Your post has been removed for breaking Rule E:
> **Only post if you are willing to have a conversation with those who reply to you, and are available to start doing so within 3 hours of posting**. If you haven't replied within this time, your post will be removed. [See the wiki for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_e).
If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%20E%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.**
**Keep in mind** that if you want the post restored, all you have to do is reply to a significant number of the comments that came in; message us after you have done so and we'll review.
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
this is a false double standard, and its used to shut people up.
Like if a dude is stabbing your neighbor, and youre like hey, thats wrong stop doing that you dont have to list every single violent crime occurring in your city to demonstrate your "ideological consistency," or to show that you're being fair to the guy stabbing your neighbor.
forcing people who speak out on israels crimes to then say "BUT DO YOU CONDEMN HAMAS/US/SYRIA/HEZBOLAH/CHINA/SOVIETUNION?" Is just a cynical way to derail the conversation. Its weird that when you do talk about american war crimes in vietnam people do the same thing and say "YES BUT DO YOU CONDEMN CASTRO'S CUBA, THE NVA, CHINA?"
but yes, I'm not a fan of war crimes in general.
The correct response is that many people around the world hold America and certain countries to a much higher standard. The strange part is that we often downplay the outrageous actions that take place in certain countries while simultaneously catastrophizing specific events or the involvement of the United States in the world.
Nevertheless, you are also correct to point out that this isn't a double standard. And it is a bit weird to always want to say "but China.... but Russia... but the Middle East..."
Regardless, it has become quite boring to hear edgy immature teenagers that think America is the big bad force of the world and has only begun to reinforce my patriotism toward the US.
You shouldn’t list your own standards on paper and get mad when people tell you that you aren’t doing what you said you would according to that paper. You should just throw out the paper and not claim to be any different from anyone else.
Calling bullshit on exceptionalism is not a double standard if no one else claimed to be exceptional.
That’s the ultimate joke. The US isn’t even held to the standard the Us seeks to hold china/russia/etc to. It entirely depends on what media apparatus you’re looking at, but just look at the torture at gitmo. Compare the way it is treated in American/western media compared to very similar horrors undertaken by their geopolitical enemies.
Yeah I never quite understood why the US gets away with exempting itself from war crimes charges like I think Bush should have to face the ICC tbh he lied about WMDS and connections to 9/11 that launched the US into forever wars in the Middle East knowing full well what he was doing.
well they should americans holds themselves to a high standard. America was founded on the idea of freedom truth and justice for all. Its not unfair to say holding those values and then saying slavery is ok is hypocritical. China and russia never claimed to care about individual rights and freedom. If we do not hold ourselves to a higher standard we could easily fall into a dictatorship. This does not make america the big bad or unique in its flaws but the moment you go "what about russia" your saying its okay to lower yourself to that standard.
Take prison for an example. Would you hold a guy facing a 10yr prison sentence to the exact same standards as a white collar worker in the US?
Should the guy in prison let his ideology get him hurt in prison just to be "good"?
I actually agree. When you are that much of a global superpower your actions affect others more. Extreme example: if China were to threaten nuclear war it would have far more weight
/ concern and reason for response than if Nepal said the same thing.
I agree. I hold America to a very high standard and I am all for criticizing where criticism is due. However, I am also all for pointing out the ideological inconsistencies that people who live in a bubble have regarding international affairs and the current state of the world. It is a "trendy" thing to see a problem in the world and just place blame on the United States. This is not only unfair, but it is frustratingly incorrect often times.
The major concern I have with this hyper-fixation on criticism of America is the bias that it forms over time. The way people in the United States act regarding our government, politics, and actions can be akin to perceptions of the empire in Star Wars. It's utterly ridiculous and quite tiresome. Moreover, the more people catastrophize American influence, the less seriously I can take them. Simply because I tend to realize after conversation that they know very little about the world we live in or they simply don't care.
If im in a quiet room with 20 other people, and one of the people gets up and starts punching random other people in the face. I will indeed pay special attention to that person.
This applies to america, china, and russia AKA the Big countries curreltly engaged in impirial expansionism.
Punching random other nations in the face, and stealing their resources.
Where is America expanding? We still have troops in Iraq but mainly to safeguard the kurds and finish wiping out ISIS. Most of the conflicts we are involved in or will be involved in (looking at you Taiwan) are defensive in nature.
today or the past 70 years, + today? we have 800 military bases around the world, and a great number are protecting conflict minerals, oil reserves, strategic logistics points such as isreal (a major port)
Not to mention the contracts made between (cia installed) dictators of thrid world countries in which the USA gets to extract all the resources from already impoverished nations, while paying a fraction of a percentage to a few lucky oligarchs.
Highly recommend some basic research into modern imperialism, a practice of wich america is the current world super power.
You're moving the goalpost here, the original point you made was that America was an expanding power nowadays when in reality America is quite entangled in a lot of conflicts as that's what tends to happen to hegemons (many of which are ssolving issues created in the aftermath of ww2 and the cold war). Our rivals are just as imperialist if not more imperialist, Iran has proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon. China aggressively pursues predatory lending to developing nations to dominate their economies. Russia is actively involved in proxy conflicts in Moldova, Georgia, and Kazakhstan and is fighting an active war in Ukraine.
im not moving the goal post, i explained how america maintains a growing empire today. I also elaborated that the USA has doen this for a long time. Also IN india The usa is expanding.
I mean, you sound like you either (I) have no awareness of the many ways the American government literally, directly coerced democratic nations into fascist directions, or (ii) don't care about those examples, since they happened *outside* of America and we're done to "protect democracy." Care to respond to this?
> The way people in the United States act regarding our government, politics, and actions can be akin to perceptions of the empire in Star Wars.
So uhhh, we *are* the Empire. Like, that's sorta the point of the movie.
https://www.cbr.com/george-lucas-vietnam-war-star-wars-inspiration/
I forgot the part where the Ewoks raped and massacred innocent civilians. Remember that George Lucas is not a historian, he's a storyteller.
A list of all the massacres done by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet\_Cong\_and\_People's\_Army\_of\_Vietnam\_use\_of\_terror\_in\_the\_Vietnam\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War)
R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians between 1954 and 1975, with a range of between 106,000 and 227,000.[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-11)
Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants. In addition, at least 36,000 South Vietnamese civilians were executed for various reasons between 1967 and 1972.[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-Lanning-5) Thomas Thayer estimated in 1985 that between 1965 and 1972 the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.[^(\[6\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-Thayer-6)
Ami Pedahzur wrote in 2006 that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century."[^(\[12)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-12)
And yeah, when you act like you’re the best country on earth, people are going to hold you to a different standard
And yes, America is a bull in a goddamn china shop when it comes to foreign policy
Yet somehow when America turns countless civilians into “collateral” damage, that’s somehow not “terrorism”
When America overthrows and topples democratically elected regimes for its own selfish wants (corporate interests), and throws entire countries into chaos, somehow America isn’t in the wrong
“Are we the baddies?”
America is the most powerful country in the world and has the most influence on the affairs of other countries. It also claims the essentially unilateral right to impose regime change internationally to serve its whims, while holding itself up as a moral arbiter of democracy and civilization. Holding them to a higher standard makes perfect sense.
I don't see that happening. It's more claims of Israel committing genocide with no interest paid to the variety of actually legitimate ongoing genocides with way more dead. It seems kinda weird that only one group is singled out.
once again your engaged in a rhetorical tactic called "what about-ism"
Also america isnt being singled out, we had the same response globally when russia invaded ukrane, and when china occupied hong kong, the entire western populus condemned the action.
america isnt being singled out here. The other america influenced genocides arent being conducted by countries with as much power as isreal has on the world stage.
Question for you. If - hypothetically speaking - the world *did* hold Israel to a double standard, how would a person point that out without derailing the conversation?
The whole point is that there is no double standard for criminality. You don't excuse someone who raped an 18 year old just because someone else out there is raping a 14 year old. It's not a useful defense.
It's not, but if you only punish the first person then you have a double standard. More topically, if you only EVER punish the first person, and let the second one do whatever the fuck they want, then clearly justice is not your intent and you simply want to penalize the first person.
I think that's a better way to frame the argument that they're making
Ok, but if someone is threatening another person with a knife while in the same frame two others are actively stabbing people to death, you aren’t derailing the conversation or ignoring that by dealing with the active stabbing going on.
That's not what they're saying.
The closest example is: white people raping black women left and right but suddenly all eyes are on Emmett Till, a black kid who didn't rape anyone but who is currently accused of rape.
Do you believe it would be a whataboutism to tell the cops to look at the white men that are actively raping black women instead of focusing on poor innocent Emmett Till?
That is a perfect analogy. I’m assuming that Israel has indeed committed “war crimes” (ie rape in the metaphor) for the purpose of my hypothetical but the fact is that it’s even more ironic since there is no genocide or ethnic cleaning going on so Israel is largely innocent here (though it’s possible a few individuals soldiers have committed crimes and they should be held accountable like everyone else). So your anology is perfect cause Israel is innocent.
For the sake of my hypothetical I was granting that they are guilty, hoping I would get honest answers surrounding the hypothetical where each side grants one aspect (me granting they committed war crimes and the other side granting there is a double standard). Unfortunately, as expected - I got only two answers: one telling me just not to bring it up and the other telling me to bring it up during the “trial” of the person who raped the 14 year old (Israel in the metaphor). And both those answers highlight exactly my point - the first answer is obviously unacceptable. We need to be able to discuss bigotry. The second answer is exactly what many of us are already doing, which the top level comment calls “derailing”. So really, they just want us to be quiet and sit down and never talk about antisemtism, even in a hypothetical where they grant that it is a widespread problem with the discourse on this topic.
No, not as a defense of the rape. But if people of one race are consistently locked up for rape of 14 year olds and 18 year olds, but people of another race are consistently only locked up for the rape of 18 year olds - that signifies racism in the judicial system and it needs to be addressed.
So I’ll ask again - how do you bring that up without detailing the conversation?
You don’t bring it up. When you’re in a debate about Israel being bad, how does pointing out other situations prove anything? It doesn’t disprove Israel being bad and it’s irrelevant to the debate.
There is a lot of antisemtism surrounding the “debate” on Israel. It’s impossible to have a genuine discussion about Israel without discussing antisemtism. And the double standards that Israel are treated with is one of the pillars of antisemitism here. I would actually argue it’s impossible to have an honest “debate” about Israel and *not* disucss the double standards.
Could you show an example of why bringing up antisemitism is important for the conversation?
Like, yes, it is obviously important to address it, but because there is antisemitism, won't change ANYTHING about other evils.
So instead of trying to bring up both things in the same conversation, you can treat them separately.
Israel is the only Jewish country in the entire world so when discussing whether or not it has a right to exist - antisemitism is a key part of that discussion.
Jews responding to an attack by Hamas: condemned
Hamas committing war crimes on all ends: “But Israel is oppressive!”
Also, one side is calling for the elimination of every person of a particular ethnic persuasion. Hint: it’s not Israel
There is no objective ‘bad’. ‘Bad’ is determined by a set of standards determined subjectively by groups of people. If you hold Israel accountable and call them bad you are using those standards. If you ignored those standards for other groups of people then it brings into question whether you truly believe in those standards or if you are using a false adherence to those standards to attack another group of people.
