Dear Readers:
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I would like to address the issue of war atrocities. To incite thought, I saw this video which mostly consists of a speech by Norman Finkelstein, which he gave to an audience of Princeton students:
It’s a long video, almost 2 hours, but well worth watching. After the initial introductions, Chris Hedges utters a few sentences, then hands the baton over to Norman Finkelstein. Who delivers what I consider to be a profound and very philosophical speech that extends well beyond the immediate topic of Hamas vs Israel.
Finkelstein is an actual Jewish thinker of our times, in my opinion probably the successor to Noam Chomsky as a leading political dissident and intellectual. He tries to deal with reality as it is. There are no easy answers. He has studied the Hamas “prison break-out”. He knows that Hamas actually did commit atrocities against innocents, and this troubles him. And yet his support for the Palestinian cause is unwavering. He comes up with a formulation: One may “condemn the atrocity” but not feel forced or obliged to condemn the perpetrators themselves, provided their overall cause is just. He draws some stark analogies with the Nat Turner slave rebellion in the American South. Turner did not order his followers to use the minimum amount of violence and make a run for freedom; on the contrary, he ordered them to “kill all white people”, including babies. And the rebellious slaves proceeded to chop off the heads of white babies. Literally. This is an obvious case where one is free to condemn the atrocities committed by the slaves, and yet not condemn their overall cause, which was Freedom for the slaves. And the same goes for the Palestinians. They had the god-given right to rise up against their Occupiers.
In my mind’s eye, I can imagine this one-sided debate between Finkelstein and, let’s say, the odious Piers Morgan:
Piers: “Hamas murdered hundreds of innocent civilians in cold blood. Do you condemn them? Yes or no?
Finkelstein : “It’s not that simple….”
Piers: “It IS that simple. Yes or no?”
Finkelstein : “It’s only simple for simpletons like yourself. I have a much larger brain than you, so I get to be more nuanced…”
Speaking of simpletons, let us approach this dilemma in terms of binary logic and truth tables. One variable is the end goal itself, for example the purpose of the insurrection. That goal could be seen as good or bad in and of itself, depending on one’s political views. Then there are the means used to accomplish that goal, and those means could also be categorized (very simplistically) as 2 distinct types: nice or horrible. Doing the binary math, this gives us 4 possible results:
- End goal is hideous (e.g., “totalitarian fascism”) and means used are evil (e.g., chopping off baby heads). Result = EVIL
- End goal is hideous but the means used are acceptable (no violence, people go into the voting booth and vote for Hitler). Result = EVIL (even so)
- End goal is wonderful (e.g., blissful state of freedom and equality for all humanity) but atrocities are employed in the process. Result = GOOD (with moral ambiguities and much pearl-clutching).
- End goal is wonderful and only wonderful means are used to accomplish. Result = MARVELOUS!
In my youth, I used to have these kinds of debates all the time, when re-litigating the Bolshevik Revolution. Because I would support the Reds and maybe the other person would support the Whites. And they would always bring up Bolshevik atrocities. My first impulse was to deny that such atrocities had actually occurred; or maybe they had been hyped. The other approach (more sophisticated) being the “so’s your old man” retort. Pointing out that Whites also committed atrocities every bit as heinous, or even more so, than the Reds. War is hell.
In the end, I think we simply have to stipulate that all we human beings are nasty, violent apes, and that we will always behave like nasty violent apes, no matter how noble our goals are. (Well, except for me, of course, I would never commit an act of violence, no matter what.) And with that constant in place, well, do you see what it does? It cancels out that one variable, so that we are left with just one consideration: Is the cause a just one? Yes or no?
Dear Humans: Please forgive me if, in my philosophical/mathematical ponderings, I just cancelled out all of Morals and Ethics. Oh well, more room on the library shelves for the more important books about armaments and weapons systems!
Awful Avalanche 
So you fully accept the slaveowners’ atrocity propaganda about Nat Turner? Just like the Israelis’ fable about 40 beheaded babies…some things never change.
The Israelis try to keep the world focused on October 7th and their narrative about what happened that day. Every day we see Hamas fighting the Israeli military and the Israelis slaughtering innocents and committing war crimes yet the “civilized” world still gives the Israelis the moral high ground.
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During about a couple of weeks after Hamas operation on 7th October 2023, there were comments that now disappeared. They said that Hamas killed mainly Israeli soldiers. OTOH hundreds of casualties were because of Israeli helicopters that came and shot at everything moving on the ground : these helicopter’s pilots had no instructions and could not distinguish the enemies (Hamas) from civilians.
Now I wonder if this is true or not and if this can be used as an argument.
