The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

I don't think that's Linker not telling the whole story so much as its linker leaving out facts that are irrelevant to its point. Hamas uses human shields? Who gives a shit? The article, and everyone in the world that isn't a Palestinian, labels Hamas as an organization of extremist douchebags. That isn't in contention, so mulling over how mean Hamas is for throwing its own citizens into the meatgrinder is a waste of time.

The point of the article is that this current conflict is entirely of Isreal's doing, and that's true. It's hard to fall back on "Isreal is just defending itself!" when the reason why they're defending themselves from rockets in the first place is because of a faux "investigation" that they started as an excuse to antagonize the Palestinians.

You can't claim self-defense when you throw the first punch.

You'll have to go ahead and prove that Israel "threw the first punch".

As in prove this:

To grasp the war's utter foolishness, you need to go back to the June 12 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli youths in the occupied West Bank. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew almost immediately that the teenagers were dead and that the leadership of Hamas likely had nothing to do with it. Yet Netanyahu decided to engage in a breathtaking act of demagoguery. For over two weeks, the public was told that the government believed the boys were alive, and that Hamas was behind the kidnapping. Both statements were blatant lies.

And if you manage to miraculously do that, you'll have to explain how they're still throwing the first punch when an allegedly faulty investigation excuses Hamas shooting rockets at Israel and using its own people as human shields. Go ahead, I'll wait.

And while Israel isn't always free of blame, their actions against Hamas have been retaliatory.

Edit: And I'm not suggesting Israel messed up in terms of placing blame, but if you're suggesting they intentionally did that, prove it. And btw, the reports are saying that it WAS hamas, but just a "lone cell" operating without any authority.

Originally posted by psmith81992
You'll have to go ahead and prove that Israel "threw the first punch".

As in prove this:

And if you manage to miraculously do that, you'll have to explain how they're still throwing the first punch when an allegedly faulty investigation excuses Hamas shooting rockets at Israel and using its own people as human shields. Go ahead, I'll wait.

And while Israel isn't always free of blame, their actions against Hamas have been retaliatory.

Edit: And I'm not suggesting Israel messed up in terms of placing blame, but if you're suggesting they intentionally did that, prove it. And btw, the reports are saying that it WAS hamas, but just a "lone cell" operating without any authority.

Isreal threw the first punch by flooding the west bank with soldiers, then blowing up Hammas personnel. Even if 100% empirical, inarguable evidence that Hammas was involved with the kidnappings came to light, Isreal's response, even in hindsight, would still be massively disproportional to the crime. That that was their response, even before knowing whether or not Hammas was involved, makes it that much more mind-numbingly insane.

This would be like America occupying Ontario because three teenagers went missing in Minneapolis. Not because we knew that Canada was responsible, but just on the off chance that they were.

Even if we were on a war footing with Canada, such a response to three dead teenagers [possibly] at the hands of Canada would be insane.

That's a pretty inaccurate comparison. We don't have any history with Canada. Israel has a bloody history with Hamas, so their response was based on that bloody history. What you're essentially doing is saying "I don't care if Hamas murdered those teenagers, Israel shouldn't have responded the way they did." You're ignoring a first strike in favor of criticizing a retaliation. And finally, you completely ignore the fact that Israel's response attempting to capture who they thought was involved, while Hamas responded with rockets that killed their own citizens, and Israelis. So yea, not like anything you just mentioned.

That's exactly what I'm saying. That Isreal moved in like that *on the possibility* of Hammas being responsible is insane. But even if they had possessed irrefutable evidence that Hammas was responsible before making that response, the response would still be disproportionate to the crime committed. Yes, I'm saying three dead teenagers doesn't justify Isreal's response.

And I'm not just saying that for Palestine's sake. Iron dome is pretty badass, but Palestine is still launching almost a thousand rockets at Isreali citizens, and those peoples' lives are in danger. The job of a government is to act within the best interests of its citizens. Do you think that poking Hammas like they did over three dead teenagers was worth putting thousands of Isreali lives in jeopardy?

Three dead teenagers doesn't justify containing the situation? But containing the situation is justified by rockets that killed Palestinians and Israelis? Me thinks this is a double standard.

Do you think that poking Hammas like they did over three dead teenagers was worth putting thousands of Isreali lives in jeopardy?

Originally posted by psmith81992
Three dead teenagers doesn't justify containing the situation? But containing the situation is justified by rockets that killed Palestinians and Israelis? Me thinks this is a double standard.

If their goal was to provoke Hamas then absolutely. But since we don't know that, all we know is Hamas launched a first strike, and Israel responded.

No, it doesn't justify launching rockets at Israel at all. But the distinction is that Hammas is a religious extremist organization filled with religious extremist idiots, and their response, justified or not, was at least predictable.

"Israel floods Palestine with soldiers and kills Hammas personnel. Hammas responds by shooting ass loads of rockets at Israel."

Did the reaction to that action surprise you? Probably not- it certainly didn't surprise me, in fact if you were to ask me before Hammas responded what their response would be, my prediction would have been that they'd start firing rockets into Israel.

