(Comment 2 of 2)

Empathy can be useful even to put yourself in the shoes of the wicked. I’ll be honest: If I put myself in the shoes of a desperate Gazan whose children and wife were blown up by an Israeli air strike, I wouldn’t just think, “Hamas did this!” I would say, “I thought Israel were the good guys and yet look how little they value the lives of us body shields?” At which point in my grief and blind revenge I would join the movement to seek revenge — especially if I’m of limited economic opportunity (what job is there now that Gaza is in ruins?) and of low education. The Taliban fought a war from caves against a force far exceeding Israel and ultimately won. Just as the Vietcong ultimately did. For Israel, this is their Vietnam; this is their Vietcong. Now, strategically, if you were tasked with being the David against the Goliath that is the IDF and you were severely out-gunned, it simply would not be wise strategy to sit in the open against someone who has precision-targeted air force. Knowing your enemy and knowing that Israel holds itself to a moral standard of not harming civilians, I too would probably hide among the civilians. What I would NOT expect is that my opponent who holds the moral high-ground would suddenly decide that killing as many civilians as it takes is 100% okay. Perhaps there was a miscalculation, but then I’d also just go and huddle in my tunnels as the civilians incur the majority of damage above. Does it really impact anything for terrorists who can simply recruit a new army from the surviving orphans, get new weapons from Iran and Lebanon, and have the next leader take its place no different than what happens with the Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda? 20 years of failed US interventionism as a stronger fighting force no less suggests a resounding No.

Let me give you a hypothetical. Just suppose you’re wrong and Bibi is doing this solely to remain in power. Suppose he knows that this won’t eliminate terrorism but only exacerbate it but doesn’t care. Suppose he and his cronies want to annex new beachfront property and as Naomi Klein spells out in The Shock Doctrine and to paraphrase Milton Friedman that a crisis is a great opportunity for profit — consider that at least my methodology permits outsiders to immediately protect innocent civilians no matter where they are or whether they’re victims of offense or victims of a defensive maneuver. Surely you’re aware that perception is reality and that many in Russia wrongly believe just as Hamas that they are doing the right thing. That in fact they are the oppressed by NATO, by Nazis, by creeping Jewish annexation shoving them into tighter and tighter slums. After all, so goes the saying that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. So naturally, heinous crimes against civilians are justified everywhere under false pretenses that it is actually THEY who are on the defense and retaliating for an arbitrary act of the opposition from their perspective of reality. At least with my approach, we can cut through the bullshit of “he started, they started it; I’m justified/they’re justified” and just go straight to the quantifiable reality: “Who is actively inflicting more pain and suffering at this present moment on innocent people?” And that is, at this moment, 100% Israel. Keep in mind that when October 7th happened while I was no fan of Netanyahu’s actions and stoking the flames of day-in-day-out suffering of Palestinians, I was still in Israel’s corner and felt sorry for the civilian lives lost. Do you see how my allegiance isn’t to nationalism but rather humanism? And in maintaining such optics, you’re able to in the moment identify the key threat to innocent loss of life independent of alleged justification that is often in the eye of the beholder.

So could the crisis for innocent civilians end if Hamas surrenders? Possibly, yes. But that necessitates expecting the terrorists to do what Israel themselves as the “good guys” have been unable to do—practice reasonable restraint. You and I both don’t expect Hamas to do the “right” thing; but we do expect the “good guys” who supposedly hold themselves to a higher moral standard than that of a terrorist organization to do the right thing in valuing innocent human life. Yet actions speak louder than words and we care not what excuse a murderer has when they kill an innocent child; only that they did.

Ultimately I don’t believe you can excuse the civilian death toll incurred by Israel by exclaiming, “The murdering of innocent civilians will stop when the murdering terrorists suddenly value innocent human lives like we supposedly do!” That doesn’t make sense, again, is a race to the bottom where only the civilians will suffer.