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From what I understand, it has been established as factual that Israelis killed a lot of their own, either as accidental “friendly fire” or deliberately (“Hannibal Directive”). That certainly can be (and has been) used as an argument to counter Israeli propaganda, and a rather powerful one at that.
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My problem is : just after Oct. 7 events, some mainstream media did tell the truth. But this is completely forgotten especially here in France. What is left is this lie about 1200 peaceful Israelis slaughtered by bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists. Makes me mad.
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By the same token, Westies who only read mainstream media, still believe that the Russian army randomly murdered Ukrainian civilians in Bucha.
Atrocity porn is obviously an effective technique to whip people up against a certain side. But whether or not actual atrocities occurred, is not really what I was trying to address in my post, my purpose was something different, which most of my readers don’t seem to get. They seem to think it’s about refuting Hamas atrocity stories. But that’s the point of a different post, not this particular one. Oh well…
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actually the claim that Israeli helicopters targeted their own was debunked precisely because the only source was the official Tsahal YouTube channel (a 55 second video showing a blur image of a helicopter shooting at alleged fighters) and the questions asked by one editorialist of the journal haaretz. The explanation given was absolutely coherent since it was later known that hundreds of gaza civilians also took part in the looting (including stealing personal items of dead civilians, some being caught in CCTV) so the pilot of the helicopters warned his officer of the presence of people without uniform nor visible weapons). The Hannibal directive applies only in very specific cases, not this one.
About the casualties, it is often reduced by politicians or médias to the number 1200.. but the official numbers are explicit. If not all bodies have been recovered, somed of them, or some body parts were taken by Hamas goons inside gaea, some were burnt to ashes..) but overall there are around 900 civilians murdered and 300 soldiers killed (most of them being unarmed, including many female intelligence officers). Being a soldier doesn’t mean you can be killed anyway or anyhow. Killing an unarmed soldier is considered a war crime.
There is not much to worry about any “lie”. Jews are very attached to their duties regarding burial, mourning etc so all the informations are quite public, but of course after oct 7 there was also a lot of confusion.
What makes it all credible is how they reduced the actual count, detailed all, as in the meantime forensic teams did their job etc. Unlike the usual Hamas BS which states casualty counts even before any inquiry or action on the ground. The now famous hoax of the al ahli hospital bombing which never happened (and the very pro Palestinian HRW publicly said it was a rocket from the Palestinian side that hit the parking lot near the hospital, killing around 20 people) should be a reminder of how careful one should be dealing with any sources from both sides.
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It’s rather alarming how many influential types Israel/Mossad sponsor in Britain. Does Piers Morgan know he’s a colleague of ‘Tommy Robinson’ (nobody seems to ask how Tommy can keep a KC and solicitor’s working for him?), or Douglas Murray, editor of the Spectator, etc, even my Labour MP who nobody’s ever heard of.
Anyway, the media does its job particularly well in Britain unfortunately and that’s what it’s been for longer than I’ve been around even Orwell mentioned it in Homage to Catalonia regarding the Spanish civil war.
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What is particularly disgusting about Piers Morgan is that he pretends to be “reasonable” and somewhat neutral. And even pretends to care about Palestinians. When any child can see that he is a Mossad mouthpiece.
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You’ll be pleased to know that even Rupert Murdoch had enough of him ranting on about ‘poor little Israel defending herself’ etc,,,and had him put on the internet where I don’t suppose he could be sued, or anger people and lose so many viewers of TalkTV.
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“He has studied the Hamas “prison break-out”. He knows that Hamas actually did commit atrocities against innocents, and this troubles him.”
Did he really study it or fell, as many did and still do, fall for Israeli propganda?
Here a different take from someone I trust moree than any of the official outlets:
https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/we-were-lied-into-the-gaza-genocide
Last week, Al Jazeera aired an hour-long documentary, called simply “October 7”, that lets western publics see for themselves what took place. It seems that Jones’ account was closest to the truth.
“Yet, Al Jazeera’s film goes further still, divulging for the first time to a wider audience facts that have been all over the Israeli media for months but have been carefully excluded from western coverage. The reason is clear: those facts would implicate Israel in some of the atrocities it has been ascribing to Hamas for months.”
Cook claims the assertions than the film shows that Hamas was not a tool used by Isreal to further its genocidal agenda. That might be true, but Hamas’ actions, that he admits were lacking in scope and precision, exactly led to Israel being able now to use this as propaganda to incite its own population to support with overwhelning majority the genocide so long wished for by the members of the present reigning coalition in Israel,
The responsibility for enabling Israel to now freely execute the cleansing, to supply the arguments, to deliver the arguments that found majority support of the jewish population, lies with Hamas. The responsibility for the genocide is of course Israel’s.
