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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
What’s your point, then, in citing Netanyahu’s culpability in response to my point about Hamas’ culpability in creating a situation in which murderers could commit murder?
I stipulate, as does every person who’s moderately read on the subject, to his culpability in creating a situation in which murderers could commit murder.
So tell me why, after having no substantive response to my prior points about Hamas being the sole bad actor here as having initially committed murders, why you offered “But what about Bibi’s negligence and opportunism?”
Was W at fault entirely for 9/11? Al Qaeda was like a natural disaster? He should have compelled us to be ready, and the US deserved it because we left Afghanistan to rebuild itself after helping it to push out the Russians?
You seem to want to refute my excoriating Hamas. Okay. But you can’t get there by citing Bibi’s failures and opportunism. So, then, what, if you’ve one, is the basis for you objecting to my assertion that Hamas is entirely at fault here because it murdered civilians. What’s your defense that that was not and is never an acceptable behavior?
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You seem to want to live in a world where one party is right and the other is wrong. (As someone else said on Twitter recently, one thing that die-hard supporters of both Israel and Palestine agree on is that if you just read enough history and go back far enough, you will learn that one side is right and the other is wrong.)
This exchange started with someone saying they support Israel. I said, I do too, but IMO part of supporting Israel is pointing out when it makes mistakes. Bibi is not "culpable" for Hamas's murder and torture of innocent civilians, but there is no denying that he has made a number of decisions, both for his own political benefit and out of his view of what is best for Israel, that made the Hamas threat to Israel worse. You just agreed.
You say,
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So tell me why, after having no substantive response to my prior points about Hamas being the sole bad actor here as having initially committed murders, why you offered “But what about Bibi’s negligence and opportunism?”
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Well, three things. One, I disagree that Hamas is the "sole" bad actor here, because Israel has done a bunch of things over time that I think are bad actions, including, for example, letting soldiers shoot unarmed civilians and then covering it up, and seizing Palestinian land for settlements. Two, your word "initially" does a lot of work in framing the current situation as if nothing that happened before the last two weeks to get us to where we are -- e.g., it exonerates Israel for making a series of decisions that blocked a path to peace and empowered Hamas. Three, I don't see why a conversation about how we got to where we are should ignore what Israel has done. Ignoring facts is not the way to support Israel.
You can choose to pretend that Israel has steadfastly and generously offered Palestinians a path to self-sufficient nationhood, negotiating reasonably and in good faith, only to be betrayed by irrational acts of terrorism. Have the self-awareness to realize there is much more to the story.
