Humanity Has Failed

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Raze said:

No, I’m disputing the notion Israelis are morally “superior”, by any relevant metric their actions are worse.

Their actions are worse only because Palestinians are too uncivilized to have serious technology.

Imagine what would happen if Hamas had nukes. Israel has nukes. There is your purest example of moral difference. This difference is real and you are trying to weasel your way around it with every post. And I keep trying to point it out to you. But you keep refusing to see it.

Just to have nukes and not use them requires both technological AND moral development.

There are some crazy far right Israelis who want to use nukes on Gaza. And they are morally equivalent to Hamas. But Israel as a society is developed enough to have checks against that. But Palestine does not. However bad Netanyahu is, he's is not barbaric enough to nuke Gaza. The same cannot be said of Hamas.

Nothing I said here means you can't hold Israel accountable for war crimes or put sanctions on them. You could. But it just won't happen for larger political reasons. I am not saying what should happen, I am predicting what will happen. You can see if my predictions are correct over the years. The aim of my political views is to predict social reality as accurately as possible, as opposed to having my wishes and ideals fulfilled. That's the difference between me and typical leftists. I actually care what is real.

Edited May 28 by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

@Leo Gura Hi Leo! How do you predict the Ukraine war ending? Do you think it will end with Ukrainian victory meaning that Ukraine will freeze the current frontline and emerge with the rest of the territory as a sovereign state free of further Russian violence? Or do you think Ukraine will ultimately collapse and Russia will go on to restore it's Sphere of influence on countries like Poland, Romania, Hungary etc. Do you think that the EU will ultimately collapse due to the Russian pressure on eastern Europe?

[PurpleTree]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Their actions are worse only because Palestinians are too uncivilized to have serious technology.

Imagine what would happen if Hamas had nukes. Israel has nukes. There is your purest example of moral difference. This difference is real and you are trying to weasel your way around it with every post. And I keep trying to point it out to you. But you keep refusing to see it.

Just to have nukes and not use them requires both technological AND moral development.

There are some crazy far right Israelis who want to use nukes on Gaza. And they are morally equivalent to Hamas. But Israel as a society is developed enough to have checks against that. But Palestine does not. However bad Netanyahu is, he's is not barbaric enough to nuke Gaza. The same cannot be said of Hamas.

Nothing I said here means you can't hold Israel accountable for war crimes or put sanctions on them. You could. But it just won't happen for larger political reasons. I am not saying what should happen, I am predicting what will happen. You can see if my predictions are correct over the years. The aim of my political views is to predict social reality as accurately as possible, as opposed to having my wishes and ideals fulfilled. That's the difference between me and typical leftists. I actually care what is real.

How morally superior is North Korea to Japan and South Korea?

They throw their own into Gulags all the time but they haven’t nuked Japan or South Korea even though they’re the only ones with nukes of the bunch.

Not using nukes can also be a form of self preservation because once used others will use them against you too probably.

Not saying Hamas wouldn’t use nukes on Israel. They probably would also becaue their silly beliefs of the afterlife etc.

[Leo Gura]

25 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

How morally superior is North Korea to Japan and South Korea?

That's the wrong question. The question you wanted to ask is how morally superior is North Korea to Hamas?

That's an interesting question. They are both quite awful in different ways, but at least North Korea is sane enough to not nuke their neighbors because North Korea is not suicidal. Hamas is suicidal.

Suicidality is quite the mark of low development. Especially for a political group.

North Korea is awful, but actually their diplomatic dealings are rational. North Korea can be reasoned with.

A suicidal actor is just impossible to deal with because you can't even count on them caring about their own lives. This is ultimately why groups like Hamas must be destroyed. You can't make deals with a suicidal actor. Israel is being asked to make such deals, which is a lot to expect of Israel. Any deal Israel makes, some Islamic lunatic will just blow it up. This creates an impossible situation.

Edited May 28 by Leo Gura

[Karmadhi]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Imagine what would happen if Hamas had nukes. Israel has nukes. There is your purest example of moral difference. This difference is real and you are trying to weasel your way around it with every post. And I keep trying to point it out to you. But you keep refusing to see it.

Keep in mind Israel is far stronger than Hamas and does not need to nuke them to dominate them.

If Hamas was on par with Israel and posed a serious existencial threat like Israel poses to Gaza I doubt Israel would not use their nuclear weapons

It is easy to show some restraint when you can dominate another army with conventional ways

Which is why Russia has not yet nuked Ukraine for example but was considering it when Ukraine seemed to gain momentum in late 2022

Also since you say Israel does not target civilians and does not blow up airports

They blow up hospitals, refugee cams and schools full of civilian and kids

Either you are in denial or not fully informed of the number of massacres and atrocities they have commited which make October 7th look like Disney land.