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i watched that a few days ago and it’s indeed great stuff. one of my fave bits was when some zio-whiner tries to “gotcha” norm with the houthi/ansarullah flag’s slogan that includes “the jews”. his response: “the only germans my parents knew were the ones who marched them to the camps. if you’re yemeni and the only ‘jews’ you know are ‘israelis’ then, yeah…you’re going to hate ‘the jews'”.
your debates/arguments vis a vis the revolution also remind me of another annoying “gotcha” right wingers like to use: “che guevara was a MURDERER!!!”
as for the current case, i only have to ask: if “israeli” lives are so much more important than all others then what about the ones killed by other “israelis” via the hannibal doctrine? what about the hostages about which they obviously give zero sh_ts? the ones yelling in hebrew and waving a white flag?
zionists are the platonic essence of “concern troll”.
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Yup. When idiots call Che a murderer, that’s when you have to trot out the “So’s your old man!” retort.
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AKA tu quoque.
We’ve been told “Ends don’t justify the means.” Largely true. But not always. That’s because moral absolutes are hard to come by. Context isn’t so simple to shake off.
At a high level it’s useful to keep such abstractions in mind. When it comes to the concrete we need to examine conditions and facts.
As for your table: We may want set-it-and-forget-it logic. What we generally have to live with is application of meaningful but sometimes at odds with each other principles to particular cases.
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As to that “end justifies (or not) the means” thing: In the course of this discussion, I realized that I needed to add another variable. Something like “means” that don’t really have anything to do with the final goal, which may or may not be a worthy one.
Let me explain with a couple of examples. One of them being the example, above, in which some hypothetical rapist loosely affiliated with Hamas, takes advantage of the situation to indulge in his hobby. His rapey-ness does not promote the Hamas cause at all, in fact harms it. Therefore, it cannot be construed as a “means” justifying an end. In a disciplined army, such a soldier would be punished for bringing discredit on his side. And yet his actions, however heinous, do not change the fact that his side is the just one, and their cause (a prison break) is righteous.
A “means justifying an end” would be the example where Israeli soldiers are not punished for their atrocities against Palestinians, in fact quite the opposite. Because these atrocities are conducive to the “end” of getting the Palestinians to flee and leave their land and property behind. This would be an example of the means (repugnant in this case) justifying an end (ethnic cleansing) that some people may actually consider a good one. Whereas the hypothetical “rapey Hamas” guy only causes harm for his side, who have to invest in damage control.
Every war generates these kinds of atrocities, which in Russian are called “excesses”. Excesses are just that, they do not assist the end goal at all. Whereas a deliberate policy of atrocities and torture may in fact assist the end goal.
Therefore, we need to introduce a third variable, and so what we have is not binary logic, but trinary logic. Which means there are more combinations to compute.
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An interesting arithmetical ‘proof’ for ‘the end justifies the means’…
QK
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Thanks! Maybe I get the Nobel Prize this year.
My proof otherwise known as the “You can’t make a nice omelette without breaking a few eggs” reductionism – LOL!
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“Hamas murdered hundreds of innocent civilians in cold blood. Do you condemn them? Yes or no?”
No! I don’t condemn them and it’s the wrong question anyway. This was a successful raid by the occupied against the occupiers. Hamas neutralised (killed) Israeli soldiers and tried to capture hostages. Most of the “so called” civilians were hardcore kibbutz residents who revelled on stolen Palestinian land. Most of the deaths were caused by Israeli tank fire which indiscriminately killed both Hamas fighters and Israeli hostages.
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If you live in an open air concentration camp with no expectation to ever get free, things look differently and philosophical discussions become irrelevant. And questions like this one will not be asked or answered.
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I agree with you, and that’s a great reply to that question, if encountered.
Instead of using Nat Turner as his analogy, maybe Finkelstein should have used the Sobibor Uprising and escape. Jewish inmates of the death camp plotted a daring escape. When it kicked off, they attacked guards and slit a few throats. And not just guards, if I am not mistaken, they slit some throats of a few Jewish kapos whom they didn’t trust. They did not enjoy doing this, it was just a cold-blooded necessity, otherwise their plan would have failed before it even started.
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Is it really necessary to demonize civilians—they were Israelis, so they had it coming—to justify rebellion against an apartheid state? Must all distinctions be erased, such that both soldiers and civilians are fair game?
It’s that kind of leveling that traditionally causes unease about ends-justify-means arguments. Just because an antithesis isn’t absolute doesn’t mean it’s completely invalid, any more than the warning about becoming what you fight to destroy. Vide Zionist Israel.
