Proportionality and War Crimes

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I think the misunderstanding is due to a mistake made on the second to last paragraph of the first post on this page which he corrected a couple posts down.

That is my fault. I did write that, a typo. Unfortunately when I caught the error it was too late edit that post. I have never lived there or been there.

I don't think it is surprising that war crimes are committed during war. War is a pitiless endeavour and one which is undertaken by people who fall into a bad and nonsensical mindset.

There are rarely clear cut good guys or bad guys in war, especially after a war has been going on a while, regardless of the initial reasons for a war.

Israel seem to give back a lot more than they get whenever a malignant faction such as Hamas commits atrocities against them. That seems to be the trend in a lot of Palestinian-Israel conflicts. I do not think Palestine are an innocent party by any means, but they are often pitifully outmatched by Israel, so it is difficult not to view them as the underdog and to sympathise with them accordingly.

Israel/Palestine gets lots of attention for lots of reasons, including:

1) It is a holy land not just for Jews but for two other major religions, which together comprise at least half the world's population.

2) It is in the Middle East, which has been a general trouble spot ever since the breakup of the Ottoman empire.

3) The Middle East also has great military strategic value to the U.S.A. and other superpowers.

4) Many Palestinian refugees (and descendants thereof), are STILL living in refugee camps after 75 years, because no other countries will accept most of them. Even more so than some Jewish immigrants to Israel, most Palestinians truly have no place else to go.


It's not entirely clear how this fits in with the rest of your post. Could you please clarify?

Knowing you it is the lack of vengeance gene. You have a progressive outlook on life combined with the American sense of optimism. You have demonstrated you do not hate an entire group based on what several members of that group have done to you.

But is also true while you grew up with religious indoctrination you did not grow with all that history of persecution for your group. We had it drummed into us in Hebrew school that despite America being the best by far diaspora the Jews have ever had don’t take it for granted after all before before the Holocaust the German Jews were just as assimilated as the American ones. But that is not close to growing up in Israel with terrorism and war of some sort being part of your entire life. And it is not the same as growing up in Gaza where you have been partially blockaded your entire life, bombed and have had so many people demonstrating for your cause but are unwilling to take you in. We do not have the experience of terrorists sending us live streams of the butchering of our families or knowing people that happened to. I would like to think it I would be same old timey centrist you read here but I would not be honest with myself to deny I might feel leveling Gaza is the thing to do.

How can Israel's potential war crimes be addressed though if it is treated like an untouchable nation and if you question that nation at all you can get accused of being an anti-semitic racist who hates Jewish people. And like I certainly do not have any hatred towards Jewish people but it doesn't take a genius to look at how Israel has been treating the Palestinian population and see that's messed up. That does not justify Hamas what they are doing but like almost seems like the leadership of that country wanted this conflict. They care more about winning a war, than creating a solution that would be better for both Israeli and Palestinian civilians overall. Like seems like Israel's leader wants to try and one up Hamas on how many civilians they can kill rather than looking into any sort of diplomatic solutions.

“But is also true while you grew up with religious indoctrination you did not grow with all that history of persecution for your group.”

No, that’s not true.

Persecution was drummed into me, too.

JWs were persecuted during the Holocaust and thrown into concentration camps. Only a couple thousand of them died (although there weren’t that many JWs at the time), but if you ask a JW, they will usually imply that they were just as persecuted as the Jews were.

Purple triangles instead of stars:



Persecution is an important part of their theology. Being a persecuted group was highly ingrained in us. It was one of the signs that we had “the Truth.” JWs have been persecuted in other places. They’ve been banned and thrown into prison in Russia in the past couple of years. There were devastating situations in places like Malawi. The tales of persecution I grew up hearing about the Holocaust and elsewhere gave me nightmares about torture as a young child (as young as 6), panic attacks, and probably contributed to my PTSD overall, so yeah, I know something about persecution, and I know how it can lead to certain dynamics and perceptions.

Sure, we were way less persecuted than the Jews, but that’s NOT what I grew up hearing and believing. I need to belabor that point because it had such a profound impact on my childhood and probably even adulthood. It didn’t help that they taught that extreme persecution would happen again during something called The Great Tribulation in which all world governments would turn against JWs.

