I would urge you to be sitting down as you listen to Jeremy Bowen’s latest report from Gaza. It’s amazing, isn’t it, to listen to such naked partisanship dressed up as reporting? Jeremy is nothing more than a pro-Palestinian talking head, doing everything possible to diminish the Israeli response to the savagery of Hamas. He concludes his ever so world-weary diatribe by saying “let’s hope there is a cease-fire soon”. Why? He is now offering opinion which favours one side (Hamas) in the conflict, is this not bias? And while we are at it, I notice the BBC is STILL pushing the death statistics of those in Gaza as one BIG media friendly number, whilst they breakdown Israeli deaths by military/civilian. We hear how many kids have allegedly died in Gaza, we never hear how many Hamas terrorists have been killed. Isn’t that a little odd? The BBC seem determined to portray the deaths of all those in Gaza as being the deaths of innocents. It’s sickening to behold.
GAZAN UPDATE.
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BBC ‘Today’ [at after 7:20 am this morning] was a classical example of BBC political bias AGAINST Israel, and FOR Islamic jihad Hamas (which the BBC refers to as ‘militants’).
The egregious inquisitorial hostility shown by HUMPHRYS towards Israel spokesman REGEV illustrated all the interview techniques referred to by me (and by other before on this site) on this thread : [8:55 pm last night]; on Humphrys’ interview MANNER towards Regev: the key features were-
1.)unconcealed political hostility throughout;
2.)continual interruptions by Humphrys, often less than two seconds into a politically bias question of the ‘have you stopped beating your wife’ variety.
On CONTENT, Humphrys had three familiar mantras to confront Regev with:
1.) ‘Israel is killing children’; at no time did Humphys even mention Hamas rocket attacks on Israel!
2.)’Israel will not let the BBC into Gaza’, so it can tell the truth; even though the BBC has a reporter in Gaza!
3.)he used the words ‘Palestinians’ and ‘Hamas’ interchangeably, avoiding the term ‘Islamic jihad’ throughout.
“How Strong is the Arab claim to Palestine?” (Lawrence Auster, 2004)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F9FC5FA9-FF95-49BC-86A2-C9EBD546AD3D
“A Disproportionate Animus”
(Melanie Phillips on BBC’s love affair with pro-Hamas Alistair Crooke, etc.)
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3234526/a-disproportionate-animus.thtml
George R | 15.01.09 – 9:05 am | #
It would seem there are statistics, damn statistics, and ‘HamUNaunty’* statistics.
How any ‘news’ ‘reporting’ entity can hold its professional, objective head up at passing on ‘facts’ (not to mention dropping a lot of others that might have a bearing on context, especially as to the reliability of ‘guests’) that originate with a terrorist organisation, get ‘massaged’ by an entity that has “UN’ in it but might not be quite as neutral as the prefix suggests, and then ‘interpreted’ by a merry crew that includes at least one senior person ‘who will never forgive’ one of the protagonists is… well, yes… unique.
George R | 15.01.09 – 8:23 am
(On Humphrys /Mark Regev interview this morning: )
Mark Regev was repeatedly harangued with the accusation “You knew! You knew!” (that women and children would be hit by retaliatory Israeli fire)
Does John Humphrys condone Hamas’ use of human shields or merely think that Hamas should be left to do whatever it likes with impunity as long as it remembers to protect itself behind a hostage or three?
Mark Regev refuses to get rattled. He could have replied “Hamas knew!” Hamas knew!” (exactly what they were doing when they deliberately opened fire when hiding behind civilians )
He shows enormous restraint. Thank God for Mark Regev.
Chris Gunniss said on BBC News 24 that the fire in the UN compound could only have been caused by Israelis because they were the only ones who had phospherous.
If it has actually been reported that Hamas also have phospherous,
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231950850553&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
why didn’t the interviewer challenge him on that? Surely someone should have pointed it out.
I have been away for the past week. Someone posted as Sue while I was away. I bagsed Sue.
From the Western Morning News “……International aid groups have repeatedly said Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians, who are believed to make up about half of the dead.”
I suppose we all make things up fom time to time, eh?
David Preiser: “Why only if it’s police targets?”
Good point, and it’s not only police targets. I picked police targets because they are more likely to be armed (albeit legally) and uniformed (albeit not as Hamas), and therefore it’s marginally more clear cut. But with all civilian casualties it’s the same – the possibility remains that they were actually combatants. The fact that paramilitary movements naturally blur the lines between civilian and soldier means accurate, or even vague terrorist body-counts are impossible.
Jason: Your thought experiment isn’t at all relevant to the topic at hand, but it is quite an interesting one, so I’ll have a play with it, and assume both families are of equal size and guaranteed to be completely wiped out.
“The answer is that you should fire that missile and feel no guilt whatsoever.”
I disagree. The decision to fire is basically two decisions – firstly, that I consider it more important to kill the terrorist than to spare the neighbouring family, and secondly that I would prefer to my family to live than for the other to. Though the decision to see one fucknut terrorist as well as one family die instead of just one family is a pragmatic one, the fact that I was willing to see innocent people die to save my own skin would definitely haunt me.
But there are a couple of parts to your experiment which I think make a poor analogy.
“They’re exploding to the left, to the right – pretty soon one is going to make a direct hit and wipe you and your family out…you have at your disposal a missile which can be targeted at the other house with perfect accuracy.”
This is rather a different matter to the current situation in Gaza, where Israel’s firepower is much greater than that of the assorted terrorists. The massive disparity in casualties proves that. Even pre-Cast Lead Qassam attacks killed under thirty people. A better analogy would be if the terrorist would probably kill one, possibly two, members of my family, but that my rocket attack would almost certainly kill the entire neighbouring family and the friends and relatives that they had over when the terrorist burst in. In this case, it would be extremely cowardly to sacrifice several strangers in order to save one person close to me. Israel has decided several thousand Palestinian casualties, including three hundred children, is worth it to remove a relatively tiny risk to its own population.
“You have no choice but to choose between the survival of your family or another family. You did not ask to be put in this situation and therefore the consequences of the actions you are forced to take are entirely the responsibility of the terrorist.”
I have little choice, but, as you say, I have the choice over which family dies. I did not ask to be put in the situation, but I did decide to escape it. Yes, the situation was the fault of the terrorist, but any actions I took to save myself and my family are mine and mine alone. If I saved as many lives as I took, yes, that would (theoretically) neutralise my feelings of guilt, and I would hold the terrorist responsible for his attempted murder of my family and accept he got what he deserved. But if, as in my example the current situation, this would entail far more deaths than inaction, yes, I am responsible for those surplus corpses, rather than the terrorist.
“When terrorist organizations like Hamas deliberately hide themselves within civilian neighborhoods, when their very nature is that it is hard to distinguish between them and innocent victims, then the blame for the deaths of any innocents lies squarely at the feet of the terrorists, not the people who are forced to have to take those steps to neutralize the threat against them.”
“Forced to” is a strong word. Israel’s strategy seems to be to use aerial bombardment to minimise casualties to its own troops in ground attacks. Sacrificing innocent civilians in order to protect willing soldiers, in my book, is murderous and cowardly and as much so as Hamas. The refusal to negotiate on both sides has prolonged the conflict, but it is Israel’s firepower that is killing the most innocent people and therefore Israel who is responsible for the most deaths.
Thought experiment for you. I put a red can and a green can on a fence. I hand you a tennis ball and offer you £50 if you can knock down the green can and leave the red can. The trouble is, I’ve put them quite close together and at this range, there’s a good chance you will hit both. Sure enough, you decide to take your chances and knock down both. Now, is it your fault that you hit the red can, or my fault for making it a difficult task?
So it is in Gaza. When Israel decides it would rather risk missing a terrorist than risk hitting the school he’s cowering in, that decision rests with Israel.
Once again Alex, the simple solution to all of this is for Palestinians to live in peace with their neighbours in Israel.
It really is as simple as that. If the Palestinians dont want to get bombed by the jews, then dont shoot rockets at them.
What is so hard for you to understand in that?
And Ive asked this question a number of times. How do you talk to someone hell bent on your total destruction?
You see Hamas is the problem here. It is not the Jews or the State of Israel, the problem IS Hamas.
As long as Hamas and their supporters are allowed to control Gaza or have influence in the area there will be no peace.
Yet you on the left have totally overlooked this simple truth. One really has to ask why you would overlook this. Is it because you hate Jews? Or maybe think Jews are to blame for every ill in the world?
Mailman
BTW Alex, how many jews have to be killed before Israel can act to protect its citizens?
Mailman
Alex | Homepage | 15.01.09 – 1:26 pm
Israel has decided several thousand Palestinian casualties, including three hundred children, is worth it to remove a relatively tiny risk to its own population.
Israel has DECIDED, after suffering thousands of rocket attacks, that enough is enough. BTW, have you read the Hamas charter? Israel is surrounded by a gaggle of hostile Arab neighbours; some tiny risk.
So it is in Gaza. When Israel decides it would rather risk missing a terrorist than risk hitting the school he’s cowering in, that decision rests with Israel.
Are you saying Hamas must be allowed to operate freely as long as they take the precaution of protecting themselves with some hostages? Do you mean that Israel must ‘like it or lump it’ if there’s any chance of a hostage getting hurt? Why doesn’t everyone just grab a baby and say “Give me what I want! Or the baby gets it.”
Israel’s strategy seems to be to use aerial bombardment to minimise casualties to its own troops in ground attacks.
Not true at all. Israel is using troops on the ground, risking its own soldiers specifically to limit civilian casualties.
Alex, you are honing your debating skills again. You are still picking a ridiculous argument and defending it relentlessly as some sort of practice. Are you training to ba a barrister? Your insincerity is still showing, just as it was before.
As for disregarding the safety of your own family if it meant ‘wiping out’ a greater number of strangers, well, the mind boggles! Should we assume you don’t get on with Mum and Dad then?
Alex, this is just ridiculous. To suggest that you would make the decision to sacrifice yourself and your family in order to “choose” the other family is, I believe, the worst kind of dishonesty. You would do no such thing. If you would, you are either incredibly callous and indifferent to your own family, or plain mentally ill.
It would NOT be “cowardly” to kill several strangers in order to save one close loved one if that’s the only choice you faced. It would be a fully human, rational and moral expression of love.
Israel has decided that it WILL NOT STAND BY AND ALLOW ITS CIVILIANS TO BE KILLED. Hamas is responsible for the fact that to deal with that threat, Palestinian civilians will be placed at risk and will lose their lives. Not Israel.
Your idea that you should only feel guilt if the “number of lives taken to save your own” are proportional is just completely ridiculous. You fail to understand the essentials and ethics of the situation at all. According to you, if saving your own life entails killing the same or a similar number of other people, the fault is with the terrorist who created that situation, yet if the number killed rises above a certain level then the fault lies with you.
This is wrong on all levels. No, the fault does not lie with you. You have an instinct of survival and there is nothing wrong with wanting to live, nor is there anything wrong with doing anything to save the lives of your children. To sacrifice the lives of your children, to sacrifice something of greater value for something of lesser value to you, is wrong.
Neither are phrases like “Israel’s strategy seems to be…” relevant in this discussion. Israel’s strategy is to take out Hamas and to do it as quickly as possible. Of course, aerial bombardments are going to be used in such a case.