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I personally believe that civilians should NOT be demonized or attacked. Having said that, there are some grey areas. Some people may seem like civilians, but are actually militias. Like a lot of the Israeli settler types. I reckon people have to take into account if these groups employ violence and attack other people. By doing so, they may well lose their protected status as civilians.
Having said that, I believe it is always wrong to harm children. But again, there is a grey area. What is the age at which a child becomes an adult? 18? This might sound silly, but typically in wars, historically, generals have made these kind of decisions, as in: ”After you take the village, kill every male above the age of … [whatever].”
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I too am doubter of the Israel narrative that the Gazaian Rebels engaged in large scale atrocities, This Israeli narrative is very much at odds with what those who there said. And at odds with released hostages. Also at odds with the survivors of the Israeli slaughter at the Kibbutz. The last group claimed it was the Israelis that engaged in large scale atrocities. All that said I enjoy listening to Finkelstein speak his mind, he is a genuine man with superb verbal skills.
Off the top of my head, when it comes to war, I think the mental process of a good leader should be something like this:
1] Is this truly a defensive war? If not see 2], 3], 4].
2] Is this war, judged from afar [time/space] morally justified? If so see 3], 4].
3] Is this war necessary? Is there another means to the same outcome? If so see 4].
4] With reasonable* expectations will the outcome result in a greater good?
Or, will harm done equal/exceed the good? => Then no.
Clearly, under the Hillary/Cheney/Obama/Biden administration [singular-intended] the above list does not apply as no factual or moral consideration was given.
*[not the delusional-thinking that today’s Nazis are so noted for]
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Interesting comment.
I have a feeling that Finkelstein, as a debating tactic, was bending over backwards to give the pro-Zionist side the maximum benefit of the doubt, and then to show how they still were wrong about the larger thing.
I like the way Finkelstein is so mild-mannered and almost “nebbische” in his presentation, that way he comes off as being maximally reasonable and easy to listen to, because not belligerent.
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I had to look up “nebbische” and I don’t find him that way, I think his verbal skills fall under the “jiu-jitsu” style of combat?
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“nebbische” is a Yiddish word that I learned from the same Jewish friend who taught me “schnorrer” and many other useful words that I can toss into a conversation every now and then, as appropriate.
I have not studied the etymology, but I am pretty sure this particular word is not Germanic in origin, like most other Yiddish words, but rather of Russian origin. Most likely from the Russian word for “sky”, which is “nebo”. So, a nebbish is a person who always has his head in the clouds!
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There can no excuse for cutting heads off babies, no excuse for justifying the cutting off of heads of babies, and no excuse for perpetuating a lie about cutting the heads off babies.
To debate this is extremely distasteful.
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I think we should all stipulate that it’s NEVER right to chop off a baby’s head, no matter what the circumstances. I cannot even imagine any kind of scenario (even in science fiction) where that would be okay.
One of the readers in their comment said the youngest Israeli to die in the attack was 3. To my definition, that’s still a baby though, even though they can walk and talk by that age. Well, some people would call that a toddler, but I would still call it a baby.
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S Brennan, Mato48 and others have covered this, but I want to focus in a little tighter … The ‘atrocities’ claims, in my understanding, were largely dismissed by Israeli media. For example, Haaretz very early on published a list of Oct 7 deaths, and the youngest was 3 – thus debunking the ‘beheaded babies’ claims.
The Hamas op seems to have been relentlessly military: I’m not aware that a single claim of rape has been confirmed, and a number of female hostages have returned, and specified they WEREN’T raped. The Hamas operators storming through barracks seem to have gunned down soldiers, male & female, in their bedclothes, then gone on to round up civilian hostages for hasty kidnapping back to Gaza. The objective plainly was seizing EXCHANGEABLE hostages for prisoner exchange. Since no Hamas rapes are confirmed firsthand, and since there were zero good reasons for them to stop and rape anyone, and many pressing reasons for them NOT to waste time that way, we have every reason to assume, until attested otherwise, that there were zero Hamas rapes.
We can’t instantly exclude that, as some suggest, ordinary Gaza ‘camp followers’ stormed into the kibbutzes on the heels of Hamas fighters and committed atrocities. But remember: Nobody had any reason to assume the IDF wouldn’t react faster than they did. And though they didn’t react as fast as they should have, they still caught lots of hostages and captors and gunned them all down indiscriminately with attack helicopters.