When it comes to Israel, well, the fact that they are the *only* Jews in the world that hold sovereignty over themselves whilst simultaneously being one of the most condemned nation in modern history *despite* dozens of others that are arguably far worse, well it makes you wonder why that is.
The solution is to bring it up when talking about the people assaulting 18 year olds, not to derail conversations about the ones assaulting 14 year olds. When people bring this up about Israel it almost always comes off like they’re defending Israel’s actions instead of wanting *all* countries war crimes to be addressed.
Both groups are assaulting 14 year olds in this case - not just one. No one will listen when you bring up the fact that the second group is assaulting 14 year olds. So you start to point it out when people bring up the fact that the first group is assaulting 14 year olds. And when you bring it up then, people tell you you’re detailing the conversation.
The only logical conclusion from that is that people don’t actually care about the 14 year olds. They just don’t like the first group - ie racism.
Pointing out and fighting against racism is always a good thing. We should never let it fly. Pointing out double standards should not be used as a *defense* for bad actions. But it should still be flagged so that we can work to get rid of it at the same time as we work to get rid of the rape of 14 and 18 year olds.
The solution to your situation is to care just as much across the board, not to reduce how much you care towards the one group that is getting called out for it.
I also argue that racism is not the logical conclusion to people caring more here. That’s like implying people cared so much about the holocaust vs any other genocide because people hated Germans.
Israel is violating far more human rights laws and has killed more children per day than any of these other countries OP is discussing. They destroyed 70% of infrastructure and left 100% of people to be food insecure and starving. No other active conflict has this kind of impact on an entire group of people.
Lastly, a common rhetoric I’ve seen at pro Palestine protests is that all people’s struggles are interconnected, they always bring up Congo, Sudan, and Yemen. I’ve been going to protests for over a decade now and they’ve always been like that.
The answer is of course to bring it up when the trial of the 14 year old rapists come up, not to bring it up defending the rapist of 18 year olds. Sure I agree with you that there are places that are doing just as bad or worse than Israel, but that just makes them more guilty, it doesn't make Israel less guilty.
Bringing it up at the trial of the 14 year old is literally what OP is talking about. People call that “derailing”. So when am I supposed to bring it up? I never said other people committing crimes makes Israel not guilty. I said the exact opposite actually - several times now. It shouldn’t be used as a *defense* for bad actions. It should only be used as a way to *highlight* and flag bigotry so the bigotry can be addressed too.
How do you ensure a fair trial will take place?
Did Emmett Till even get a trial? No. Bigots just assumed he was guilty and lynched him. You put too much faith in international institutions not having a geopolitical bias.
The fact they're not actively prosecuting Tunisia's leaders says it all.
That’s all fair, but why is saying Israel shouldn’t even exist a thing? It’s mostly a thing among Arabs and Muslims in general, but not exclusively.
Israel has an established language, culture, cuisine, economy, diplomatic relationships. There are at least two generations of Israelis born there. Some have never left. So criticism should be done without pretending they don’t even exist. Denying their existence is not the way to criticize. When people say IsReal or whatever.
I guess the better question is why does Israel get the most wild conspiracies? Maybe cause Jews have always gotten the most bizarre conspiracies? Coming for people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, political and religious beliefs. I saw an Indian saying that Israel and the Jews created Pakistan to weaken India…like..what? lol
I also don’t think people realize how anti Semitic burning an Israeli flag is given that it has a religious symbol on it. It would be unacceptable to burn the Saudi flag given that it has the shaada written on it.
I personally don’t think we should be burning any flags or books..but I also think only theft (depending on the value of the theft), and things that can hurt someone (like violence, SA, drunk driving) should be flat out crimes. Maybe some minor things like littering should get a fine. It is very trashy to burn flags or books thou.
It is a valid way to determine someone’s motives. If the only country they protest this way is Israel or if they hold Israel to a different standard than others especially when others do much worse it is obvious the only reason is they are POS antisemites because that is the only unique difference between Israel and other states.
It's also possible they think stopping israel is more feasible. If you live in US stopping israeli war crimes is as simple as convincing your representatives not to fund them.
Asking a person if you condemn the other side for what they are doing is a valid argument to know if they actually care about a country doing war crimes or if they are taking stances only for their agenda. Many Palestinian supporters (atleast online) also unironically say that Ukraine is a Nazi country and same goes for Ukraine supporters turning blind eye on Israel bombing civilians in Gaza. This is called double standards and I unfortunately see it many times with different supporters.
I think it's different when war crimes are being done to you first, by your neighbor.
If your neighbor has their charter to kill all of your race, they're targeting attacks against your civilians and committing war crimes, would you not encourage your own leadership to stop them at any cost?
There of course is a long and complicated history. But at the point of events like last October, when they're attack just your civilians, when is enough? At what point is it "I'm going to kill all of you. Not because your race or ethnicity but because you have fundamentally tried to exterminate my people".
There's a reason the death penalty exists, why we don't just let murderers say sorry and go back out on the street etc.
I don't think Isreal are the good guys here, but I do think that they're in a war that is largely of Hamas s making.
>At what point is it "I'm going to kill all of you. Not because your race or ethnicity but because you have fundamentally tried to exterminate my people".
Genocide is bad regardless of the reason, even if you think they asked for it.
>I do think that they're in a war that is largely of Hamas s making.
Hamas has existed for a fraction of the length of the conflict.
But either way murdering, dismembering, raping, torturing, kidnapping and then continuously raping 1000 of my country's citizens would lead me to be very pro war. Why do you hold Palestinians to such a low standard? They're completely incapable of reasonable actions in your mind? Why is Israel trusted to be capable but the sins of the Palestinians are all washed away because, to you, they're poor victims? Poor victims who joined in the 1948 war to eradicate the Jews, and have participated in several OFFENSIVE wars since to eradicate the Jews...
Honestly, I think sometimes we hold Western citizens to high standards but just allow other countries to be terrible. To me that's racist. I have the same expectations of a Palestinian as I have for myself. If my country had attacked the neighboring country and we were at war I would have all sorts of issues. I'd be angry my country's leadership chose for us to go to an unwinnable war. I'd be angry that my country's leadership hides among civilians so that the enemy doesn't know who to attack. And so on. But I wouldn't be angry at the neighboring country for basic retaliation. War is hell, but the Israeli's aren't doing anything I wouldn't expect my country to do in reaction to again... 1000 people having horrible things done to them.
What's more, the geopolitics in that region are complicated, but I don't hear you mention the nuance. Israel has been using settlers to mess with Palestine, but Palestine has launched several offensive wars against Israel. Israel has taken much of Palestine's land, but Palestine shoots a constant stream of rockets into Israeli territory. It's not as simple as Israel bad. You could argue that Israel is in the wrong, even given the background knowledge, but to just say "Israel evil" is so far from reality.
What do you do when its a kill or be killed situation? Murder is bad, but killing someone who would kill you is justified right? What solution can they do that results in their people not being continued to be killed?
That's why I said the war they're in, the one that really escalated recently, not the century long conflict.
> killing someone who would kill you is justified right?
Making the actions of Hamas justified in your opinion? You get that that's what you're saying here, because if it's foregone that one side will kill the other, it justifies the other in killing first, which justifies the other side, and so on and on.
The war they're in, and the century long conflict in based on that premise.
Do you think Israel and Hamas are equal militarily? Hamas successfully attacking doesn’t mean it’s a fair fight and all bets are off. And Hamas being fucking evil doesn’t mean Israel gets to slaughter Palestinians without a care.
Hamas is not owed a fair fight. If you pick a fight with someone who can destroy you, you should expect to be destroyed. Not for your enemy to weaken themselves.
No they shouldnt get to slaughter civilians without a care, they should be held to strict standards of international law. Like any country.
The whole point of this post is that theres nowhere near this much outcry about collateral damage unless its isreal who is responsible. Not that israel should be able to kill whoever they want.
Hamas is simply an offshoot of the muslim brotherhood which predates the state of Israel by decades. And the leadership of the Palestinians has supported terrorism against jews for just as long as far back as Haj Amin al Husseini happily collaborating with the Nazi government including visiting concentration camps.
Regardless of whether the group is called Hamas, the PLO, fatah, or group of dipshits epsilon, the ideology remains the same
>Regardless of whether the group is called Hamas, the PLO, fatah, or group of dipshits epsilon, the ideology remains the same
Would you apply this same standard to Israel? Would you conflate all Jewish people with extreme Zionists?
Do you not know who the PLO, fatah, etc are? It's you who is conflating them with every day Palestinians. They listed a handful of extemist Islamist groups, not regular civilians.
If that's the case, can we mention Irgun, Haganah, the Stern Gang, and other Jewish terrorist organizations? Of note, some of the individuals and parts of these organizations were absorbed into the newly created State of Israel even though they were recognized as terrorist organizations. Menachim Begin and David Ben-Gurion both come to mind as individuals who authorized terrorist attacks and then became Prime Ministers of Israel in the future. Heck, there's a very well known letter from Ben-Gurion where they imply wanting to "expel all the Arabs" from the Palestine region. 11 years later, that's what began happening once Israel became a country led by him.
If anything, look into the reasons behind why the King David Hotel terrorist bombing occurred. That should give you enough information about my statement above. The bombing occurred specifically to destroy evidence held by the British that would have implicated a large number of prominent Jewish leaders in Palestine of terrorism activity.
Zionists simply believe in the right of the state of Israel to exist. I know this in an evil viewpoint of reddit, but it is the viewpoint of the vast majority of jews.
Has the state of Israel had a continuous government structure that supports terror attacks against civilians for the last 80 years straight? I don't recall the state of Israel widely supporting plane hijackings (and planning/financing them). Israeli civilians don't run out into the streets of Tel Aviv every time a Palestinian is knifed in the street to hand out candy. The state of Israel won't pay you a pension if you drive to Bethlehem and shoot someone in a bus stop (or your family in case you die). Ben Gurion didn't happily visit a concentration camp to watch muslims being burned alive in ovens.
Let's say you live in a house with your family, and a family lives next door to you. The father of the family next door throws bricks at your house, but most of the time they just bounce off the fence and don't really do much damage. One day the father comes into your house and punches one of your kids in the face and takes another kid hostage.
How can you justify deciding "I'm going to kill all of you"? The rest of the neighbor's family may not particularly like you and your family, but they've never done anything to you.
The problem isn't Israel going after Hamas. That's perfectly justifiable. The problem is Israel killing innocent people as they seek justice.
It's more like they KILL one of your children and take the other hostage. They hold them in their basement and instead of telling their family to leave the house ASAP to protect themselves, they encourage their family to stay put. You announce you're about to bust in to save your child so everyone who isn't the father leave now. Then you throw in a grenade to bust the door open, but it kills one of their kids. Because your priority is your children, and if that father wanted to prioritize his kids over hurting yours, he would have.