Your “thought experiment” is among the most ridiculous things I have ever heard in my life. The offer of a $50 dollar reward bears absolutely no similarity whatsoever to a situation in which lives of loved ones are at stake and one side has vowed the complete destruction of the other. I am not forced to “try for” the $50 in order to save my own life or the lives of my family, therefore the ethics involved are completely and utterly different.
Jeez Alex, as of this time I’ve yet to see you make one fair point in any of your contributions to this blog over the last couple of days. Well done son!
“It would NOT be “cowardly” to kill several strangers in order to save one close loved one if that’s the only choice you faced. It would be a fully human, rational and moral expression of love.”
Yes, it would be understandable and entirely human. But you would still be morally culpable for the people you knowingly killed. Your motives would be fair, if humanly selfish, but your actions would be your own and the blood would be on your hands nonetheless. More to the point, the IDF is not protecting its “loved ones” but its compatriots. Israel has decided that Israeli strangers are far more worth saving than Palestinian strangers. Which leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouth.
“Israel has decided that it WILL NOT STAND BY AND ALLOW ITS CIVILIANS TO BE KILLED. Hamas is responsible for the fact that to deal with that threat, Palestinian civilians will be placed at risk and will lose their lives. Not Israel.”
Hamas created the risk, Israel decided to accept it. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and friends offered Israel a rather unsporting choice of “A few Israeli civilians or an enormous number of Palestinian civilians”. Israel decided it would rather save Israeli lives than spare Palestinian lives.
“I am not forced to “try for” the $50 in order to save my own life or the lives of my family, therefore the ethics involved are completely and utterly different.”
It’s not a case of ethics. It’s a simple case of responsibility. When you decided to throw the ball instead of walking away saying “I can’t, it’s too hard”, you took responsibility.
“BTW Alex, how many jews have to be killed before Israel can act to protect its citizens?”
I imagine the equation would go something like this:
Let i = the number of Israeli civilians likely to be killed by sustained rocket fire until a ceasefire is agreed.
Let b = the number of Israeli civilians likely to be killed by rocket fire during the ceasefire.
Let g = the number of Gazan non-combatants likely to be killed by attempts to eradicate rocket fire.
Let w = the worth of one Israeli life in Palestinian lives.
Let p = the cost of wounded national pride expressed in Israeli lives.
For the sake of argument, we will omit the financial cost of military operations.
Where i+p > g/w, intervention is justified.
Hence, we see that for the PC liberal, for whom all people are equal and no petty sense of national pride could justify the loss of a single human life, w=1 and p=0, therefore (to date) 1014 Israelis would have to be under direct threat of death by rocket fire for Israel to act to protect its citizens.
Sorry, the equation should read “i+b+p = g/w”.
Alex,
As long as you define your variable “i” as the number of Israelis “likely” to be killed, rather than actually killed, and you stack the deck with your variable “w”, your equation is a worthless pile of false moral equivalence.
Yewhat?
Alex | Homepage | 15.01.09 – 6:40 pm | #
Yes, it would be understandable and entirely human. But you would still be morally culpable for the people you knowingly killed. Your motives would be fair, if humanly selfish, but your actions would be your own and the blood would be on your hands nonetheless.
Absolutely wrong, I cannot stress this enough. The entire blame lands at the feet of whomever forced you into that position. The blood is on their hands.
More to the point, the IDF is not protecting its “loved ones” but its compatriots. Israel has decided that Israeli strangers are far more worth saving than Palestinian strangers. Which leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouth.
Yes, Israeli strangers are worth more to it than Palestinian strangers. Under normal circumstances this choice would not have to be made, but Hamas force them into making it. Moreover, it is the role of the IDF to protect the lives of Israelis, not to let Israelis die for the sake of protecting the lives of Palestinians when Hamas force them into that situation. The only “nasty taste” left in my mouth after contemplating such a reality is a taste left by Hamas, not Israel.
Hamas created the risk, Israel decided to accept it.
And for all of the reasons I’ve previously stated, Israel is perfectly justified and moral to accept it.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and friends offered Israel a rather unsporting choice of “A few Israeli civilians or an enormous number of Palestinian civilians”. Israel decided it would rather save Israeli lives than spare Palestinian lives.
Of course they did. The proper role of a state is first and foremost to protect the rights of its own citizens. The first and foremost right for a state to protect is the right to life.
It’s not a case of ethics. It’s a simple case of responsibility. When you decided to throw the ball instead of walking away saying “I can’t, it’s too hard”, you took responsibility.
Of course it’s a case of ethics. The concept of responsibility falls under the umbrella of “ethics.” Furthermore, I find that I have to reiterate the fact that your thought experiment is completely irrelevant to the subject at hand, since the ethics involved in making a decision over whether or not to “go for a $50 prize” bear no resemblance whatsoever to the ethics involved in deciding whether or not to protect ones own life and the lives of ones family.
And as for your “equation”….Alex, go to your room and don’t come down until morning. This is ridiculous. Even if you accept that it’s immoral for a state to value the lives of its own people over the lives of the people of another state (which I don’t, since otherwise there would be no point in even having a state to protect your life), you can’t possibly suggest that there are less than 1014 Israelis under direct threat from the rocket attacks of Palestinians.
“Absolutely wrong, I cannot stress this enough. The entire blame lands at the feet of whomever forced you into that position. The blood is on their hands.”
Stress it ’til you’re blue in the face. The whole area is still very much a matter of opinion and you seem to be treating yours as a big solid fact.
“Yes, Israeli strangers are worth more to it than Palestinian strangers. Under normal circumstances this choice would not have to be made, but Hamas force them into making it.”
You concede that Israel makes a choice then. Though Hamas should be condemned for forcing this decision and determining how many Gazan civilians could potentially die in the operation, Israel is not a robot and should absolutely take responsibility for what it decides. Though Hamas created the conditions, it was Israel who had the final say who lived and who died. Attempts to shift every single ounce of blame onto one party are a pathetic attempt to grab total impunity for your side.
“And as for your “equation”….Alex, go to your room and don’t come down until morning.”
I believe it was mailman who asked for an exact figure. Take it up with him, although I’m sure the equation needs some fine tuning and better typing.
“you can’t possibly suggest that there are less than 1014 Israelis under direct threat from the rocket attacks of Palestinians.”
Serious threat of death? It’s far less. Look up how many Israelis have actually died from rocket fire since 2001. Qassams are scary, but they’re not really that effective. Besides, far more than 1000 Gazans are threatened by Israeli bombardment as well. That’s why you have to get into the rather sad and extremely tricky area of potential losses. I suppose you could go with 7m versus 1.5m, but that would involve assuming each side has both the will and the means to utterly annihilate the other. I doubt Israel has the will and I doubt Hamas has the means.
“the ethics involved in making a decision over whether or not to “go for a $50 prize” bear no resemblance whatsoever to the ethics involved in deciding whether or not to protect ones own life and the lives of ones family.”
Sorry, I read that as “prize bear” at first. Naturally the decision-making process is utterly different when human lives are at stake, but who is responsible for the final decision remains the same.
But if you want some life-or-death moralising, how about another one? Your young son was in a hit-and-run and needs several transplants urgently, and there are no organs available. You find yourself alone in the childrens’ ward and realise some strategic tampering with equipment could free up some organs. Terrible situation to be in, of course, but taking one or two strangers’ lives, is the only way to save your son. Do you let someone close to you die for the sake of strange children? Do you kill a couple of children to save your son and feel guilty about it for the rest of your life? Or do you kill a couple of children to save your son and feel not a trace of guilt, because the entire situation was brought about by the irresponsible driver? Are you absolved entirely by the situation or fully responsible for your reaction to it?
The BBC does have at least one reporter inside Gaza anyway, one Rushdi Abu Aluf, a BBC producer (he seems to serve the BBC World Service as well) is located in Gaza City and comes up with reports which do not question the Hamas version of events. I don’t think he knows, or is allowed to use, in Hamas-controlled territory, phrases such as ‘Hamas claims’, or ‘unconfirmed’, or ‘possibly’. Of course, he is treated in a very friendly manner by his BBC colleagues in all interviews.
George R | 14.01.09 – 8:55 pm |
This is the same Rushdi Abu Aluf I heard last night on the line from Gaza describing how (in his words) “Hamas and other resistance fighters fired rockets and anti-tank missiles at the Israeli ground forces, who responded by firing artillery rounds into ‘this densely populated residential area’.”
Assuming he’s talking about the same “densely populated residential area” from whence the rockets and missiles were fired at the IDF, which is not immediately clear to the casual reader/listener, one is obliged to ask, “WTF are those terrorists doing shooting at the IDF from within a ‘densely populated residential area’ in the first place, and isn’t it a war crime?”
Let’s just forget about his use of terms like “Hamas and other resistance fighters“. That’s just standard Hamas propaganda parroted by BBC employees without a second thought. Par for the course.
Alex: You are a total prick and your “examples” and mental games become ever more ridiculous.
Some time ago, while chatting with a self-declared ‘pacifist’, I asked him if, were he and his family attacked and under imminent threat to life, he would use violence to save his life and the lives of his family. He replied that he wouldn’t. My response was that in that case he was either a liar or an idiot.
As Frank Zappa famously said, “Stupidity has a certain charm, ignorance does not.”
I think you’re both stupid and ignorant.
As Frank Zappa famously said, “Stupidity has a certain charm, ignorance does not.”
Mind you, he only said it once, whereas you say it every time I come on here. But thanks for providing me with such constructive and compelling counter-arguments.
So you are, as I suspected, that “Angry Young Alex” of yor. You don’t seem to have grown up much in the intervening period.
I learned when you trolled here previously that “compelling counter-arguments”, amply provided by others here in the last few days, are as pearls before swine (have I said that before too?).
Why don’t you enable comments on your poor excuse for a blog instead of coming here and pestering the adults?
Oh, I forgot… nobody visits your blog.
Actually, Biodegradable, the main issue of whether the BBC should report the number of Hamas casualties sort of tailed off a long while ago. I think because nobody could find one. Since then Jason and I have been playing a game of “Make up a vague and unrealistic analogy to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that proves you’re right about whose fault it is.” He’s really good at it, but I’m 2-1 up at the moment.
Since then Jason and I have been playing a game of “Make up a vague and unrealistic analogy to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that proves you’re right about whose fault it is.”
I’ve been following that thread too…
He’s really good at it, but I’m 2-1 up at the moment.
Who do you think you’re kidding?! 😆
I’ve made up two vague and unrealistic analogies to the Israel-Palestinian conflict to prove I’m right about whose fault it is, he’s only made up one. The rules of the game are clearly indicated by the title, and that’s a clear victory.
You live in a little world of your own Alex. We’ve been through this before and you were laughed at so hard you scuttled off with your tail between your legs.
Why have you come back? Please go away again.
Stress it ’til you’re blue in the face. The whole area is still very much a matter of opinion and you seem to be treating yours as a big solid fact.
I don’t need to go blue in the face to stress the individual’s inalienable right to life and to defend it when forced to do so. You can deny it until you’re blue in the face but at the end of the day people will follow their natural instincts to protect their own lives and that of their families, without the incessant whining of people like you.
