Well, if you support Hamas after they butchered civilians, yes you'r supporting terrorism.
> people forget (or likely don’t even know) that, when Israel was not yet in a position of asymmetric power and secure statehood, Israeli paramilitaries often committed terror attacks which are indistinguishable from what we have seen Hamas do in recent decades. Deir Yassin, the King David Hotel Bombing, al-Husayniyya Safad, and so on. Now they do not have the need for such acts, when high tech bombing and artillery barrages, international legal sanction, highly trained police, are available. Beheading children and setting off car bombs at shopping centers looks bad internationally, and there’s little reason for it when you are the one with a “legitimate” state. But Israel got to that position in part by using methods indistinguishable from Hamas. Granted, one will say— that wasn’t Israel, it was the Irgun, or the Palmach, or some particular militia: more extremist factions of the Zionist movement. But it’s the same for Palestine. What is the great difference between the Irgun and Hamas, except in terms of success? Israel still engages in extreme brutality, and have even abetted on the ground massacres since the 1970s, but usually in ways that extricate themselves from the same level of responsibility (whether by setting up Lebanese militias to do their dirty work, or by allowing massive Palestinian casualties to be categorized as collateral damage). I can recognize that civilians being killed by artillery in a war zone is categorically different than civilians being assaulted, tortured, raped and executed by ground forces. But the crazy thing that’s forgotten is that Israeli forces did use those same tactics, when it’s situation and power position was more desperate, and it’s reputation not yet based on maintaining the appearance of civility.
Nobody's going to get in trouble for opposing the conflict, or pointing out civilian casualties, displacement, war crimes, etc. But you WILL get on a List if you support Hamas in any way shape or form. Pick your battles, know the risk. Yeah it's not fair, just or morally correct, but this is the reality of things.
Numerically speaking the IDF have killed a lot more civilians than Hamas. As have the US for that matter, literally hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in Iraq.
The whole Western media and political landscape somewhat fails to appreciate that small, but incredibly important difference lately. Heck, I am even getting Youtube propagan... I mean ads from the Israeli ministry of defence. But as the saying goes "One death is a tragedy, thousands are a statistic".
> But in the coming Gaza genocide, every act of armed resistance by Hamas and Hezbollah will have my support.
- Hamas falsely attributes civilian deaths to Israel (as you can see from the "hospital strike")
- Hamas vastly inflates civilian casualty counts, somewhere between 2-5x as you can also see from the "hospital strike" which was immediately claimed by Hamas to have killed more than 500. US estimates have it between 100-300, and I think the photos of the damaged parking lot are extremely damning for Hamas's claims - yes, an explosion and fire in a crowded refugee camp could kill lots of people, but 500 is absurd.
- Hamas tells civilians in Gaza to ignore text messages from the IDF telling them to evacuate because their residence may be bombed.
- Hamas sets up road blocks to prevent civilians in Gaza from evacuating.
- Hamas sets up military installations and ammunition caches next to or in civilian installations, including kindergartens and mosques. (You can find videos of bombings resulting in massive secondary explosions as ammunition caches pop off.) They hide in refugee camps (https://thehill.com/policy/international/4260111-israel-hama...).
I think it's worth asking whether there is any way to wage a just war against a government like this, that is literally trying to maximize the number of its own civilians killed. And if not, what kinds of behavior does that incentivize?
If you refuse to go to war with Hamas because of this fact, you incentivize that behavior.
I can't really think of a more just case for war than "the government of a neighbor just brutally, intentionally slaughtered civilians in a surprise attack in our country." It doesn't matter whether the neighboring country is a dictatorship or a democracy.
It very much sucks for the people of Palestine that Hamas chose to start a war with Israel and is using tactics that purposefully result in the death of Palestinians. I hope that they stop putting rocket launchers in and next to schools. I hope that they start allowing people to evacuate. I hope that they stop lying to their people about "psychological warfare" in an effort to get more of them killed. I wish that neighboring countries would allow Palestinians to escape the carnage, and adopt strategies that actually support the Palestinian people rather than the Palestinian cause.
But the IDF and Israel do not control that. And I'm honestly not sure what people expect from them. If you can't fight an enemy that hides behind civilians, then hiding behind civilians is an obvious winning strategy. And personally, I don't want to live in a world where the government most willing to sacrifice their own people automatically wins any conflict.
I don't know why "numerically" matters. There is a big difference morally between someone accidentally killed while persuing a legal military target, and intentionally gunning down a rave or children at a day care.
The idea that if someone converts a house into an ammunition store depot it can never be targeted ever under international law is just straight up wrong.
Of course how that translates to what is being done on the ground is very complex. Which is why numerically approaches are wrong - you have to put every incident in appropriate context to judge it
Regarding the house being an ammunition depot: Sure, legitimate target. Blowing up the whole highrise, debatable. Blowing up the neighbouring highrise, even more debatable. And airstrikes are nowhere precise enough for that kind of work.
Insurgents are people who are fighting their own government (with guns) so they are armed, but they're not fighting Hamas, they're fighting Israel, so they're not insurgents.
Many of them don't even wear military uniforms in combat, that makes them unlawful combatants under the Geneva Conventions and don't have rights. They almost always attack civilians, so they're terrorists.
