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.
No electricity, water, or fuel for Gaza until hostages freed - Israel
Israel's Energy Minister Israel Katz says the siege of Gaza will not end until Israeli hostages are released.
In a social media post, Israel Katz said no "electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter" until the "abductees" are free.
I think this is a smart move. Even if the hostages being released remains very unlikely, it puts more of the moral burden for the siege on the Gazans, who do (broadly) support Hamas.
A mass scale war crime to block food and water to 2.3 million people. Using war crimes to punish a population is an excellent way to get the world to hate you and the victims to never forget.
Right. This would arguably be worse than the holocaust. The holocaust took place when Germans were being killed in the millions and civilians were starving in the hundreds of thousands. But this atrocity would take place after the moral lesson of the holocaust, by a people who were victims of the event, and when Israel is facing zero threat to its continued existence and territorial sovereignty.
Well I guess this is totally like the Holocaust except for the fact Hamas could turn over the hostages to end this particular embargo while Jews in occupied countries couldn’t do anything to end the Holocaust.
The same thing I expect all 14 year olds to do re: governance?
That’s a total non-sequitur.
Hamas could end this particular blockade tomorrow given they govern Gaza - your case that there are a lot of children affected is a strong one for why giving up a few hostages in order to save the lives of children would be the right thing to do!
On the other hand during the Holocaust there was no “Government of the Jews” holding land that the Nazis were fighting and there was no demands by the Nazi government re: Jews except for dying or escaping if lucky.
What is the non-sequitur of holding one million children hostage until an independent terrorist group releases their hostages? Think about how this rule could be extrapolated. What would Afghanis not have been justified in doing to America to free the 150 innocent men who were literally tortured in Guantanamo Bay for years? Or consider that the Nazis infamously blamed all Jews on the few thousand or ten thousand Jews who were involved in the Soviet Revolution and the failed November revolution. This moral rule blows. How about we just don’t threaten to starve (or “thirst out” or whatever) one million children.
Do you believe that Hamas doesn’t rule Gaza? Otherwise I’m not sure how your argument makes sense.
If the Taliban were the rulers of Afghanistan at the time Afghanis were in Guantanamo they would have been well within their rights to embargo America.
Again - in order to compare this to the Holocaust, what demands did the Nazis make of a “Jewish government” that was completely sovereign in the territory it controlled that the “Jewish government” had within its power to do to end the Holocaust? Frankly if this hypothetical “Jewish government” was privileging the lives of 100 German hostages or some failed Bolshevik revolutionaries over the lives of 6 million Jews I would think they were pretty evil!
Hamas as the ruling entity of Gaza could release these hostages today if they wanted to end the embargo of the territory they exclusively control!
Hamas isn’t independent, that’s the point. It’s not like Al Qaeda was to Saudi or even to Taliban Afghanistan, Hamas is literally the government of this territory and has per polling the support of the vast majority of the people.
Zero threat to their continued existence? Besides occasional raids like the one we’ve seen I’m not even sure how to model cheap drone tech and what it could do to Israel with a neighboring populace that wants to kill all of you.
The entirety of Israel existence depends on them finding new technological solutions to new warfare options. If they fail once it’s game over.
You can say that about any country in the drone age, or even the nuclear age, or even just the high-flying bomber age. Hamas was able to find a zero-day vulnerability in Israel’s defenses which led to 1200 deaths at around 0.01% of their population (which has a TFR of around 3.0). There is no risk at all to their continued existence from this attack.
The holocaust took place when Germans were being killed in the millions and civilians were starving in the hundreds of thousands.
What are you talking about? What does this have to do with anything? Are you counting soviet civilians as subjects of germany, and german soldiers as tragic passive victims 'being killed' through no fault of their own? It sounds like those germans were having a real hard time in this war that came out of nowhere, and then decided a bit of jew-killing would help.
Germans had rationing, but they were not starving during the holocaust, every other population they controlled was. I think there was a Hitler quote about that - apparently traumatized by the WWI blockade, he swore that every european would starve before a single german, or something to that effect. Plus the more intentional starving of 'zig millionen' slavs in the hungerplan.
I wonder if @coffee_enjoyer made the same mistake or if he had the cynicism to imply the intentional starving of slavs by germans was a hardship borne by the german people.
Not defending it in any way, more a data point in the stupid = evil argument, but I think nazi leaders really believed germans would starve if they did not secure arable land. I found TiK’s argument on shrinking markets really illuminating on this. I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing without an ‘either them or us’ frame.
Anyway, one more reason why I dislike pessimistic arguments - zero-sum, de-growth, peak resources, third world exploitation, starving proletariat, inevitable civil war, demographic collapse, climate & AI apocalypse type stuff – it gets easier to support horrible measures if you already think the future will be horrible. The cure is usually far worse than the disease.
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Notes -
No electricity, water, or fuel for Gaza until hostages freed - Israel
[From the BBC news live tracker]
I think this is a smart move. Even if the hostages being released remains very unlikely, it puts more of the moral burden for the siege on the Gazans, who do (broadly) support Hamas.