You mention that you’d have no problem with an independent group investigating Israel for their actions, and that is exactly what is happening at the ICC. Bibi shares crimes against humanity charges alongside Sinwar and Putin. (Keep in mind that Jack Smith who worked at the ICC to prosecute war lords is now the lead prosecutor against Trump right now).

(Comment 1 of 2)

A couple logistical things: I think we’ve generally exhausted our points and are increasingly going in circles; so given the diminished bystander audience by this point I’m going to make this my last comment and oblige you with the final response if you so wish. Upvoted and thank you for the discussion.

Moreover if you don’t mind I’m changing my response style slightly to (slightly) tamp down on the increasing length of these while also trying to remain on-point without too much meander.

• A criminal cannot justify their crimes by saying, I could’ve killed more if I wanted to or even tortured them in greater numbers. Yes, Hitler could’ve used scalding hot water instead of Zyklon B and conducted MORE torture. Hitler could’ve killed double the amount of people he killed but he didn’t. Such restraint! Naturally we wouldn’t praise Hitler for committing less war crimes and instead merely focus on the fact that war crimes and murder was committed at all.

• Israel has a right to defend itself, but that does not give carte blanche to kill as many civilians as they unilaterally deem appropriate in their calculus.

• Thus executing 4 civilians for every 1 Hamas target is exactly the same as releasing a bomb knowing those same number of civilians will die for the target you seek.

• Yes, the main difference IS where it is happening. Ukraine isn’t actively targeting civilian centers inside Russia; they’re playing defense on their own territory. Location matters because the Hamas soldier inside his own building isn’t an imminent threat to the civilians of Israel relative to the threat Israel poses to the innocent civilians of Gaza. Again, their bullets cannot reach Israel and ultimately neither can their rockets in any meaningfully significant quantity that wasn’t par for the course preceding October 7th for that matter. The world would not stand for Israel doing to Gaza if this was simply the same par for the course rocket attacks that have happened for decades. This proves the rockets aren’t the primary motivating factor for killing this many innocent civilians.

• If Ukraine began to kill more civilians in Russia than Russia killed in Ukraine by an order of magnitude no less, then the waters would then be muddied and my support for them would, too, wane. Does Putin share responsibility for the murder of those civilians? Absolutely. Would Ukraine as well? Definitely. In the end, they should all be prosecuted for war crimes, just as the ICC is actively doing. If you think it’s worth it, then you better be willing to pay the piper at the end and be held accountable for the “justified murders.” After all, something tells me that Bibi wouldn’t be such a proud martyr then if he was actually held accountable for the demonstrated war crimes he has committed. Something tells me if it was he who had to be on the front line in Gaza that he wouldn’t have ordered this invasion.

• The Gaza Health Ministry of elected officials actually answers primarily to the PA and Fatah first. There is no indication past or present that the distinction between civilians and Hamas targets is erroneous. Even if we take US Intelligence of Hamas strength versus the number of Hamas killed by said US intelligence, the numbers line up quite closely. In fact, most independent watchdogs suggest the civilian death toll is far higher when factoring in the number of bodies remaining under rubble, those still missing, and the disease and famine situation.

• Please don’t add words to my mouth. I said that it’s okay if there was an imminent threat, but when there is an alternative strategy that ensures civilians are protected and you can wait for, say, the “snipers” to come in to pick these targets off, then change the entire paradigm. Like I said, the scenario laid out before us is factually much closer to that of a hostage standoff and siege in a children’s school. Nobody would abide by having the police set the building on fire.