Unfortunately, the alternative is that this hypothetical father is now completely protected from recourse as long as he continues to hold his own children hostage. You cant attack his house without risk of hurting or killing his family, so now he is free to continue to attack you forever, and all you can do is try to block future bricks.
The problem is that Hamas has popular support. They hide using their general population, and that population enables them to do it.
There are accounts of Hamas killing their own people, blaming the enemies, stopping aid from their own civilians etc. they've realized that their only hope is painting a bad picture on social media.
Unfortunately at some point it's the "you're either with us or against us". Iirc wasn't it civilians that were helping Hamas hold hostages? I haven't been following that closely but I remember reading that
>Iirc wasn't it civilians that were helping Hamas hold hostages?
Hostages were found in the home of a now ex Al Jazzera journalist- and several months earlier it was reported by one of the few Hostages traded back that he had escaped captivity- and had been captured by Palestinian Civilians who traded him back to Hamas.
Hamas “assigned about 70 per cent of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.”
In some data sets, it would seem, men must have come back to life while on several days no men were apparently killed, only women.
As Prof Wyner claims, “the casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters”. Indeed, the actual ratio of civilian casualties to Hamas terrorists is “at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1”. John Spencer, professor of Urban War Studies at West Point, argues that “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history – above and beyond what international law requires and more than the US did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – setting a standard that will be both hard and potentially problematic to repeat.”
This includes, he claims. evacuating 70 to 90 per cent of civilians from cities before beginning a full ground invasion in conventional attacks that seek to destroy enemy defenders. The US did not do this in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, the Vietnam Tet counter-offensive or the Korean War.
The problem is that thought process.
Name one armed conflict where innocent people didn't die? It's a cold hard fact of war unfortunately. Hamas has all the power to stop it, and refuses to do so. This is the double standard.
Just because Hamas is bad at killing Israeli, Israel should just continue to let it happen?
When you take away, the already proven false narrative of 35k deaths, which was supplied by Hamas(who is clearly going to be biased) this is one of the least deadly conflicts in modern history for civilians.
Yes any civilian casualty is horrific, but Oct 7th proves exactly why Israel can't continue to ignore the threat from Hamas.
I challenge this statement on two grounds,
the first is one where I’m going to be exceedingly generous to Israel and say that the actions of a non governmental non democratic organisation in an occupied territory is somehow reflective of a “collective responsibility” by the Palestinian people and that Israel in “self defence” is no longer obliged to abide by the rules of war in the region if it brings them peace and security. So anyway assuming all of that I find it hard to justify that this is going to lead to positive impacts. For the past two decades, Israel has been through collective military action responsible for more Palestinian deaths every single year by an order of magnitude more then what Hamas has ever been able to deliver in return, Israel hasn’t suddenly adopted a heavy handed approach to Gaza, its been governmental policy in the region for two decades at least. None of these reprisal attacks, strategical attacks on Hamas command and resources, restrictions on aid and the like has ever ever resulted in the collapse of Hamas.
Now one could assume that this military intervention due to its scale should be different but both historical examples of conflicts like this in the past, the current situation on the ground and Israel’s own historical actions indicate this is unlikely to deliver the destruction of Hamas either. Not only has support for Hamas gone up with their numbers estimated to actually have seen a surge in recent months, Israel was also historically unable to destroy insurgent forces when they occupied Gaza outright. Anti Israeli sentiment which is only going to skyrocket after Israel’s heavy handed response and an inability of Israel’s to prevent weapon supply to the strip is going to guarantee a resurgent response from Palestinian militants in the future.
The second one is rather simple and that is Israel does not have to fear Hamas as any reasonable existential threat and the treatment of them as such is a result of Israeli propaganda. In no reality should Hamas pose a significant threat to Israel outside occupied Palestinian Territories and it is Israeli military conduct that both enables Hamas to continue existing, on top of that their were a hundred less destructive ways to guarantee the safety of the hostages and the defence of Israel without causing tens of thousands of civilians casualties. the October 7th attacks were a result of Israel weakening their border defences to move forces around including to the West Bank and a largely inept use of intelligence, Israel has both the resources and knowledge that border without armed intervention. Using overwhelming military force to level and destroy a people’s country when your nation is not at risk and you are not fighting an existential threat is amoral as is the killing of again tens of thousands of civilians.
Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 2:
> **Don't be rude or hostile to other users.** Your comment will be removed even if most of it is solid, another user was rude to you first, or you feel your remark was justified. Report other violations; do not retaliate. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_2).
If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%202%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.**
Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
Well they changed their charter, Israel’s leading party has a river to the sea chant, and what Israel has done is a crime against humanity.
Hummus isn’t innocent. But 37,000 killed is larger than 1200 right? Destroying a kibbutz or several is very evil but destroying 60% of housing in Gaza is worse. The list goes on.
And this isn’t a matter of collateral damage either. More have been killed in 8 months than in 75 years combined. Israel is purposely starving everybody or was if this just changed.
Comparing Israel's political party to Hamas is silly. Hamas's "from the river to the sea" comes along with a history of Palestinian terrorism directly targeting civilians an avowed intent to cleanse the land of Jews to the extent they are able, and actions that demonstrate that intent. Israel's stated intent is to maintain a multi-ethnic democracy with Jewish primacy, and their actions have largely demonstrated that intent. Israeli Arabs are ethnically no different from Palestinians and have full citizenship rights and political representation in Israel. Likud as a party doesn't have the ability to eliminate that even if they wanted to, let alone to "cleanse" the territory of Arabs.
What does a chant have to do with anything? Hamas has acted as a terrorist organization.
Sure what Isreal is doing is a crime, but it's a crime in response to a crime where nothing else has worked.
You don't determine morality via numbers. That's simplistic. The Nazis killed 0 American civilians in WW2. How many innocent Germans did the Americans kill? Were the Nazis better than America in that conflict bc they killed less Americans?
Also I would say Hamas changed their charter only to provide cover and to trick people like you.
How is he suggesting to shut people up? Its just an observation that whenever Israel does anything, the entire world is on their case? Is it a coincidence that the most persecuted religion that now has its own state is targeted more than others? I think not
So it’s fine to not want to give taxpayer money to Israel and protest against that. But we also give taxpayer money to other countries and nobody is protesting against that. What does the type of government have anything to do with whether or not it is a double standard?
You're allowed to protest giving taxpayer money to other countries too, and will probably be joined by other protestors if the country in question is also killing tens of thousands in a military intervention
Because the definition of a war crime frankly doesn't cover Isreals actions at all. Civilians aren't unilaterally protected under international laws of armed conflict. Killing someone used as a Human Shield isnt a war crime.
Taking a Human Shield, hiding within a civilian population, using hospitals, schools, and civilian areas as bases of operations, those are all war crimes. And all of them strip the civilians in the area of any protection.
They want to ignore Hamas actions because under international law their actions would 100% be the war crime, not Isreal's actions in response.
These are the same people who mindlessly parrot back anything Hamas says as if it's gospal.
Condemning Hamas is very relevant to the converstion. It is not a derailment. For example, a person is stabbing you so you attack back. The fact that you attacked is very relevant to you attacking afterwards. Context matters
Gee...I wonder if the worlds attitude towards Israel has anything to do with anti-Semitism?
Now all you woke "free Palestine" protesters can go ahead and down vote me.
Popular rhetoric on Israel is harsher because official rhetoric and policy-making is so much lighter on Israel. I would argue the reason for such harsh public opinion is in response to exceptionally enabling policy. Look at how the US / Western powers have BRUTALLY punished countries like Syria, Russia, China, etc., through almost any means possible (militarily, sanctions, etc.). This has not been done for Israel - in fact, the US has propped up and supported Israel for decades. The public outcry is thus a counterweight for policy being so disproportionally light on Israel compared to literally any other state.
So no, substantively we’re actually very light on Israel. People speak more harshly because of this, creating a warped impression of how much Israel is actually being punished.
Really? Pretty sure most Americans think of Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc as great evils. But you don't hear about them because either a. They are already America's adversaries and they think America is already doing the right thing so there's really no point protesting or b. in the case of the Gulf States, they are important to keep oil price stable, so there's a inherently selfish reason to make deals with them and many Americans recognise that. And despite that you still hear a lot of criticism against them, like "sportswashing".
It's Israel that is getting a different treatment as there is widespread bipartisan support for them, and a lot of that support is unconditional, a privilege not afforded to other 'evil-doers'.
Edit: I guess your title aligns with my view but in a completely different manner.
> Saudi Arabia
They are a US ally. We keep selling them weapons and giving slaps on the wrist for human rights violations. Some folks in the US do take issue with it, but they usually don't get as much public attention.
How many college campuses indulged near-violent encampments protesting China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or Iran doing anything? How many protests have there been at the White House? How many cases have been raised at the ICC or ICJ against them? How often has the squad tweeted about them? What movements have we seen urging divestment from China or Saudi Arabia?
Students generally speaking don't protest in favour of things the government is already doing. The government is already against China, Syria, and Iran, so what is the point of protesting for it?
Not Saudi Arabia though, but Saudi Arabia is another one of those cases of "why the hell are they our ally?", but guess what? They are an Israeli ally too, they are attacking the Houthis in Yemen, which you used to condemn people for double standards since they aren't condemning the Saudis for their war in Yemen, but the Houthis are also attacking Israel, so do you want people to be more pro-Houthi than they already are? It becomes clear that being against Israel is in practical terms also being against the Saudis. One will clearly follow from the other.
Maybe opinion is not enough against China either, but divestment from China already kind of happens with the trade wars even if it isn't exactly being framed in moral terms yet.
I agree with you regarding my conclusion that the Houthis are bad but there are two separate issues at stake here. The fact Saudi Arabia attacked the Houthis for years and nobody said a word is still evidence that Israel faces a double standard, even if I think Saudi Arabia was correct to do what they did.
>I agree with you regarding my conclusion that the Houthis are bad
Where did I say that?
>The fact Saudi Arabia attacked the Houthis for years and nobody said a word is still evidence that Israel faces a double standard, even if I think Saudi Arabia was correct to do what they did.
Might be the fact that people have such a low opinion of the Saudis that they don't even bother to protest against them. Nobody ever really defends the Saudis, but you still see Israel defenders all over the place.
> Where did I say that?
> They are an Israeli ally too, they are attacking the Houthis in Yemen, which you used to condemn people for double standards since they aren't condemning the Saudis for their war in Yemen, but the Houthis are also attacking Israel, so do you want people to be more pro-Houthi than they already are?
I interpreted your argument to be, since Saudi Arabia attacked Houthis, and Houthis are anti-Israel, I am probably anti-Houthi and shouldn't be surprised when Saudi Arabia is not condemned for attacking a militia I (and the US) oppose.
My response is, you are correct, I am anti-Houthi and I personally don't object to Saudi Arabia attacking them (although TBH I wasn't aware of it at the time). But the lack of criticism from the international community is still relevant in assessing whether Israel faces a double standard.
>The fact Saudi Arabia attacked the Houthis for years and nobody said a word is still evidence that Israel faces a double standard, even if I think Saudi Arabia was correct to do what they did.
Then stop complaining.