So put yourself in the shoes of a Gaza rapist. That means you’re a 15-30 y/o single male opportunist and hustler (all societies have ’em) who ISN’T a trained militant, who ISN’T part of the invasion force. (Why not? Maybe they wouldn’t have you, becuz you’re too unreliable?) After Hamas blows open the barriers, you’re going to rush into the tracer-laced, grenade-blasted darkness, on the heels of the real fighters, and risk dying in an IDF counterattack just in order to forcibly score some Zionist hoochie … really? No. This is Hollywood stuff. Not by coincidence, last I checked, neolibcon Zionists still ran Hollywood.
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John,
In the days following Gazaian rebellion I posted a few of the articles you mentioned on these pages. I am sure the 3LAs have access to all of WordPress’s files but we, the content writers, do not or, I’d ask you search back the for proof of my veracity. That said, I don’t think anybody knows/could-know all the details down to the granular level. And as distasteful as it may seem to civilians who have never served, killing opposing soldiers before they can fully wake-up and grab their weapon would be considered operational excellence by any commander I ever knew. Disgusting? Yeah, it is.
But in the spirit of whataboutism, from Larry here’s what Israelis are known to be being doing to unarmed aid workers.
https://sonar21.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1.png
Their crime? Trying to feed those starving in Gaza. Israel is trying to send a message. I think they succeeded but…not in the way they think.
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WARNING: the image above is graphic and may disturb some viewers. Accordingly, please use your discretion. Apologies to all for not putting this warning in my comment.
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There’s a UN report that claims there is “clear and convincing evidence” of sexual abuse:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-finds-evidence-of-rape-on-oct-7-and-after-israel-they-tried-to-downplay-issue/
And the first personal claim of having been sexually assaulted appeared a week ago:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/released-hostage-amit-soussana-reveals-she-was-sexually-assaulted-by-hamas-captor/
This is hardly mass gang rapes and certainly doesn’t excuse genocide, but it’s well-known that sexual abuse often takes place in wars and hostage situations.
Btw, since new year Israeli women are no longer allowed to be prison guards in high security prisons. This Palestinian guy was just too charming:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/female-prison-guards-officials-to-be-questioned-over-alleged-sex-scandal/
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Thanks, Duke. Sorry for belated reply. I was aware of the UN report but found it (or at least the Times’ account of it) pretty thin gruel. More below.
The Amit Sousanna account I hadn’t seen, til you linked it. It’s much more compelling. Of note, she reported rape during captivity in Gaza, a vastly more believable scenario than the initial Zionist claims of mass rape during the initial Hamas incursion. As you point out, ‘it’s well-known that sexual abuse often takes place in wars and hostage situations.’ In fact lots of weird sex seems to happen even in routine judicial-confinement situations, and not just in Israel … Like men claiming to be women so they can have lots of straight sex, with official complicity, in US womens’ prisons.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/nj-trans-prisoner-impregnated-2-inmates-transferred-mens-facility-rcna38947
The funniest part of your female-guard story was the news that the Israeli prison commissioner is [named] Katy Perry. Her singing career must really have faltered …
Re the UN report …
I’m easily triggered by misuse of the term ‘evidence’ by human-rights types, including UN ‘researchers.’
In a previous life I worked as a reporter in Afghanistan, during the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. The ‘civil war’ of the 1990s was in fact a Pakistan-sponsored proxy war, tacitly endorsed by US and UK officials, to overthrow the disfavored, but very broad-based mujahideen coalition gov’t that took power in 1992.
My experience was that media would promote baseless atrocity claims usually traceable to Pakistan or western officials complicit in the proxy war. (The US, among other motives, was on the hook for having supplied the artillery with which Pakistan’s proxies pounded Kabul, killing tens of thousands of civilians.)
So in due course western ‘human-rights’ charlatans like Amnesty and HRW would turn up, months or years after the fact, and ‘confirm evidence’ of ‘systematic atrocities.’ The ‘evidence’ was invariably all just unverifiable claims by opposition-linked elements introduced to the ‘researchers’ by opposition officials.
This happened against background noise of constant bizarre US official claims. eg: For years DoS types claimed Kabul’s defenders were ‘shelling their own lines and blaming it on the opposition’ – a claim that just being able to read a map of greater metro Kabul, plus a rudimentary grasp of ballistics sufficed to debunk.
Almost a decade later, after 9/11, CIA came under criticism for not having earlier supported the United Front (aka ‘northern alliance’) against the Taliban and AQ. CIA officials responded by claiming Ahmad Shah Masood, the United Front military commander, was a narcotics kingpin – a claim they not only knew to be false, but that they had never bothered making before 9/11. (cf, eg ‘Ghost Wars’ by Steve Coll.)
