You made 2 affirmative claims:
1. Israel occupies
They do.
They do.
And, no, Israel does not occupy. The legal term is that there is
disputed land. For there to be an occupation, there would have to be a sovereign power claiming rights to an area. Since there is none, the land is disputed. This is an element of international law.
See, this is what I mean by justifying actions through abstraction.
"Oh no, Israel isn't illegally occupying land. That land is "disputed". The fact that the land used to belong to one state and now is being occupied by another is purely coincidental. What's that? How did the land BECOME "disputed"? Oh, who knows? Must be Palestine's fault somehow."
Can you show me what "Palestinian" territory is?
Not right now. Their territory has been constantly shrinking since 1947.
Sure it is. When Israel left Gaza (the most recent time...it has happened before) the Gazans had the chance to live on their own. Google how quickly the rocket fire FROM Gaza began. There was no existential crisis for them and yet...
Once again, you show a disingenuous side. When talking about Israel, it's unfair to do so "in a void", but suddenly you're acting as if years of imperialist aggression should count for nothing when shelling occurs from the other side. This is nonsense, war-justifying rhetoric. I've never once justified any bombing, and have explicitly condemned Hamas, but if we really want to go on the "our bombings are justified while there's aren't" road, perhaps you seriously need to reconsider your perspective on this issue. NONE of these bombings happen "in a vacuum" and yet, when you take the totality of the history of this area into account, it is undeniable that Israel the far more aggressive, invading force in the conflict. Extremism exists on both sides, but the extremism of Israeli aggression clearly is having a far more deadly impact than the extremism of Palestinian antisemitism.
And now you claim that Israel is a genocidal force (you should check on Arab population numbers...they are INCREASING. Worst. Genocide. Ever.)
I have met Nazis who used increasing numbers of Jewish people in Europe throughout world war 2 to imply there was no holocaust. I don't go in for that argument. What I look at are actual treatment, displacement and rights. Right now, Israel treats Arab-Israelis as second-class citizens, has displaced hundreds of thousands of them, and is continuing to displace more through their illegal annexing of territory. This meets the UN definition of genocide.
hell-bent on wiping out "Palestinians" which must explain all the attempts to give territory for the creation of another Arab state. Note that the Arab chant (and Hamas's logo) include the utter removal of the state of Israel completely. You have your sides mixed up when it comes to an urge to remove the 'other.'
Again, you're using their rhetoric to justify stealing their territory and killing them.
Claims herein:
1. an intimation (not a claim, true) that I attributed a position to you vis-a-vis blamelessness. I didn't.
To be clear, I did not claim that you did. I was just clarifying my position. I'm not pro-Hamas, nor in favour of terrorism against - or the destruction of - the state of Israel, as this is often a conclusion people leap to in these kinds of debates. To be fair, you have yet to leap to that conclusion so far and I'm willing to believe you are debating in good faith.
2. numbers of casualties, if not equal, are somehow telling of blame
Not of blame per se, but of actual harm. If you're going to argue that shelling of Palestine is justified by their shelling of Israel, then Palestinian shelling is - de facto - "more justified" because of the disproportionate violence committed by the Israeli state against them. Going by pure numbers, the crimes of the state of Israel against Palestinians outweigh crimes committed by Palestine against Isareal, so talk of their genocidal intentions against Israel ring somewhat hollow. You may argue that, given a swap in positions, Hamas would be doing far worse things than it is now against Israelis,
but it's hard to take that argument seriously when Israel is currently ENGAGED IN DOING THAT VERY SAME THING against Palestine. "They would genocide us, so we need to genocide them harder" is no a convincing argument that Israel is genuinely interested in a peaceful solution.
3. Israel has borders that you are aware of as being binding and any movement beyond your opinion is illegal
This is where things get bizarre. So, all borders are ephermeral, and you would make this exact same statement if Palestine invaded Israel and stole land from Israeli people and/or displaced hundreds of thousands of Israelis? I doubt it. You know what it means to annex territory.
4. I have not given thought to something and yet we have not met (have you given thought to the Israelis displaced? in 1948, the numbers were similar)
I have. I dislike displacement. Which is why Israel displacing 300,000 Palestinians is not justified by the displacement of any Israelis. How does this follow?
5. force must be proportionate in conflict
This is an odd intimation. I care about moral outcomes. If there were a country, say, committing genocide within its borders and a larger, more powerful country intervened militarily to stop it, I would not be against such an action. But if there's one country using disproportionate power to enact genocide and steal land from their neighbour, yes I am against it. It's not about the relative power. It's about what the states are doing.
6. you have an insight, the only correct one, into Israeli foreign policy. Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
So, having an opinion on a thing means I must believe I am "the only correct one" on a particular subject and must think myself some kind of genius.
Come on. This is utterly bad faith logic you would never apply to any other position. "Oh, you think the Nazis were bad? Well you must have an insight, the only correct one, into Nazi foreign policy."
Get over it. I don't play those childish games and I believe you are capable of better than that.
If that is what you get from my statements then there is no value in further discussion because you cannot glean from what I actually said anything resembling my position.
If that is not your position then you need to amend your arguments, because that is a reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from them. You literally justify Israeli foreign policy on the basis that they are better at using rockets than Palestine. You think killing and displacing Palestinian people is justified because, given the chance, they would kill and displace Israelis. These are no unreasonable conclusions to come to when looking at the justifications you are presenting.
There has been no attempt to kill anyone en masse. You are allowing your own inflamed rhetoric create a reality which simply doesn't exist.
Israel displaced hundreds of thousands of people, deny Palestinians in occupied territory aid, refuse to allow human rights groups to examine their practices, and continue to shell Palestinian territory. They are killing people en masse.
Your blinders and filters seem to be working about as well as can be expected. Have a nice day.
Ditto.