I also grew up in a completely apolitical environment. All governments were part of Satan’s system and bad. Someday God was going to turn the Earth into a paradise without any countries or borders because that was part of his original purpose. I do not feel any degree of patriotism or care about the dividing lines that separate one country from another. I don’t care more about Americans than Iranians. If I saw videos of my family being butchered, I might hate Hamas, but I would not hate Palestine or Palestinians because that’s not how I see the world even though I am no longer religious. I really don’t know how anyone could justify genocide under any circumstances because I find the idea of death and suffering, especially when it involves children, extremely upsetting. What’s wrong is wrong.

Anyway, my worldview has morphed into more of a John Lennon thing. “Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too.” Well, I’m not that idealistic. The point is that I’m not tribal in my view of the world which I think is a good thing because so often people view The Other as less-than.

What matters to me are human beings, not the lines that divide them or inhumane, corrupt governments/leadership.

“American optimism?” Probably not. Just me being me.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 23 Oct 2023, 8:48 am, edited 10 times in total.

I apologize if I'm not participating in this discussion according to the rules, but consider this analogy.

My neighbor is a heartless brute. In fact, in the past, he has blown my house up. I fully understand that if I provoke him, he'll do it again. But my moral outrage is so consuming, I have to do something. Plus everyone else in town agrees with me that this guy is reprehensible and completely sympathizes with my situation.

So to even the score, I throw a brick through his window. Unsurprisingly, my neighbor blows up my house. Everyone else in town is horrified. In fact they're up in arms.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that my house has been destroyed, and though the community in general has condemned my neighbor for what they did, they're not going to do anything to actually help me. Consider as well that I am going to repeat these actions over and over again.

End of analogy.

Some have suggested that proportionality is relevant to the US response to "9-11". I disagree. The invasion of Iraq wasn't any sort of response because AFAIK nobody in Iraq had anything to do with 9-11. Actions taken in Afghanistan may have been appropriate, in fact there is apparently reason to think the US might have even caught Osama bin Laden there and anything they would have done to him or his posse would have been justified. However the war there took on a life of its own. Where 9-11 comes into the discussion is that after it happened, an attitude arose in the US that ANYTHING the US military did must be supported as part of the Global War on Terror. Unfortunately GW Bush seemed to come to learn that he liked playing with soldiers but I don't think he spent a lot of time thinking about the Twin Towers while revelling in his role of "war president".

My bad for making assumptions.

Further proof that you lack the “vengeance gene”

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Hmm, i Stand With the Women And Children and

It Doesn't Matter Where the HELL They Come From

As It's True the Stark Reality is Fighter Jets With Bombs

Typically Decapitate Women and Children too; the Distance

Between the Trigger and Blade Doesn't Negate the Ultimate

Effect; However, We LiVE iN A World of Live Smart Phone Broadcasts,

Unlike the Iraq Years of Killing 100's of Thousands of Innocent

Folks in Truly Unwarranted Wars, The Civilized World Will

Not Stand Long For a Humanitarian Crisis of Totally

Outgunned Women and Children Against

The Killing Machines From Above and the

Ones Who May Or May Not Come by Ground

Force As the So-Called Legitimacy of Killing Innocent

Women And Children By the 'Masses' in Humanitarian Crisis Is Waning

Quickly Among the Eyes of Globe-Wide Justice For All Women and Children;

And True, Nope, This is No Ordinary Case-Study as Close to Half the Population

of Palestine is Under 18 Years-Old and True Even Minors Here Who Actually

Do Criminal Offenses Often Don't face the Full Wrath of Legalized Justice;

Yeah, i remember Being a Child and my Big Daddy Law Enforcement And

Army Military Dude for 46 Years, Making Fun of the Folks Who Wanted Peace

in the Vietnam War; He Said the Peace Symbol is A Scared Chicken Foot and

He told me Join the Military

It Would Make me a Man

Not Afraid to Pull the Trigger

Below or With Buttons Above in

Mass Killing Machines to Destroy the

Enemy, Another Member of the Human Species...

