Related questions
🤷♀️ most loaded question I have seen in 2023
@RockingChair Sadly, I agree that it's unlikely that Hamas will release the hostages or that the IDF will rescue most of them, but a few of the hostages have been released and one has been rescued, so there is some hope on the margins. Ideally, military operations should prioritize the further rescues of hostages (though I have no military experience, so I don't what kind of tactics that would involve).
@RockingChair The IDF saved all the hostages that were held in their houses by Hamas in the Kibbuztim and the Israeli towns in 7.10, so I think there is some hope that the IDF could save some hostages again. But of course, in Gaza it's a different thing
@RockingChair this comment aged surprisingly poorly (though I'm not sure I would have been able to predict that at the time)
The IDF doesn't care about hostages, let alone incentivising hostage-taking. They actually benefit substantially by rescuing hostages because it makes them look good to the public. So they can agree for Hamas to take hostages and let Israel save them in exchange for hitting Hamas 95% as hard (Hamas also assigns zero intrinsic value to Israeli lives, so this agreement is beneficial for them too).
@ooe133 Super stupid argument. The IDF saved 100% of the hostages that were trapped in the towns in 7.10, and have previously even gave Hamas 1027 terrorist in exchange for 1 captured soldier. They care about their civilians' lives far more than you think. Israel isn't Hamas, dont be a retard.
List of hostages can be simply put into "Enemy's resources: other" folder. Unless they help with elimination. Then, they are either disaster, that happens to enemy's resources, or citizens who should be kept closer to the height of power, to be secure about their rivalry.
(Legalism takes as a basis that no sane individual human will agree to be loyal to the perfect system. It is the direct result of human nature being dumb+evil and any ideals comprehensive to human mind being unreachable)
@dph121 The way I saw Israel define it, it’s to eliminate their leadership, active members and their extensive Gaza Infrastructure. This is about accountability and capability.
We know that accountability help reduce future negative action, this is foundation to how every single modern human society is built.
@gpt4 Thanks for answering the question. That gives a good sense of their perspective.
Unfortunately, it's pretty clearly mistaken.
Peaceful human societies pretty much always have mutual accountability, at least among the people powerful enough to exact violence on one another. When someone holds others accountable but doesn't let themselves be held accountable to them - like a slave owner to their slaves, a colonial regime to its subjects, or an absolute monarch to their subjects - violence is the last resort of those rendered incompetent.
Modern societies have a strong basis of mutual accountability between those in power. If they lack mutual accountability in some respect they usually see violence in that same respect, such as BLM riots in response to unaccountable police. Police have been holding black people accountable for centuries, but that didn't prevent BLM riots or stop them in the end. Political efforts towards police being more accountable to the public did (even if many were more symbolic than functional).
It is possible to reduce capability, but there's a considerable overlap between what someone needs to survive and what someone needs to be capable of violence. Jews in Nazi ghettoes managed to stage violent uprisings in the middle of the holocaust, so Palestinians will definitely continue to be capable of violence given Israel's more humane treatment of them.
@dph121 You are welcome to try justifying the atrocities committed by Hamas against civilians. I don’t support apologists of terrorist acts. I also hope that you can see that your examples of BLM protests or the Jewish revolts in the Ghettos did not result in mass murders of civilians.
In any case, this doesn’t detract from the fact the Israel wishes to hold Hamas accountable for their actions and reduce their capability of performing future similar actions. Accountability is one of the key mechanisms for peace and safety also between foreign actors, and especially against terrorism. Not just inside the nation. You can see for example what happens when an actor like Russia doesn’t feel it will be held accountable (because of the nuke card). I don't think that Russia's neighbors appreciate their presence.
@dph121 Your Holocaust is example is not great, for several reasons. You may not want to hear this, but there are many important population-level differences between Jews and Palestinians. It is important to be aware of them you're a good forecaster. Just as there are population-level differences between men and women.