You concede that Israel makes a choice then. Though Hamas should be condemned for forcing this decision and determining how many Gazan civilians could potentially die in the operation, Israel is not a robot and should absolutely take responsibility for what it decides.
Of course it’s responsible for the act of making the decision. But the consequences of that decision are the responsibility of whomever forced them to make it. Additionally, Israel is perfectly justified in coming to such a decision. Your entire point seems to hinge on the fact that Israelis could choose to sacrifice themselves if they so desired – and to, quite ignorantly, claim that decision as the moral standard of value, the deviation from which is somehow to be condemned as immoral. I have some news for you Alex, that’s not how it works at all and like I said, Israel will choose itself over Palestinians when forced to do so – and they will do it without regret, because the blame lies with Hamas.
Though Hamas created the conditions, it was Israel who had the final say who lived and who died. Attempts to shift every single ounce of blame onto one party are a pathetic attempt to grab total impunity for your side.
Hamas didn’t just “create the conditions,” they forced Israel to take the decision that they did. The act of deciding “who lived and who died” in such a situation does not possess the same moral or ethical dynamics as a situation in which Israel were making that decision without having to make the choice between “us or them.” This is the difference which I have been trying to explain to you and which you have so stubbornly refused to grasp.
I believe it was mailman who asked for an exact figure. Take it up with him, although I’m sure the equation needs some fine tuning and better typing.
You attempted to answer a rhetorical question literally, in the manner of a 14 year old math enthusiast keen to impress. We’ll forget about your embarrassing little equation then shall we.
Serious threat of death? It’s far less. Look up how many Israelis have actually died from rocket fire since 2001. Qassams are scary, but they’re not really that effective.
The number of Israelis who have actually been killed is a different number than the number of Israelis whose lives are under threat from these rockets. Please tell me you understand this distinction. The idea that Israel only has the right to respond in a manner which reflects identically the actual number of Israelis that have been killed, is an intellectually and ethically unsophisticated idea that belongs in the school playground, in a petty tit for tat match. This isn’t the school playground – it’s a state protecting the lives of its people from a potential threat.
Besides, far more than 1000 Gazans are threatened by Israeli bombardment as well. That’s why you have to get into the rather sad and extremely tricky area of potential losses.
Israel’s bombardment is the direct result of the threat that Hamas poses to its inhabitants. Hamas is fully responsible for forcing the situation which led to this bombardment, so the blame for the risk to Palestinians lies firmly on their shoulders.
I suppose you could go with 7m versus 1.5m, but that would involve assuming each side has both the will and the means to utterly annihilate the other. I doubt Israel has the will and I doubt Hamas has the means.
It is not the intention or purpose of Israel’s action to annihilate all Palestinians, just Hamas. The fact that civilians are killed to is a direct consequence of the way in which Hamas hides its terrorists and weapons among civilians. Israel takes steps to prevent civilian deaths and would much prefer they didn’t happen. Hamas takes steps to deliberately cause civilian deaths and would much rather they did happen. This basic difference is why your childish attempts at ethical symmetry fall so flat.
Sorry, I read that as “prize bear” at first. Naturally the decision-making process is utterly different when human lives are at stake, but who is responsible for the final decision remains the same.
Like I’ve already pointed out, you seem incapable of discerning the difference between the act of making a decision and the consequences of that decision. It is this difference which makes the two examples completely and utterly incompatible with each other. Since no human lives are at stake in the $50 example, nobody is forced to take that decision. It is the “right to survival” part of it that distinguishes life or death decisions from carnival games. I can’t believe I am still having to make this clear.
Now onto your other hypothetical situation. Really, it all boils down to your insinuation that in the context of ethics, the imminent threat of the initiation of physical force by an aggressor should be treated in exactly the same way as the ‘threat’ of physical injuries already sustained. But in the case of the rockets, the dilemma involves deciding whether or not to defend ones family against the initiation of physical force while it is taking place, whereas in your example the initiation of physical force has already taken place – and you already failed to defend your child against it. If it were the case that your child were padlocked to a tree with a crazy driver bearing down upon her at speed in a car which also contained innocent people – and you had the opportunity to take out the car with a missile before it hit your child, then yes the two situations would be the same and you would have every moral right to defend your child and blame the regrettable collateral deaths on the driver who forced you into that situation, since you are defending your child from the initiation of physical force.
There are also other crucial differences: in my scenario, saving your family depends primarily upon the killing of the terrorist, not the innocents. In other words, if the innocent family somehow manages to escape before you fire the rocket, thus saving themselves, it does not render your act of self defense any less effective, in fact this would be infinitely preferable to you. However in the case of the organs, the saving of your childs life very much depends on the killing of the innocent children. If they somehow managed to “escape” from your intention to kill them, then your act of “self defense” is in vain and your child dies. Your intention is not to stop the hit and run driver from “attacking” your child in the first place, it is to kill an innocent child to harvest its organs. This fundamental difference in circumstance and intent means that the extent to which you will feel guilt, to which you will feel absolved from responsibility, will be completely different. These kinds of differences in intent and circumstance are why, for example, the law distinguishes between murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide (I’m not saying any of those crimes are relevant to this situation, merely illustrating that differences exist).
By the way Alex your grandiose attempt at “scoring” this debate and claiming victory for yourself is all very cute, but that’s about it. Additionally, my analogy was not “vague and unrealistic” – it was simply a way of boiling down an element of the ethics involved in Israel’s act of self defense into a simplified, abstract form for the purpose of consideration, in much the same way that a real world geometric problem may be condensed into a simple diagram. It’s not the whole story, but it does serve to isolate many of the essentials of the problem.
We could knuckle down and add more realism and detail to the scenario – for example, we could also go on to say that the innocent family who is being held hostage by the terrorist has every right to defend itself from your attack, since they also possess the inalienable right to life and are forced into a life or death situation against their will. Their moral right to defend themselves should focus first and foremost on the destruction of the terrorist, since it is his firing of rockets which has brought the threat upon them in the first place. This reflects real life because ordinary Palestinians would serve their own survival very well by revolting against the terrorist organization which brought the threat of Israel’s self defense on them in the first place. However, we’re on shaky ground here because Hamas were democratically elected, which means that if the Palestinians in question voted for them, they bear some of the responsibility from the threat which Hamas invite upon them.
Going further on, we could postulate an hypothetical situation in which the innocent family have no power to destroy the terrorist, but (somehow) have the power to launch an attack against you. Perhaps the terrorist has persuaded them that if only they would join him in firing rockets upon you, they could save themselves from your act of self defense. In this case, the ethics of the situation are that the terrorist has forced upon you both a fight to the death, that the strongest of you will win and that the death of whomever loses is, again, completely and utterly the responsibility of the terrorist who forced this situation upon you.
I think we can conclude that terrorists and their actions force upon us the most dreadful situations in which we are forc
Continued (I think I went over the word limit – what a blowhard!)
…I think we can conclude that terrorists and their actions force upon us the most dreadful situations in which we are forced to act in ways that ordinarily we would not consider, e.g. the collateral killing of innocents we have no beef with. Therefore, in the long run, it is within the interests of everyone to kill all terrorists. Off with their heads!
“Why have you come back?”
A good question. I have paperwork to do and you lot are a less irritating way of procrastinating than the cheezburger network.
“You attempted to answer a rhetorical question literally, in the manner of a 14 year old math enthusiast keen to impress.”
It’s the only way to deal with fatuous rhetorical questions.
“You can deny it until you’re blue in the face but at the end of the day people will follow their natural instincts to protect their own lives and that of their families, without the incessant whining of people like you.”
I remind you that my “whining” was explaining to David Vance about the very good reason why the BBC can’t report the number of Hamas casualties. He seems to have given up. Moralising over whose fault it is is entirely unrelated, and was brought up by you. However, it is extremely interesting which is why I bother to read your marathon posts.
“Of course it’s responsible for the act of making the decision. But the consequences of that decision are the responsibility of whomever forced them to make it.”
What I think this boils down to is that both parties know the potential consequences of their actions. Hamas knows its attacks will almost certainly provoke a catastrophic Israeli response, Israel knows its response will cause civilian casualties. However Israel is the final link in the chain and has the final say on what happens, therefore to absolve them of all responsibility is as ridiculous as it would be to absolve Hamas.
Reverse the situation. Israel knows that its blockade of Gaza will anger Hamas and that Hamas will respond disproportionately by increasing rocket fire. Israel also knows that Hamas has no way to target its weapons on specific targets and that casualties will be largely or entirely civilians. Hamas, of course, cannot be expected to sacrifice its own people to malnutrition and lack of medical attention. Is Israel responsible for provoking the attack or is Hamas responsible for carrying it out? I for one would blame Hamas, even though Israel gave it little choice, because it was Hamas that ultimately decided rockets would be fired.
“However, we’re on shaky ground here because Hamas were democratically elected, which means that if the Palestinians in question voted for them, they bear some of the responsibility from the threat which Hamas invite upon them.”
That’s like saying the victims of the London bombings brought it on themselves for re-electing Blair. You’re getting into some very nasty collective-punishment territory with this remark, and I can only hope it’s intended hypothetically.
“The number of Israelis who have actually been killed is a different number than the number of Israelis whose lives are under threat from these rockets.”
I think you’ve misunderstood my point. The number of deaths so far is only so we can estimate how many Israeli lives are actually under threat from rocket attacks. The fact that very few have died is not relevant, but it is a useful way to gauge the risk.
“It is not the intention or purpose of Israel’s action to annihilate all Palestinians, just Hamas…Hamas takes steps to deliberately cause civilian deaths and would much rather they did happen. This basic difference is why your childish attempts at ethical symmetry fall so flat.”
That’s what I meant by “I doubt Israel has the will”. It is not the only basic difference. The other is level of weaponry. Israel has managed to kill far more civilians by accident that Hamas has on purpose. Your analogy portrays both sides as equals where the risks to each side from the other are very different.
“Since no human lives are at stake in the $50 example, nobody is forced to take that decision. It is the “right to survival” part of it that distinguishes life or death decisions from carnival games. I can’t believe I am still having to make this clear.”
In what way does it make it different? You may not be forced at gunpoint to make the decision, but you still have to decide to throw or not throw. I don’t think you’ve explained your point very well. I understand that more than £50 is at stake in Gaza at at the moment, but how risking human lives would shift the responsibility for the decision from one party to another, and entirely, you have failed to make clear.
“the imminent threat of the initiation of physical force by an aggressor should be treated in exactly the same way as the ‘threat’ of physical injuries already sustained.”
Again, you’ve lost me. Why is this not the case? In both your scenario and mine, you are forced to choose between strangers and one of your own. Kindly explain how the different circumstances alter the morality of the situation, other than by giving you an easier scapegoat.
“But in the case of the rockets, the dilemma involves deciding whether or not to defend ones family against the initiation of physical force while it is taking place, whereas in your example the initiation of physical force has already taken place – and you already failed to defend your child against it.”
I’m still not sure how you’re making this distinction. Dead is dead is dead, isn’t it?
“There are also other crucial differences: in my scenario, saving your family depends primarily upon the killing of the terrorist, not the innocents. In other words, if the innocent family somehow manages to escape before you fire the rocket, thus saving themselves, it does not render your act of self defense any less effective, in fact this would be infinitely preferable to you.”