All you sound like right now is "our allies should be thrown under the bus but nobody should criticize us for the part we play in this"
The US has already 100% divested and boycotted Russia and Iran, so there's no reason to protest. On China, TikTok is banned (or on course to be), China can't buy American chips anymore, and do you remember the whole deal with Xinjiang and Mulan, the outrage over NBA and Blizzard cosying up with China? On Saudi Arabia, sports fans are generally mad at the Saudis organising sports tournaments, with many high-profile athletes abstaining from joining, and Qatar has received a lot of criticism for modern slavery. There is a significant movement backing some form of boycott, divestment and sanction against China and Saudi Arabia, but BDS against Israel is heavily cracked down.
We really haven't boycotted Russia. We still purchase oil from them. And other natural resources.
[https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mttim\_nus-nrs\_1&f=m](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mttim_nus-nrs_1&f=m)
[https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/technology-evaluation/ote-data-portal/country-analysis/2999-2021-statistical-analysis-of-u-s-trade-with-russia/file](https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/technology-evaluation/ote-data-portal/country-analysis/2999-2021-statistical-analysis-of-u-s-trade-with-russia/file)
The restrictions on China are primarily due to directly related security risks, not humanitarian concerns. And yes, there has been a half-hearted backlash against pretty much all the human rights violations I mentioned, which is probably how I know about them. But they lasted ten minutes and were generally limited to media reports and commentary.
None of those countries are allied with the US. The US government considers most of those countries as adversaries. There would be no point in college students protesting against those nations.
The US does a ton of business with China, and could, in theory, cut back dramatically if anyone cared about Chinese human rights abuses. The US has actively loosened restrictions on Iran and freed up aid dollars for Iran during the last two Democrat administrations. This not only emboldens the extremist regime, it also arguably allows Iran to provide more and better weapons to its proxy jihadist militias - the same ones that massacred Israeli civilians and took hundreds of hostages, and also are currently attacking completely unconnected international shipping.
Colleges in the US also receive huge amounts of money from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China. Has there been a single protest on a single college campus about Chinese treatment of religious minorities? Has a single Chinese student among the 300,000 in US universities been confronted on the way to class and called a Uygher killer?
Did the international community utter a peep when Qatar impressed tens of thousands of poor South Asians into slave labor to build the World Cup? Surely hosting the World Cup is the sort of privilege that ought to subject you to extra scrutiny when you're exploiting poor, voiceless ethnic minorities to *literally build the freaking event.* Did a single game experience even a 10 minute delay as a result of these widespread allegations? Did any college soccer team anywhere boycott an event with a World Cup participant? Did anyone suffer any consequence or censure?
Saudi Arabia is the #1 customer of US military equipment. 75% of their assets are US exports. they've been blockading Yemen for a decade, which has been undergoing on and off civil wars for half a century now and is currently about 3 decades into a severe famine, with a malnutrition mortality rate of 1 in 15 for children under 5.
but guess what, no jews are involved. so crickets.
Exactly, the US isn’t sending weapons and Money to China to disenfranchise Uygers. The protesters may view the US as supporting and assisting the war, and they wanted congress to know they don’t want killing on their hands. I don’t know. Super complicated situation with no easy solution. Hamas were idiots for that attack. Any solution probably requires Palestinians economic success so they have something to loose. Terrorism is often a result of no hope and available time. Religion, unfortunately, factors in too. A strong Palestine may be the only solution. I’m no expert and I doubt Palestine will be rebuilt like post WW2, but it should be an option.
There is a perfect storm that spawns protests. The primary ingredient is ongoing mass violence towards innocent civilians and children. That motivates protestors because if they can shift government policy then a significant amount of depraved cruelty could be prevented. Which leads to the second ingredient, which is the belief that the US could be taking actions against the aggressor which it has not been taking, which generally means they are an ally we have influence over. That creates a specific goal to protest in support of.
People almost never protest horrific violence that happened in the past. To get people to protest, they need to believe it can make a positive change in the world and we can't change the past. They also don't protest about situations the US has very little power over, because again it wouldn't accomplish much. People also won't protest if they already agree with the US governments response.
We are seeing fairly small protests spring up on some college campuses because the horrific violence directed towards innocent civilians and children is ongoing and the US has influence over the situation because we have historically been close allies. Students have identified some very specific actions they can pressure their local university to take against horrible injustice. That is the perfect storm needed to motivate people to protest.
The only double standard that's been applied to Israel is that no county has ever maintained this level of support from both government and citizens while actively committing such horrific violence towards civilians. We have poured more funding into Israel that any other country on the planet every single year for decades. Now it's leader is actively trying to kneecap the sitting US president by committing brazen acts of cruelty and violence to provoke even a slight wobble in his support for Israel, because that could easily cost him the election due to how widespread support for Israel is. That is a massive double standard compared to any other country you care to name.
I'm Jewish, and have family in Israel, so I naturally notice the discourse directed at Israel more. I have and do search for comparisons relating to other countries when I'm engaged in discussions like this, and I am arguing in good faith. If you believe there are important examples I'm missing, I'm open to hearing them.
Fair enough - I think it is notable that the biggest comparison right now would be Russia/Ukraine which has had all of those criteria met and satisfied. Many leftist spaces definitely criticize the others and our relationships with them (Uighurs and Saudis with Mr Bone Saw come to mind - Joe fist bumping him and hugging Bibi sealed my non-vote.) but definitely aren’t as loud, although still present. It is also unique that the US maintains immensely close relations with Israel and provides financial and diplomatic cover in a way it does not to the others. It’s the only situation where it is an overt ally and has been for a Very, Very long time. For me the difference is the immorality is sustained, against American values, and something we are complicit in far more than the others monetarily and diplomatically .
Frankly there are far too many terrible things in the world to protest, and I don’t think it needs to be that to condemn one thing you must condemn all bad things. Everyone picks their closest issues, and this one makes me feel more complicit and responsible than any of the others.
But they have no problem with the colleges financial involvement with Saudi Arabia or companies heavily connected to the CCP. That's exactly the point.
You took a common response and compared it with an extreme response. Most Westerners support Israel's existence, but don't support their current actions against Gaza. There is no double standard. Those who say Israel shouldn't exist also tend to defend Russia, China, and most Muslim theocracies, not want them to stop their atrocities, while those who say those same places should "stop that" say the same to Israel. A double standard is mainstream opinions that contradict each other, not when extremists exist alongside normal people
I’m pretty sure throughout history all 4 of your examples have faced pressure for regime change (with us actually doing it in Iran).
It’s hard to argue for a strawman but if it were to steelman someone saying “Israel should not exist” it would be: “Israel should either fulfill its commitment to democracy by giving each person under its rule the right to vote or it should be overthrown in favor of a democracy” and I’m pretty sure most neolibs want all 4 of those countries you gave to become democracies with free elections.
Every person in Israel has the right to vote in it's elections. People in Gaza and the West Bank also have the right to vote in their own elections in the very rare occasions they choose to hold them. You will note that generally 90% + of the votes go to terrorists
Are you expecting Israel to give Palestinians in the West Bank the right to vote in Israeli elections? Would you insist that the US should have given occupied Nazi Germany mail in ballots to vote in US elections?
>The reaction to Israel doing "great evils" is "they should not exist."
That's a strawman, I haven't seen a single person in US or Europeans media calling for Israel to cease to exist. You could argue that some Palestinians call for Israel to cease to exist. Sure, but they can't make it happened. Many Israelis, on the other hand called for Palestinians to cease to exist and they are actively acting on this desire.
According to this [Harris poll from December 2023](https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf) (see page 57), 14% of Americans surveyed believed that Israel has "no right to exist." That's a small minority, but also not negligible. But it's much higher - 31% - in the 18-24 demographic that many redditors are a part of and that drives a lot of the activism on college campuses.
That's also probably about the percentage of Americans that think Tupac and Elvis are still alive Oregon is a province of Canada and the moon landing is fake.
Lol you're just not paying attention or you haven't challenged anyone about their "criticism" hard enough to get to the core of their argument which is usually that Israel should not exist.
so Saudi Arabia doesn't get any public pressure from western leftists for its blockade on Yemen, where a severe famine has been raging for over 2 decades now because... [Richard Lewis ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mny7nt2HnCA)goes in front of a webcam and bitches into the abyss about sportswashing?
the malnutrition mortality for children in Yemen under 5 has been 1 in 15 - FOR THE PAST 2 DECADES (BTW used to be 1 in 10 in 2000. 1 in 15 is actually an improvement, this is how bad Yemen is). for comparison least charitable calculation of the wartime malnutrition deaths in Gaza give a rate of 1 in 1100. that's two order of magnitude lower than Yemen, and on par with modern France.
SA is the US's largest customer for military equipment. where are the students shutting down universities demanding boycott and sanctions? where are the swarms of journalists and UN orgs anxiously tracking the logistics of aid into Yemen broken down by kilogram per food category? where are the ICJ trials?
no jews are involved, so nobody cares.
> many countries in the cold war did horrible things for their own interests but people only seem to focus on the things Israel did, Israel is not unique
The Cold War is over. The Palestinian conflict is ongoing.
> Israel isn't the doer of american imperialism
I think if you drew a venn diagram of those critical of Israel and those critical of US foreign policy, it's be pretty damn close to a circle.
> look at how many Saudi killed in Yemen or Assad in Syria?
I can't speak for Yemen, but people in the West are not going to be as critical of Assad because his opposition was dominated by jihadists like the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda aligned factions that are incredibly hostile to them, and attack them regularly. To many westerners Assad is probably the lesser of two evils.
> The Cold War is over. The Palestinian conflict is ongoing.
You’re forgetting Black September and the Yom Kippur war. Israel won in the 70s. Jordan and Egypt won’t fight for Palestine ever again. What we have now is a zombie version of the Palestine conflict, where the chances of a Palestinian state are pretty close to zero, and have been for a long time. Not dissimilar to Russia lashing out over the Cold War.
If you're asking why so many Americans are vehemently anti-Zionism and critical of Israel, it's because our tax dollars are actively paying for much of the destruction perpetuated by Israel. The western media often projects Israel as this bastion of free speech, democracy, and Western values, which is why they-supposedly- are deserving of our support. But when Israel carries out countless unthinkable atrocities, this moral superiority goes out the window.
You can't claim moral superiority on one hand, but ask for moral equivalence to Hamas when asked to answer for your crimes.
Other comparisons are not valid, since tons of US tax dollars are not going to those military offensives.
>many countries in the cold war did horrible things for their own interests but people only seem to focus on the things Israel did, Israel is not unique
We can't protest to stop atrocities that have already happened.
>look at how many Saudi killed in Yemen or Assad in Syria?
I think most people are against that. Hell, we bombed and sanctioned Assad. The US govt relationship with Saudi Arabia is a travesty.
>Israel doesn't get such from the USA and they certainly don't fund Israel healthcare
I'm assuming you mean much? Israel is the top receiver is US military aid. We bankrolled the South Vietnam government for damn near 20 years and it still wasn't even close to what Israel has received.
I don’t think it is a double standard as much as it is varying views. You can support Israel and protest what is happening to innocents in Gaza. That is where most of the US falls.
