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I have a general rule that I don't trust people's self-evaluation of morality. It's been my experience that even objectively very bad people will say that they are good people forced to do bad because of bad conditions. Nonetheless good people are forced to do bad things by bad conditions. Whether it is one or the other isn't usually determinable from the point of view of the participants.

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edanm 4 days ago | parent [-]

That's fair, and an outside view is usually a good idea.

But I also have a general rule that you should never judge a whole group of people as inherently evil or immoral, without attempting to understand them on their own terms, see them as they see themselves. Very rarely, if ever, are large groups of people immoral or evil. (Though societies themselves can certainly immoral collectively.)

And Israel is a Western society, mostly. Its values are largely the same values as the US or Europe. If people with those values self-reflect and decide they are not acting immorally on the whole, then it's worth at least considering that they might just have more knowledge and context about what's happening than outsiders.

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bbqfog 4 days ago | parent [-]

> And Israel is a Western society, mostly. Its values are largely the same values as the US or Europe.

So you don't think it's indigenous to the Middle East? Israel shares values with no one. I've never seen dozens of US soldiers dress up in the lingerie of murdered women.

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edanm 2 days ago | parent [-]

Israel isn't "indigenous" or not, it's a country. I think the same as the historical consensus - there was a state called Israel where the Jews lived, they were ethnically cleansed by the Roman Empire. Call it whatever you want.

> Israel shares values with no one. I've never seen dozens of US soldiers dress up in the lingerie of murdered women.

Have you seen the pictures of US soldiers at Abu Ghraib? It's not hard to find pictures of some US soldiers doing bad things. Not that that excuses what the IDF soldiers did.

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newspaper1 2 days ago | parent [-]

So when you say that Israel shares western values what you mean is the desire to commit sadistic torture and violate human rights? I don't disagree at all actually that the US also does not practice what it preaches.

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edanm 2 days ago | parent [-]

What I'm saying is that to the extent you can infer from Abu Ghraib that "Western values are to commit sadistic torture", then you can infer Israeli values by pictures of IDF soldiers doing whatever.

I think that extent is very small. If you think otherwise, then you're not really claiming Israel is worse so much as that all Western countries are terrible. (I disagree but that's your logic.)

	▲	newspaper1 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, Israel is much worse. I had never seen the inside of a child's skull before but since Israel started their genocide, I've seen it every day.