For your hypothetical scenario to work, the entire possibility of escape has to be eliminated. Otherwise, I assume my family can also escape, and it comes down to the same thing but with relative risk rather than certain death.
Also, I don’t want to kill the terrorist either. I admit, I wouldn’t shed any tears for him, but the same applies if he died of a sudden heart-attack. The only thing I’m really interested in is stopping the rockets. So I would count him under collateral damage as well, only rather less regrettable.
Overall, I’m not sure about this, so correct me if I’ve misread you: You seem to be implying that because an aggressor has initiated the situation and will ultimately pay the price for it, that the situation is different. That although the potential consequences are equivalent, my original intent is not? Is that right?
If it is, I would say you are mixing two separate issues. In my second scenario, I only have one objective: to save the life of a loved one. In yours, I seem to have two: to save loved ones and to destroy an enemy. Though, in your case, it probably is a lot closer to Israel’s motives, it is not pure self-defence, there are now elements of retaliation, deterrence and retribution involved as well as pragmatic life-saving. So while your analogy works to understand Israel’s predicament (or does if you very the power of the rockets and the size of the families), it doesn’t actually fit with what you’re trying to justify.
Maybe if we split your analogy up. The terrorist has set up a machine to fire rockets at your house, which you have to destroy. He has left the family tied up in the basement, so the risk to them is the same. However, he has escaped and is running away using a passer-by as a human shield. You now have two sets of choices: Whether to sacrifice one family to save your own, and whether to sacrifice one innocent person to take out a guilty one. Which do you do in each case?
“By the way Alex your grandiose attempt at “scoring” this debate and claiming victory for yourself is all very cute, but that’s about it. Additionally, my analogy was not “vague and unrealistic””
2-0 then. 3-0 if you count him running away. God you’re crap at this. Anyway, I was just explaining the situation to Biodegradable, who seemed quite angry about the whole thing.
Jason to Alex:
Your entire point seems to hinge on the fact that Israelis could choose to sacrifice themselves if they so desired – and to, quite ignorantly, claim that decision as the moral standard of value, the deviation from which is somehow to be condemned as immoral.
Mahatma Ghandi suggested that the Jews should have gone willingly and passively to the ovens. That, he said, would have been more heroic than resisting. Ghandi’s grandson has shown himself to be overtly antisemitic.
Everybody loves a dead Jew, they just can’t handle the thought of Jews defending themselves, and like Alex will jump through hoops to justify their opinion that Jews should simply lay down and die, with true Ghandiesque passivity.
Anyway, I was just explaining the situation to Biodegradable, who seemed quite angry about the whole thing.
Alex | Homepage | 17.01.09 – 11:23 am
I’m not angry, Alex. Anger is your forté. I’m bored with your twisted pseudo-rationale and full of admiration for Jason’s patience and lucidity.
“It’s the only way to deal with fatuous rhetorical questions.”
No, it’s a childish way to deal with a rhetorical question which got a valid point across but which did not warrant a literal answer.
“I remind you that my “whining” was explaining to David Vance about the very good reason why the BBC can’t report the number of Hamas casualties. He seems to have given up. Moralising over whose fault it is is entirely unrelated, and was brought up by you. However, it is extremely interesting which is why I bother to read your marathon posts.”
If the BBC can’t report the number of Hamas casualties then it has a responsibility to make that clear when it’s citing a number for “Palestinian deaths.” The whining I was referring to in this case however was your incessant whining in response to Israel exercising its right to defend itself.
“What I think this boils down to is that both parties know the potential consequences of their actions. Hamas knows its attacks will almost certainly provoke a catastrophic Israeli response, Israel knows its response will cause civilian casualties. However Israel is the final link in the chain and has the final say on what happens, therefore to absolve them of all responsibility is as ridiculous as it would be to absolve Hamas.”
Don’t be so bloody ridiculous Alex. You’re just deliberately choosing to ignore the fact that the actions of Hamas are not justifiable acts of self defense while those of Israel are. It does not matter that Israel is the “final link in the chain” when apportioning blame and responsibility, because Israel is taking direct action to remove an unjustified threat against itself. You’re attempting to isolate the action of Israel and to strip it of its entire ethical context. What’s also worth pointing out is that Israel takes steps to prevent civilian casualties in the process of defending itself (because civilian casualties are not its aim) while Hamas takes no steps to prevent civilian casualties when it fires rockets at Israel (because after all civilian casualties are its aim.) We can go further and point out that Hamas deliberately situates its military targets among Palestinian civilians, including children, knowing fine well that Israel will defend itself and that Palestinian children will be killed. It puts its civilians at risk like this not as a justifiable act of self defense but in order that their deaths will serve as propaganda for its cause. Hamas is responsible for every single death.
“Reverse the situation. Israel knows that its blockade of Gaza will anger Hamas and that Hamas will respond disproportionately by increasing rocket fire. Israel also knows that Hamas has no way to target its weapons on specific targets and that casualties will be largely or entirely civilians. Hamas, of course, cannot be expected to sacrifice its own people to malnutrition and lack of medical attention. Is Israel responsible for provoking the attack or is Hamas responsible for carrying it out? I for one would blame Hamas, even though Israel gave it little choice, because it was Hamas that ultimately decided rockets would be fired.”
Again, a thoroughly misguided and distored account of reality. You are attempting to superimpose an ethical symmetry which just does not exist. Hamas “increases rocket fire” not in an act of self defense, but in an act of anger and hatred. Furthermore, the blockades imposed upon Hamas are entirely the fault of Hamas itself and are again a full justifiable act of self defense by Israel, since Palestinian terrorists had been coming into Israel and blowing themselves up on buses and in pizza joints full of teenagers for years. Additionally, Hamas knows full well that it could end the blockade by simply laying down their weapons and ceasing to deliberately target innocent Israeli civilians in terrorist attacks. There is no need whatsoever, on any level, for them to fire rockets into Israel. They are responsible in full for every single last shred of hardship suffered by the Palestinians. Hamas depends on the hopelessly confused mindset of those who believe they have “little choice” in order to secure sympathy for themselves and to encourage anger against Israel. In this way, people like you are nothing more than “useful idiots” and I mean that quite sincerely.
“That’s like saying the victims of the London bombings brought it on themselves for re-electing Blair. You’re getting into some very nasty collective-punishment territory with this remark, and I can only hope it’s intended hypothetically.”
Another ridiculous claim of moral equivalence, Alex. The victims of the London bombings did not die in a justified act of self defense. They died in a fully malicious act of hatred which deliberately targeted civilians. Plus, I did not claim or even insinuate that Palestinians “deserved” to be “punished” – I merely pointed out that when you elect a terrorist organization which launches terrorist attacks against the civilians of a country and then hides among the electorate, you’re more than 0% responsible for what results. Of course, I should have gone into more detail and pointed out that not every Palestinian voted for Hamas. But those who did are more responsible than those who didn’t.
“I think you’ve misunderstood my point. The number of deaths so far is only so we can estimate how many Israeli lives are actually under threat from rocket attacks. The fact that very few have died is not relevant, but it is a useful way to gauge the risk.”
It’s a completely useless way of guaging the risk. If I stand above a crowd of 10,000 people and point at them a weapon which fires a bullet in a random direction within the range of that crowd, then every single one of those people is at risk of my action before it happens, even though only one of them will be hit. Also, you seem to be suggesting that there is a point at which defending Israeli lives will become “not worth it.” If one person per month is killed in rocket attacks against Israel for example, should Israel simply do nothing? Again, this all boils down to the fact that Hamas is launching the attacks and thus Hamas is fully responsible for the response which Israel must take to stop them, even if the deaths which ensue on the Palestinian side are not proportional with the deaths of Israelis. This imbalance of deaths is again the complete responsibility of Hamas, since it is because of their refusal to distinguish themselves from civilians that this imbalance results. If Hamas didn’t blend into civilian areas, you know as well as I do that there would not even have to be one civilian death.
“That’s what I meant by “I doubt Israel has the will”. It is not the only basic difference. The other is level of weaponry. Israel has managed to kill far more civilians by accident that Hamas has on purpose. Your analogy portrays both sides as equals where the risks to each side from the other are very different.”
And my response to this will be exactly as I have set out above, on more than one occasion and in more than one of my posts to you previously. This is not a school yard game in which each side must have the same size team. It’s about one side doing whatever it can to neutralize the threat of the aggressor on the other side. Furthermore, not one of my analogies portrays both sides as equals, because they quite clearly are not, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned above.
“In what way does it make it different? You may not be forced at gunpoint to make the decision, but you still have to decide to throw or not throw. I don’t think you’ve explained your point very well. I understand that more than £50 is at stake in Gaza at at the moment, but how risking human lives would shift the responsibility for the decision from one party to another, and entirely, you have failed to make clear.”
Grow up Alex. In what way does it make it different? Go back and read my explanation. If you can’t see any difference between choosing to defend ones life and choosing to go for a $50 prize with nobody’s life at risk then you’re dumber than I thought. I have debated with leftists like you for years of my life and it never ceases to amaze me to witness the frequency with which you people so wantonly drop contexts in order to gain false leverage in an argument. It’s simply astounding. Do you understand such legal distinctions as “murder,” “manslaughter” and “negligent homicide”? Do you understand why such distinctions are made? Do you understand the ethical and moral reasons why different circumstances and intent result in different sentencing structures in a court of law? It’s simply incredible that you don’t understand any of this.
“Again, you’ve lost me. Why is this not the case? In both your scenario and mine, you are forced to choose between strangers and one of your own. Kindly explain how the different circumstances alter the morality of the situation, other than by giving you an easier scapegoat.”
In one case, you’re acting to stop an aggressor. It’s an act of self defense against the aggressor. In the other case, you’re simply murdering innocent children. Butchering children in a hospital is an initiation of physical force – taking physical action against the aggressor who initiated the force against you is not. There is a fundamental moral and ethical difference between initiating physical force on an innocent person and defending onesself from such an initiation.
Human beings have a moral obligation to refrain from using physical force upon each other – however, if someone initiates physical force upon you then you are morally justified in responding to that force in self defense. Like I’ve been saying, the unfortunate deaths of any innocents who may be caught up in your act of self defense aga
Continued….
Human beings have a moral obligation to refrain from using physical force upon each other – however, if someone initiates physical force upon you then you are morally justified in responding to that force in self defense. Like I’ve been saying, the unfortunate deaths of any innocents who may be caught up in your act of self defense against such an initiation are the moral responsibility of the aggressor.
The children in the hospital are not the source of the force initiated against you and nor are they standing between you and that force, so there is no moral justification for initiating force against them.
“I’m still not sure how you’re making this distinction. Dead is dead is dead, isn’t it?”
Sure, to someone with the intellectual sophistication of a binary switch.
“For your hypothetical scenario to work, the entire possibility of escape has to be eliminated. Otherwise, I assume my family can also escape, and it comes down to the same thing but with relative risk rather than certain death.”
Fair enough, throwing the idea of the family escaping was a deviation from the confines of the hypothetical situation. But that still doesn’t change anything about the ethics involved in that situation.
