No shit, Sherlock.

One aspect of this whole thing that doesn't get discussed enough is how Israel specifically arguing that genocide is okay when acting in situation of perceived danger puts into question the moral consensus we have regarding the Holocaust. As in, if it's justified for Israel to commit genocide in the face of perceived danger, then why exactly wasn't same thing justified for nazi Germany?

Well, my personal opinion is obviously that both situations are abhorrent, but what I'm trying to point out the PR damage that Israel is doing to itself. I see two reasons why Israel might be okay with that:

1. They focus on short-term gains and they're acting irrationally

2. They know they'll always have US support because US needs them to do shady stuff in Middle East while at the same time they know that Arabs will always hate them anyway, so there's not much point trying to be the good guys. They don't care what Europe thinks because Europe won't be politically influential in foreseeable future anyway. By committing the genocide they confirm they're ready to do real dirty jobs, which is the core reason behind the US support in the first place.

I have a feeling that the part of Israel's wrath is that this whole war pretty much voided painstaking process of normalizing relations with Arabs. Therefore they thought "you know what, fuck this shit, if we can't have you like us we'll have you fear us". And that's how we ended up with a democratic country committing genocide.

The saddest thing is that the whole idea "it's 21st century, we won't do comically evil shit anymore" turned out to be a mirage, and as a species collectively we're not that far from ancient rulers massacring entire cities just for shits and giggles.

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calf 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I read Scott Aaronson's blog posts this week and he makes a seemingly similar argument, behind his tendency for heated rhetoric.

If the international community will barely lift a finger to resolve the I/P issue, then it is predictable and rational for Israel to take matters in their own hands and use violence (implemented as a "preemptive war") to "solve" their national security threat problem. It's a type of political realism argument to support this outcome. No appeal to a country being enlightened or democratic, etc., will work.

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HDThoreaun 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> if it's justified for Israel to commit genocide in the face of perceived danger, then why exactly wasn't same thing justified for nazi Germany?

The jews in nazi germany were not threatening to annihilate the state and all the aryans. The palestinian leadership is threatening to do that to the zionists. The jews were not a perceived danger to the germans. Whether that makes genocide justified is certainly up for debate but it is very different from the justification for the holocaust.

	▲	ImPostingOnHN a day ago \| parent [-]
		The matter is complicated by the fact that the israeli leadership is, in equal measure, threatening to annihilate the palestinian state and all the palestinians, and is, even at this moment, actively doing so.

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5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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