The existence of terrorists justify the ongoing slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has already claimed the lives of over 41,000 civilians, 14,000 of them are infants under the age of 1?
This doesn't even account for all the bodies unaccounted for that are buried in the rubble. Are you that incapable of basic human empathy to recognize what's going on?
Putting 100% of the blame on either of the sides in this one is not a terribly good idea. Sometimes a conflict has a clear historical oppressed and oppressor, but this particular one has each of the two sides doing quite a bit of foul play for over a century. The Arabs more in the earlier days, the Israelis more in the recent days.
Dealing specifically with the use of human shields, while yes they do get used, at a certain point you shouldn't just be shooting through them just because you can. Israel is also not sufficiently meeting its obligation to help distribute the food and care for the innocent people displaced by this war. If they were to do so, perhaps they could leave the next generation with less hatred in their hearts.
shouldn’t just be shooting through them just because you can
All this really does is reward using civilian shields. Hamas can 10/7 all they want and all they have to do to avoid consequences is hide behind civilians who themselves have a non-zero chance of being volunteers.
That's true. We should not necessarily be taking the most extreme measures to simply render the tactic fully ineffective, though. At a certain level it has to be allowed to work, because its leveraging against our humanity, which we should not be discarding too completely. Beyond even the ethical concerns, disregarding them too much creates future strategic problems by instilling more hatred in future generations.
It's a question of where to draw the line. It's been particularly egregious in Gaza, where unlike Lebanon, there was nowhere really safe to flee to.
Yeah, it's very Nietzschian in that using civ shields as a basic strategy desensitizes your enemy to it and you get what we have now. People pushing the button with their feet up on the desk, eating a sandwich and watching whatever soap opera is on the TV. What's that quote? '10 deaths is a tragedy, forty-thousand a statistic'? The worst part is no matter how this gets eventually resolved we'll just be right back here within a decade afterwards because nobody learns the lesson.
Every single rationalization that I’ve heard Israel and the US use for the inhuman violence they are inflicting, if applied consistently, would also justify both October 7 and the behavior of Hezbollah. “We have a right to defend ourselves.” “They deserve it because they are terrorists that target innocent civilians.” “This is our land.” “They hide behind civilians.” “We support our Allies without condition”. Secondly, “secularism” is worthless if it is employed in the the service of racism and fascism. Thirdly, please examine history and realize that all of this brutality always, always sows the seeds of more violence that will be visited upon you later. Israelis are sacrificing their own long term security for the sake of wanton short term bloodlust. It’s sick, self destructive and short sighted.
I should also point out that invoking “secularism” in defense of Israeli brutality is absurd. Religious exceptionalism is a foundational characteristic of that state. The fanatical zealots that run their current government invoke religious providence all the time when rationalizing their own brutal policies. Lastly, the root of US patronage for Israel, the thing that allows the state to persist at all, is evangelical Christians who hope to usher in the end times described by their religion.