“Also, I don’t want to kill the terrorist either. I admit, I wouldn’t shed any tears for him, but the same applies if he died of a sudden heart-attack. The only thing I’m really interested in is stopping the rockets. So I would count him under collateral damage as well, only rather less regrettable.”
Poppycock! If the terrorist has shown a willingness to fire rockets at your family with the express intention of killing you all then to kill him outright would be the surest way to defend your family. There is no “less regrettable” about it at all, there is no regret whatsoever.
“Overall, I’m not sure about this, so correct me if I’ve misread you: You seem to be implying that because an aggressor has initiated the situation and will ultimately pay the price for it, that the situation is different. That although the potential consequences are equivalent, my original intent is not? Is that right?”
See above.
“If it is, I would say you are mixing two separate issues. In my second scenario, I only have one objective: to save the life of a loved one. In yours, I seem to have two: to save loved ones and to destroy an enemy. Though, in your case, it probably is a lot closer to Israel’s motives, it is not pure self-defence, there are now elements of retaliation, deterrence and retribution involved as well as pragmatic life-saving. So while your analogy works to understand Israel’s predicament (or does if you very the power of the rockets and the size of the families), it doesn’t actually fit with what you’re trying to justify.”
Retribution and retaliation don’t come into it at all – and although deterrence is a factor of self defense, it’s still not the essential factor in any of this. The killing of the terrorist is not a “punishment,” it’s a fully justifiable act of self defense. Taking this back into the real world, killing the terrorists outright is essential in the case of terrorists who have chosen to devote their lives to your death, who have been shaped by a culture in which people are quite literally willing to blow themselves up to smithereens to secure your death. You do not negotiate or compromise with such people, you simply kill them.
“Maybe if we split your analogy up. The terrorist has set up a machine to fire rockets at your house, which you have to destroy. He has left the family tied up in the basement, so the risk to them is the same. However, he has escaped and is running away using a passer-by as a human shield. You now have two sets of choices: Whether to sacrifice one family to save your own, and whether to sacrifice one innocent person to take out a guilty one. Which do you do in each case?”
In the first case, you have the moral right to defend yourself from the initiation of force by blowing up the machine with the rocket. The ethics are the same as if the terrorist were there. The machine IS the initiation of force. In the second, you can use your judgement according to the situation. If it looks as if the terrorist is on his way to launch more attacks against you, then you have the right to kill him and the responsibility for the innocent death again lies with him. However, you’d probably pursue him and see if a chance to kill him without killing the shield would open up. If however he made it to a location from which he could launch more attacks against you, then the ethics are exactly the same as the ones we started with.
“2-0 then. 3-0 if you count him running away. God you’re crap at this. Anyway, I was just explaining the situation to Biodegradable, who seemed quite angry about the whole thing.”
Alex, grow up. You’re about as crap at this as any leftist would be.
“Mahatma Ghandi suggested that the Jews should have gone willingly and passively to the ovens. That, he said, would have been more heroic than resisting…Everybody loves a dead Jew, they just can’t handle the thought of Jews defending themselves.”
It depends if Ghandi would, as a Jew, have gone willingly to the ovens himself. If he’s willing to apply it consistently he’s entitled to his opinion. And I have no problem with anyone “defending” themselves, but there’s a very fine line between attack and defence, and apologists for Israel do tend to draw it a lot further forward that I would.
“No, it’s a childish way to deal with a rhetorical question which got a valid point across but which did not warrant a literal answer.”
If you would like a sensible answer, then I would say that the number of Israeli citizens who should be killed before Israel acts would depend on an enormous number of factors. It would depend on how likely the action is to succeed, how many innocent people can be expected to be killed on both sides if the action does or does not take place, the overall financial cost and the damage to your reputation by both acting and not acting. Of course then you need to factor in how highly you value the lives of your soldiers, enemy soldiers, the civilians inevitably involved, your country’s image as both a strong man and a moral actor and the money that the whole exercise will cost.
“You’re just deliberately choosing to ignore the fact that the actions of Hamas are not justifiable acts of self defense while those of Israel are. It does not matter that Israel is the “final link in the chain” when apportioning blame and responsibility, because Israel is taking direct action to remove an unjustified threat against itself.”
Whether it is “justifiable” is even more a matter of opinion that who is responsible. Every fucknut thinks what they are doing is justifiable. The question is, are you responsible for your decisions or not? The fact that Israel has, in the past, called off some operations for fear of civilian casualties implies that yes, Israel does have some kind of choice and does consider itself partially responsible.
“They are responsible in full for every single last shred of hardship suffered by the Palestinians. Hamas depends on the hopelessly confused mindset of those who believe they have “little choice” in order to secure sympathy for themselves and to encourage anger against Israel. In this way, people like you are nothing more than “useful idiots” and I mean that quite sincerely.”
I think you should read my post again, including the bit where I blamed Hamas for Hamas rocket fire. You seem to think I justified it entirely. I do not think either side has “no choice”. I believe both sides have the option of not retaliating, that Israel is actually risking less by doing so due to the relative ineffectiveness of Hamas’ weapons, and that both sides are responsible for how they react to the situation the other forces on them. But it’s nice to hear that my idiocy is serving some purpose. It’s definitely more succinct that yours, anyway.
“Additionally, Hamas knows full well that it could end the blockade by simply laying down their weapons and ceasing to deliberately target innocent Israeli civilians in terrorist attacks.”
They did, six months ago, and the blockade continued.
“I merely pointed out that when you elect a terrorist organization which launches terrorist attacks against the civilians of a country and then hides among the electorate, you’re more than 0% responsible for what results. Of course, I should have gone into more detail and pointed out that not every Palestinian voted for Hamas. But those who did are more responsible than those who didn’t.”
Which is rather a silly point to make considering nobody has a bomb that only blows up people who voted a particular way. But I was unsure of what you were getting at with that point, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might have been.
“It’s a completely useless way of guaging the risk. If I stand above a crowd of 10,000 people and point at them a weapon which fires a bullet in a random direction within the range of that crowd, then every single one of those people is at risk of my action before it happens, even though only one of them will be hit.”
It’s the best way we have. If you’ve done this one hundred times before, and intend to do it one hundred times again, we can take the number of people killed already and work out how many people are at a serious risk of death from your later attacks. If you’re going to count every Israeli within range as “at risk”, then the number of Palestinians at risk should rise to 1.5 million. My working definition was the total number likely to be killed, yours is entirely valid as well though.
“Grow up Alex. In what way does it make it different? Go back and read my explanation. If you can’t see any difference between choosing to defend ones life and choosing to go for a $50 prize with nobody’s life at risk then you’re dumber than I thought.”
What you’ve done here and elsewhere is answer a request for clarification with blunt reiteration and personal abuse. All I’m asking you is how does the nature of the likely consequences affect responsibility for the decision?
“Do you understand such legal distinctions as “murder,” “manslaughter” and “negligent homicide”? Do you understand why such distinctions are made?”
They are distinctions of intent, not the consequences. Though it’s odd you bring legal terms into it, as that says “A person intends a consequence when he or she foresees that it will happen if the given series of acts or omissions continue and desires it to happen.” So you could argue, in your analogy, that you intend the neighbouring family to die as much as you intend the terrorist too. Definitely that’s what the prosecution would tell you.
“Poppycock! If the terrorist has shown a willingness to fire rockets at your family with the express intention of killing you all then to kill him outright would be the surest way to defend your family. There is no “less regrettable” about it at all, there is no regret whatsoever.”
My point was not that I’d be very upset about the terrorist, my point was that I would be largely indifferent to killing him. Of course, killing him would be most effective, but if there was another permanent way of preventing him from attacking my family whether he lived or died wouldn’t really bother me. My only motive would be self-defence.
“See above.”
I would have liked either a “yes” or a “no” with further clarification. Again, reiteration in a slightly louder voice doesn’t tell me if I’ve understood your complex argument correctly. It just makes you sound like a British tourist.
“If it looks as if the terrorist is on his way to launch more attacks against you, then you have the right to kill him and the responsibility for the innocent death again lies with him.”
We’ll assume he wasn’t going to. He only had one rocket launching machine and he lost the blueprints. All that matters in this scenario is bringing him to justice. Do you shoot him?
“If it were the case that your child were padlocked to a tree with a crazy driver bearing down upon her at speed in a car which also contained innocent people – and you had the opportunity to take out the car with a missile before it hit your child, then yes the two situations would be the same.”
More whimsy: what if you didn’t have a rocket launcher, but by pushing another child in front of the car, you could save your two children padlocked to the tree? Would you be able to do so with a clear conscience?
Alex, grow up. You’re about as crap at this as any leftist would be.
You don’t understand the scoring system. It’s purely the number of implausible scenarios that counts, not post-length.
By the way, under which circumstances would you consider Israel partially responsible for deaths caused during its attacks?
It depends if Ghandi would, as a Jew, have gone willingly to the ovens himself.
Ghandi wasn’t a Jew so speculation is pointless.
Why don’t you go and ask him?
Yes, I know he’s dead.
Off you go then.
Jason,
I have tremendous admiration for you and you’ve done a sterling job arguing with “Alex”, but can’t you see he’s just winding you up?
… apologists for Israel…
Supporters, not “apologists”. There’s nothing to apologise for.
On the other hand “apologists for terrorism” does make sense.
If you would like a sensible answer, then I would say that the number of Israeli citizens who should be killed before Israel acts would depend on an enormous number of factors.
Alex, you really are a nasty piece of work.
Please Jason, don’t encourage him further.
Alex | Homepage | 18.01.09 – 5:42 pm |
I would say that the number of Israeli citizens who should be killed before Israel acts would depend on an enormous number of factors. It would depend on how likely the action is to succeed, how many innocent people can be expected to be killed on both sides if the action does or does not take place, the overall financial cost and the damage to your reputation by both acting and not acting. Of course then you need to factor in how highly you value the lives of your soldiers, enemy soldiers, the civilians inevitably involved, your country’s image as both a strong man and a moral actor and the money that the whole exercise will cost.
This is the typical position held by so many anti-Israel types, including that advocated by the BBC. As such, it deserves my typical response:
Surely you must realize that this puts Israel in a physically impossible situation. You’ve moved the goal posts so far that not even (insert favorite footballer/rugby player here) could kick the ball anywhere on the pitch, never mind score a point. By raising the bar for Israeli retaliation so high, you have removed any realistic chance for Israel to retaliate without your condemnation.
By definition this means that you do not see any circumstance in which Israel may act at all, outside of a fantastical hypothetical.
So, either admit that you believe that Israel must not retaliate at all, ever, or give a real amount of dead Israelis which will permit an attack on one target, regardless of any human shield casualties. I’m willing to bet you can’t do this.
What’s even more ridiculous is that, no matter how much Jason points it out to you, you can’t seem to understand how illogical your position is on blaming Israel for reacting to Hamas’s human shield tactics.
Hamas makes the decision every time they do this that the human lives they risk have no value other than as sacrificial animals. They say so every day, and they teach this to their children (in textbooks and videos paid for by the effin’ UN – which you don’t seem to mind). They know these innocent deaths will provoke your sympathies, so they sacrifice them on the altar of your conscience. Hamas willingly offers their own children to the god of war, even more happily than any Bronze Age Babylonian woman ever offered up her own child at the fiery pit to appease Marduk. Yet, you blame the fiery pit (Israel) for the sacrifice.