A mass scale war crime to block food and water to 2.3 million people. Using war crimes to punish a population is an excellent way to get the world to hate you and the victims to never forget.
Right. This would arguably be worse than the holocaust. The holocaust took place when Germans were being killed in the millions and civilians were starving in the hundreds of thousands. But this atrocity would take place after the moral lesson of the holocaust, by a people who were victims of the event, and when Israel is facing zero threat to its continued existence and territorial sovereignty.
Interesting type of Holocaust denial. I have no idea where you got your information.
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The Wannasee Conference was January of 1942. German armies were still besieging Stalingrad a year later.
Apologists for genocide and other mass atrocities always claim that they are necessary for self-preservation. That doesn't mean anyone has to believe it.
Wannsee.
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Well I guess this is totally like the Holocaust except for the fact Hamas could turn over the hostages to end this particular embargo while Jews in occupied countries couldn’t do anything to end the Holocaust.
What do you expect the average citizen of Gaza, who is about 14 years old, to do about Hamas?
The same thing I expect all 14 year olds to do re: governance?
That’s a total non-sequitur.
Hamas could end this particular blockade tomorrow given they govern Gaza - your case that there are a lot of children affected is a strong one for why giving up a few hostages in order to save the lives of children would be the right thing to do!
On the other hand during the Holocaust there was no “Government of the Jews” holding land that the Nazis were fighting and there was no demands by the Nazi government re: Jews except for dying or escaping if lucky.
What is the non-sequitur of holding one million children hostage until an independent terrorist group releases their hostages? Think about how this rule could be extrapolated. What would Afghanis not have been justified in doing to America to free the 150 innocent men who were literally tortured in Guantanamo Bay for years? Or consider that the Nazis infamously blamed all Jews on the few thousand or ten thousand Jews who were involved in the Soviet Revolution and the failed November revolution. This moral rule blows. How about we just don’t threaten to starve (or “thirst out” or whatever) one million children.
It seems like all of these arguments boils down to “we will let Hamas utilize their population to protect Hamas.”
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Do you believe that Hamas doesn’t rule Gaza? Otherwise I’m not sure how your argument makes sense.
If the Taliban were the rulers of Afghanistan at the time Afghanis were in Guantanamo they would have been well within their rights to embargo America.
Again - in order to compare this to the Holocaust, what demands did the Nazis make of a “Jewish government” that was completely sovereign in the territory it controlled that the “Jewish government” had within its power to do to end the Holocaust? Frankly if this hypothetical “Jewish government” was privileging the lives of 100 German hostages or some failed Bolshevik revolutionaries over the lives of 6 million Jews I would think they were pretty evil!
Hamas as the ruling entity of Gaza could release these hostages today if they wanted to end the embargo of the territory they exclusively control!
I had understood that their military branch is independent of their ruling branch for op sec reasons
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Hamas isn’t independent, that’s the point. It’s not like Al Qaeda was to Saudi or even to Taliban Afghanistan, Hamas is literally the government of this territory and has per polling the support of the vast majority of the people.
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Zero threat to their continued existence? Besides occasional raids like the one we’ve seen I’m not even sure how to model cheap drone tech and what it could do to Israel with a neighboring populace that wants to kill all of you.
The entirety of Israel existence depends on them finding new technological solutions to new warfare options. If they fail once it’s game over.
You can say that about any country in the drone age, or even the nuclear age, or even just the high-flying bomber age. Hamas was able to find a zero-day vulnerability in Israel’s defenses which led to 1200 deaths at around 0.01% of their population (which has a TFR of around 3.0). There is no risk at all to their continued existence from this attack.
Yes you can. But France doesn’t declare its purpose to murder Germans when presented with the opportunity.
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What are you talking about? What does this have to do with anything? Are you counting soviet civilians as subjects of germany, and german soldiers as tragic passive victims 'being killed' through no fault of their own? It sounds like those germans were having a real hard time in this war that came out of nowhere, and then decided a bit of jew-killing would help.
Germans had rationing, but they were not starving during the holocaust, every other population they controlled was. I think there was a Hitler quote about that - apparently traumatized by the WWI blockade, he swore that every european would starve before a single german, or something to that effect. Plus the more intentional starving of 'zig millionen' slavs in the hungerplan.
I was sure the Germans were starving, too, but I guess I was thinking of the Steckrübenwinter late in WWI.
The Hungerplan was unambiguously, cartoonishly evil.
I wonder if @coffee_enjoyer made the same mistake or if he had the cynicism to imply the intentional starving of slavs by germans was a hardship borne by the german people.
Not defending it in any way, more a data point in the stupid = evil argument, but I think nazi leaders really believed germans would starve if they did not secure arable land. I found TiK’s argument on shrinking markets really illuminating on this. I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing without an ‘either them or us’ frame.
Anyway, one more reason why I dislike pessimistic arguments - zero-sum, de-growth, peak resources, third world exploitation, starving proletariat, inevitable civil war, demographic collapse, climate & AI apocalypse type stuff – it gets easier to support horrible measures if you already think the future will be horrible. The cure is usually far worse than the disease.
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