andyt andyt:
Khar Khar:
I'm not dealing with the mess, but this conflict.
So if
this time Israel was perfectly within its rights, can you point to a particular time when Hamas was perfectly within its rights to fire rockets or use suicide bombings?
Nuts to separate one ongoing conflict, that swells and ebbs, into distinct conflicts, assigning moral blamelessness to one side or the other. Exactly what Israel wants, however.
These are partners in a dance, one that neither side seems to want to end except on their terms. Sometimes they take a breather, sit out a song, maybe even have a talk, but soon enough, they're back doing the WaWatussi again.
No, I can't point out a particular time. Generally, I consider rocket attacks aimed at civilians in peacetime to be morally reprehensible or unjust. Mind, if you can, I'd be happy to hear it.
It's not nuts. The line of thinking you promote allows lines like "but they committed war crimes" to be responded with "but they did it first." It allows people to look at any one conflict and say it's entirely justified to commit further atrocities because atrocities have happened in the past. It allows us to ignore nuance of each situation and just devolve into old arguments couched in old hatreds.
It also means we never get to go to peace where bodies like Hamas can actually do something with international support rather than in war which will always be justified if we pretend the long past provides enough reason for ongoing conflict. As much as relations ebb and flow, wars like this don't. They begin and end. It's why you can point out specific dates as your points, because they are
specific conflicts. Sorry, andyt, but when people say I shouldn't discuss specific conflicts, and back that up by pointing to other specific conflicts, it's hypocritical to the extreme, and ignores exactly how we looked at relations between other countries who have been at war (see France example).
desertdude desertdude:
And Khar I will try to get back to you, once I gather the stamina !!
P.S : MODs, why not merge this with the other thread
Take your time, I'm not going anywhere.
I won't be hurt if you decide to pass me by, too. I know it was a long post.
I'd prefer it to be alone from the other thread, just because this is Filibusters (and hence is connected to that site's comment section) but also because the other thread is unwieldly, and doesn't have as much discussion. Just saying.
andyt andyt:
desertdude desertdude:
And Khar I will try to get back to you, once I gather the stamina !!
P.S : MODs, why not merge this with the other thread
Just boil down what Khar is saying to it's basic essence and debate that. If you try to match him point by point, you'll just have these huge posts back and forth. Khar likes to argue each tree separately, never seems to see the forest. AS I said, it can lead to "rational" decisions, taken out of context that are totally nuts if you do take the wider context into account.
When people don't do the "point by point" thing I don't do it back, and my posts are much smaller.
Exactly what does my post lose when I discuss the morality of Israeli actions in the current conflict? Given how it's supposed to be an outrageous breach of morality, and has been brought up time and again in that other thread, why should I now ignore what has been a key contention of recent Israeli actions?
Tell me, what context is actually missing in my post, when I use it to inform what I am saying but don't use it to justify it? Attacking my posting style and claiming I am missing a forest (which, frankly, I've already pointed out is a bullshit, confusing morass of a forest and which you pointed out is a mug's game to deal with anyways) doesn't actually deal with any points within.
andyt andyt:
Actions and intent seem identical here - each side intends to push the other off the land and is putting that intention into action.
Going back millennia seems a bit extreme. But so is viewing this particular flareup of an ongoing conflict in isolation.
You have now run into the same tree three times. I never said in complete isolation the first time. I explained that I never said complete isolation when you brought it up the first time. Now you have brought it up a second time.
You can see the tree is in a forest. You can't say the tree
is the forest. There is also something to be said about people choosing to view a forest in it's most broadest sense without due recognition for the trees that make it up.
Conflating each action to the overall conflict won't help. Hence why we separate out things like wars. Conflicts. And why people who debate this separate out 1967, 1948, 2009 and various other dates and things that have happened. Because the overall conflict is made up a lot of little conflicts.
Zipperfish Zipperfish:
Khar Khar:
They are attempted (sic) to do the best they can to limit casualties...
Who cares? Why aren't people judged on what they do, as opposed to what they attempt to do. Intent is a subjective matter.
This neverending conflict would be much better understood if
(a) people judged the conflict based on actions rather than intent
(b) people stopped reading mindless agitprop op-eds specifically designed to deceive and obfuscate
(c) people remembered that this conflict has been going on for decades, perhaps millennia.
Sorry, I re-edited that post a lot, no doubt some sentences sound chunky, haha.
My original post was all about why the actions are moral and justifiable with barely a shrug at intent, Zipperfish. It was a direct discussion of the actions of Hamas and Israel in this current war.
It's also entirely my own point and wasn't derived from anyone else's material, let alone "mindless agitprop." Yes, there is a lot of propaganda out there. As far as I can see there wasn't any in my post, but I won't lie, I've no doubt come across some of it and it could have coloured my view.
Finally, people can remember it, but the existence of a conflict shouldn't be in and of itself to allow it to perpetuate into eternity. My problem is that these threads based on a specific conflict rapidly descend into 66 years of arguments that have failed to sway hearts and minds, and that is the current status quo. At this point it feels as if we are minimizing the ongoing conflict because we prefer to talk about the old ones, where we are more comfortable in our views.
I don't mind you using my post as a jumping off point for three staunch, viable criticisms, but I am bugged because my post, as far as I can see, didn't have the failings you prescribe to this debate in any significant quantity. Sorry if I missed a point or misread what you were saying.
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. During the period 1969-1997 the PIRA killed about 80 innocent civilians, most of them quite unintentionally.
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