You really must figure out a way to explain a realistic situation in which Israel may retaliate. If not, then admit that Israel must allow their citizens to die in small numbers, in perpetuity, just so Hamas is not allowed to remove their own children from the human equation, and thus make you feel bad for them.
“Ghandi wasn’t a Jew so speculation is pointless. Why don’t you go and ask him? Yes, I know he’s dead. Off you go then.”
Thank you. Very informative.
“By raising the bar for Israeli retaliation so high, you have removed any realistic chance for Israel to retaliate without your condemnation.”
I didn’t actually raise the bar anywhere. I said the factors I thought should come into play when making the decision of whether to attack a target or not.
“So, either admit that you believe that Israel must not retaliate at all, ever, or give a real amount of dead Israelis which will permit an attack on one target, regardless of any human shield casualties. I’m willing to bet you can’t do this.”
If the purpose is simply “retaliation”, no, I believe nobody of any race or creed anywhere has the right to risk innocent people’s lives in pursuit of revenge.
If, as I assume, by “retaliation”, you meant “self-defence” then yes, there is a right to act in order to prevent attacks, but only where no more civilian casualties will be caused by acting than by standing by.
I don’t value either sides’ people any more than the other, and don’t see why I should be expected to.
I don’t value either sides’ people any more than the other, and don’t see why I should be expected to.
Alex | Homepage | 18.01.09 – 8:22 pm
Of course you aren’t expected to, and you can’t understand why anyone else would value their own side’s life more than the other.
As I pointed out above:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/4287951551910561788/#442709
Some time ago, while chatting with a self-declared ‘pacifist’, I asked him if, were he and his family attacked and under imminent threat to life, he would use violence to save his life and the lives of his family. He replied that he wouldn’t. My response was that in that case he was either a liar or an idiot.
In that case, as in yours, all this nonsense about “empathising” and being oh-so-moral and attempting to dissect everything word for word is just so much self-indulgent hot air and self illusion.
In real life there is a situation in which Arabs are determined to kill Jews and destroy the state of Israel, and Israelis who are trying to stay alive and protect their state. It really is that simple. So really it does come down to choosing sides and trying to maintain one’s humanity while defending one’s country, family and one’s own life.
As far as I know you are neither an Arab or a Jew so it’s all just an excuse to mentally masturbate while taking the piss out of people for whom it really is a serious matter of life or death.
You have chosen one side, it’s the wrong one, even if you’re not an Israeli or a Jew, and you have made that choice for all the wrong reasons, but you won’t have to pay a price, at least not for now.
Now please do f**k off!
Alex | Homepage | 18.01.09 – 8:22 pm |
If, as I assume, by “retaliation”, you meant “self-defence” then yes, there is a right to act in order to prevent attacks, but only where no more civilian casualties will be caused by acting than by standing by.
Which means that there can be no useful action by Israel, ever. Taking out one or two Hamas member per year will never end the rockets, will never stop Hamas, and will never change anything. Not only that, but it just might mean that more Israelis die per year than Palestinians. I guess that’s just letting the chips fall where they may, and not your real goal here.
This is what I’m talking about when I say you’re raising the bar. The factors you believe should come into play before Israel is allowed to fight back against Hamas render Israel essentially immobile.
This implies a few things:
Hamas’s actions against Israel are essentially harmless, and there’s no actual justification for Israeli action against Hamas.
The only acceptable action for is Israel is diplomacy and appeasement of Hamas. This also implies that you believe Hamas can run Gaza peacefully. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I don’t value either sides’ people any more than the other, and don’t see why I should be expected to.
Actually, you certainly do seem to value one side’s people more. Your entire argument is that Israel should not under any circumstances do anything that may cause harm to a Palestinian civilian. Yet, the majority of Hamas’s victims are Israeli citizens
(when they’re not butchering their own people, I mean). You see the killing of the occasional Israeli citizen as acceptable, yet none may touch the hair on a Palestinian civilian’s head.
I’m not going so far as to say that you think it’s fine when Israeli citizens are killed. I’m saying that, according to your own rules, Israel may not stop their own civilians from being killed if by doing so they accidentally harm a Palestinian civilian.
So, the Hamas rockets injure or kill Israeli civilians, and this should be permitted to happen because no Palestinian civilians may be harmed. One side’s people should be allowed to die, but not the other. That’s what you’re really saying, whether you understand that or not.
Let’s face it: if all Hamas rockets were launched from civilian buildings, and all Hamas fighters and leaders stayed in hospitals and civilian homes, Israel could never do anything, ever. Yet Israeli citizens would still die.
Unless they appease Hamas, which will lead only to more Israeli deaths.
“If you would like a sensible answer, then I would say that the number of Israeli citizens who should be killed before Israel acts would depend on an enormous number of factors. It would depend on how likely the action is to succeed, how many innocent people can be expected to be killed on both sides if the action does or does not take place, the overall financial cost and the damage to your reputation by both acting and not acting. Of course then you need to factor in how highly you value the lives of your soldiers, enemy soldiers, the civilians inevitably involved, your country’s image as both a strong man and a moral actor and the money that the whole exercise will cost.”
That’s not a sensible answer Alex. If Israel has the power to defend itself against attacks which deliberately target their citizens, then they should act. It will do everything it can to keep the number of innocent people killed as low as possible on both sides, but just because Hamas terrorists deliberately hide among citizens thus limiting what Israel can do to keep civilians deaths low in the act of defending itself, does not mean that it should not act. The responsiblity for those civilians deaths lies with Hamas. “The country’s image” does not come into it at all. If it’s the right thing to do in the interest of Israel then it’s the right thing to do. If other countries object, then they are the enemies of Israel too. Israel will not be bullied into accepting attacks on its own citizens just because people with your mindset think it should.
“Whether it is “justifiable” is even more a matter of opinion that who is responsible. Every fucknut thinks what they are doing is justifiable. The question is, are you responsible for your decisions or not? The fact that Israel has, in the past, called off some operations for fear of civilian casualties implies that yes, Israel does have some kind of choice and does consider itself partially responsible.”
Oh I see we’re onto the “fucknuts” now then Alex are we? It does not matter that every “fucknut” thinks what he is doing is justifiable. The legitimacy of what they are doing can be established by a very rational set of values and an objective application of rational ethics. Not every “fucknut’s” actions are justified. Israel is going to do everything it can to prevent civilian casualties and then take the position that that’s all they can do…the responsibility for those casualties lies with Hamas. Nobody is disputing that other people have different opinions over whether or not Israel is justified in defending itself, but the existence of those opinions does nothing to change the fact that they are justified in defending themselves.
“I think you should read my post again, including the bit where I blamed Hamas for Hamas rocket fire. You seem to think I justified it entirely. I do not think either side has “no choice”. I believe both sides have the option of not retaliating, that Israel is actually risking less by doing so due to the relative ineffectiveness of Hamas’ weapons, and that both sides are responsible for how they react to the situation the other forces on them. But it’s nice to hear that my idiocy is serving some purpose. It’s definitely more succinct that yours, anyway.”
So what you’re suggesting is that Israel should just accept a constant stream of deadly attacks on its citizens since they’re “not many.” Well what do you think that the citizens who are at risk are going to do if their government refuses to protect them? They’ll take matters into their own hands. You simply cannot lie down and accept rockets firing randomly into your towns. The Israeli electorate will simply take advantage of democracy and elect a government that does defend them. It looks like you’re going to continue to refuse to absorb or deal with every single one of my arguments relating to “blame.” You’re still fixated on the issue of “free will” without context, on the idea that since Israel “decides” to defend itself then it is morally responsible for the deaths of the human shields that Hamas hides behind. Well, the only thing that Israel is responsible for is the decision to defend itself. Of course Israel has “the option” of not defending itself, just like I have “the option” to step in front of a subway train. The existence of that option is not a criteria of its value.
“They did, six months ago, and the blockade continued.”
No they didn’t, they continued to fire rockets into Israel. The attacks may have died down, but they did not stop. Once they stop entirely and Hamas show Israel that they aren’t going to start again, then Israel is in a position to end the blockade.
“Which is rather a silly point to make considering nobody has a bomb that only blows up people who voted a particular way. But I was unsure of what you were getting at with that point, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it might have been.”
And nobody is suggesting that such a bomb exists. It’s an “aside” point, which has some relevance to the situation but is not a defining criteria.
“It’s the best way we have. If you’ve done this one hundred times before, and intend to do it one hundred times again, we can take the number of people killed already and work out how many people are at a serious risk of death from your later attacks. If you’re going to count every Israeli within range as “at risk”, then the number of Palestinians at risk should rise to 1.5 million. My working definition was the total number likely to be killed, yours is entirely valid as well though.”
No, it’s still a completely useless way to assess risk because the number of Israelis actually being killed is not a factor – the number at risk of being killed is. To live at risk of being killed by rocket attacks is a direct abrogation of your freedom to go about your daily business without such a threat. If someone walks up to me every day and fires a gun at me which has one bullet in a 10,000 bullet chamber, I still have the right to remove that threat even though it’s only 1 in 10,000.
Cont…
…cont
“What you’ve done here and elsewhere is answer a request for clarification with blunt reiteration and personal abuse. All I’m asking you is how does the nature of the likely consequences affect responsibility for the decision?”
So would you prefer a sharp reiteration Alex, or is it that you want me to waste time by repeating the same points over and over and over again? When all you have to offer is a blunt refutation, then you can hardly complain about a blunt reiteration. Your refusal to comprehend a basic line of reason gives me every right to call you dumb, whether this offends you or not is of no consequence to me.
“They are distinctions of intent, not the consequences. Though it’s odd you bring legal terms into it, as that says “A person intends a consequence when he or she foresees that it will happen if the given series of acts or omissions continue and desires it to happen.” So you could argue, in your analogy, that you intend the neighbouring family to die as much as you intend the terrorist too. Definitely that’s what the prosecution would tell you.”
Don’t be so ridiculous – the issue of “intent” in this case refers to your intent to take out the aggressor who has initiated physical force upon you. That the aggressor behaves in such a way that the deaths of innocent people are unavoidable in the course of his elimination, does not mean that the person defending themselves “intended” for those deaths. A case constructed of the same basic ethical framework, taken to a court of law, would most certainly take into account the fact that the aggressor left the defender with no choice and was hence responsible for the consequences. In a civilized society, the only justifiable use of physical force takes the form of an act taken in defense against an initiation of physical force.
“My point was not that I’d be very upset about the terrorist, my point was that I would be largely indifferent to killing him. Of course, killing him would be most effective, but if there was another permanent way of preventing him from attacking my family whether he lived or died wouldn’t really bother me. My only motive would be self-defence.”
I would not be “indifferent” about killing him if I was aware that allowing him to survive would not eliminate the risk against my family. If it was likely that he was going to attempt to reinitiate the force against me, then not killing him would bother me – and my motive is still self-defense.
“I would have liked either a “yes” or a “no” with further clarification. Again, reiteration in a slightly louder voice doesn’t tell me if I’ve understood your complex argument correctly. It just makes you sound like a British tourist.”