Likewise, BLM is also not a response to the awful treatment Black Americans faced before 1965. It's not really a response to the excesses of policing (where there are some legitimate grievances). It's an extremist movement that endorses Hamas and wants to defund the police even though that gets more black people killed.
It seems that you are trying to explain away BLM and Hamas in a way that makes sense to center-left people, in the same way that people tried to explain away Bolsheviks as oh they are just upset with the Tsar, and the same way that center-leftists in Iran said oh Khomeini is just a preacher. Or for that matter, the same way people said oh the Nazis are just doing antisemitic rhetoric for populist purposes, they are mostly just upset about Versailles.
These kinds of groups need to be brutally crushed. Every crazy extremist movement has a veneer of legitimate grievances that allow it to gain popularity and legitimacy (and indeed, Israel needs a new government without Ben Gvir and Smotrich types ASAP), but it's not about these grievances and addressing them doesn't actually stop the movement. However, addressing those grievances is often helpful on its own terms and helps with convincing the center-left of the true nature of reality. I'm of course totally in favor of making life better for Palestinians, Blacks, etc. But you're just wrong if you think that's what groups like Hamas and BLM want.
Israeli Arabs have a Greek-level GDP/capita (unparalleled and not remotely comparable to other non-oil-rich Middle Eastern countries) and political freedoms; they can vote. There was an Arab party in the past Israeli government. Not in this retarded government, which you would be right to criticize. Do you see any envy for them in the Arab world? Does that make you re-evaluate your assumptions?
@nathanwei @gpt4 You both seem to be somewhat outraged at the idea of treating Hamas members as humans. That doesn't seem like a good idea if you want to be good forecasters.
Whether or not movements like Hamas arise because of the actions of unaccountable powerful opponents like Israel does not affect the moral position of Hamas (which is a violent terrorist organization that can't be negotiated with in both cases). It affects what strategies would be good for Israel. This question is about what strategy would be good for Israel, so the moral position or objectives of Hamas are not a factor.
If Hamas arises because of unaccountable Israeli violence, then Israel making itself accountable to innocent Palestinians or their next of kin would reduce Hamas-like terrorism in the future. If Hamas arises because of "population-level differences", then Israel seeking to even out those differences would probably reduce future terrorism (it might also constitute cultural genocide if done heavy-handedly, but at least it has a chance of succeeding at the supposed goal).
If Israel does not attempt these actions, then Israel is choosing to perpetuate the cycle of violence, which seems like an unwise plan in the long term. Neither actions proposed in the OP would reduce long-term terrorist activity, so it makes sense to prioritize the one that saves lives.
And yes, I am comfortable betting against "population-level differences" between two human ethnic groups that can't be evened out. That's a claim with a long historical tradition of turning out bogus once cultural differences have been swept away.
@dph121 I am not outraged by the idea of treating Hamas members as Humans. But I still take issue with your premise. The Nazis arose because of the actions of unaccountable powerful opponents like Britain, who forced Versailles on them. But what strategy ended up working for Britain? The Dresden strategy.
I do agree that the Xinjiang strategy, if faithfully implemented, would solve the problem. I don't advocate it, but as an empirical matter it could. Israel is not willing or able to do this.
Hamas does not arise because of "unaccountable Israeli violence" but rather because of irredentist Palestinian Islamists who think that Israel has to be destroyed.
Yes, I think the problem can be solved with a lot of coercion. And I think that's the right solution. Just as with the Nazis.
@gpt4 Did you claim that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising didn’t lead to mass murder of the Warsaw Ghetto in retaliation?
@DanPowell No. I was replying to a comment equating the actions of Hamas to the uprising done by the Jewish in the Ghetto (and BLM protests), pointing out that in both cases, those uprising did not murder a mass amount of civilians.
@gpt4 BLM protests certainly led to the murder of a mass amount of civilians (and not in retaliation, but rather by criminals who certainly agreed with the goals of BLM, and who BLM never denounced). Look at murder rates after June 2020. See https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1719312040047587719 .