Israel war on Gaza has killed more civilians than all terrorist attacks in the world put together.

May I remind you of the pager attacks on Lebanon which you called "terrorism" on this forum?

Or did you forget about that?

That one was not even that deadly in terms of civilian casualities yet you called it terrorism.

Blowing up a refugee camp and killing 100 civilians with 1 strike is not any better than hijacking a plane and blowing it up

And Israel has been doing that almost daily now

Oh yes, also shooting at civilians lined up for aid

So yeah, maybe Israel is not suicidal like Hamas but they are still the most inhumane proper well funded military in the world if we avoid pseudo militaries like Hamas, ISIS etc

Saying "Hams is worse" is a pretty low bar to hold to be honest

Its like saying "They re not as bad as Nazis"

Even Russia is not as inhumane at this point

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_Massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31_October_2023_Jabalia_refugee_camp_airstrike

Edited May 28 by Karmadhi

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

They blow up hospitals, refugee cams and schools full of civilian and kids

Either you are in denial or not fully informed

I am informed of those things. But they are waging a war at this point. Yes, in a war stuff like gets blown up.

And after Oct 7th Israel is doing revenge and ethnic cleansing.

Yes, Israel does revenge attacks on civilian targets sometimes. They can't help themselves. Those are war crimes. War crimes are common in war.

Edited May 28 by Leo Gura

[PurpleTree]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's the wrong question. The question you wanted to ask is how morally superior is North Korea to Hamas?

That's an interesting question. They are both quite awful in different ways, but at least North Korea is sane enough to not nuke their neighbors because North Korea is not suicidal. Hamas is suicidal.

Suicidality is quite the mark of low development. Especially for a political group.

North Korea is awful, but actually their diplomatic dealings are rational. North Korea can be reasoned with.

A suicidal actor is just impossible to deal with.

Can’t argue with that.

[Karmadhi]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

am informed of those things. But they are waging a war at this point. Yes, in a war stuff like gets blown up.

And after Oct 7th Israel is doing revenge and ethnic cleansing.

Yes, Israel does revenge attacks on civilian targets sometimes. They can't help themselves. Those are war crimes. War crimes are common in war.

Also Hamas did revenge after years of Israeli brutal occupation and domination

Yes, in war it happens that an invading army goes to a town and kills everyone they can find

It happens in war

An example of America doing it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre

What happened in October was no question horrible but it also tends to happen in every war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre

Another example

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre (this one was backed by Israel by the way)

Going into a town and shooting everyone there and even raping some of the inhabitants is unfortunately still a very common practice even these days. It has basically happened in every war. Bosnian war, Kosovo war, Syrian war, Chechen war, Ukraine war, Vietnam war, Korean war, Iraq war, Algerian war etc. All of these wars have well documented cases of such events. Which would implicate the Serbian Army, USA Army, Russian Army, French Army, Syrian Army, Korean Army, North Vietnamese Army etc etc

I dont get why Hamas gets singled out about that like they did something totally unique. At first there were certain things that indeed made it seem specifically brutal like babies in ovens, babies beheaded, kids tied to chains and burned alive etc (I found it on wikipedia articles) but they were all disproven. 

Or is your argument that Hamas would do that until the end of time instead of specific incidents like the ones i wrote above were? Meaning it would be "1 out of 100000000" for them. 

And its not "sometimes", its every day at this point for the IDF.

You are basically describing pre October 7 Israel pretty well, Israel at the moment is a totally different beast

 

 

Edited May 28 by Karmadhi

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

Also Hamas did revenge after years of Israeli brutal occupation and domination

Yes, I know. But it's still different.

No matter how much history you cite, how many examples, it's still different.

Post Oct 7th Israel has lost all self-control. Similar to the US after 9/11. Israel was much more reasonable before Oct 7th. Yes, I am mostly focused on Pre Oct 7th Israel because Oct 7th was just a heinous attack which would enrage any civilized nation. You can't reasonably expect an attack like Oct 7th not to trigger a huge over-reaction. A major problem with Hamas is that they are not developed enough to even care about that. They did the attack anyway, knowing it would lead to their destruction. This is why they are so low in development. A developed political group would not undertake such an attack because it would backfire so badly on their own people. But since Hamas is suicidal, they don't care.