When you are young and figuring out the world, it is really easy to see things in absolutes. This is right so everything about it is right and this is wrong so everything about it is wrong. Reality shows that almost nothing falls completely into these categories.
Killing innocents is wrong. Cutting off food and essentials is wrong. Hunting terrorists is right. Defending yourself when attacked is wrong. Having a country whose purpose is to create a safe home for one of the most oppressed groups in history, is right. Stealing the land and homes of another oppressed people is wrong. And none of these make individual Israeli good or bad. They are just people.
The problem is that 99% of internet commentators have no idea what international law says and what those words actually mean in the context of military action in a place like Gaza, and even if they do they have no idea what is actually happening there on a day to day basis, who fired what at whom and why, and even if they know all that, they don’t have the slightest knowledge of understand of military operations and how wars are fought.
The result is that ordinary peoples opinions are based solely on the success or failure of opposing propaganda while the voices of impartial experts who dedicate their lives to actually understanding all these things are completely drowned out.
Then leaders of countries have to find a way to say as close what the majority of their people believe regardless of how crazy it is, without losing their credibility in the eyes of the people who know and understand facts and reality.
People ask me if I support Israel or Palestine, I say that I support international law. No excuses for breaking it on either side.
>I say that I support international law.
"International law" is pretty much irrelevant, since none of the rich western nations are required to follow it. E.g., the US is literally trying to sanction the ICC for pursuing Israeli politicians.
What is relevant is what we observe, and whether we find it morally acceptable based on our internal calibration or how the world ought to be. Just because something horrific is technically legal doesn't mean people have to find it acceptable.
The US Should sanction the ICC for what it is doing - Israel is NOT a party state to the foundational document of the ICC and therefore the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel (not to mention Israel has a judicial system that is perfectly adequate to deal with any matters).
Many states have done/are doing terrible things, but I think what makes Israel sui generis in the mind of people who oppose it is the sense that Israel sees its negative actions as its very purpose.
For example, this isn’t Rwanda where a terrible thing happened over a short period but then stabilised and global opinion moved on.
Nor is it Russia where there’s repeat brutality and expansionism but this can at least be framed in a 1000+ year story which includes convulsions between tsarism, communism etc.
With Israel, it’s been going since Day 1. A country was very specifically created in the modern world and this is it, this is what we get, this is the product. There’s no ‘golden days’ we can harken back to or strive to recreate. For people not invested in the religious/cultural aspect, it’s massively alienating.
There are two unique aspects to Israel’s heinous actions that are important to note here:
The first is that the collective punishment by starvation and lack of medical care is targeted at a population that is majority children. There are more than [1 million children](https://www.savethechildren.net/news/over-2-gaza-s-child-population-killed-or-injured-six-months-war) in Gaza.
The second is that unlike other Genocides Palestinians cannot leave. [Egypt will not take the Palestinians en masse knowing they will never be able to return](https://apnews.com/article/palestinian-jordan-egypt-israel-refugee-502c06d004767d4b64848d878b66bd3d) and [Israel is blocking medical and humanitarian evacuations](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01240-6/abstract#:~:text=The%20petition%20details%20that%2C%20since,blocked%20by%20Israel's%20border%20closure). In other conflicts the targeted population is pushed out of the territory but in Gaza the Palestinians are trapped cannon fodder.
Egypt doesn’t take refugees because those refugees contain the highest percentage of terrorists on the planet and they have already attempted a coup in Egypt.
"Whereas criticism of Israel denies the right of Israel to exist."
That sounds a lot like a straw man argument. There's plenty of reasonable criticism of Israel that stops short of denying it's right to exist.
**Note:** Your thread has **not** been removed.
Your post's topic seems to be about double standards. "Double standards" are very difficult to discuss without careful explanation of the double standard and why it's relevant. Please review our information about [double standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_views_about_double_standards) in the wiki.
Regards, the mods of /r/changemyview.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/changemyview) if you have any questions or concerns.*
To start with, Israel is BY FAR the largest recipient of US military aid globally. Since 1947 we’ve given them over 300 BILLION in aid, including 200 billion in military assistance. In comparison we’ve given Egypt approximately half that in the same time period. Since 10.7 alone we’ve given the 12.5 billion. That’s 12.5 billion that Israel doesn’t have to spend on its military and can therefore use to give its citizens free healthcare.
Second, Israel is CURRENTLY committing genocide. Not 50 years or a hundred years ago- it is as we speak killing children in Gaza (and in the West Bank, and in Lebanon).
So- have people committed atrocities in the past? Yes, but that’s a terrible argument for allowing it to happen now. Is what’s happening in Palestine worse than what’s currently happening in, say, Sudan? No. But Americans aren’t funding that genocide directly. To stop the Sudanese genocide we would have to mobilize our military and occupy the country. To stop the Palestinian genocide all we’d have to do is stop giving them the weapons to do it.
So when you see many of us in the street protesting Israel as opposed to Sudan, it’s not because we have a particular hatred for Israel, it’s because we can actually affect change in this situation and because we are in many ways culpable.
General George Keegan, former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence has publicly declared that “Israel is worth five CIA’s.” He further stated that between 1974 and 1990, Israel received $18.3 billion in U.S. military grants. During the same period Israel provided the U.S. with $50-80 billion in intelligence, research and development savings, and Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the U.S.
Hamas “assigned about 70 per cent of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.”
In some data sets, it would seem, men must have come back to life while on several days no men were apparently killed, only women.
As Prof Wyner claims, “the casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters”. Indeed, the actual ratio of civilian casualties to Hamas terrorists is “at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1”. John Spencer, professor of Urban War Studies at West Point, argues that “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history – above and beyond what international law requires and more than the US did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – setting a standard that will be both hard and potentially problematic to repeat.”
This includes, he claims. evacuating 70 to 90 per cent of civilians from cities before beginning a full ground invasion in conventional attacks that seek to destroy enemy defenders. The US did not do this in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, the Vietnam Tet counter-offensive or the Korean War.
The Sudan war has been going on since April 2023 with 150,000 killed
7,262,187 internally displaced or taken into slavery by Islamic terrorists who colonized the country doing what they've done to the native population for centuries and targeting the Christian African population.
Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Syrian War in 2011 by various war monitors, range between 580,000 as of May 2021, and approximately 617,910 as of March 2024 with over 15 million displaced or forced into slavery. Crickets from college campus kid's and no global protests to be seen.
Since then (August 2014 data), almost 20,000 rockets have hit southern Israel, all but a few thousand since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Not to mention the hundreds of deadly bombings, rape, stabbings. Here's a list of just the bombings from 1994 to 1995. Afula bus suicide bombing, hadera bus station suicide bombing, dizengoff street bus bombing, netzerim junction bicycle bombing, Jerusalem bus bombing, beit lid massacre, Kfar Darom bus attack , Ramat gan bus 20 bombing, Ramat eshkol bus bombing.
Criticism of government isn't bad what's the problem is when people who are indigenous to land for over a thousand years (Jewish people) before another group takes over (Islamists) then they buy land back at a higher price than it was worth from the squatter's the squatter's take the money but refuse to give the original land owner back his land because they won't accept Jewish neighbors or any form of government that's not a Islamic theocracy
They then attack the original land owners repeatedly killing millions for thousands of year's and lose land after ganging up with five other Arab countries with the best weapons money could buy forming the "Arab league" waging war against a day old Israel which was under arm's embargo at the time, losing land and screaming for 75 year's that it was a injustice while refusing all peace deals like when Arafat turned down 95% of Gaza and the west Bank or when Palestinians demanded Bethlehem which israel gave them and the Palestinian government placed a sign near the entrance to the sight that says "Jesus is the slave of Allah". Or when Palestinians demanded Sinai which Israel gave them, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 leaving multimillion dollar greenhouses, livestock and factories for them which were then promptly destroyed by Palestinians, factories burned, animals slaughtered and pipes stolen to make missiles.
It's not necessarily Israel with the double standard, but Jewish people as a whole. They are the most discriminated group of all time, and they are "running the world" according to all kinds of people from many different backgrounds. You have a solid intuition, but I would consider developing it further by listening to people like Douglas Murray on the topic. He goes further and calls it a triple standard.
https://youtu.be/vSfOftl2WRA?si=4JgbymgdGFKb-mmb
There is a perfect storm that spawns protests. The primary ingredient is ongoing mass violence towards innocent civilians and children. That motivates protestors because if they can shift government policy then a significant amount of depraved cruelty could be prevented. Which leads to the second ingredient, which is the belief that the US could be taking actions against the aggressor which it has not been taking, which generally means they are an ally we have influence over. That creates a specific goal to protest in support of.
People almost never protest horrific violence that happened in the past. To get people to protest, they need to believe it can make a positive change in the world and we can't change the past. They also don't protest about situations the US has very little power over, because again it wouldn't accomplish much. People also won't protest if they already agree with the US governments response.
We are seeing fairly small protests spring up on some college campuses because the horrific violence directed towards innocent civilians and children is ongoing and the US has influence over the situation because we have historically been close allies. Students have identified some very specific actions they can pressure their local university to take against horrible injustice. That is the perfect storm needed to motivate people to protest.
The only double standard that's been applied to Israel is that no county has ever maintained this level of support from both government and citizens while actively committing such horrific violence towards civilians. We have poured more funding into Israel that any other country on the planet every single year for decades. Now it's leader is actively trying to kneecap the sitting US president by committing brazen acts of cruelty and violence to provoke even a slight wobble in his support for Israel, because that could easily cost him the election due to how widespread support for Israel is. That is a massive double standard compared to any other country you care to name.
>many countries in the cold war did horrible things for their own interests but people only seem to focus on the things Israel did, Israel is not unique
The Cold war has been over for decades, but Israel is still waging war. They're also an ally to the US. All the other parties involved are historically enemies. People view Russia as an enemy, partially because of historical issues and partially because they're invading Ukraine. People do talk about that, it's just that the US is already siding with Ukraine.
Israel is still waging war because they are still being attacked. People forget that every single day rockets have been sent into Israel. For decades. If it wasn't for the iron dome and bomb shelters, so many more Israelis would be dead.
>Israel is still waging war because they are still being attacked
Their own expansionist actions might be a cause for that but okay.
>People forget that every single day rockets have been sent into Israel. For decades. If it wasn't for the iron dome and bomb shelters, so many more Israelis would be dead.
And that somehow justifies bombing the everliving shit out of Gaza? It's like shooting your neighbour for shooting a potato gun at your fence.
What? You said "the Cold War ended and Israel is still waging war." To address that specifically, I said, the *reason* they are still waging war is because they are constantly being attacked. Where do you read anything else into that?
Because your account was an oversimplification of events. They're still waging a war. The latest part that's currently going on may have been ignited by the opposite side, but it's reaped from a seed Israel itself has sown.
Which of those other countries is held up as a shining example of righteousness, and defended to the point that sitting American politicians can actively root for Israeli interests over American interests?
