It's so sad to see this ridiculous argument every time. Israel is the aggressor, the murder and the main threat to the region's peace, not the victim. This, of course, does not mean that Iran is not another threat, but its actions seem like nothing compared to what Israel is doing.
I am not justifying them as inevitable. I am justifying them as beneficial for us, even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times (even if they happen to be that way for the lack of choices).
I support Israel because it is a no-brainer who to support between them and so-called "Palestine" (which in practice means Hamas), and there is no practical way to be neutral because Hamas will never accept existence of Israel and thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them.
> even if the means they employ are morally questionable at times
> [...]
> thorough genocide of Israelis is only acceptable option for them
What a sickening double-standard. I hope you understand why the majority of Americans disagree with this perspective, and have no interest in dying for Israel's expansionist escalation policy. Hamas is not a threat to America, Israel is.
It's possible you haven't visited America recently and experienced this firsthand, so I'll excuse you for thinking you have a populist stance. Even the Christian Zionists are getting sick and tired of dealing with the Liability in the Levant right now, I think you'll be shocked how fast the GOP abandons Likud when the ceasefire inevitably snaps.
I'm not at all an American and have never been to the US, and don't give a flying fuck about it. "Beneficial for us" - for the whole white, Christian (i am an atheist), civilised world.
Big difference in Israeli and Palestinian stance is that Israel is fine with the existence of Palestine. They never had a policy goal to destroy Gaza/West Bank or exile entirety of their population. Hamas does have a goal of doing the same to Israeli.
If Israel is fine with the existence of Palestina, why is it occupying the West Bank with illegal settlements? There is no Hamas in the West Bank, not any threat whatsoever and the policy is ethnic cleansing, as in Gaza. Do you know the current stance of the far-right Israeli government?
"The white, civilized world". There is not such a thing outside the mind of a white-supremacist, which you seem to be by this comments.
If it is to recover what Israel occupied illegally, good. If Palestine did what Israel is doing, that would be bad. What happened in October the 7th was also horrible and condemned. We really need to deescalate the whole situation and stop the violence. Every one of these violent actions (in which Israel is the main perpetrator by far), not only create suffering and deaths in the short term, but makes a possible solution harder and harder.
But in land of Israel/Palestine itself, there's no significant violence going on right? Hamas is isolated, there is an ample security zone, it's cut off from border and unable to militarily recover - problem is solved. West Bank is split into many enclaves, surrounded by walls and buffer zones, incapable of doing much harm and seems to be unwilling to try it in any case - any such outbursts will be contained if they happen.
For now, problem looks like it's solved - Palestinians on either side are incapable of harming Israel much, and Israel doesn't need or want to harm them either simply because endgame is unclear - ideally they are pushed out but no country will accept them so it's futile.
What is the exact problem we are discussing here? Actions in Lebanon are simply about creating a buffer zone there to make remnants of Hezbolla to threaten Israeli northern towns. Once zone south Litani river is secured, things will calm down.
Problem is solved for Israel, right. Gaza is still in ruins, cut off from everything, there is a massive humanitarian crisis, the systematic dispossession campaign in the West Bank is accelerating, but I guess all of that just affects Palestinians, so it doesn't count...
Problem here is that first and foremost, Gaza needs two things to fix their housing stock: cement and pipes... And they aren't getting either because cement immediately goes into building tunnels, and pipes into producing rockets. No way Israel will be fooled that way again - and now they control what goes in or not because of buffer zone.
Yeah no. The current "debate" from what I understand is about mobile homes and any kind of temporary shelter that is more durable than a tent. The Israeli government straight up said "no, mobile homes count as 'reconstruction' for us and reconstruction in any form is forbidden until Hamas is disarmed. So tents is all they get".
This is Palestine, not Minnesota :) I live right next to it. It never gets below zero. No snow.
And yes that's what was the condition of ceasefire. Of course Israel knew Hamas won't yield power. They are made so that Hamas can be now blamed for the plight of Palestinians. Question is, who elected Hamas to power?
Things were calm until Israel attacked Lebanon. They did it, after Israel and America started an illegal war against Iran.
At this point, everyone knows Israel is the aggressor.
One of the first acts of Operation Epstein's Fury was to attack a girls school and murder over 170 kids with a Tomahawk. Why?
I have two girls myself. I’d want to know exactly what happened and why, and to hold whoever made this deplorable mistake accountable. So I’d want to know this. Wouldn’t you? I think the AI targeting aspect of this is very disturbing.
Sorry, I misread your comment as a justification the first time. The US and Iseael are involved in war crimes and I am so tired of people justifying it.
This is so unhelpful. What has happened in the last 5 weeks has hugely escalated the violence in an already difficult situation. It's not wishful thinking or naive to think that deliberately inflaming a difficult situation is a bad idea.
You are supposing it's possible to know that much about some things that maybe are not knowledgeable to us, even with these tools. Life is extremely complex, more than it's typically assumed by engineering-minded people. Let's be humble here and acknowledge it.
Why couldn't it be unknowable? I am not saying that it is, but it could be. The human brain has its limits and things could me too complex for us to understand enough to be able to modify them at will. We could understand a lot, but not enough to manipulate it with certainty. Biology is not physics.
I would acknowledge that. I don't think these things are remotely possible any time soon with current rates of progress.
However, I think people tend to fail to acknowledge the product of exponential trends, so the question in my mind is more whether or not you believe AI will unlock an exponential increase in the rate of progress and understanding. Extremely complex is still finite complexity at the end of the day.
Maybe AI won't significantly increase the rate of progress across all scientific fields. I am fairly confident it will significantly increase the rate of progress over at least some though, and it seems likely to me that biological progresses will be much easier for us to model and predict with AI. I'm much less sure about progress in domains like physics and robotics.
Well but that would be a problem for keeping the car infinitely running with only solar power. But what about just passively charging it while idle? Cars sit idle most of the time.
I think even if they agree at first, this can be traumatic anyway. If I remember correctly, I read about Vietnam veterans that killed civilians including children out of anger and then were horribly traumatized. So both things can be true.
Thank you for this nuanced position,. I understand what you're saying totally, as I perceive it like that, too, being non-Jewish.
However, as you stated, the recent acts of Israel's current government are not only horrendous and cruel, but I think are also causing a lot of harm to Israel itself, alienating its allies and creating a permanent state of war that Israel cannot survive on its own. It's idiotic thinking that everything will be fine if the Iranian regime falls. Permanent war is a brittle and dangerous position for everybody involved.
We see hate everywhere to China and Russia every time in way higher levels than to Israel. Is that racist, too? Russia is also embargoed for doing the same things Israel does. Why isn't Israel embargoed? Antisemitism, too?
The US sadly just do the fuck they want, but I think they get a lot of criticism here in Europe at least. The only thing in what Israel is unique about is that it seems there are no consequences for their actions.
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