Quote:
Originally Posted by Ibby
You probably say the same about Native Americans?
What's the difference?
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I responded to your posts because you seem to be taking a one-sided perspective on this issue. Especially when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anyone can give a never-ending list of arguments that support their particular side. However, none of those arguments really mean anything until the rationality and motives of both sides are looked into.
To even begin to look at this conflict from a half-way unbiased perspective is to realize that both sides legitimately believe they are acting defensively, and justify their killings based on past actions by the other side. The similarities split from there since both sides have completely different strategies when attacking the other. Israel unquestionably has the military advantage, so both sides are going to play their role. Hamas can not go toe to toe with Israel or they would be quickly eliminated, so they are going to blend in with their surroundings and more or less perform guerrilla warfare. Israel has no ability to separate Hamas militants from civilians (that is the point of Hamas' strategy) and can not just let their selves be attacked so they will try their best to prevent "collateral damage" and respond with their superior weaponry but will end up killing many more civilians than militants.
Now that is the overall strategy. That doesn't mean that rogue warriors on either side will stray from it, which many on both sides do. Anyways, due to this split in strategy it is easy for anyone supporting a particular side to say the other side is unethical while the actions by the side they support are justified. In reality, neither side has ethical grounds for their actions but, as humans should know by now, war is rarely ever carried out on ethical grounds. It is carried out by people who are going to inflict as much pain to the other team while receiving the least amount as possible. That is reality.
As a side note, I have disagreements with both sides from a realist perspective. I see the issue as much deeper and violent reactions are just band-aid solutions to real problem of ideologues and power disparities.
On to genocide. This is another aspect where it is easy to take something out of context and claim the opposing side is trying to commit genocide on the side you support. First of all, even if a single person within a group admits they want to wipe the other side off the map, it doesn't necessarily mean anything since that group may not be representative of that single statement. Every organization has people with their own motives and perspectives trying to exert power over the organization. Israel has it batshit crazy Zionists who want all of Palestine for Israel and are willing to kill all the Palestinians to get it while Palestine has its radical terrorists would won't stop until every Jew has been removed from Israeli lands. However, I would not consider either of these views representative of the larger organizations.
Second, all of these quotes are translations and the original word may have a completely different meaning or context (that is my argument against "The Bible says it" for anti-gay marriage people). Also, it is unclear from your quote whether the Defense Minister meant Palestine, Hamas, or the military wing of Hamas. The implications are vastly different depending on what he meant. One is legitimate genocide and other is typical warfare. I'm guessing it is the later. This is why I attacked your quote.
As a final thought, whether I consider what happened to the American Indians a genocide or not is completely semantic. In general, the United States had a policy of expansion where it gave natives the choice of unwanted lands or death (if they fought back). Since (in general), the policy wasn't to deliberately eliminate the natives way of living, the actions can be considered genocide in some senses and not in others.
I personally don't have stance because I see it as purely semantics. However, I do acknowledge that the American way of living fully benefited from the displacement and death of the native people. Take that how you want because I take it in more than one way.