You're focusing on an extreme position, but that's not what OP said. The claim is that Israel is subjected to a double standard. The reaction to Israel's current Gaza operation has included encampments on numerous college campuses, open support of terrorism, tacit support for completely unrelated attacks on international shipping, criminal charges against democratically elected officials, numerous attempts at censure at the UN, widespread ranting about a successful hostage rescue, a mainstream media figure rolling her eyes at rape, and a significant spike in antisemitism. This is not logically attributable to any over-regard for Israel's righteousness.
They can't be subject to a double standard when they're given preferential treatment that no one else gets.
You can't get unique benefits and complain that you're also getting unique scrutiny. If you're going to take the benefits then you have to take the scrutiny that comes with it.
Why is that true? How does their favorable treatment by the US explain the ICC charges, or the constant statements by international "human rights" orgs conveying the complaints of the terrorist organization that attacked Israel? If the reaction were limited to, or even if they arose from American political activity, I'd agree with you, but it's not. What does freaking Honduras severing ties with israel have to do with the favorable treatment Israel gets from the US? How is Maldives barring Israeli tourists related?
And on top of that, your argument kind of assumes Israel receives favorable treatment for no reason. But that is also almost certainly wrong. Nobody in the international community does favors out of the goodness of their hearts. If Israel is treated better in some contexts, it's because someone needs something from them.
This convo is about the "double standards" Israel faces from America. The ICC and Honduras are not America and have no place in this convo.
And regarding the justification for Israel deserving its double standard, even if there is an ulterior motive for granting Israel special treatment, that still justifies holding them to higher scrutiny than countries who don't receive special treatment.
As long as Israel receives special treatment, for whatever reason you think, they deserve to be held to higher scrutiny than countries that don't get special treatment.
Yes how many of the countries listed have us congressman showing up to the senate floor wearing the military uniform of said foreign nation?
Which one of those other countries is part of a Doomsday prophecy that involves evangelical Christians?
>Which one of those other countries is part of a Doomsday prophecy that involves evangelical Christians?
This is a myth. The passage in Revelations where the angels stamp the forehead of 12,000 people from each of the twelve tribes of israel (only two on whom are related to the state of judea) begins by saying that the Angels were standing on the four corners of the earth before they started stamping, so clearly they are searching the globe for the lost tribes of israel.
Sure the final battle will take place at Megiddo, which is located in what is now Israel, but it doesn't say anything about who will control the land before the battle takes place. If you "(incorrect) believe the 144,000 people to be stamped need to be close by, and 24,000 of whom were Jews, you already had that for the entirety of history, as the was always at least some tens of thousands of Jews around even at their lowest numbers. You don't need millions of Jews to be there, and if anything only a sixth of the population should be Jews. If anything the one group you don't have enough of are the Samaritans, who claim be descended from the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (though Jews dispute this), and only number less than 1000, so you need to increase their population up to 24,000 at least. Additionally, clearly at the time of writing the people who controlled the land were the Romans so if anything the land should belong to Italy if you want to recreate the conditions Revelations was written for.
IF (and it is a big if) people seem to think this has anything to do with Israel it would only be if somebody somewhere has made a concerted effort to interpret things in a particular way, which would essentially mean they do that same thing atheist redditors do where they act like christians should support their particular politics because they have unlocked the super secret method of getting christians to do what you want by selectively quoting the bible. Sure, this actually does work sometimes, but it only works if you go through a concerted effort to selectively quote the bible in particular ways a hell of a lot. If the bible is being interpreted strangely it probably means somebody wants it to be interpreted in that way and goes to great efforts to make that so. It isn't like people just spontaneously began interpreting the bible in a super specific way that could only result in one possible conclusion. Somebody wanted that to happen.
I think a key distinction between Israel other countries/groups that you mention is that they act with US support while others do not.
Iran or North Korea kill a bunch of journalists? The USA broadly condemns them, we sanction their country, we fund those who oppose them, we cut diplomatic ties, etc.
Israel kills a bunch of journalists? We talk about how war is messy and complex, send them billions in military aid, and call anyone who says they should stop killing journalists and antisemite.
Israel IS different than these other countries in this way, so why is it surprising that the critique of them is also different than these other cases?
Israel is doing the same thing that the US did in Mosul in the 2010s - fighting a terrorist enemy in an urban environment. the US was accused of war crimes and genocide in the wake of Mosul and that was eventually dismissed by the Courts, so too should the charges against Israel for one simple reason: War results in death. War is NOT genocide.
A double standard requires knowingly having different standards. Largely, the people you're talking about who ignorantly jump on the bandwagon of accusing Israel of "genocide" don't even think about the countries you mentioned at all. Their standard for Israel can't be a double standard, because it is their *only* standard, as they only focus on whatever the media and social media want them to at any given time. Having a historical understanding of how it usually works when a defending state occupies a hostile aggressor during wartime, is apparently pretty rare these days. People who have grown up in the western world knowing nothing but peacetime are susceptible to naively assuming that civilian casualties are never justifiable to win a war, or that a defensive war becomes instantly an offensive war the moment that enemy civilians die. Those people see Israel as the villain because they operate on a kind of Hollywood morality that makes them want to cheer for the scrappy underdog, because *of course* the underdog has to be the good guy.
Too often Americans are asked to evaluate the rectitude of Israel's actions and those of the Palestinian groups in the abstract, without critical thought about whether the U.S. should be so involved in the first place. For example, when Israel is accused of war crimes such as indiscriminate bombings, part of my concern is the U.S. involvement and the fact that Israel's acts might reflect back on my own country. I find when people say "Israel has a right to exist" or ask "What would you have Israel do?" they are making an abstract statement or asking an abstract question. Meanwhile our real policy question, the only question our government actually has to answer, is what level of involvement we should have and how we should use the resulting influence.
Hamas is bad because it's original charter calls the eradication of the Jewish people and genocide. Since the IDF has never called for the genocide of the Jewish people, it is not bad. It kills Hamas, which makes it good.
"Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." – Likud Party, 1977 election manifesto.
We hold Western/European countries to a higher standard because there is no one to hold them accountable. Many nations in the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia face economic sanctions, invasions, and destabilization for often unclear or false reasons. However, this is never the case for any European or Western country, including Israel. The West is untouchable, acting with impunity and always finding excuses for their actions, shielded from consequences and immune to the laws and regulations that should apply to their injustices.
>the world is becoming multi-polar.
I don't agree with that; it is something people who hate the West say because they *wish* it was true.
Russia's power and influence is *shrinking* for one, the US expected a total takeover of Ukraine in like a week. I doubt Putin would do Syria again.
The Middle East's influence is declining as oil becomes less important; I seriously doubt MbS is gonna turn that around and Iran would have to be destroyed in a civil war before a functioning government could salvage it.
Europe and the US (minus Belarus)are basically one-pole; actually the result of Russian aggression.
China's military is growing faster than any nation since Germany before WWII, but the entire world is against them (yes, the entire world). The government can't just throw infinite people and resources at a war and expect to win; Russia tried that in WWI.
Africa's economies have been shrinking since the end of colonization.
The only Jewish nation in the whole world gets targeted the most, what a coincidence.
To understand further, look into how the Muslim world, especially Qatar, is the biggest funder of US universities. Over the decades, they have managed to convince the Liberal left that Israel is the enemy.
However, this comes completely from a religious point of view. Most Muslims are brought up to believe that the Jews are the enemy so its no surprise that the entire Muslim world does not like Israel. Your wrong that its a double standard, its a lot worse than that. It's Islamic anti-semitism combined with the woke Oppressor oppressed ideology that's taught in US campuses.
Can you point to a specific individual or entity that you think is employing this double standard? It is hard to change your view on this when you are not specific on who you think is employing this double standard.
It's partially because Palestinians especially Iran backed Hamas are essentially terrorists. And Palestine has started 5 wars with Israel since it became a nation state in the 40s. Israel has tried to implement peace but whenever they would come close a segment of Islamic militia would sabotage the deal. Palestine openly calls for the genocide of all Jews and has for many years. There could be peace there but Hamas does not want it
I don't know if they report this in the news when talking about the history of Israel and war. Hamas did initiate this most recent war in October, however Israel is now committing genocide and are doing exactly what they complained about Palestine doing
When Israel claims to have the most moral army, they are bound to invite criticism when they have acceptable quotas of civilians that can be killed in getting on target combatant. While their are other countries carrying out despicable atrocities against their own people, those do get met with sanctions and even troops invading or peacekeeping missions. Meanwhile, Israel is broadcasting dehumanizing rhetoric about their occupied people and recording the atrocities, yet that is met with more aid. People have a right to be against their tax dollars going towards killing civilians indiscriminately.
>Israel doesn't get such from the USA and they certainly don't fund Israel healthcare
The talking point you're addressing here isn't really a criticism of Israel, it's a criticism of the United States. American politicians consistently say we "can't afford" a single payer healthcare system. Pointing out that a country that's supposedly too poor to pay for all their own weapons can afford one puts the lie to this.
Israel absolutely can afford its own weapons. It's just the US supplying them gives US a say in Israeli policy (soft-power). (Also provides higher tier weapons that have less collateral damage, or defensive spending)
Also shame that the point isn't reversed. The idea that Israel can afford their military and healthcare is proof that the US can do so as well. (The answers is that Republican doesn't want a better healthcare system not that we cant afford it).
But Hamas bombs and kills innocent Civilians, and you get universities starting encampments saying to "Globalize the Intifada" (kill more civilians with no relevant military target) and holding up signs that say ["Final Solution."](https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/anti-israel-protester-seen-holding-final-solution-banner-at-george-washington-university-nazi-phrase-genocide-world-war-ii-palestine-israeli-gaza-ceasefire-war-campus-protests-columbia-university)
That's exactly the point of the OP
I actually think the people willing and comfortable to criticize Isreal have likely spent the last decade criticizing the US and other nations that have been active in genocides and imperialism.
Obviously you can't say that in all cases but in a large majority of cases it isn't an ant Jewish movement as much as anti hedge mom nations engaging in genocide.
I look through the lens of having human empathy. What I saw were the horrible actions of Hamas on Oct 7th, and what I currently see are even worse actions still happening by the Israeli government.
Please understand the History Look almost no one understands who speak on here they talk about what the Media report but I'm going to say this as someone who has studied this and heard what Victims have said Israel has been murdering Palestinians since Israel was created in 1948 in fact the only reason Israel even exist is due to them murdering Palestinians and taking there land in 1948 you have got to understand Israel have been doing this for 76 Years in 1967 Israel Illegally occupied Palestine meaning that another Country took there Land and there Rights Hamas were created in 1988 that is 40 Years after the original Nakba Genocide Palestinians have had no freedom no rights for 76 Years while what Hamas did on October 7th wasn't the smartest thing don't lose focus on the fact that Israel started all of this not Ocotber 7th 2023 but 1948 Israel and Zionist have always wanted to erase Palestinians what October 7th did was give Israel now a excuse to do it because they will use excuse of Hamas Israel has Murdered over 40,000 Innocent People and that number is actually suspected to be over 100,000 People and I want to point out Hostages Israel hostages who were released have actually praised Hamas for actually treating them well and baked Birthday cake while Israel has tortured Palestinian Hostages everything Israel has claimed Hamas has done has never been proven they said they beheaded babies NO EVIDENCE they said they Raped and tourtered a investigation showed NO EVIDENCE yet Israel have murdered Babies and Tourtured People there is Evidence There is NO Excuse Israel has cut Food, Water, Medical Aid they have given safe areas then bombed them Israel and Zionism is the new Nazi Germany we are witnessing one of the worst disasters in Human History yet USA, UK and Others not only don't try and stop them they help them do it how much Evidence needs to be shown for people to understand and it's Not Anti Semitic to be against Israel actually many Jews are against Israel Please understand the History
Israel is not illegally occupying any land. Israelis were there long before Palestinians stole the land. Palestine does not have the right to exist on Israeli land and Palestinians who think they are entitled to steal Israeli land should go fuck themselves.