Today we know the real explanation is simple: After 1992, the Pakistanis, their proxies, then later the Taliban and AQ were US assets, and Masood wasn’t.
So today, my default response to official charges of systematic atrocities – such as ‘mass rape on Oct 7’ – is ‘everyone has a smart phone, there are security cameras everywhere, the skies are full of drones and satellites. We’re three decades into the Information Age. So if you don’t have video or at least undoctored still photos, as far as I’m concerned it didn’t happen.’
I would never, of course, say such a thing to an individual victim with a compelling account like Sousanna’s, who was in no position to record any of it anyway. My ‘show me the video’ rejoinder is aimed politicians and activists who try to politicize individual tragedies and individual misdeeds – in this instance, in order to justify genocide.
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Thanks for this interesting “insider” story, John.
The UN report must be judged on the background that Israel refused to allow an official UN investigative probe into what happened on October 7. So Patten was given a limited mandate of simply looking for patterns or incidents of sexual violence against women (iirc). In the presser a month ago she specifically denied that they had found any evidence of systematic sexual violence. But they did find a few incidents of alleged sexual violence. Although I now see that these incidents have been disputed as referring to the same incident, I think both Patten and her report come across as credible enough to warrant a real investigation (not that Israel will allow that). Note that they also found that Palestinian women had been abused by the Israeli.
Anyway, both the Israeli reaction to the report and the Soussana interview have a “Look what we found!” feel to them. This just reinforces the theory that Hamas has not engaged in any extensive sexual abuse. Nothing like Abu Ghraib.
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It’s interesting that those who are particularly invested in continuing a particular kind of violence against a particular group, are also particularly opposed to understanding that there might be motives for that group undertaking violence. Thus the apartheid regime in South Africa was always very strong in its moral condemnation of violence committed by the ANC, even when such violence had not happened. The Israelis have obviously learned a good deal from the South Africans in this respect (and in many others).
Of course, “to understand all is to forgive all” is garbage. The Nazis had perfectly good reasons for wishing to exterminate the Jews, but understanding those reasons does not legitimate their crimes, because the reasons were, on examination, garbage, even though the Nazis firmly believed the garbage.
Incidentally, does this post have anything to do with NATO’s “war crimes” conference directed against Russia? I suspect that Russia has indeed committed war crimes in Ukraine (or at least not acted against individuals and groups which committed war crimes). Does that make it wrong to have invaded Ukraine? Obviously, not in itself. Just as, if it could be shown without any doubt that no Russian had ever committed a single war crime in Ukraine, there is zero possibility that anyone attending the conference would say that this made the invasion of Ukraine OK.
O
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Thanks for comment. This is good logical thinking. It’s what I was trying to do in my post: Break everything down into units of analysis.
That is especially a good point that, even if (in some hypothetical universe) the Russians behaved like complete angels and never broke a single rule of war during the entire course of the invasion, the other side would never say they were right to have gone in.
I loathe this war, but I always knew it was coming. I firmly believe that Russia simply had no choice. Her only choice was to wait and take the first punch from NATO, or to preempt.
Having said that, any nation at war, whether it’s a just or unjust war, should try to follow the rules of war as best they can.
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For a comprehensive legalistic analysis of the Palestinian genocidal horrorshow, I prefer this essay by Ilana Mercer to the Professor Finkelstein/Chris Hedges interview. The tenor of the essay is more befitting to the subject.
What more is there to say after reading this?
https://www.unz.com/imercer/israel-in-violation-of-gods-law-natural-justice-the-laws-of-war-all-customary-international-humanitarian-law/
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Ilana Mercer writes good stuff. Her hard-ass critiques of Trump/et al are tough and fair in that they are fundamentally true, unlike 99.999-% of his critics.
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Ilana Mercer has a feisty intelligence that I’ve long admired, S. Brennan. It’s been interesting to observe her evolving position on Israel since the October 7 Al Aqsa Flood operation. Her initial reaction was outrage towards Hamas as murdering raping Islamist thugs, with Israel cast as victim. She is of course a South African Jewess.
But now I sense that she would even question the testimonies that Thick Red Duke has posted.
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While reading Ilana’s piece I saw some sidebar allusions (on the internet) to some amazing turnarounds on the part of the most establishment-friendly shills you could ever imagine, namely Stephen Colbert and Joe Scarborough over at MSNBC. Out of morbid curiosity, I watched both segments. Clearly, the “powers-that-be” have ordered these mouthpieces to do a 180 (also known as a “Baerbock 360”) and start condemning Israel, at least for the World Central Kitchen episode.
