Israel/Hamas War Superthread

[Dill]

(03-07-2024, 01:07 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Still waiting on your explanation on why all your posts are about the IDF and none of them are about Hamas.  Why the constant mitigation and blame shifting away from known and self admitted terrorists?

You really seem to like defending Hamas.

 I'll enjoy explaining why, but I won't get around to it till Saturday or Sunday.

Meantime it looks like you're not going to risk any more factual engagement on this issue.
So I'll leave you with a few points of preview:

1. I've actually addressed your question somewhat above (#136), when I laid out our methodological differences and goals: i.e., we disagree on whether discussions here should be open to fact-driven inquiry or subject to explicitly ideological/political limits. 

2. Other than limiting their motivation to religious belief, no one has so far been misrepresenting Hamas's actions; I've said they represent the Palestinian right-wing, a mirror image of the Knesset's right wing, and a two-state solution will never be possible with them in power.  Everyone agrees that they broke out of the siege of Gaza and killed and raped innocent civilians. Israel's desire to destroy them (not innocent Gazans) is justifiable (though the siege is not). Until someone challenges the factual record there, I won't have much else to contribute. And for the record, I have posted about Hamas; you wanted me to stop.

3. It would be profitable to remind everyone why denunciation is one of the preferred modes of regime address in authoritarian/totalitarian regimes. Where legitimating narratives cannot hold up under close factual examination, the next move is to prevent them from occurring. Historically, that has meant closing the space of open, fact-based inquiry with a simple binary question--FRIEND or ENEMY? Populations learn quickly enough how never to trigger that question. One sees that model in its most developed in places like North Korea, but an incipient form of it is proving attractive in our domestic politics, where millions have been persuaded to censor themselves by an authoritarian populist ("fake news"!).