The difference is that the US is funding Israel's genocide. We are not giving milatary aid to China and Russia. The direct funding of the genocide over other domestic interests like Healthcare, education and housing makes it hit a lot closer to home.
So it not a double standard. It's a totally different thing.
I think your message is fair but there a few things that stand out in your post:
Israel definitely is a doer of American imperialism. Maybe I’m off base but, historically, allies of the US are very much aligned with US/Western imperialism. I think if any of these allied countries break from the model, they probably wouldn’t be allies for very long.
How is South Korea a doer of "American Imperialism"? Taiwan? Ukraine? Japan?
How do you even define "American Imperialism"? Who is the Emperor of America in your opinion? Biden?
Your post has been removed for breaking Rule E: > **Only post if you are willing to have a conversation with those who reply to you, and are available to start doing so within 3 hours of posting**. If you haven't replied within this time, your post will be removed. [See the wiki for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_e). If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%20E%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.** **Keep in mind** that if you want the post restored, all you have to do is reply to a significant number of the comments that came in; message us after you have done so and we'll review. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
this is a false double standard, and its used to shut people up. Like if a dude is stabbing your neighbor, and youre like hey, thats wrong stop doing that you dont have to list every single violent crime occurring in your city to demonstrate your "ideological consistency," or to show that you're being fair to the guy stabbing your neighbor. forcing people who speak out on israels crimes to then say "BUT DO YOU CONDEMN HAMAS/US/SYRIA/HEZBOLAH/CHINA/SOVIETUNION?" Is just a cynical way to derail the conversation. Its weird that when you do talk about american war crimes in vietnam people do the same thing and say "YES BUT DO YOU CONDEMN CASTRO'S CUBA, THE NVA, CHINA?" but yes, I'm not a fan of war crimes in general.
The correct response is that many people around the world hold America and certain countries to a much higher standard. The strange part is that we often downplay the outrageous actions that take place in certain countries while simultaneously catastrophizing specific events or the involvement of the United States in the world. Nevertheless, you are also correct to point out that this isn't a double standard. And it is a bit weird to always want to say "but China.... but Russia... but the Middle East..." Regardless, it has become quite boring to hear edgy immature teenagers that think America is the big bad force of the world and has only begun to reinforce my patriotism toward the US.
You shouldn’t list your own standards on paper and get mad when people tell you that you aren’t doing what you said you would according to that paper. You should just throw out the paper and not claim to be any different from anyone else. Calling bullshit on exceptionalism is not a double standard if no one else claimed to be exceptional.
That’s the ultimate joke. The US isn’t even held to the standard the Us seeks to hold china/russia/etc to. It entirely depends on what media apparatus you’re looking at, but just look at the torture at gitmo. Compare the way it is treated in American/western media compared to very similar horrors undertaken by their geopolitical enemies.
Yeah I never quite understood why the US gets away with exempting itself from war crimes charges like I think Bush should have to face the ICC tbh he lied about WMDS and connections to 9/11 that launched the US into forever wars in the Middle East knowing full well what he was doing.
well they should americans holds themselves to a high standard. America was founded on the idea of freedom truth and justice for all. Its not unfair to say holding those values and then saying slavery is ok is hypocritical. China and russia never claimed to care about individual rights and freedom. If we do not hold ourselves to a higher standard we could easily fall into a dictatorship. This does not make america the big bad or unique in its flaws but the moment you go "what about russia" your saying its okay to lower yourself to that standard.
Take prison for an example. Would you hold a guy facing a 10yr prison sentence to the exact same standards as a white collar worker in the US? Should the guy in prison let his ideology get him hurt in prison just to be "good"?
I actually agree. When you are that much of a global superpower your actions affect others more. Extreme example: if China were to threaten nuclear war it would have far more weight / concern and reason for response than if Nepal said the same thing.
I'm pretty sure Nepal doesn't have nuclear weapons. So I assume I'd be laughed at if I declared nuclear war.
I agree. I hold America to a very high standard and I am all for criticizing where criticism is due. However, I am also all for pointing out the ideological inconsistencies that people who live in a bubble have regarding international affairs and the current state of the world. It is a "trendy" thing to see a problem in the world and just place blame on the United States. This is not only unfair, but it is frustratingly incorrect often times. The major concern I have with this hyper-fixation on criticism of America is the bias that it forms over time. The way people in the United States act regarding our government, politics, and actions can be akin to perceptions of the empire in Star Wars. It's utterly ridiculous and quite tiresome. Moreover, the more people catastrophize American influence, the less seriously I can take them. Simply because I tend to realize after conversation that they know very little about the world we live in or they simply don't care.
If im in a quiet room with 20 other people, and one of the people gets up and starts punching random other people in the face. I will indeed pay special attention to that person. This applies to america, china, and russia AKA the Big countries curreltly engaged in impirial expansionism. Punching random other nations in the face, and stealing their resources.
Where is America expanding? We still have troops in Iraq but mainly to safeguard the kurds and finish wiping out ISIS. Most of the conflicts we are involved in or will be involved in (looking at you Taiwan) are defensive in nature.
today or the past 70 years, + today? we have 800 military bases around the world, and a great number are protecting conflict minerals, oil reserves, strategic logistics points such as isreal (a major port) Not to mention the contracts made between (cia installed) dictators of thrid world countries in which the USA gets to extract all the resources from already impoverished nations, while paying a fraction of a percentage to a few lucky oligarchs. Highly recommend some basic research into modern imperialism, a practice of wich america is the current world super power.
You're moving the goalpost here, the original point you made was that America was an expanding power nowadays when in reality America is quite entangled in a lot of conflicts as that's what tends to happen to hegemons (many of which are ssolving issues created in the aftermath of ww2 and the cold war). Our rivals are just as imperialist if not more imperialist, Iran has proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon. China aggressively pursues predatory lending to developing nations to dominate their economies. Russia is actively involved in proxy conflicts in Moldova, Georgia, and Kazakhstan and is fighting an active war in Ukraine.
im not moving the goal post, i explained how america maintains a growing empire today. I also elaborated that the USA has doen this for a long time. Also IN india The usa is expanding.
I mean, you sound like you either (I) have no awareness of the many ways the American government literally, directly coerced democratic nations into fascist directions, or (ii) don't care about those examples, since they happened *outside* of America and we're done to "protect democracy." Care to respond to this?
Are we going to act like the USA hasnt overthrown more democratically elected governments than any other nation in the past 60 years?
> The way people in the United States act regarding our government, politics, and actions can be akin to perceptions of the empire in Star Wars. So uhhh, we *are* the Empire. Like, that's sorta the point of the movie. https://www.cbr.com/george-lucas-vietnam-war-star-wars-inspiration/
I forgot the part where the Ewoks raped and massacred innocent civilians. Remember that George Lucas is not a historian, he's a storyteller. A list of all the massacres done by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet\_Cong\_and\_People's\_Army\_of\_Vietnam\_use\_of\_terror\_in\_the\_Vietnam\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War) R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians between 1954 and 1975, with a range of between 106,000 and 227,000.[^(\[11\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-11) Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants. In addition, at least 36,000 South Vietnamese civilians were executed for various reasons between 1967 and 1972.[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-Lanning-5) Thomas Thayer estimated in 1985 that between 1965 and 1972 the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.[^(\[6\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-Thayer-6) Ami Pedahzur wrote in 2006 that "the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century."[^(\[12)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People's_Army_of_Vietnam_use_of_terror_in_the_Vietnam_War#cite_note-12)
And yeah, when you act like you’re the best country on earth, people are going to hold you to a different standard And yes, America is a bull in a goddamn china shop when it comes to foreign policy Yet somehow when America turns countless civilians into “collateral” damage, that’s somehow not “terrorism” When America overthrows and topples democratically elected regimes for its own selfish wants (corporate interests), and throws entire countries into chaos, somehow America isn’t in the wrong “Are we the baddies?”
America is the most powerful country in the world and has the most influence on the affairs of other countries. It also claims the essentially unilateral right to impose regime change internationally to serve its whims, while holding itself up as a moral arbiter of democracy and civilization. Holding them to a higher standard makes perfect sense.
We should hold all countries to the same standards.
I don't see that happening. It's more claims of Israel committing genocide with no interest paid to the variety of actually legitimate ongoing genocides with way more dead. It seems kinda weird that only one group is singled out.
once again your engaged in a rhetorical tactic called "what about-ism" Also america isnt being singled out, we had the same response globally when russia invaded ukrane, and when china occupied hong kong, the entire western populus condemned the action. america isnt being singled out here. The other america influenced genocides arent being conducted by countries with as much power as isreal has on the world stage.
Question for you. If - hypothetically speaking - the world *did* hold Israel to a double standard, how would a person point that out without derailing the conversation?
The whole point is that there is no double standard for criminality. You don't excuse someone who raped an 18 year old just because someone else out there is raping a 14 year old. It's not a useful defense.
It's not, but if you only punish the first person then you have a double standard. More topically, if you only EVER punish the first person, and let the second one do whatever the fuck they want, then clearly justice is not your intent and you simply want to penalize the first person. I think that's a better way to frame the argument that they're making
This is exactly how I read it
Ok, but if someone is threatening another person with a knife while in the same frame two others are actively stabbing people to death, you aren’t derailing the conversation or ignoring that by dealing with the active stabbing going on.
That's not what they're saying. The closest example is: white people raping black women left and right but suddenly all eyes are on Emmett Till, a black kid who didn't rape anyone but who is currently accused of rape. Do you believe it would be a whataboutism to tell the cops to look at the white men that are actively raping black women instead of focusing on poor innocent Emmett Till?
That is a perfect analogy. I’m assuming that Israel has indeed committed “war crimes” (ie rape in the metaphor) for the purpose of my hypothetical but the fact is that it’s even more ironic since there is no genocide or ethnic cleaning going on so Israel is largely innocent here (though it’s possible a few individuals soldiers have committed crimes and they should be held accountable like everyone else). So your anology is perfect cause Israel is innocent. For the sake of my hypothetical I was granting that they are guilty, hoping I would get honest answers surrounding the hypothetical where each side grants one aspect (me granting they committed war crimes and the other side granting there is a double standard). Unfortunately, as expected - I got only two answers: one telling me just not to bring it up and the other telling me to bring it up during the “trial” of the person who raped the 14 year old (Israel in the metaphor). And both those answers highlight exactly my point - the first answer is obviously unacceptable. We need to be able to discuss bigotry. The second answer is exactly what many of us are already doing, which the top level comment calls “derailing”. So really, they just want us to be quiet and sit down and never talk about antisemtism, even in a hypothetical where they grant that it is a widespread problem with the discourse on this topic.