Smarmy and insincere as the condemnations are, they are sort of amazing in themselves. Both Colbert and Scarborough showed, in their body language, that they were actually terrified at having to perform this act of “now a word from our sponsor”. Up until now, any American showbiz person who emitted even the tiniest criticism of Israel, would lose their job instantly, the very next day. So, even though they were allowed, and even told, to condemn Israel for killing the food-deliverers, they were clearly nervous, like, maybe this is a trap? Colbert’s audience didn’t really know what to make of it, although there was some scattered applause.
Scarborough went even further than Colbert, indulging in “conspiracy theories” (probably true, in this case), about Nutty-yahoo knowing in advance of the Hamas attack and letting it happen, yada yada. After which he suddenly slipped back into his usual groove and started foaming at the mouth about Hamas atrocities, and how they raped kindly Jewish grandmothers… at which point I had to switch him off…
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I’ll make sure to read it, but the title says it all. The Israelis have trod on every possible boundary or law ever established to try and regulate the horrors of war. This latest escapade with just wantonly killing people who deliver food, is just the tip of the iceberg. The Israelis have made clear their intention to starve every last Palestinian. They will have to burn a lot of corpses to get their greedy hands on that land.
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his reply to this idiot Piers is typical from a narcissist psychopath. Hell yes, the rape was hideous but the perpetrator was a good guy. Seriously, who can buy such “argument” ? Only because he has a biiiiig brain 😂 I inflicted myself one of his conferences on YouTube. Honestly, i don’t want to have this masochistic feeling again 😂 he is an absolute ego fornsurew but the rest…
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Are you talking about Finkelstein? He doesn’t strike me as a psychopath.
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Sacha, I don’t think you understood the point of my post. Clearly I didn’t make my point, and that’s on me, since my post was misunderstood by both sides, those who support Hamas and those (like yourself, clearly) who support Israel against Hamas.
The point I was TRYING to make, is that those who root for a side in a conflict are forced to deal with the issue of atrocities and things that “their” side does which they may not like or approve of. For example, those like you who support Israel, must deal, in your own conscience, with the actions of the IDF and the clear goal of the Israeli government to commit genocide, and “rid the world” of Palestinians.
Here is another youtube video, in this one the guest, Colonel Wilkerson, comes up with what I believe is a practical-minded and accurate description of ultimate Israeli goals. He is talking about the specific case of the murdered food-aid workers. But instead of dwelling on that particular atrocity, he just casually (and accurately, in my view) defines the Israeli goals: Their goal is to kill all Palestinians, and therefore they want to dissuade or discourage anyone who gets in the way of that goal. Delivering or trying to deliver food, may result in saving a Palestinian life or two. Therefore, it’s a bad thing, according to the IDF, because their ultimate goal is to KILL all Palestinians. Men, women, children, foetuses, everybody.
Anyone who supports Israel has to basically explain whether or not they support that goal of ridding the world of Palestinians. Or come up with some kind of argument why they think that is NOT the goal, and that Netanyahu is basically just a misunderstood humanitarian hero.
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I think there has been many “experts” who have shown all good qualities to convince people of their good understanding of the situation, and they all proved so far to be disconnected from the realities on the ground and acting more less as trying to make themselves a name out of a tragic situation, like any war.
Yes, I’m frankly against the psychopaths of Hamas. One doesn’t need to be “pro-Israel”, which I consider, as a non Jewish person, to be irrelevant (I personnaly don’t care about this state, but I see it as an intellectual challenge about the political grammar it reveals), to check its charter (which aims at simply a genocide, repeated by its own leaders ad nauseam) or to check how it has treated its population under its brutal rule (while its own golden youth was enjoying car races in Malaysia or luxurious call girls in hotels in Dubai).. So basically, I see no good as a westerner who considers that civilizations and their core values do matter (and in this way, I’m sure Mr Putin wouldn’t disagree with me) to side in any way with Hamas and back its propaganda strategy. People like Finkielstein is more filled with hatred towards his people than genuine interest in the Palestinians (he has a typical jüdische Selbsthasse like Shlomo Sand (who openly declared his rejection of judaism)).
As far as I have read extensively for years on that matter, there is a cultural struggle between two nations of how to survive next/against to the other one. And for many years, the Jews have been incited to think that they had been the priviledged ones who have to concede to give rights to the other one, and get peace in return. On the other side, the Palestinian Islamic-nationalism is in its own core genocidal. It started with the Jerusalem mufti’s goons who were chanted in 1920 “Yahood Kulabanu” (the Jews are our dogs, which in the Arab world doesn’t refer to snoopy or any beloved pet) or later their motto about “Palestine being for Arabs only” proclaimed by his youth militias, up to the Arab liberation army’s emblem (a star of david pierced by a dagger)… I could go on an on about the fedayeen trained by former SS fleeing to Egypt (with the help of western powers!). So I see this conflict not in terms of the temporary balance of power, but in terms of a fight by Jews to be recognized as equals and a deep and complete rejection of them by the muslim arab ideology who (if you read Rashid Rida, it’s quite obvious) pretend to accept Jews as long as they give up national rights to accept to be arabized (and ultimately islamized).