• There is no lying down and taking it; there are viable more reasonable paths out of this that everyone on the sidelines is telling Israel: Double-down on defensive, border, intelligence. Get a new leader in. Stop blocking Palestinian statehood, start wining Hearts & minds, and giving them self agency. Start working with the PA and Fatah with better faith, and stop creating more terrorists than you’re eliminating when you tear apart families with wanton collateral damage. Stop assassinating your own Prime Ministers who in good faith sought out a 2 state solution. Ultimately the rate of innocent civilian lives being murdered is higher now than ever before. I don’t take that as a win in any capacity. I also don’t think it would be acceptable anywhere else to continuously annex chunks of Palestine for Israel. After all, we don’t accept that when Russia did that in Crimea and the Donbas… Why is it acceptable for Israel to do that with Palestine? Have you ever seen a map of Israel vs. Palestine over the decades? At this point I’m almost beginning to wonder if Hamas is a convenient excuse propped up to justify territorial conquest. I wouldn’t put it past Netanyahu. Several times your excuse to justify Israeli actions is, “I mean they could’ve killed more; they could’ve annexed more more rapidly!” Of course, but it’s all a matter of how much they can get away with no different than a toddler probing the limits of their parents.

To me the following remain immutable facts:

• Quantitatively, Israel has invoked, by many factors, more suffering upon Innocent Civilians than Hamas has since both before or after October 7th. The response is thus more heinous than the attack which prompted it. This is frankly undeniable. Even if you disagree with the official numbers, surely you agree that the civilian death toll is well beyond the ~1200 of October 7th. The debt in blood has been repaid many times in all actuality.

• There is only one way you can justify these mass, willful murders (which, it is murder): That they will prevent an even greater number of civilian casualties from happening in the future both in Gaza and Israel… And ultimately, the evidence for that is extremely shaky and to me does not meet the standard for justifying murder. Like I said: There are several viable strategies Israel can protect itself that would make it all but impossible for Hamas to commit another October 7th attack let alone the dozens of the equivalent Israel has now committed in Gaza.

• Reaction to an alleged first-strike does not give Carte Blanche to commit as many war crimes as one desires.

• Restraint of a murderer for not killing 10 innocent people does not excuse their killing of 5.

• Restraint of stealing only half of the land instead of all the land is no excuse.

• Israel both had and continues to have better options that ensures the protection of Israeli civilians while not requiring to kill 30,000 civilians and counting. The USA, speaking from experience, agrees.

• The instability wrought by Israel in destroying civilian infrastructure from schools to mosques to residential housing, food & water, all the while killing women and children is exactly what one does to plant the seeds of radicalization for decades to come – NOT eliminate it. Especially when the likes of Lebanon and Iran tend to be the sources of all their needs. After all, moles will simply begin digging tunnels anew.

• The greater you try to play whack-a-mole with Tunnels “50 meters” down, the less it makes sense to target the civilians who largely reside above. After all, Israel isn’t simply using bunker busters to reach these tunnels; and these manholes and entrances are everywhere that it’s quite literally impossible to target them all without actually dropping a nuke on Gaza. Moreover, if it was that easy for Hamas to do (a) they would’ve done it for their October 7th attack, and (b) if it’s that easy to do, then it’s equally that easy for the much wealthier and capable nation of Israel to dig equally-deep tunnels to stand guard and listen. A small price to pay for the safety of Israeli civilians, after all.

I just want to note that under the ghetto conditions Israel has boxed Palestine in, that too, is no way to live. This creeping territorial annexation as the innocent civilians get pummeled by the “good guys” in far greater numbers than what Hamas is capable of doing to Israel speaks to the dire conditions they too live in. Make no mistake that, “Let the Palestinians die” applies just as much if we let things be par for the course… Hence why radicalization is so prominent in the first place. After all, as I said: Radicalization and terrorism simply does not manifest out of thin air. Wealthy countries with good education and solid civilian infrastructure and room to breathe and self agency do not have radicalization problems. Including Muslim nations.

Your justification for the deaths that have occurred could just as easily be used as justification to drop a nuke. So for whatever reason, there is a red line for you here — and perhaps it’s because it evokes an imagery that is incompatible with your conscience. But perhaps like journalists were shown footage of October 7th that you should start viewing footage of the aftermath of IDF strikes and lifeless bodies in Gaza. I’ve also seen enough testimony from countless independent humanitarian aid workers and especially physicians engaged in the Hippocratic Oath who speak to the horrors they’ve seen. I wonder, have you? Would you be able to pull the trigger?