If you’re not prepared to listen to me the first time around, then no amount of “yes” or “no” on my part will help you. But for the record, the answer was “yes.” I do not understand your reference to a “British tourist” so I’ll just ignore it.
“We’ll assume he wasn’t going to. He only had one rocket launching machine and he lost the blueprints. All that matters in this scenario is bringing him to justice. Do you shoot him?”
Yes. I am not concerned with punishing him, I am merely concerned with eliminating the threat. The fact is that he has exposed his intent and his agenda – to kill my family. He may acquire another rocket. He may acquire new blueprints. He’s going down.
“More whimsy: what if you didn’t have a rocket launcher, but by pushing another child in front of the car, you could save your two children padlocked to the tree? Would you be able to do so with a clear conscience?”
First of all, pushing a child in front of a car is not going to stop it. We cannot just ignore the laws of physics. If the driver is hell bent on driving into a tree to kill two children, he’s not going to let a child standing in front of his car stop him. But let’s suspend the laws of physics momentarily for the sake of argument and pretend that throwing a child in front of a car driven by a homicidal maniac who has no concern for his own safety, will somehow stop it. In such a situation, the driver has created a life or death situation in which you have to make a decision in a split second. In such conditions, it is likely that you will act on instinct. You will either do one of two things to save your children: you will throw the bystander in front of the car (which is risky because he may well resist long enough for the window of opportunity to pass) or you will throw yourself in front of the car (guaranteed to work). If your self-survival instinct is so strong that your immediate subconscious instinct is to throw the kid in front of the car, then there’s not a lot you can do to counter such an instinct in such a short space of time. You are unlikely, however, to walk away with a clear conscience, since once the immediacy of the emergency is over and you have time to reflect, it will not escape your conscience that you could have thrown yourself in front of the car instead.
But the fact remains – and will always remain – that ultimately, the blame for the entire incident and the consequences falls at the feet of the driver, who forced you into a situation where you had no time to make any such assessment.
“You don’t understand the scoring system. It’s purely the number of implausible scenarios that counts, not post-length.”
I don’t really care about your scoring system Alex. It’s about as consequential as Jeremy Bowen’s favorite color.
I have tremendous admiration for you and you’ve done a sterling job arguing with “Alex”, but can’t you see he’s just winding you up?
Biodegradable | 18.01.09 – 5:54 pm | #
On the contrary. From listening to the opinions of the left on this very subject for a good few years, I have no doubt at all that Alex truly believes in the arguments he’s making. The left is impervious to reason, always has been and always will be.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
Winston Churchill
Alex,
You’ve revealed not only that you have a shallow understanding of the situation, but a severely twisted moral compass.
Your analogy to Jason of a pushing a child in front of an oncoming car in order to save his own children is completely, utterly false. Israelis are not putting the Palestinian children in harm’s way, and an oncoming car seems more like an accident, spur-of-the-moment choice than a premeditated one. Which leads me to believe that you truly do not understand what Hamas is doing, or what their intentions are.
A proper analogy using a car would be a Hamas leader driving the car, with his own child in the front seat – with no special child restraints, naturally – and is driving it straight at my children, with the intent to kill them. He may be driving a little recklessly, but he’s eventually going to kill them.
Do I shoot the bastard? You bet. Do I shoot the child? No. Does the Hamas terrorist crash his car and his own child dies along with him? Probably. Do I care about the child’s death? Yes. And I blame the lunatic for bringing his child into battle. I will not roll over and die to appease your twisted conscience, nor would I feel the least bit guilty if I protected my own family in such a manner.
Now that I think about it, your morals are so twisted that you have it backwards. The Palestinians are the ones pushing their own children in front of the oncoming vehicle. And it’s not really in hopes of stopping the car at all. It’s in the hopes of making the car look like the villain, hoping it will then go away. But then, you’d blame the driver of the car for not swerving out of the way and killing himself and his family.
“I’m not going so far as to say that you think it’s fine when Israeli citizens are killed. I’m saying that, according to your own rules, Israel may not stop their own civilians from being killed if by doing so they accidentally harm a Palestinian civilian.”
Nice game you’re playing with plurals there. I said Israel has no right to cause more harm to civilians than it is preventing. You’ve carefully twisted my argument to mean Israel must let its entire population die rather than slightly graze one Palestinian.
“So, the Hamas rockets injure or kill Israeli civilians, and this should be permitted to happen because no Palestinian civilians may be harmed. One side’s people should be allowed to die, but not the other. That’s what you’re really saying, whether you understand that or not.”
No, it should not be “permitted”. It should just not be prevented if that involves killing and maiming far more people than would realistically be at risk. I don’t think Hamas has any right to launch rockets at Sderot either, but to be honest I’ve never had to argue that point.
“Nobody is disputing that other people have different opinions over whether or not Israel is justified in defending itself, but the existence of those opinions does nothing to change the fact that they are justified in defending themselves. ”
So what you mean is that it’s definitely a matter of opinion but that your opinion is right.
“It looks like you’re going to continue to refuse to absorb or deal with every single one of my arguments relating to “blame.””
I don’t think I’ve ignored any of them. You have also refused to “absorb or deal with” any of my arguments. Yes, as I have said before, Israel’s choice is a tough one, but the fact that Israel has consequences to choose from (and there’s far more to it than do nothing or bomb Gaza indiscriminately) means Israel is partially responsible for those consequences, and more so than Hamas because Israel was directly able to prevent them. See “criminal intent”.
“If someone walks up to me every day and fires a gun at me which has one bullet in a 10,000 bullet chamber, I still have the right to remove that threat even though it’s only 1 in 10,000.”
Provided that your “removing” that threat is confined to actions against the person firing the gun, then yes, I have no reason whatsoever to argue against that.
“When all you have to offer is a blunt refutation, then you can hardly complain about a blunt reiteration.”
I did not bluntly refute your argument about the £50. I asked for clarification as to why the way in which the nature of the consequences affects the responsibility for choosing them, which you have so far been unable, unwilling or both to provide.
“But for the record, the answer was “yes.” I do not understand your reference to a “British tourist” so I’ll just ignore it. ”
Thanks. It’s because we typically shout at foreigners instead of learning their language.
“He may acquire another rocket. He may acquire new blueprints. He’s going down. ”
That’s not really how “assume he’s not going to” works in hypothetical scenarios. You’re avoiding the question.
“I don’t really care about your scoring system Alex. It’s about as consequential as Jeremy Bowen’s favorite color.”
That’s odd, because you seem to be posting about it a lot.
“You will either do one of two things to save your children: you will throw the bystander in front of the car (which is risky because he may well resist long enough for the window of opportunity to pass) or you will throw yourself in front of the car (guaranteed to work).
Yeah, that would work. Bollocks. Too many variables. Alright, assume you’re padlocked to something as well. It’s either kid in front of the car or nothing.
“You are unlikely, however, to walk away with a clear conscience, since once the immediacy of the emergency is over and you have time to reflect, it will not escape your conscience that you could have thrown yourself in front of the car instead.”
So you do recognise that self-sacrifice is an option. Why is it a reasonable option for you to sacrifice yourself to near-certain death, but the vague possibility of death is unacceptable for Israelis?
“But then, you’d blame the driver of the car for not swerving out of the way and killing himself and his family.”
Oooh, more games with numbers. Now, instead of killing one child to save two, you’ve now got a whole family dying because they swerved to avoid one child. Which, after all, is not unheard of. People die in accidents swerving to avoid foxes. But anyway, are you seriously telling me that if a madman pushed a young child in front of your car, you would think “Ah, if I hit the child it’s all his fault anyway”, keep going and not feel the slightest twinge of guilt afterwards?
Anyway, let me ask you this: How many Palestinian civilian deaths is acceptable collateral damage to prevent one Qassam attack?
I think you’ve mixed comments from me and Jason now. Fair enough, I suppose since you’re trying to debate us both at the same time. But I’m just going to respond to your responses to me, unless I get confused myself which is which.
Nice game you’re playing with plurals there. I said Israel has no right to cause more harm to civilians than it is preventing. You’ve carefully twisted my argument to mean Israel must let its entire population die rather than slightly graze one Palestinian.
No, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m trying to show you that the criteria with which you would permit (tolerate, accept, you know what I mean) Israeli action are impossible to meet. At the very least it will shift the balance the other way, which shouldn’t be acceptable either.
“But I’m just going to respond to your responses to me, unless I get confused myself which is which.”
Easy mistake to make. I think I did it once too. You have quite similar styles and end your paragraphs at about the same kind of length.
“No, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m trying to show you that the criteria with which you would permit (tolerate, accept, you know what I mean) Israeli action are impossible to meet.”
Not at all. If a group terrorists are firing extremely powerful and accurate rockets which are almost certain to kill several Israelis, while standing next to a couple of local farmers, Israel would have a right to fire back, provided it had no other realistic way of taking out the terrorists that would not seriously endanger civilians (for example snipers being way out of range).
If we’re talking small rockets with a fatality rate of below half a percent, and immensely destructive weapons being fired at a densely populated civilian area, no, there’s pretty much no way that could meet reasonable criteria.
Anyway, you missed my final question. How many Palestinians?
Alex, I think you’re really clutching at horses and flogging dead straws now. Your latest responses have nothing new to offer. I will however, humor you.
“So what you mean is that it’s definitely a matter of opinion but that your opinion is right.”
No, please do not deliberately misquote me. I said that the existence of different opinions does not detract from the fact that Israel is right in defending itself and I am prepared to explain my opinion by applying reason to a rational set of ethics. If you’re taking the view that since more than one opinion exists then nobody can claim that they’re “right” then I guess there’s nothing more to be said and Israel will, as before, continue to do what it needs to do in order to neutralize the threat against it. Any objections then, by your logic, are just “another opinion” and can be ignored by anyone who disagrees with them. I have no problem with that.
“I don’t think I’ve ignored any of them. You have also refused to “absorb or deal with” any of my arguments. Yes, as I have said before, Israel’s choice is a tough one, but the fact that Israel has consequences to choose from (and there’s far more to it than do nothing or bomb Gaza indiscriminately) means Israel is partially responsible for those consequences, and more so than Hamas because Israel was directly able to prevent them. See “criminal intent”.”
I completely disagree. I think I have dealt with every one of your arguments whereas you have frequently ignored much of my reasoning. No, the fact that Israel could “choose between” defending itself and allowing rockets to rain upon its citizens does not mean that it is more responsible for the consequences than Hamas, for every reason that I’ve outlined to you a thousand times before. As of yet you have failed to refute my reasoning in relation to why this is so. See “criminal intent”? Well, it is not Israel’s “intent” to kill civilians. It is their “intent”, first and foremost, to kill Hamas terrorists. The fact that Hamas deliberately hides among civilians makes their culpability a closed case.
“Provided that your “removing” that threat is confined to actions against the person firing the gun, then yes, I have no reason whatsoever to argue against that.”
And I maintain that if it is not possible to remove that threat without killing someone else because the man with the gun is holding someone hostage and using them as a human shield, then it is still justified. The blame for the innocent death lies entirely with the gunman.
“I did not bluntly refute your argument about the £50. I asked for clarification as to why the way in which the nature of the consequences affects the responsibility for choosing them, which you have so far been unable, unwilling or both to provide.”