So if random douchebag Blaxican can predict that Israel's response would provoke a rocket-enema, then the Israeli state sure as hell did. The only alternative is to assume that the Israeli government is filled with naive morons, which I just don't believe. Like you said, the two countries have a history. Too much of a history for Israel to not know what the consequences of their actions in the West Bank would be.

This still goes back to if they legitimately thought Hamas was involved. If so, they did what I thought was right. If you look at the history, Israel doesn't take too kindly when its citizens get murdered by Arabs, especially religious nuts. So they retaliated, then Hamas fired rockets, continued to use their own people as human shields, and refused a cease fire repeatedly. So I'm still having trouble seeing how Israel is at fault, unless your best argument involves hindsight.

My argument is that three dead teenagers isn't worth putting your own peoples' lives at risk, whether your enemy was responsible for those teenagers or not. That you don't know whether your enemy was responsible or not makes it even less worth the risk.

Decent argument but wasn't your original premise that Israel provoked Hamas? I haven't gone back to the previous page but it was either yours or Linker's. It's a weak assertion for a few reasons:

1. It has been well known and well documented how Israel responds to the murder of its people.

2. Whether it was Hamas or a lone cell affiliated with Hamas, chances are that they knew how Israel would retaliate, or at least had an idea.

Ergo, it was they who provoked Israel to act the way it did. You're simply stating that Israel put its citizens at risk, ignoring the 60+ years of history and Israeli counter terrorism policies that have kept it one step ahead of the 20+ arab countries that wouldn't mind seeing Israel exterminated.

Lucius
Damon Linker tells it how it is.

http://theweek.com/article/index/264681/israels-bombing-of-gaza-is-morally-justified-mdash-and-eminently-stupid

Nephthys
So my impression is [...] kinda dumb and missing the point.

Dave
But I guess when you agree with someone, they "tell it like it is".

You kids.

edit: Tempest, this prequel rewrite is middling. What I remember of the "Son of Sons" thing was vastly better. Nonetheless, I am begrudgingly engrossed and now a third of the way through EPIII.

It always struck me as weird that you would get into every kind of debate except for those centered around international conflicts.

Originally posted by Eminence
mmm

I pretty much expected that to be the case. I know little about world events and politics and stuff.

To clarify, it seems to me that every country there has a long history of atrocities and wrongs against the others that leads to this endless cycle of hate. I'm sure if you asked someone in Hamas they'd point out a ton of shit "justifying" their hatred of Israel and vice versa. It just seems to me that there's no clear good guys, bad guys over there, they're all shitty to each other all the time.

Btw Faunus, I found this interesting as well from Linker, since you agree that he tells it like it is.

http://theweek.com/article/index/258993/why-christianity-demands-pacifism

His assertions would seem to suggest that events such as the Crusades were indeed a perversion of religion based on individual agendas (my assertion in our previous debate, which you said was laughable).

Damon Linker used to be an editor at First Things, and ran with guys like George Weigel and Richard Neuhaus. He's also a friend of Rod Dreher and the guys over at TAC.

I disagree with Linker on a lot of things, but I always enjoy reading his columns. See, you don't have to agree with 100% of what a person says to find value in their opinions and arguments.

I didn't say anything about him, I just thought his article was dishonest. He was either purposely or accidentally withholding crucial details that would have rendered his points moot.

I also strongly dislike coffee shop theories. "Oh it's a tragedy what these groups are doing to each other. etc". Some people need to get off their high horse and appreciate why they're even able to sit and debate theory in the first place.

So what do you want him to do, not comment on a situation if he isn't covered in blood?

No, he can comment all he wants, without being smug about it.

Eminence
edit: Tempest, this prequel rewrite is middling. What I remember of the "Son of Sons" thing was vastly better. Nonetheless, I am begrudgingly engrossed and now a third of the way through EPIII.

You're engrossed by middling work? The Son of Suns trilogy is probably better overall, but I think this guy's prose is more engaging.

Originally posted by psmith81992
Decent argument but wasn't your original premise that Israel provoked Hamas? I haven't gone back to the previous page but it was either yours or Linker's. It's a weak assertion for a few reasons:

1. It has been well known and well documented how Israel responds to the murder of its people.

2. Whether it was Hamas or a lone cell affiliated with Hamas, chances are that they knew how Israel would retaliate, or at least had an idea.

Ergo, it was they who provoked Israel to act the way it did. You're simply stating that Israel put its citizens at risk, ignoring the 60+ years of history and Israeli counter terrorism policies that have kept it one step ahead of the 20+ arab countries that wouldn't mind seeing Israel exterminated.

The discussion evolved to deliberating whose actions were justified, so I went with it. My original assertion is that Israel instigated the current skirmish by putting soldiers in the West Bank and killing Hamas personnel.

Israel had no proof that Hamas was responsible for the dead teenagers, but they had to have known that performing a military operation in the West Bank and killing Hamas personnel would result in this situation, yet they did it anyway.