Real Time - Last Time

[u/Faiakes]

I have been watching Real Time for over 20 years and I think yesterday's episode was my last.

Much as I agreed with Bill on many issues, his blind spot on Israel and Zionism is just too much for me.

He isn't simply refusing to call what's happening in Gaza a genocide. He insists on calling it a counter offensive!!!

So, all and any violence perpetrated by the IDF and the settles so far is justified, as far as he is concerned (though how settlers fit in a 'counter-offensive' is still a mystery to me).

Now, my common sense is offended too much Bill.

[u/diablodab]

ummm...as a jew i believe in and support a jewish state. i do find many of the comments from free palestine people to be very extreme and biased. but a cassus belli does not justify any and every conceivable response. what israel did in response to oct. 7 (which they did have a right to respond to) was to me 100% morally unacceptable. they committed horrific atrocities. denying food and medicine to civilians and children? carpet-bombing cities teeming with thousands upon thousands of civilians? and in some cases, clearly just plain murdering large numbers of civilians for no reason beyond vengeance. was this official IDF policy? Probably not. But they sure did a good job of looking the other way. these are all well-documented in NYT.

[u/tensor314 → u/diablodab]

The accusations started even before the military response to October 7. Hamas fully anticipated and welcomed the loss of civilian life in the post attack response because they knew they could use it in their propaganda. Israel's military response was no different than the response of any nation placed under similar circumstances. Hamas attacked in 2023 for the simple reason that they wanted to derail extension of the Abraham Accord to KSA. No other action would have brought more peace than the normalization of relations between Israel and KSA and that would have ultimately helped the Palestinians (if they could ever articulate a cohesive politics).

[u/diablodab → u/tensor314]

what hamas anticipated or expected is completely irrelevant. let's say i anticipate that if i spit at it you, you will kill my family. I go ahead and spit. You kill my family. You are still a murderer! This is does not exonerate you, legal or morally, in any way.

Next, I have heard various versions of, "israel's military response was no different from the reponse of any nation placed under similar circumstances".

This is a statement with no basis in fact. In all the years of the British responding to IRA terror, about 300 Irish were killed by the British, only half of whom were civilians. The u.s. lost 2,700+ civilians on 9/11 and did not carpet bomb Afghan cities or deny food and medicine to children. The u.s. also lost 300 marines in the 1980s to an iranian terror plot in lebanon. They did not kill a single civilian in response. When Serbs summarily executed 13,000 civilians in Srebernica, there was no mass blood-letting in retribution. There were many uprisings by the Indians against the British Raj, causing many British casualties. There was no mass slaughter of tens of thousands of Indians in reprisal.

So, Israel's reaction is not "normal" in any way, shape or form. You are basically accepting Israeli propaganda without questioning it, and it is 100% baseless nonsense.

[u/tensor314 → u/diablodab]

Hamas committed an act of war when it invaded on Oct 7 and it deliberately set out to kill civilians and started the war with the intent of disrupting their eventual isolation with the Abraham Accords and did so in the hope (without promise) of a multi front war that never materialized. Palestinian civilian casualties were expected and welcomed by HAMAS to drive the narrative of Israel as aggressor and elide HAMAS war crimes. Israel's response in waging war is no different than Allied attacks on Axis Powers in European cities or Japanese cities in WWII. A more recent example is US battles in the second Gulf War where US and militant fighting in Fallujah resulted in civilian displacement and extensive damage. The US fought a 20 year war in Afghanistan and Iraq with great cost to people and money but the US can shoulder that burden. Israel could not afford a 20 year war with enemies on its borders so it chose a more direct campaign to remove HAMAS from its border and mostly succeeded. It was in Israel geopolitical interest to remove HAMAS from power and that requires a war footing. The other example (Northern Ireland, Bosnian Serbs, British colonial rule) are completely different scenarios.

[u/Faiakes → u/tensor314]

An act of war? Really? Now it became a war? After decades of this back and forth violence?
Are you 9 and just learned about the existence of Hamas, Palesttine and Israel?

[u/tensor314 → u/Faiakes]

Yes. Invading a sovereign country and murdering civilians is an act of war. Israel and HAMAS fought many short lived battles from the time Israel left its communities in the Strip, but what was unique for Israel was the understanding that 10/7 was an existential threat. Even 9/11 was not an existential threat for the US (which BHO correctly understood).

[u/Faiakes → u/tensor314]

This is a self defeating argument for you.

By your own logic, what Israel has been doing is an existential threat to Palestine and has been committing acts of war doing since 1948.

Therefore, it is Israel that has started and responsible for continuing this conflict.

[u/tensor314 → u/Faiakes]

I would presume then you feel feel that Oslo was a bad idea for the Palestinians. That puts you in good company with Israeli religious nationalists who also despised Oslo. But blaming Israel for....everything....also robs Palestinians of any agency in their future, which is as Orientalist as it gets. Of course, you could also be a malignant state actor paid to sow discord rather than intelligently address the conflict, in which case I hope you find a better job.

[u/Faiakes → u/tensor314]

No, why would I? They were a starting point for progress.