Edited May 28 by Leo Gura

[Karmadhi]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Post Oct 7th Israel has lost all self-control. Similar to the US after 9/11. Israel was much more reasonable before Oct 7th.

To be honest I hear that sometimes but I have not seen USA do anything near this inhumane as a response to 9/11

And I am super critical of the USA in general when it comes to these things.

The issue is not invading an entity is HOW you do it

For example here we can see the civilian casualties are what Israel kills in 3 days in Gaza, and this is USA after just being attacked

They show more restraint

Even Iraq and Afghanistan together had less than 10.000 civilian deaths together if we only count the invasion losses

In Gaza it is 50.000 at this point

Not to count USA did not create a man made famine, nor destroy all means of life

If you follow the war on Gaza it is clear as day that Israel goal is to make Gaza unlivable, cause as much suffering as possible so people will leave the land and not come back

And I do not recall USA doing textbook ethnic cleansing

The fact that Israeli leaders have arrest warrants for crimes against humanity shows you how low they have sunk as a state

I really doubt countries like UK, France, Belgium or even USA (which has a precendent) would react like Israel did

They had a de facto apartheid system before and commited countless massacres

October 7th just sent them into extermination mode from war crime mode

They were never even a remotly "moral army"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War

This 2014 situation alone I think gave Gazans enough hate fuel to carry out October 7th which still killed 3 times less civilians than the 2014 Israeli bombings in Gaza.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Afghanistan

Edited May 28 by Karmadhi

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

but I have not seen USA do anything near this inhumane as a response to 9/11

Now I get to use your logic against you.

Isn't the US more evil than Hamas? After all, the US invasion of Iraq lead to some 100k-500k deaths.

If you just count raw death numbers, the US is more evil than Hamas.

But see, this is bad analysis. Likewise, it is bad analysis when applied to Israel.

You can't just look at raw death count. Moral development is more than that.

Your analysis is too simplistic.

Edited May 28 by Leo Gura

[Karmadhi]

@Leo Gura

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Isn't the US more evil than Hamas? After all, the US invasion of Iraq lead to some 100k-500k deaths.

If you just count raw death numbers, the US is more evil than Hamas.

But see, this is bad analysis. Likewise, it is bad analysis when applied to Israel.

You can't just look at raw death count. Moral development is more than that.

The thing is that USA did not kill themselves 100-500k Iraqis

Most of the deaths came from the instability that came due to Sadam being overthrown

In Gaza we have up to 70.000 people being killed by Israel, 70-80% of them being civilians

There is a big difference between people being killed explicitally by an invading army in sensless attacks compared to dying as a result of a chain reaction caused by bad planning. USA thought Iraqi would become an ally and a democracy, they did not oversee the chaos that erupted later. And that chaos lead to most deaths

It is like me shooting 10 people in the head deliberatily  versus me clicking a button with the aim to kill 1 and then 50 others die which i did not even intend nor foresee

Totally different moral situations

Also, USA did not invade Iraq with the desire to do ethnic cleansing or to make Iraq unlivable 

They did not impose a total blockage, starving civilians and not allow anesthisa to reach hospitals

What Israel is doing is a totally different level of evil

I wonder how mentally deranged someone can be not to allow anesthisia to enter a besiged territory knowing full went hundreds of kids every day have to amputate limbs or deal with burns

You admit Israel is doing ethnic cleansing. Well ethnic cleansing is one of the most barbaric things a country can do, second only to downright genocide. It does not happen frequently unlike rape, shootings of civilians or bombing apartments which happen in every war. It is something else. Most wars do not have ethnic cleansing.

Lastly, I honestly am not writting here to say Hamas is better or worse or as bad as other entities. They are definetly way worse for their citizens than Israel is for their own citizens. 100% agreement here. Maybe they are 100% genocidal as well. Probably are. I am not as informed about Hamas to be honest.

The point I am trying to make  is that Israel is atrocious

I only mentioned Hamas because they are always compared here with Israel which I think is a red hairing

 

 

Edited May 28 by Karmadhi

[PurpleTree]

18 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

@Leo Gura

The thing is that USA did not kill themselves 100-500k Iraqis

Most of the deaths came from the instability that came due to Sadam being overthrown

In Gaza we have up to 70.000 people being killed by Israel, 70-80% of them being civilians

There is a big difference between people being killed explicitally by an invading army in sensless attacks compared to dying as a result of a chain reaction caused by bad planning. USA thought Iraqi would become an ally and a democracy, they did not oversee the chaos that erupted later. And that chaos lead to most deaths