I provided you with exactly that clarification – that the risk to your life means you must act, while the chance of a $50 prize doesn’t. If you continue to ignore this line of reasoning I will simply refer you to my earlier posts. I am no longer prepared to keep retyping the same arguments only to have you claim that I didn’t type them.
“Thanks. It’s because we typically shout at foreigners instead of learning their language.”
Speak for yourself Alex. I was not aware that there was such a thing as a “typical” Brit. What’s next – a “typical” African American? A “typical” Jew?
“That’s not really how “assume he’s not going to” works in hypothetical scenarios. You’re avoiding the question.”
The only possible way we can “assume he’s not going to” is by assuming that he’s either dead, or has been captured by an authority that will not allow him to continue to be a threat. There is no other possible way that we can “assume” that he’s not going to do it again. It may be a hypothetical question, but that doesn’t mean we have to brush aside the basic metaphysics of reality.
“That’s odd, because you seem to be posting about it a lot.”
Responding to your incessant blethering about a “score” by telling you that it’s inconsequential is not “posting about it a lot.” This is really getting childish now isn’t it Alex son?
“Yeah, that would work. Bollocks. Too many variables. Alright, assume you’re padlocked to something as well. It’s either kid in front of the car or nothing.”
On the spur of the moment yes, I probably would throw the kid to save my kids – and I would of course deal with the consequences later. I would probably feel bad about the kid for the rest of my life, but that would not stop me from recognizing the fact that the blame lay with the murderous driver who put me in a split second situation in which my kids were about to die.
“So you do recognise that self-sacrifice is an option. Why is it a reasonable option for you to sacrifice yourself to near-certain death, but the vague possibility of death is unacceptable for Israelis?”
Of course I recognize that “self sacrifice is an option.” After all, I would sacrifice my own life to save that of my children. But I wouldn’t sacrifice my own life to save that of a child who wasn’t my own. And forced into a split second decision like this (which bears absolutely no resemblance on any level to the situation in Israel, unlike my original hypothetical), I may well act on an instinctive level and throw a stranger’s child into the path of a car to save my own. Not being a heartless robot however, I would probably grieve that child for the rest of my life, while recognizing that in that split second, I did what was instinctive to me. Besides which Alex it’s all very well using hypothetical situations which are believable, but when you’re adding more and more clauses and “what if”s which begin to leave the realm of physical possibility, then it’s a pretty dumb exercise to ask people what they would and wouldn’t do and how they would feel later. At the heart of this nonsense, however, is your belief that Israel should “do nothing” about a threat to its own citizens because the source of that threat uses human shields. The consequences of such a stance are that it is thus possible to fire rockets at innocent civilians for as long as you like and nobody can ever do a thing about it.
OK then – if that’s the case then consider this. If Israel should not act to protect its citizens in this way because Hamas uses human shields, then we can reasonably assume that not only will the attacks continue indefinitely into the future, but that they may escalate once Hamas realizes that it has a blank check to spend on murder. This means that in calculating the numbers of Israelis who are “at risk,” even by your criteria of how many are actually likely to be killed (and not mine, which recognizes that all Israelis in the “risk zone” are at risk), Israel then has to project into the future. How far into the future? If Hamas continues to fire rockets, it forces Israel into considering the deaths of its citizens 50, 75, 100 years into the future. If say 10 Israelis are killed every month, that means that it has to think about the risk to as many as 6000 Israelis in the next 50 years alone. Since you believe that Israel should not take action unless the risk to innocent Palestinians is the same or less than the risk to Israelis, then we can then safely permit Israel to storm Gaza and do what it needs to do as long as no more than 6000 Palestinians are killed.
But how far into the future is Israel permitted to project when considering the risk to future life? Why not just 25 years? Why not 100? This is why your appeal to the ethics of number falls flat on its face. It’s not about balancing imports and exports, it’s not about balancing a check book, it’s about protecting Israeli lives. The responsibility of Palestinian lives falls at the feet of the terrorists who use them as sacrificial animals in their sick agenda.
You just don’t get it, do you Alex?
Anyway, you missed my final question. How many Palestinians?
Alex | Homepage | 19.01.09 – 10:12 pm | #
You didn’t direct that question at me, but I will refer you to my argument above about the consequence of Israel’s non-action and the fact that it then has to consider how many Israelis will be killed over a period of many years into the future.
If doing nothing means the attacks will go on indefinitely (care to speculate on the chances of the UN acting to remove Hamas in the absence of Israeli action?), then it is perfectly reasonable for Israel to defend itself even if more innocent Palestinians will die than Israelis have already died. The goal after all is to stop the attacks in order to save the lives of Israelis both now and in the future – not to balance the books of a neurotic like you.
Here’s another point. Since Hamas’ use of Palestinians as human shields means that action cannot be taken without the risk of killing innocent Palestinians, then we have to consider the responsibility of these innocent Palestinians to protect their own lives.
This would involve, of course, a mass revolt against the organization which creates this scenario and risks their lives in the first place. Nobody is even talking about the responsibility of Palestinians to do something about the bastards who use them as shields. Why is that? They have a larger responsibility to save their own lives than Israel has to spare them in the actions it is forced to take in its self defense.
Everyone who claims life as a standard of value has the responsibility to defend their own life wherever possible. What are Palestinians doing to remove the threat of Hamas? Not a lot. Most of them voted for Hamas.
Here we go again.
Alex will take any subject you like, twist and slither, and argue tenaciously in his particularly maddening way.
Like a dog with its teeth sunk into the postman’s trouser leg, you just can’t shake it off.
Follow this whole thread for déjà vu.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/1657155072455718385/#394438
“I said that the existence of different opinions does not detract from the fact that Israel is right in defending itself and I am prepared to explain my opinion by applying reason to a rational set of ethics.”
Off you go then. But remember writing “they are justified” preceded by the word ‘fact’ and with the ‘are’ in italics doesn’t count as an explanation.
“Any objections then, by your logic, are just “another opinion” and can be ignored by anyone who disagrees with them. I have no problem with that.”
Not “can” be ignored. Must be ignored. You can’t debate whether Israel is justified in its actions while assuming that Israel is justified is in its actions.
“See “criminal intent”? Well, it is not Israel’s “intent” to kill civilians. It is their “intent”, first and foremost, to kill Hamas terrorists. The fact that Hamas deliberately hides among civilians makes their culpability a closed case. ”
Israel is capable of predicting the consequences, Israel chooses to accept them. In legal terms, this counts as intent. And what is under discussion is not Hamas’ culpability but Israel’s.
“And I maintain that if it is not possible to remove that threat without killing someone else because the man with the gun is holding someone hostage and using them as a human shield, then it is still justified. The blame for the innocent death lies entirely with the gunman.”
And your choice of the certain death of an innocent person over the 10,000-1 chance of you dying is not at all selfish and wouldn’t keep you up at night? I hope you’re just tying yourself in knots to justify Israel here and don’t really think like that.
“that the risk to your life means you must act, while the chance of a $50 prize doesn’t. If you continue to ignore this line of reasoning I will simply refer you to my earlier posts.”
In your earlier posts you said the situation forces you to “choose” rather than forces you to “act”. In both cases you have a clear choice between acting and not acting, the gravity of the consequences reflects only the outcome of the decision, not the responsibility for taking it.
“I was not aware that there was such a thing as a “typical” Brit.”
Well, not in real life, no. Same as there’s not a real situation where your only possible option would be to blow up the house and everyone in it to prevent certain death at the hands of the terrorist.
“There is no other possible way that we can “assume” that he’s not going to do it again. It may be a hypothetical question, but that doesn’t mean we have to brush aside the basic metaphysics of reality.”
I’m afraid it does. See above. We’ve also brushed aside the possibility of you and your family escaping from your house, of you using a sniper rifle to kill the terrorist, of him running out of rockets and becoming more vulnerable by leaving the house, of calling the police and the host of other potential ways out of the situation that don’t blow up a family of innocent bystanders, not to mention that your rocket might not kill him. You can’t tailor an impossible scenario that gives me no choice but to agree with you, then complain that mine isn’t very realistic.
“This is really getting childish now isn’t it Alex son? ”
You’re the one being childish. So there.
“At the heart of this nonsense, however, is your belief that Israel should “do nothing” about a threat to its own citizens because the source of that threat uses human shields. The consequences of such a stance are that it is thus possible to fire rockets at innocent civilians for as long as you like and nobody can ever do a thing about it.”
Again, you’re oversimplifying my point. I never claimed that Israel should “do nothing”. I claimed that Israel should do nothing that would create a greater risk to Palestinians than that threatening Israelis.
“The responsibility of Palestinian lives falls at the feet of the terrorists who use them as sacrificial animals in their sick agenda. You just don’t get it, do you Alex?”
To be honest, no, I don’t get it. I can’t see a situation ever arising where a party who can directly influence the outcome of the situation is entirely absolved of the consequences.
“If say 10 Israelis are killed every month, that means that it has to think about the risk to as many as 6000 Israelis in the next 50 years alone. Since you believe that Israel should not take action unless the risk to innocent Palestinians is the same or less than the risk to Israelis, then we can then safely permit Israel to storm Gaza and do what it needs to do as long as no more than 6000 Palestinians are killed.”
You could equally argue that, given carte blanche to kill civilians in the pursuit of security, Israel would continually lower the bar for sufficient danger to act. Preventing regular barrages of rockets becomes preventing occasional barrages of rockets, becomes preventing occasional rockets, becomes preventing occasional bullets, becomes preventing occasional rocks, becomes preventing potential rocks. In extending Israel the right to take one innocent foreign life in the interest of protecting its own people, we cannot stop at two foreign lives, ten foreign lives or 1.5 million foreign lives. This kind of speculation is flimsy, pointless and immensely subjective. Besides, killing civilians in order to force the actions of their government has a name.
“Nobody is even talking about the responsibility of Palestinians to do something about the bastards who use them as shields. Why is that? They have a larger responsibility to save their own lives than Israel has to spare them in the actions it is forced to take in its self defense.”
Generally human shields aren’t held responsible for not trying to escape. You seem to be holding pretty much every party involved responsible except the one actually firing the missiles. Let me ask you, under what circumstances would you consider Israel responsible for civilian deaths it caused?
“You didn’t direct that question at me, but I will refer you to my argument above about the consequence of Israel’s non-action and the fact that it then has to consider how many Israelis will be killed over a period of many years into the future.”
I didn’t direct my question full stop. But I did intend it for both you and David, and even Biodegradable if he fancies giving a serious answer, so don’t feel rude for answering. I’ll refer you to my answer to the point to which you referred me.
“then it is perfectly reasonable for Israel to defend itself even if more innocent Palestinians will die than Israelis have already died.”
How many more? 15% margin? One hundred Gazans for each Israeli, as the figures seem to have been for this conflict?
“The goal after all is to stop the attacks in order to save the lives of Israelis both now and in the future – not to balance the books of a neurotic like you.”
Ok, why is it morally justifiable for Israel to prioritise preventing the deaths of Israelis over not causing the deaths of Gazans? Israel’s goal also seems to have been to minimise casualties among its own troops, which when ranked higher than minimising civilian casualties, is despicable and cowardly.