hamas delenda est
Nov. 2nd, 2023 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avvaВ блоге Скотта Ааронсона комментатор по имени Джон Шиллинг (инженер-аэронавт с глубоким знанием ракетного вооружения во всем мире) написал комментарий , который мне понравился. Процитирую его целиком:
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For most of the past few years, my feelings on the Arab-Israeli conflict have been roughly characterized by “a pox on both your houses”. Israel’s policies in the West Bank have been frankly atrocious, and the Netanyahu administration at times makes Donald Trump look like the voice of reason. The Palestinians and their allies haven’t done much better, but the Israelis set the bar low enough that they haven’t done much worse.
But that’s changed. Deliberately killing civilians for the sake of killing the other side’s, civilians, is murder. It is tragic, it is wrong, it is illegal in any civilized society, it marks the killers as basically pure evil. Trying to kill terrorists, or enemy soldiers in a just war, is not wrong or criminal, it is laudable. And if the terrorists are standing next to or hiding behind civilians, such that those civilians will surely die with the terrorists, then shooting at the terrorists still isn’t a crime. The laws of war are quite clear about that – the war crime, if any, is committed by the people who hide behind civilians while waging war. It has to be, because any other law leads to the world being conquered by the sort of people who would use civilians as human shields.
Hamas, murders civilians, including but not limited to children. Put Hamas in a room with Jewish civilians and nothing but Jewish civilians, no decision to be made but “should we kill a bunch of Jewish civilians because they are Jews”, and Hamas kills a bunch of Jews. We’ve just seen this. This is a tragedy, and it is a tragedy that is 100% Hamas’s fault.
Hamas, puts its strongpoints and command centers in the most densely populated part of Gaza, and fires its rockets from sites surrounded by innocent civilians. So when the IDF shoots back, as they must, Arab civilians die in large numbers. This is a tragedy, and it is a tragedy that is 100% Hamas’s fault.
So “a pox on both your houses”, that part is over. On October 7, Hamas started waving the “We’re the baddies, yes, us, not those other guys, we’re the absolute worst and don’t you forget it” flag. They put themselves 100% on the side of evil, of deliberate murder for the sake of murder plus secondhand murder for the sake of hiding from the consequences of the deliberate murder. I understand *why* Hamas does it this way, but that’s like saying I understand why the Nazis killed six million Jews. Understanding does not mean acceptance.
Hamas, must be removed from power in Gaza. That is no longer negotiable. This will predictably lead to thousands of horrific tragedies. It still needs to be done, and it will be done. And having a finite capacity for sympathy, approximately all of mine is for the people who are stuck with the difficult, dangerous, unrewarding task of removing Hamas from Gaza while still grieving for their own murdered children.
And here in the west, in the face of a massive new wave of wholly inappropriate antisemitism directed against people who for the most part aren’t even Israelis, the righteous Gentiles must do better than just hiding Jews under the floorboards. I think we’re up for it.
Hamas Delenda Est
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For most of the past few years, my feelings on the Arab-Israeli conflict have been roughly characterized by “a pox on both your houses”. Israel’s policies in the West Bank have been frankly atrocious, and the Netanyahu administration at times makes Donald Trump look like the voice of reason. The Palestinians and their allies haven’t done much better, but the Israelis set the bar low enough that they haven’t done much worse.
But that’s changed. Deliberately killing civilians for the sake of killing the other side’s, civilians, is murder. It is tragic, it is wrong, it is illegal in any civilized society, it marks the killers as basically pure evil. Trying to kill terrorists, or enemy soldiers in a just war, is not wrong or criminal, it is laudable. And if the terrorists are standing next to or hiding behind civilians, such that those civilians will surely die with the terrorists, then shooting at the terrorists still isn’t a crime. The laws of war are quite clear about that – the war crime, if any, is committed by the people who hide behind civilians while waging war. It has to be, because any other law leads to the world being conquered by the sort of people who would use civilians as human shields.
Hamas, murders civilians, including but not limited to children. Put Hamas in a room with Jewish civilians and nothing but Jewish civilians, no decision to be made but “should we kill a bunch of Jewish civilians because they are Jews”, and Hamas kills a bunch of Jews. We’ve just seen this. This is a tragedy, and it is a tragedy that is 100% Hamas’s fault.
Hamas, puts its strongpoints and command centers in the most densely populated part of Gaza, and fires its rockets from sites surrounded by innocent civilians. So when the IDF shoots back, as they must, Arab civilians die in large numbers. This is a tragedy, and it is a tragedy that is 100% Hamas’s fault.
So “a pox on both your houses”, that part is over. On October 7, Hamas started waving the “We’re the baddies, yes, us, not those other guys, we’re the absolute worst and don’t you forget it” flag. They put themselves 100% on the side of evil, of deliberate murder for the sake of murder plus secondhand murder for the sake of hiding from the consequences of the deliberate murder. I understand *why* Hamas does it this way, but that’s like saying I understand why the Nazis killed six million Jews. Understanding does not mean acceptance.
Hamas, must be removed from power in Gaza. That is no longer negotiable. This will predictably lead to thousands of horrific tragedies. It still needs to be done, and it will be done. And having a finite capacity for sympathy, approximately all of mine is for the people who are stuck with the difficult, dangerous, unrewarding task of removing Hamas from Gaza while still grieving for their own murdered children.
And here in the west, in the face of a massive new wave of wholly inappropriate antisemitism directed against people who for the most part aren’t even Israelis, the righteous Gentiles must do better than just hiding Jews under the floorboards. I think we’re up for it.
Hamas Delenda Est
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