You know what that doesn't mean? That those people, and everyone in their vincinity, forfeit all, every and each right they ever had. Last time I checked, the IDF had pretty decent rules of engagement around that very question. On paper, and unfortunately rather loosly respected, but still.
??? I don't think that follows. What is your basis for this.
Not all of us agree with this. The idea of “legal military target” grows out of the idea of “just war”, which many of us reject outright.
You may care about the finer legal minutia, but I doubt it matters very much to the death people and their relatives.
Umm, that's literally what distinguishes whether or not it is a war crime*?
Not saying you need to take israeli claims at face value - but if one side accuses the other side of a crime, and the other side says they didn't do it, generally the burden is on the first side to provide proof. Saying it doesn't matter whether or not they actually did it isn't the right response.
* technically its more complex than that. There are times where it could still be a war crime even if civilians weren't targeted specificly. What matters more is the balance between military benefit vs civilian damage.*
Russia pays complete lip service to always trying to make it look like they don't attack civilians (they do) yet are unequivocally accused of war crimes (as they should be).
It got to a point where Israeli officials had no problem publically declaring thinly veiled threats of extermination like:
>On October 10th an Israeli official told a television station: “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents. There will be no buildings.” Daniel Hagari, an idf spokesperson, boasted that “hundreds of tons of bombs” had been dropped on Gaza. Then, he added: “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”
Again, only a western ally could get away with this with such a massive support at all level from all western countries after such statements.
Point being, there’s far more nuance to the whole situation than “Palestine bad.”
Hamas was elected by the whole of the West Bank and Gaza, in Palestine-wide elections. Fatah immediately launched a coup attempt. That failed in Gaza, but succeeded in the West Bank. It's Fatah (Israel's preferred "negotiating" partner) that won't allow elections; Hamas could only hold an election in Gaza, not in the West Bank. Hamas has no desire to validate the claim tht Gaza and the West Bank are distinct territories, which is the effect that holding an election in Gaza only would have.
So, like I said, there's a lot more nuance than many Americans recognize. That was my only point. And, based on the author's tweets (now shared in this thread), he actually does support Hamas, which based on British law (also shared in this thread) could actually be illegal.
Sure, and I get a say in my government. Every five years. We've had three prime ministers since the last time I was allowed to vote in national elections, including two certifiable crazies.
Some people seem to think that a government isn't legitimate unless it's appointed the way we appoint our government (FSVO "we"). I happen to take the view that an election isn't legitimate, however well it's run, if it's conducted while under military siege.
> To be entirely plain.
> I have always viscerally opposed war. I have dedicated my life to conflict resolution and reconciliation.
> But in the coming Gaza genocide, every act of armed resistance by Hamas and Hezbollah will have my support.
> If that is a crime, send me back to jail.
I think this is pretty clearly supporting Hamas. The "in the coming" bit gives him a bit of leeway, of course, since he's not actually saying he supported the October 7 massacre itself (though presumably he is saying he would support another one, if it were it to occur now?), but he certainly doesn't seem to be making the sort of "I support Palestinians, not Hamas" argument that you assume.
Personally, as an American, I've been told by Europeans here that our attitudes towards free speech are bizarre, and that government has an important role to play in, ah, curating the information ecosystem. Despite that, I still believe that people like Murray should be perfectly free to argue for their views, however much I personally find them abhorrent.
[I don't have a Twitter account, and try to avoid the site since access seems to be hit-or-miss since Musk took over]
> PROSCRIBED TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS
> Proscription makes it a criminal offence to:
> belong to or invite support for a proscribed organisation;
> arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation; and.
> wear clothing or carry articles in public which arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of the proscribed organisation.
i think he broke the first rule.
He didn't say that anyone else should support a proscribed organisation; he didn't even invite support for their actions. He just said that he intended to support them. And he's not a member of Hamas; so I don't see how you figure that he broke rule #1.
But the Home Secretary is now demanding that the police arrest and charge anyone carrying a Palestinian flag (note: not just a Hamas flag). In that context, the letter of the law seems a bit irrelevant.
i think the problem here is the medium. he didn't say he supported the terrorists in private to a friend. he posted it on twitter for everyone to see. i guess one could make a case that it's an invitation for support?
The only difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is which side you're on (or: which side the victors write into history).
Second, the Israeli military has killed much, much more people, including thousands of civilians, kids and mothers over a half a century.
There are countless of videos and reports of rich settlers, harassing, stealing property and straight up killing regular palestinian farmers and families just living in their houses.
And third. Israel has actively supported Hamas to destroy moderate opposition like the PLO - the good old divide and conquer strategy.
So unless you also want to detain supporters of Israel this doesn't really make sense.
And no, you shouldn't detain them either like this.
https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/171333500612114051...
he's done exactly that. and he's done this as well: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/11/former-ambas...
> This is not support of Hamas though, it is an acknowledgement that there will understandable reactions
that guy wrote:
> But in the coming Gaza genocide, every act of armed resistance by Hamas and Hezbollah will have my support.
this isn't "acknowledgement", this is support for the terrorists.