See, on the one hand you’re validly calling out sensationalism and propaganda, but on the other you’re kind of going further the other way. She wasn’t kidnapped, she was murdered and her corpse mutilated, paraded and spat on. And it isn’t her vs 100s of murdered Palestinians, she is but a figurehead representing hundreds dead in Israel.
In any case, tallying up which side did what and who was worse really isn’t productive here, it won’t lead to any useful kind of resolution. The issue isn’t what they do, because at this point they’ve pretty much done it all before. The issue is that people on both sides keep doing it.
The only reason it’s not productive, in your opinion, is because it makes the side you support look REALLY fucking bad.
“Why can’t we all come together and forget the 6+ decades of horrific oppression and wildly disproportionate warfare, and all just get along?”
No, the reason it’s not productive to dig through all the atrocities is that, provided you keep at least something of an open mind, you’ll quickly get sick of both sides and not even want to bother finding any solution.
Both sides have indiscriminately murdered civillians and children. They might have done it in different ways, one side might have managed to kill more than the other, but they’ve both done barbaric things.
I don’t support either “side” in this.
“Why can’t we all come together and forget the 6+ decades of horrific oppression and wildly disproportionate warfare, and all just get along?”
This kind of strawman statement confirms that you aren’t arguing in good faith, you’ve only come here to spew bullshit.
See, on the one hand you’re validly calling out sensationalism and propaganda, but on the other you’re kind of going further the other way. She wasn’t kidnapped, she was murdered and her corpse mutilated, paraded and spat on. And it isn’t her vs 100s of murdered Palestinians, she is but a figurehead representing hundreds dead in Israel.
You know, google for “Anush Apetyan” and consider that Israel is Azerbaijan’s main military supplier after Russia, and almost an ally, and nothing from what Azerbaijani troops are doing (just the same Hamas stuff) seems to have any effect.
Also Israel is a genocide-denier state. Israelis on the Web like to behave all cynical and realpolitik-enjoying and “what are you going to do” on subjects similar to what Hamas has done in Sderot etc.
I’d say there is an element of crocodile tears in this.
Action should be taken to prevent anybody doing anything like this again, to Israelis or anybody else, but that doesn’t mean Israel somehow got moral. Promoting that would be exploiting events for propaganda.
Action should be taken to prevent anybody doing anything like this again, to Israelis or anybody else, but that doesn’t mean Israel somehow got moral. Promoting that would be exploiting events for propaganda.
Absolutely agreed. Israel is justified in some measure of response, to prevent future attacks and rescue hostages. They are not justified in the bombing of Gaza that they’ve been doing instead.
The point I was making though is that using Shani Louk as some kind of figurehead is in no way disingenuous. It’s somewhat unfair that Palestine doesn’t have similar figureheads of their own to garner support (and indeed this is a direct result of Israel blocking media access), but that doesn’t mean that what happened to Shani isn’t a valid symbol of everything that was wrong with the attack on Saturday.
The Israeli-German girl is apparently still alive and in criticial condition in the Indonesian hospital in Gaza. She wasn’t murdered (though of course she could still succumb to whatever was done to her).
Sorry for the German link. It’s the most reliable source I could find, tho.
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/shani-deutsche-hamas-israel-100.html
tl;dr her aunt says she’s alive in a hospital. No way to verify. Assumption that she’s alive is based on credit card activity.
You’re acting like we’re just talking about “actions” that people are “doing.”
What you’re ignoring is the apartheid society created by Israel. They’re directly responsible for the conditions that foster this type of response.
This isn’t a “both sides are just as bad” thing. One of these groups has been horrifically oppressed and kept in the largest open-air prison on the planet for nearly 100 years. Any time Hamas has attacked Israeli soldiers (you know, because they’re literally kicking them out of their family homes they’ve lived in for generations. Which is genocide btw), Israel has responded by slaughtering hundreds to thousands of Palestinian (not Hamas) civilians. It’s completely disproportionate.
I’m not defending or justifying, just trying to explain.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention#Definition_of_genocide
Seems to fit to me.
Love how there’s no call for responsibility when it’s Israel committing the atrocities. Here’s just some examples out of thousands:
I wasn’t really ignoring it, merely addressing the point that was raised.
I’ve said this elsewhere, but going through and trying to tally up who’s done what and which side is worse is pretty much a futile exercise. It won’t lead to any useful resolution. They’ve been going at it for so long, both sides have done horrific things that were disproportionate responses to the other side. They’ve pretty much done it all. The bigger issue is less what they do, more that they both keep doing it.
They’ve been going at it for so long, both sides have done horrific things that were disproportionate responses to the other side.
This just is not true. There is a massively imbalanced power dynamic there. They’ve been keeping the Palestinian population in an open-air prison for at least half a century. They’re literally incapable of responding disproportionately to what Israel is constantly doing to them. They don’t have the resources or freedom of movement.