It is like me shooting 10 people in the head deliberatily  versus me clicking a button with the aim to kill 1 and then 50 others die which i did not even intend nor foresee

Totally different moral situations

Also, USA did not invade Iraq with the desire to do ethnic cleansing or to make Iraq unlivable 

They did not impose a total blockage, starving civilians and not allow anesthisa to reach hospitals

What Israel is doing is a totally different level of evil

I wonder how mentally deranged someone can be not to allow anesthisia to enter a besiged territory knowing full went hundreds of kids every day have to amputate limbs or deal with burns

You admit Israel is doing ethnic cleansing. Well ethnic cleansing is one of the most barbaric things a country can do, second only to downright genocide. It does not happen frequently unlike rape, shootings of civilians or bombing apartments which happen in every war. It is something else. Most wars do not have ethnic cleansing.

Lastly, I honestly am not writting here to say Hamas is better or worse or as bad as other entities. They are definetly way worse for their citizens than Israel is for their own citizens. 100% agreement here. Maybe they are 100% genocidal as well. Probably are. I am not as informed about Hamas to be honest.

The point I am trying to make  is that Israel is atrocious

I only mentioned Hamas because they are always compared here with Israel which I think is a red hairing

 

 

To play devils advocate. Israel is much more paranoid. Then the US ever was and rightly-ish so. The US was never under real threat. While Irsael is a small country and population with lots of enemies and often under bombardement.

[Karmadhi]

5 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

To play devils advocate. Israel is much more paranoid. Then the US ever was and rightly-ish so. The US was never under real threat. While Irsael is a small country and population with lots of enemies and often under bombardement.

How exactly does punishing a civilian population in such an inhumane way help you in becoming more secure? It just increases their hatred towards you and rightfully so. People that would not have joined Hamas or any other group will do so after half their family has been killed. Not to mention all the heat Jewish people around the world are getting due to Israeli actions

It only makes sense if you ethnically cleanse the population after

In that case it may work, yes

But to doing it is another level of low human development

Morally developed nations do not do ethnic cleansing

Instead they look for proper solutions that do not involve such barbarism

The whole reason Israel is hated so much in the region is because they never accepted the real solution which is to recognize Palestinian statehood and end the occupation. They prefer ethnic cleansing. It may work, who knows. But that is Stalin level logic

Just the fact that Israel has to do ethnic cleansing instead of a two state solution or a prceise and targeted war  shows how under developed they truly are

"Death solves all problems, no man, no problem."

Edited May 28 by Karmadhi

[Leo Gura]

@Karmadhi According to this report 7,500 civilians were killed by the US military in the first 2 years of Iraq invasion.

https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/how-many-iraqis-did-the-us-really-kill/#

But Gaza is way more densely populated and the US has much higher level of military standards and professionalism. Also US was not interested in ethnic cleansing like Israel is, since they live there.

But also, US was not really under existential threat. Israel is much more threatened in the Middle East than the US is.

Edited May 28 by Leo Gura

[Karmadhi]

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

US has much higher level of military standards and professionalism. Also US was not interested in ethnic cleansing like Israel is, since they live there.

That is my whole point

Israel is in another degree of brutality

 

[Leo Gura]

31 minutes ago, Karmadhi said:

That is my whole point

Israel is in another degree of brutality

ISIS < Hamas < Taliban < North Korea < Iran < Russia/China < Israel < USA < Scandinavia

There are many degrees.

Edited May 28 by Leo Gura

[Karmadhi]

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Hamas >> Taliban >> North Korea >> Russia >> Israel >> USA >> Scandinavia

 

I would agree with almost all of them

I am partial into putting Russia as more brutal than Israel

To me they seem similar

Although I wonder how Russia would actually react if a weaker country did an October 7th attack on its territory

On side I would assume they would go on a worse rampage than Israel but on the other side they suffered a horrible terrorist attack on Moscow and they basically did nothing afterwards. No "revenge". 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus_City_Hall_attack

From what I have researched I seen in Chechenya they were insanely brutal, arguably as bad if not worse than Israel is in Gaza

So based on that I would agree with you

A friend of mine told me something very interesting

He said a big reason why so many people die from Israeli strikes on Gaza, is that when they bomb a building, they target its foundations, causing the building to collapse. Most deaths come from the building collapsing which targets everyone instead of only those affected by the blast. It is the same reason why earthquakes have usually very high death tolls. If you see footage of Israeli bombing buildings in Gaza, especially early in the war, you can see a small strike towards the first floor with the entire 10 story building collapsing. That is why most buildings in Gaza are totally razed to the ground instead of a building with holes or markings from blasts

But I am unsure about this assessment, so please do not attack me if you disagree 

The general sentiment in the city where I live is that Israel is conducting a genocidal war/ethnic cleansing meanwhile Russia is conducting a conventional war of aggression and land theft in Ukraine with some war crimes here and there. That is the sentiment, whether it is accurate or not is another matter.

