right to have their own nation. Through their actions alone did the Palestinians ensure that no Center-Left government can win and do anything to restart the peace process. That is a deeply depressing reality. I expect Netanyahu to lose a lot of votes due to his ineptitude, but I still dont' believe the peace camp in Israel will gain a majority in the next years or decades even. The Palestinian's need to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews has promised a much longer conflict. At this point I cannot look at people who celebrate a genocide and see them as anything but enemies that cannot be trusted with not finding new ways to murder Jews.
Understand that if Israel does not smash Hamas, this will simply repeat in a couple of years. Nobody but pro Palestinian ghouls wish for that. I 100% agree that it should be done with minimal casualties to civilians, maximum casualties to Hamas (and BTW, don't trust casualty reports from Gaza that conveniently never separate the two). I don't agree with cutting off water, but that's about it. The end of Nazism did a lot of good for Europe. The end of Palestinian Nazis will do a lot of good for the possibility of peace. Without it, there is never going to be any peace.