Even Arab speaking Jews in 19th Palestine were never called Arabs, but musta’arabeen (those who are like, try to be Arabs), proving that the rejection is ideological and religious. Back when there was no zionism, no netanyahu in 1834 for example, Arab mobs looted, gang raped and rampaged the Jewish communities of Safed, Hebron or Jerusalem, not only once but twice. Collective memories shape actually the conflict.
So back to now, is there any genocidal plan against Palestinians? I think basic numbers prove the opposite. A genocide is a systematic and intentional anihilation of a population. About starvation, the problem is logistic: an army is not supposed to feed its ennemy, but as Hamas is entrenched among civilians, supplying civilians means supplying hamas networks. So the Cogat (the organization that is responsible for dealing with civilians) tries to bypass Hamas, and deals with the clan leaders. A simple fact provided by the UN. More trucks enter Gaza now than before Oct 7th. If you have a systematic genocide, the death toll increases constantly. The maniacs behind any genocide tend to push for more murders as they see they are close to failure. We saw that with the Nazis, it happened also in Cambodia, in Rwanda as well. As Washington pushes for a ceasefire and less and less israeli soldiers are inside Gaza, we have now only one israel brigade in the entire Gaza strip, near Khan Yunis, it would be this ultimate time to achieve this goal… There are precise strikes and temporarily, no massive bombing. The death toll provided by Hamas remains at around 33k deaths, (including his fighters? the organization refuses to be clear on that). After 6 months. Saddam Hussein killed 182.000 Kurds in 8 months. So we are far from the genocide claim.
The real issue is quite similar to what Russia has to face when cities are destroyed and need to be rebuilt. Israel doesn’t want to get involved and rule Gaza (for both military and political reasons). But they can’t afford, and I agree on that, to led psychopaths as Hamas rule again.
Which leads to the core issue. How far does the population agree with Hamas ideology, for which they voted massively in 2006?
We tend to consider that Ukrainians agreeing with the Banderist ideology at some point has to pay a price, or be responsible for its defeat and loss of territory. Shouldn’t we have the same standards with Gazans?
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Sacha, with respect, I think you are wrong about a ton of things, including the legal definition of genocide, about the duties of an occupying nation over the occupied, and also the recognized legal responsibilities of an army in regard to humanitarian aid for civilians. You should re-read the case brought by the South African jurists laying out the legal basis for “genocidal intent” on the part of the Israelis. Including that “Amalek” business. It is remarkable that even the American-dominated World Court, headed by an American Judge, a Court which usually follows the American party line when it comes to geopolitics, could not find it in them to rule in favor of Israel. That’s just how bad the Israeli defense was. The Israeli side should have actually hired YOU as their advocate, you make a better case for them.
Anyhow, I could go on for pages, but for now I just want to speak up and defend Norman Finkelstein. I think you are being extremely unfair to characterize him as a “self-hater”. That is a vicious slander that has been used, in the past, against any ordinary Jewish person who happens to oppose Zionism. It’s a classic bully word against Jews: ”If you oppose Israeli policies, then you are a self-hater!”
On the contrary, it is Jewish intellectuals and dissidents who have led the way to really thinking through these issues about Judaism and Zionism, and dissecting the evil role which Israel has played as the American proxy in the Middle East. I respect those Jews like Finkelstein, Max Blumenthal, and the others, who reject Zionism and support the Palestinian people You are being unfair when you say that Finkelstein does not care about the Palestinians. I am sure that he does, I can see in his eyes that he cares about starving Palestinian children. I know that Blumenthal does, as well, as he travelled extensively, has friends there, wrote several books about Gaza. If people of this caliber hate Israel, it’s because they hate ISRAEL and the apartheid ideology of Zionism, not because they hate themselves.
On the contrary, the reason they do this is because they want to love themselves. They want to be able to look in the mirror and not be ashamed. Younger ones like Max, when he has grandchildren later on, who ask him, “Grandpa, did you ever speak out about the biggest genocide of the 21st century? The murder of all those children in Gaza?” he wants to be able to look those grandkids in the eye and say: ”Yes! I spoke out against it. I was one of the good ones.”
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