Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

No, not exclusively. Israel also has agency.

And Israel is using that agency to act appropriately. Its providing time for Gazans to evacuate, and it is telling people near Hamas locations that it is going to bomb those locations, to avoid civilian casualties.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

And Israel is using that agency to act appropriately.

Are the water and electricity still shut off?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Let’s kill the “look at another cause” argument right here. Because it is garbage.

Netanyahu is at fault. Significant fault. He did strengthen Hamas as part of a cynical strategy to avoid a two state solution. Totally true from what I’ve read.

And he should be held responsible for doing that. And will be.

But that is a different thing from what Hamas did, and never let anyone conflate them. His crime is setting the stage for violence. Hamas then engaged in violence.

Making the argument that Netanyahu is responsible is a dodge. It is meant to detract from what Hamas did. Hamas had agency. It could’ve bombed. It could’ve held territory or even taken hostages and traded them for concessions. Instead, it massacred civilians.

Netanyahu owns his sin of setting the stage. But to attempt to change the subject and focus on him with the silly suggestion he’s somehow culpable for Hamas’ acts is deflection too moronic for serious consideration. It’s also the dumbest victim shaming. “You knew Cletus packed and was a mean drunk and bought him whiskey because you wanted to hit on his cute sister who was also at the bar! You deserve him shooting you!”

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Let’s kill the “look at another cause” argument right here. Because it is garbage.

Netanyahu is at fault. Significant fault. He did strengthen Hamas as part of a cynical strategy to avoid a two state solution. Totally true from what I’ve read.

And he should be held responsible for doing that. And will be.

But that is a different thing from what Hamas did, and never let anyone conflate them. His crime is setting the stage for violence. Hamas then engaged in violence.

Making the argument that Netanyahu is responsible is a dodge. It is meant to detract from what Hamas did. Hamas had agency. It could’ve bombed. It could’ve held territory or even taken hostages and traded them for concessions. Instead, it massacred civilians.

Netanyahu owns his sin of setting the stage. But to attempt to change the subject and focus on him with the silly suggestion he’s somehow culpable for Hamas’ acts is deflection too moronic for serious consideration. It’s also the dumbest victim shaming. “You knew Cletus packed and was a mean drunk and bought him whiskey because you wanted to hit on his cute sister who was also at the bar! You deserve him shooting you!”

No one here has said that Netanyahu is culpable for Hamas's acts. If you want to engage with stupid things that no one reasonable is saying, that's what Twitter is for. If you want to engage with other people here, read what they are actually saying and respond to that.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

No one here has said that Netanyahu is culpable for Hamas's acts. If you want to engage with stupid things that no one reasonable is saying, that's what Twitter is for. If you want to engage with other people here, read what they are actually saying and respond to that.

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?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

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?

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,

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?”

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

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.)

I want to separate the issues. What Hamas did was uniquely reprehensible. I don't think it improves the discussion to note that Bibi enabled this. The focus for the moment should be on what Hamas did. Shifting it allows for consideration of something heinous in a broader context in which the grievousness and severity of it is obscured.

These killings were bloodthirsty in a manner (Manson Family-esque) that sets them apart from all the killings done by both sides previously. For this reason, they need to be examined in a vacuum more than they do within a broader context.

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.

Yes, he enabled Hamas to acquire significant power and was negligent in sustaining vigilant security. Nobody, however, ever guessed they'd then use it to commit something that looks like the country was attacked by a band of Jeffrey Dahmers.

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.

Looking at it literally might help. Israel is a bad actor in doing what you've cited.

Hamas is a psychotic death cult indistinguishable from Isis in doing what it has done.

Both are bad. One's many orders of magnitude worse, so significantly so that comparison of the badness of the two isn't warranted.

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.

Again, what Hamas did was so disturbing and psychotic (clinically) that it is the start of something new. It's a new era for Hamas/Israel confrontation - one in which Israel is now at war with not a political movement, or even a terrorist movement, but a group of homicidal maniacs.

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.

Agreed. But when a thing as new, bizarre, and disturbing as what Hamas did occurs, there must be a recognition that we're in a new dawn. Things are different, and the present does not at all resemble the past. A crime as insane and severe as Hamas' is not of the same stripe as the "bad" things Israel and Hamas have done to each other in the past. And it shouldn't be so treated. One of the two combatants has lost its mind, is in the criminally psychotic bucket with Isis.

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.

I fully agree that Israel has many sins on its hands here. But it has tried, at least. Every time it would seek to get to a solution however, Arafat would demand a right of return, which he knew was a deal breaker. He did it intentionally, because he didn't really want a solution any more than Bibi or Hamas.

These are all lamentable bad acts. But again, they do not even approach the mental illness and depravity displayed by Hamas last week.