The Truth is Cooperation Wins; Those Who Have the Skills

to Make FRiEnDS With the So-Called Enemies are the Truly Meek

And Graceful Coming From A Foundation of LoVE iN Balancing Peace That Brings

Greatest Will and

Strength as Dear

Lord the 'Normal Nature'

of Being Human is Altruism

And Cooperation; Until We Started Hoarding

Grains in Silos; Before We Created Tools that Separated

Us From the Empathy That Normally Comes When We Are

Choking Someone to Death And We Stop Before the Last Breath;

It's True, It's Not Easy

to Kill Someone With

Our Bare Hands Yet

Oh the Surgical Precision

of Birds Above in Killing; God Yes, Decapitating

Woman and Children Innocent By the Masses on Ground...

Other Than that Without the Support From the United States

The Killing of Innocent Children and Women Will Not Go On;

And It's True For those Who Truly Follow the Teachings and

Basic Human Nature of Becoming FRiEnDS With Our So-Called Enemies

to Continue to Thrive and Survive, They Will Just Say No In Greater Masses

of True Humanity to Bring Back Sanity to the Human Condition When in Balance...

As i told my Dear Muslim FRiEnD

in Egypt Who Yes is Praying for

The End of Israel, There is No

True Winners in Wars and She

Responded This is No War These

Are Women and Children Being Slaughtered

As Indeed The Evil of Terrorists from Hamas Did

to the Innocent Women and Children and Others From Israel too;

Yet It's True These

Women And Children

Even if they Could

Cannot Defend Now

An Enemy From Above

With Surgical Precision

of Weapons of Mass Decapitation

of Innocent Women and Children;

Yeah, One of my Best FRiEnDS is A Wife

Of A Southern Baptist Preacher too; i Don't

Let Differences of Opinions Make Enemies out of FRiEnDS

And i Have Enough Frigging Common Sense to Make FRiEnDS

Out of So-called

Folks Looking

To See me as Their Enemy;

It's Easy Where i Live; All You Need

Is the Magic Password 'Jesus' and the Ability

to Recite Verses From the Good Cop Jesus

As Fast As A Tongue Will carry Ya to Heaven in Hell...

(Not Gonna Lie; Being Able to Leg Press 1540 pounds at the Military Gym carries weight too; And Of Course
Dear Lord too Being Financially Independent Looking Like A 245 Pound 'White Law Enforcement Dude' too)

Hey, Even though He Is Just A Story, What A Wonderful Tool of Peace to Use'

IN REAL LIFE EFFECT;
A 'MIGHTY ONE' INDEED

Yet ONLY

IF the
Good
Cop
Version is Used...

True, The Middle East

Could Learn More About

Making FRiEnDS Out of Enemies

And Oh Dear Lord The United States For Sure...

As the Good Cop Jesus is Still Rather Rare around
Here until someone brings him back to Life by Good Cop Story...

And As Science Shows Now, the So-Called Warrior Gene Usually

Only Creates Mass Killers if Abuse Comes First as It Often Does

In Environments of Psychological And Socio-Economic Scarcity;

And It is Suggested Now About
33 Percent of Humans Possess it;

Garden HUMANS in a Place

Of Balance iN LoVE iN Peace

And Abundance

And Cooler Heads

Will More Likely Prevail; Yet it's True,

i'm only Human too, i'm Not Immune;

As Peaceful as i 'Thought' i Was, Reality

Taught me a Valuable Lesson Dancing

At A Dance Hall When an Ignorant Drunk Dude Attacked

me; i Had Him on the Floor in a Choke-Hold Before i Had 'Time to Even Think' Yet

i Quickly Let go; It Was Still Stupid As if One of His FRiEnDS Had a Gun i Might be dead...

Yet Here's the
Thing; Our Emotions

Precede Our Actions;

i Spent Years Working on Regulating

Emotions And Integrating Senses After That and

Now i am More Peaceful Than Words/Thinking Alone Brings;

As Of Course, i Likely Have the Same Warrior Gene my Father Had;

Yet i have A Greatest Force oF All; Gardened By A Mother of LoVE iN Peace...

Dear Lord
If 'He' Didn't

Leave at Age
3; Ain't No Telling

Where i Would Have Ended up Now or Before...

Yeah, It's Really Hard for Some of Us to Understand

The Realities of the Middle East, Never Facing the

Environment they Have From Birth to Now; i Surely

Don't

Envy Any
of them;

That's
For Damned Sure.

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