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You don't see the difference between the position
Yeah but would they exist if Israel wasn’t oppressing? That’s the million dollar question. Until one knows, one probably shouldn’t use the language that they exist because of the oppression.
Hard to say. Hamas was founded following decades of Israeli occupation. Do I think an extremist, militant, anti-Semite group would still exist? Yeah, probably. But the modern form of Hamas, being the de-facto governing body of the city of Gaza, I would find it hard to believe that would exist without the decades of explicit war crimes and oppression. Extremist groups tend to thrive and gain power in circumstances where people feel they are being treated unjustly or are under immediate threat by an outside force.
I think it's fine to reach conclusions based on evidence, even if we don't have a parallel time line reality we can look into. I feel comfortable in saying that Hamas would certainly not exist in its current form without the compounding effects of decades of oppression of the Palestinain people.
Wouldn’t exist in its current form? Would they be kinder? That’s a little vague. But I don’t think we can know. Perhaps it would be them oppressing the Jews. I guess we’ll never know.
No, I mean they would most likely not have the significant power, resources and numbers that they do.
Right. So what's the point of the question?
They didn't have the power to. But if you gave any of those guys who paraglided in a nuclear trigger, my guess is that they'd all use it without compunction. Israel on the hand, probably has nukes but doesn't use them. There's an abstract leap you have to make with this.
Did you read my post carefully? I was NOT talking about Palestinians, I was talking about their few, terrorist "leaders". Plus, I suggested imprisoning them.
The open secret is no longer secret.
Well the nazi's came into existence, and probably had those same kinds of feelings, but no one today would say they were justified in having them. But if your economy stinks because of lost wars and inflation, then that is where a population is probably is at risk for contracting general extremism. But today, we simply say the nazi's were straight up anti-semites / anti-outgroup, and they were, simply because they needed a scapegoat. All populations that failed at prosperity need one, because simply blaming circumstances that you (sometimes) can't control is ineffective, because an abstract concept can't feel your pain
I think every honest person makes that distinction.
What does "freeing Palestine" look like and how can Israel make it clear to protesters around the world that Israel is trying to liberate Palestine in the face of the lived reality of Israel's bombing of Gaza?
Israel can make a transparent news statement explaining that Palestine has been controlled by Terror for years , the people persecuted from within Palestine . They can explain that yes unfortunately some civilians may be accidently killed if they haven't moved out of the way like Israel explained to do . Freedom always comes with a cost of life unfortunately . In England many many years we overthrew our King at the times , think it was king James , that cost life but we became free .
I agree. I don't believe Hamas being a result of Israeli war crimes and occupations necessarily justifies the actions or aims of Hamas.
I think you can still hold groups personally responsible for their ideologies and actions while still acknowledging the material circumstances that lead to them. I mean, if I believed that material circumstances alleviate personal responsibility for acts, I wouldn't be able to criticise both Hamas and Israel the way I do. If we're going to argue that previous wrongs can go some way towards justifying subsequent wrongs, we find ourselves with no moral basis to make any judgement whatsoever.
It's not as simple as "If Gaza had good people in power", because having good people in power also relies on the material conditions, needs and desire of the people. If the people of Gaza were less concerned with having war crimes inflicted on them by an invasive outside force, they would probably be less pliable to the violent extremists who promise "liberatory" violence than the would the people concerned with building resorts. I'm fairly certain the people of Gaza are somewhat more motivated by the sentiment "Those people bombing your homes and killing your children deserve violent death" than by the sentiment "You know what we need? Tourism!"
You could still do it, you'd just word it slightly differently, because the ontology would be different. There would be more of a stress on the 'impersonal' material forces, of a sort, that took the form of present forms. Alternatively, you would have to be prepared to argue that there is something special in humans themselves, that prevents them from being a completely blank slate that is shaped by mere material conditions. I think humans are special in that way, but it seems evidenced to be rare. I don't know
Well we are talking about both in this case, aren't we, because all of the people there probably have a deep feeling about the history of the land. In what way, in your thinking, is the autonomy factor within humans separable from the physical / material factor? What do they bring to the table, which cannot be traced back to the material.
Well where does it start? I can't believe that the Israelis want to purposely create a neighbor that would viciously attack them. Who wants that? What purpose would that possibly serve?
There are extremist and violent groups everywhere, and yet not everywhere do those extremist groups hold significant power. Why do you think they hold power in Gaza? Is there some inherent, material moral failing that people who live in that region all seem to possess that allows them to be more favourable to extremist voices, or do you take the position that the material conditions of those people can be a significant influence on ideology and outcomes? Like I said, I think it makes perfect sense for the people of Palestine to be much more motivated by a sentiment that promises retribution against their oppressors than a sentiment that says "we need more infrastructure for tourism", and I think it's pretty obvious why this isn't simply a result of a moral failings of millions of people.
They get to then attack that neighbour and seize their land. I mean, what was it that Nazi Germany got out of scapegoating Jews and socialists? Turns out they got a lot. They used it as a pretext to attack their ideological enemies, consolidate state power and annex neighbouring territory in the name of the fatherland.
From a purely strategic perspective, if I was surrounded by enemies, I would fight hard to get non-gerrymandered borders. The WB is sort of the poster child for excessively gerrymandered, indefensible borders.
Is it really surprising that you find yourself surrounded by enemies when you invade them, steal their land, kill their people, deny their basic rights and continually colonise the areas you have forced them into? I mean, it's not like these regions weren't already very, very anti-Semitic anyway, which hardly helps. The question is whether or not subsequent events have made that problem worse or better.
"no one"? Seriously?
I suppose I was optimistic that such people are rare in modern thinkers, who form the foundation of general society
