naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
I've seen a few people wonder why some people support Palestine in this conflict. While videos like this one (which predates the current conflict) are undoubtedly propaganda, they do offer a window into the worldview of a person who supports Palestine.
Wikipedia claims that 40% of male Palestinians have spent some time in an Israeli prison. I hear about Israel demolishing 55,000 Palestinian structures as of 2022. I remember that Gaza had been blockaded by Egypt and Israel since 2005, despite Israel supposedly backing out of Gaza.
Even if every example of Israelis killing Palestinian civilians was collateral damage or accident, even if we assume that the cameras showing Israeli brutality always start rolling at the perfect moment to make it look like unnecessary brutality on their part, it's obvious to me that Palestine won't be able to grow under its current conditions of occupation. If the United States supports Israel, then Israel will prevail and Palestine will lose little by little every year. It will be a slow motion catastrophe, and there is nothing Palestine can do about it.
Is national, regional and global stability worth anything to the Palestinian people under such conditions? No wonder people are posting music videos in this thread of Palestinians with pipe dreams of Russia becoming a global super power again, and supporting Palestine to spite the United States. They're fucked, and I think there's something noble in fighting until you're wiped from the Earth by your enemy. Even if history remembers you as a monster, they will remember you.
where it says that 3,208 Palestinian civilians have died from 2008 to 2020 (compared to 177 Israeli civilians over the same period),
That's the same thing I pointed out a couple of days ago. The fact that more Palestinians were killed doesn't mean that Israel has been more aggressive. It just means that that Israel's defenses work better. Counting deaths this way is a bizarre standard which implies that the more you successfully prevent people on your own side from getting killed, the more immoral you are.
Israel shouldn't lose points for preventing more Israelis from being killed and this making this comparison look bad.
You should provide a small discount to incentivise not proceeding forward with a criminal plan, even if your actions so far have already made you culpable (discounting where you are close to completely certain they were about to go through with it, someone arrested while firing a gun deserves the same punishment as someone who managed to land their shots as far as I'm concerned).
It's the same rationale behind not having the penalty for rape be the same as the one for rape follower by murder, so that rapists aren't strongly incentivise to forever silence their victims. Discount some, because most violent criminals are too dumb to follow incentives that aren't extremely obvious, but it'll help on the margins.
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Notes -
I've seen a few people wonder why some people support Palestine in this conflict. While videos like this one (which predates the current conflict) are undoubtedly propaganda, they do offer a window into the worldview of a person who supports Palestine.
I'm honestly a little conflicted about who I should support. I condemn the killing of civilians by Hamas last weekend, but then I see United Nations OCHA data like this, where it says that 3,208 Palestinian civilians have died from 2008 to 2020 (compared to 177 Israeli civilians over the same period), mostly from air-launched explosions. I see people talking about supporting "the Jewish state’s justified but often brutal response", which so far includes blowing up a Palestinian house full of civilians with no warning, killing those inside, blowing up marketplaces and mosques, and attacking the Jabalia refugee camp.
Wikipedia claims that 40% of male Palestinians have spent some time in an Israeli prison. I hear about Israel demolishing 55,000 Palestinian structures as of 2022. I remember that Gaza had been blockaded by Egypt and Israel since 2005, despite Israel supposedly backing out of Gaza.
Even if every example of Israelis killing Palestinian civilians was collateral damage or accident, even if we assume that the cameras showing Israeli brutality always start rolling at the perfect moment to make it look like unnecessary brutality on their part, it's obvious to me that Palestine won't be able to grow under its current conditions of occupation. If the United States supports Israel, then Israel will prevail and Palestine will lose little by little every year. It will be a slow motion catastrophe, and there is nothing Palestine can do about it.
Is national, regional and global stability worth anything to the Palestinian people under such conditions? No wonder people are posting music videos in this thread of Palestinians with pipe dreams of Russia becoming a global super power again, and supporting Palestine to spite the United States. They're fucked, and I think there's something noble in fighting until you're wiped from the Earth by your enemy. Even if history remembers you as a monster, they will remember you.
That's the same thing I pointed out a couple of days ago. The fact that more Palestinians were killed doesn't mean that Israel has been more aggressive. It just means that that Israel's defenses work better. Counting deaths this way is a bizarre standard which implies that the more you successfully prevent people on your own side from getting killed, the more immoral you are.
Israel shouldn't lose points for preventing more Israelis from being killed and this making this comparison look bad.
How do you feel about the sentencing for murder being different from the sentencing for conspiracy?
I don't think the sentencing for self-defense should be any greater than the sentencing for conspiracy to commit self-defense.
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You should provide a small discount to incentivise not proceeding forward with a criminal plan, even if your actions so far have already made you culpable (discounting where you are close to completely certain they were about to go through with it, someone arrested while firing a gun deserves the same punishment as someone who managed to land their shots as far as I'm concerned).
It's the same rationale behind not having the penalty for rape be the same as the one for rape follower by murder, so that rapists aren't strongly incentivise to forever silence their victims. Discount some, because most violent criminals are too dumb to follow incentives that aren't extremely obvious, but it'll help on the margins.
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