politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Yes, and that touches on the core problem, unequal regard for human lives.
Yeah, to quote Rashida Tlaib from right before they censured her for speaking truth to power:
I don't know it's unequal. Hamas clearly has little regard for Palestinian or Israeli civilians. Their MO for two decades has been rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. And if they cared about their own civilians they wouldn't use hospitals and schools as artillery bases. They know Israel doesn't care either though and will bomb them anyway, which is basically what Hamas is banking on.
Both forces care little for civilians. The difference is when Israel doesn't care it's a 500 lb bomb through a school. When Hamas doesn't care it's a 40lb rocket that probably gets shot down by the Iron Dome anyway.
Equal disregard for civilian life on both sides. Unequal force willing to be exerted by one side.
I disagree. Equal disregard for Palestinian civilians maybe. The Israelis care deeply about their own and would never employ the tactics Hamas do.
I mean that, within the corridors of power - the U.S., Israeli, the U.K., etc. - there's systematic policy of unequal regard for Palestinian lives, below that of Israeli lives. That creates an environment where extremely disproportionate attacks on Palestinians, like we're witnessing now, are characterized as acceptable. This, of course, creates the conditions of systemic apartheid, the conditions for the hostilities in the first place.
And in regard to the point you bring up (to be sure, not what I was talking about) - whether or not either side of the conflict has equal or unequal regard for human life - I don't think it's simple to make that kind of calculation. The facts we have to contend with are the current situation are the result of a movement since the late 19th century seeking to move a population into Palestine, militarily seize control of the entire territory, and militarily occupy, oppress, blockade, and expel the local population for land acquisition. In the context of that, we have to contend with the reality of the civilian casualties:
which have never been equal. It does not prove equal disregard for human lives, but it's a very strong indicator towards it, that Israel disproportionately and recklessly slaughters Palestinians, on the order of 10 to 20 times as many, in retaliation to any Palestinian attack, or vice versa.
In regard to Hamas itself - we have the evidence of the rocket attacks themselves (unguided rockets, just going wherever in a general direction), which took a total of about 40 non-Palestinian lives between 2004 and 2014. And we also have the exact evidential record of October 7th - through which we have to filter out atrocity propaganda, deaths that were attributed to Hamas but should properly be attributed to the IDF, etc. (look into this yourself, it's a doozy), and that military vs. civilian casualties seem to have been underreported by Israel. Those attacks are in the context of trying to achieve a prisoner swap, bring attention to the situation of the Gaza strip, or most cynically, to empower Hamas itself for the profit of its leaders - while on the Israeli side, the explanations ranging from trying to disempower from Hamas, to trying to continue the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, either to nullify them, to gain control of territory, etc. - armed with all the military tools, all the knowledge, all the human rights theory, of Western nations, but choosing to use them to purposefully target civilian facilities, destroying the entire city, destroying the civilian infrastructure, starving the entire civilian population of food, water, electricity, fuel, medicine, the essential needs for the entire civilian population - coupled with open statements of genocidal intent - not coming from anger of perpetual oppression, like that of Palestinians, but coming from anger resulting from resistance to that oppression. I think that strongly suggests Israel's disregard for human life of the Palestinian population reaches extremes that are not reciprocated by the Palestinian population as a whole, or probably even by Hamas itself.
That's just me thinking through it in response to your comment. We see greater numbers of casualties. We see what seems to be a far greater percent of civilian casualties from Israel. We see explicit attempts to justify the targeting of hospitals - which they cannot even substantiate. We see open statements of dehumanization and incitement to genocide. I don't think the disregard for human lives is equal, I think Israel as a state has proven that it's only concerned with its own interests, completely disregarding all human lives that stand in the way of those interests, while as a result of that, the Palestinian population has perpetually been in a posture of defense. And my understanding of international law, that it places the defensive right with the Palestinian population on the basis of their 56 year long experience of occupation, not with the occupying power - I think mirrors precisely that.