"In Gaza i see so many dead kids and so much human suffering, meanwhile in Ukraine I only saw destroyed buildings and dead soldiers, so Ukraine is not as bad as Gaza".

I heard this many times from people I know

Which is why you do not see as many protests about Ukraine as about Gaza and not as much global outrage and the word "genocide" being thrown left and right.

Here you can see what I explained above

It is a very specific way of targeting a building aiming to maximize destruction and casualities

Edited May 28 by Karmadhi

[Raze]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Their actions are worse only because Palestinians are too uncivilized to have serious technology.

Imagine what would happen if Hamas had nukes. Israel has nukes. There is your purest example of moral difference. This difference is real and you are trying to weasel your way around it with every post. And I keep trying to point it out to you. But you keep refusing to see it.

Just to have nukes and not use them requires both technological AND moral development.

There are some crazy far right Israelis who want to use nukes on Gaza. And they are morally equivalent to Hamas. But Israel as a society is developed enough to have checks against that. But Palestine does not. However bad Netanyahu is, he's is not barbaric enough to nuke Gaza. The same cannot be said of Hamas.

Nothing I said here means you can't hold Israel accountable for war crimes or put sanctions on them. You could. But it just won't happen for larger political reasons. I am not saying what should happen, I am predicting what will happen. You can see if my predictions are correct over the years. The aim of my political views is to predict social reality as accurately as possible, as opposed to having my wishes and ideals fulfilled. That's the difference between me and typical leftists. I actually care what is real.

Hamas doesn’t represent Palestinian society anymore than far right Israelis.

What about the PA? They control the West Bank and they don’t even defend themselves let alone target civilians. Are they more developed than Israel now? That doesn’t compute since West Bank Palestinians largely live in squalor surrounded by check points and heavily armed settlers.

Just saying Hamas would do worse if they could is irrelevant when you can make the exact same argument about Israel. Israel would do worse if it wasn’t for international pressure. They wanted to block all food and water after oct 7, only after the US demanded it did they allow it.

I am not dodging it. My point is that development isn’t a determinist straight line, not all societies are more or less developed in even ways across all spectrums, and it absolutely doesn’t directly reflect in their actions every time. I gave multiple examples of this very conflict where a “less developed” state did less immoral actions than the “developed state”. 

Edited May 28 by Raze

[Raze]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Now I get to use your logic against you.

Isn't the US more evil than Hamas? After all, the US invasion of Iraq lead to some 100k-500k deaths.

If you just count raw death numbers, the US is more evil than Hamas.

But see, this is bad analysis. Likewise, it is bad analysis when applied to Israel.

You can't just look at raw death count. Moral development is more than that.

Your analysis is too simplistic.

If you look at combatant to civilian ratios, Israel was worse than Hamas before Hamas existed, and off the scale since.

Your analysis is based on assumptions that technological development equates to moral development equates to morality of actions. That makes no sense. We can look at what international law and human rights groups say about Israel and Hamas, they charge Hamas with crimes, but Israel with far worse crimes.

Saying “Palestinians would do worse if they could” is irrelevant. So would israel. The finance minister admitted that he would like to starve all 2 million Palestinians but the international blowback would be too much.

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

A suicidal actor is just impossible to deal with because you can't even count on them caring about their own lives. This is ultimately why groups like Hamas must be destroyed. You can't make deals with a suicidal actor. Israel is being asked to make such deals, which is a lot to expect of Israel. Any deal Israel makes, some Islamic lunatic will just blow it up. This creates an impossible situation.

Not at all true, even Israeli historian Avi Shlaim acknowledges Hamas followed ceasefires much closer than Israel did. Historically israel provoked every war, the three times they didn’t were 73, 06 Lebanon, and oct 7, which they all did the worst in initially. Egypt was an Islamist country and hasn’t broke the peace treaty since they signed it.

It was already reported Hamas agreed to give up power to the PA and Israel publicly rejected this.

Historically terrorist organizations are usually beaten when they become political parties and agree to cease armed resistance. A terror group being destroyed by military action is rare because they regroup or another group forms.

Edited May 28 by Raze