Just look up the casualty statistics on both sides since at least since the end of WW2. It’s been some time since I’ve looked at them, but we’re talking at least one (possibly more) order of magnitude difference between the two.
Two points:
- As her mother is calling for news about her I’ll go with her belief of “not dead” until proven otherwise given how the poor girl has been turned into a - as you so well put - “figurehead” for propaganda. I confess I’m one of those weird people who prefers to believe that others are merelly “kidnapped” rather than dead.
- I’m glad you’re beginning to start to get my point about the use of figureheads to make the smaller number of people murderer on one side seem more disgusting to a western audience than the much larger number of deaths on the other side. That’s exactly how propaganda works: turn individual humans into symbols and parade their horrible fate as justification to kill lots of those “other” humans most of whom are blamed by association.
I’m disgusted that a few days ago some terrorists attacked a music festival and killed hundreds and you’re defending the terrorists. It sounds like you’ve been taken in by some propaganda yourself.
If condemning terrorists attacking innocent people at a music festival means I’m a product of propaganda, then so be it.
That terrorist attack has already happened, and there’s another terrorist attack underway, this time with cassette munitions and white phosphorus and in general very different capabilities, done by another side.
Let’s not forget that the act of using civilians as shields is a warcrime in the first place to prevent this kind of situation from occurring.
If Israel tells Palestinian civilians to evacuate because there’s Hamas military targets in that building, and Hamas troops tell them no. Then they die, and Hamas can cry wolf.
It would be Israel who is following international decorem and Hamas making it difficult for any country to support them.
Just now, Austria cut off aid to the Gaza region. Is that Israel’s fault? Nope.
Hamas had good PR going and they fucked it up by escalating with brutality.
You’re absolutelly right in condemning terrorist attacks like that one.
All terrorist attacks should be condemned, including ordering people to shelter in a specific place and bombing them as describe here.
If your condemnation is indeed Principled, then all such acts of murder for the purposed of terrifying the rest are equally repugnant and you’ll condemn them equally no matter the “side” of those who did such disgusting acts.
As Principle seems to be notably absent in how so many commenters have tackled the subject matter (with only some murders being important, not others, depending on which “side” did it), I pointed it out.
Agreed. There’s only one solution. The UN needs to disarm both sides, depose their governments and make the whole area a UN protectorate. Remove any illegal settlements. Try anyone on both sides involved in war crimes or human rights violations.
Israel and Palestine can not behave like grown ups? Take away their toys and put them in time out.
Yeah, nobody has quite the strength even for these two sides. First, war is not a linear application of resources, it’s unpredictable. Second, that’d be a precedent every nation with conflicts would try to prevent, and such nations are usually the strongest. Third, we’ve all seen over the years how well UN missions, peacekeepers etc work.
I mean they can also just keep bombing and torturing each other for the next 100 years, it’s been working so well so far.
A foreign military occupation of an entire region in the Middle East to ensure peace.
Does anyone remember how this one goes?
You think their neighbors are going to attack a multinational UN taskforce? I don’t think you have the right to call anyone ignorant honestly.
Absolutely agree. The two sides need to be separated and put in time out.
However disarming Israel is politically impossible when they’re a cyber weapons super power.
Israel is a way more prosper place than Palestine and hence its people have way more to lose if the country is placed under sanctions, its companies cut off from trading with the West and its members of governament personally held accountable internationally.
(Basically they’re susceptible to the same kind of pressure that forced the authorities in South Africa to end Apartheid and have genuinelly democratic elections)
Those who have the most to lose are the easiest to convince, which is also why, on the other side, not even treating Hamas as a terrorist organisation (which is an even harder thing than “mere” sanctions) has stopped them from finding “soldiers” - as long as Israel makes sure those born in Palestine have nothing to lose, for many even joining an organisation internationally viewed as terrorist is still a step-up in life.
If you pardon my language (but I think the situation deserves it), it’s quite paradoxical that the International community has to fuck up Israel enough so that they stop fucking up the life of Palestinians so much, to the point that the lives of said Palestinians improves enough that they end up having enough to lose from siding with or joining Hamas (which is alread being fucked up).
Then again, maybe it’s not a paradox: look at how the only way to stop a similar bully, Russia, requires “fucking them up” in that way (being more integrated with the West, not having natural resources like that, and being a whole lot more democratic (even if imperfectly so) Israel would be a lot easier to sway away from acting as a bully.
As far as I can see, it’s either that or the genocide of Palestinians and I would hope that not even in this day and age and not even if it’s one of the “slow boiling” kind, most people in the West would be ok with a genocide.
Ohh hey we’re just being openly racist to Muslims again? What is it 2002?