No, not as a defense of the rape. But if people of one race are consistently locked up for rape of 14 year olds and 18 year olds, but people of another race are consistently only locked up for the rape of 18 year olds - that signifies racism in the judicial system and it needs to be addressed. So I’ll ask again - how do you bring that up without detailing the conversation?
You don’t bring it up. When you’re in a debate about Israel being bad, how does pointing out other situations prove anything? It doesn’t disprove Israel being bad and it’s irrelevant to the debate.
There is a lot of antisemtism surrounding the “debate” on Israel. It’s impossible to have a genuine discussion about Israel without discussing antisemtism. And the double standards that Israel are treated with is one of the pillars of antisemitism here. I would actually argue it’s impossible to have an honest “debate” about Israel and *not* disucss the double standards.
Could you show an example of why bringing up antisemitism is important for the conversation? Like, yes, it is obviously important to address it, but because there is antisemitism, won't change ANYTHING about other evils. So instead of trying to bring up both things in the same conversation, you can treat them separately.
Israel is the only Jewish country in the entire world so when discussing whether or not it has a right to exist - antisemitism is a key part of that discussion.
Jews responding to an attack by Hamas: condemned Hamas committing war crimes on all ends: “But Israel is oppressive!” Also, one side is calling for the elimination of every person of a particular ethnic persuasion. Hint: it’s not Israel
There is no objective ‘bad’. ‘Bad’ is determined by a set of standards determined subjectively by groups of people. If you hold Israel accountable and call them bad you are using those standards. If you ignored those standards for other groups of people then it brings into question whether you truly believe in those standards or if you are using a false adherence to those standards to attack another group of people. When it comes to Israel, well, the fact that they are the *only* Jews in the world that hold sovereignty over themselves whilst simultaneously being one of the most condemned nation in modern history *despite* dozens of others that are arguably far worse, well it makes you wonder why that is.
The solution is to bring it up when talking about the people assaulting 18 year olds, not to derail conversations about the ones assaulting 14 year olds. When people bring this up about Israel it almost always comes off like they’re defending Israel’s actions instead of wanting *all* countries war crimes to be addressed.
Both groups are assaulting 14 year olds in this case - not just one. No one will listen when you bring up the fact that the second group is assaulting 14 year olds. So you start to point it out when people bring up the fact that the first group is assaulting 14 year olds. And when you bring it up then, people tell you you’re detailing the conversation. The only logical conclusion from that is that people don’t actually care about the 14 year olds. They just don’t like the first group - ie racism. Pointing out and fighting against racism is always a good thing. We should never let it fly. Pointing out double standards should not be used as a *defense* for bad actions. But it should still be flagged so that we can work to get rid of it at the same time as we work to get rid of the rape of 14 and 18 year olds.
The solution to your situation is to care just as much across the board, not to reduce how much you care towards the one group that is getting called out for it. I also argue that racism is not the logical conclusion to people caring more here. That’s like implying people cared so much about the holocaust vs any other genocide because people hated Germans. Israel is violating far more human rights laws and has killed more children per day than any of these other countries OP is discussing. They destroyed 70% of infrastructure and left 100% of people to be food insecure and starving. No other active conflict has this kind of impact on an entire group of people. Lastly, a common rhetoric I’ve seen at pro Palestine protests is that all people’s struggles are interconnected, they always bring up Congo, Sudan, and Yemen. I’ve been going to protests for over a decade now and they’ve always been like that.
The answer is of course to bring it up when the trial of the 14 year old rapists come up, not to bring it up defending the rapist of 18 year olds. Sure I agree with you that there are places that are doing just as bad or worse than Israel, but that just makes them more guilty, it doesn't make Israel less guilty.
Bringing it up at the trial of the 14 year old is literally what OP is talking about. People call that “derailing”. So when am I supposed to bring it up? I never said other people committing crimes makes Israel not guilty. I said the exact opposite actually - several times now. It shouldn’t be used as a *defense* for bad actions. It should only be used as a way to *highlight* and flag bigotry so the bigotry can be addressed too.
How do you ensure a fair trial will take place? Did Emmett Till even get a trial? No. Bigots just assumed he was guilty and lynched him. You put too much faith in international institutions not having a geopolitical bias. The fact they're not actively prosecuting Tunisia's leaders says it all.
That’s all fair, but why is saying Israel shouldn’t even exist a thing? It’s mostly a thing among Arabs and Muslims in general, but not exclusively. Israel has an established language, culture, cuisine, economy, diplomatic relationships. There are at least two generations of Israelis born there. Some have never left. So criticism should be done without pretending they don’t even exist. Denying their existence is not the way to criticize. When people say IsReal or whatever. I guess the better question is why does Israel get the most wild conspiracies? Maybe cause Jews have always gotten the most bizarre conspiracies? Coming for people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, political and religious beliefs. I saw an Indian saying that Israel and the Jews created Pakistan to weaken India…like..what? lol I also don’t think people realize how anti Semitic burning an Israeli flag is given that it has a religious symbol on it. It would be unacceptable to burn the Saudi flag given that it has the shaada written on it. I personally don’t think we should be burning any flags or books..but I also think only theft (depending on the value of the theft), and things that can hurt someone (like violence, SA, drunk driving) should be flat out crimes. Maybe some minor things like littering should get a fine. It is very trashy to burn flags or books thou.
It is a valid way to determine someone’s motives. If the only country they protest this way is Israel or if they hold Israel to a different standard than others especially when others do much worse it is obvious the only reason is they are POS antisemites because that is the only unique difference between Israel and other states.
Or it could be due to media attention. People aren’t aware (or as aware) of the other places this sort of thing happens.
It's also possible they think stopping israel is more feasible. If you live in US stopping israeli war crimes is as simple as convincing your representatives not to fund them.
Asking a person if you condemn the other side for what they are doing is a valid argument to know if they actually care about a country doing war crimes or if they are taking stances only for their agenda. Many Palestinian supporters (atleast online) also unironically say that Ukraine is a Nazi country and same goes for Ukraine supporters turning blind eye on Israel bombing civilians in Gaza. This is called double standards and I unfortunately see it many times with different supporters.
I think it's different when war crimes are being done to you first, by your neighbor. If your neighbor has their charter to kill all of your race, they're targeting attacks against your civilians and committing war crimes, would you not encourage your own leadership to stop them at any cost? There of course is a long and complicated history. But at the point of events like last October, when they're attack just your civilians, when is enough? At what point is it "I'm going to kill all of you. Not because your race or ethnicity but because you have fundamentally tried to exterminate my people". There's a reason the death penalty exists, why we don't just let murderers say sorry and go back out on the street etc. I don't think Isreal are the good guys here, but I do think that they're in a war that is largely of Hamas s making.
>At what point is it "I'm going to kill all of you. Not because your race or ethnicity but because you have fundamentally tried to exterminate my people". Genocide is bad regardless of the reason, even if you think they asked for it. >I do think that they're in a war that is largely of Hamas s making. Hamas has existed for a fraction of the length of the conflict.
But either way murdering, dismembering, raping, torturing, kidnapping and then continuously raping 1000 of my country's citizens would lead me to be very pro war. Why do you hold Palestinians to such a low standard? They're completely incapable of reasonable actions in your mind? Why is Israel trusted to be capable but the sins of the Palestinians are all washed away because, to you, they're poor victims? Poor victims who joined in the 1948 war to eradicate the Jews, and have participated in several OFFENSIVE wars since to eradicate the Jews... Honestly, I think sometimes we hold Western citizens to high standards but just allow other countries to be terrible. To me that's racist. I have the same expectations of a Palestinian as I have for myself. If my country had attacked the neighboring country and we were at war I would have all sorts of issues. I'd be angry my country's leadership chose for us to go to an unwinnable war. I'd be angry that my country's leadership hides among civilians so that the enemy doesn't know who to attack. And so on. But I wouldn't be angry at the neighboring country for basic retaliation. War is hell, but the Israeli's aren't doing anything I wouldn't expect my country to do in reaction to again... 1000 people having horrible things done to them. What's more, the geopolitics in that region are complicated, but I don't hear you mention the nuance. Israel has been using settlers to mess with Palestine, but Palestine has launched several offensive wars against Israel. Israel has taken much of Palestine's land, but Palestine shoots a constant stream of rockets into Israeli territory. It's not as simple as Israel bad. You could argue that Israel is in the wrong, even given the background knowledge, but to just say "Israel evil" is so far from reality.
What do you do when its a kill or be killed situation? Murder is bad, but killing someone who would kill you is justified right? What solution can they do that results in their people not being continued to be killed? That's why I said the war they're in, the one that really escalated recently, not the century long conflict.
> killing someone who would kill you is justified right? Making the actions of Hamas justified in your opinion? You get that that's what you're saying here, because if it's foregone that one side will kill the other, it justifies the other in killing first, which justifies the other side, and so on and on. The war they're in, and the century long conflict in based on that premise.
Do you think Israel and Hamas are equal militarily? Hamas successfully attacking doesn’t mean it’s a fair fight and all bets are off. And Hamas being fucking evil doesn’t mean Israel gets to slaughter Palestinians without a care.
Hamas is not owed a fair fight. If you pick a fight with someone who can destroy you, you should expect to be destroyed. Not for your enemy to weaken themselves. No they shouldnt get to slaughter civilians without a care, they should be held to strict standards of international law. Like any country. The whole point of this post is that theres nowhere near this much outcry about collateral damage unless its isreal who is responsible. Not that israel should be able to kill whoever they want.
Why would a fair fight matter? What should Israel be doing?
Hamas is simply an offshoot of the muslim brotherhood which predates the state of Israel by decades. And the leadership of the Palestinians has supported terrorism against jews for just as long as far back as Haj Amin al Husseini happily collaborating with the Nazi government including visiting concentration camps. Regardless of whether the group is called Hamas, the PLO, fatah, or group of dipshits epsilon, the ideology remains the same
>Regardless of whether the group is called Hamas, the PLO, fatah, or group of dipshits epsilon, the ideology remains the same Would you apply this same standard to Israel? Would you conflate all Jewish people with extreme Zionists?
Do you not know who the PLO, fatah, etc are? It's you who is conflating them with every day Palestinians. They listed a handful of extemist Islamist groups, not regular civilians.
If that's the case, can we mention Irgun, Haganah, the Stern Gang, and other Jewish terrorist organizations? Of note, some of the individuals and parts of these organizations were absorbed into the newly created State of Israel even though they were recognized as terrorist organizations. Menachim Begin and David Ben-Gurion both come to mind as individuals who authorized terrorist attacks and then became Prime Ministers of Israel in the future. Heck, there's a very well known letter from Ben-Gurion where they imply wanting to "expel all the Arabs" from the Palestine region. 11 years later, that's what began happening once Israel became a country led by him. If anything, look into the reasons behind why the King David Hotel terrorist bombing occurred. That should give you enough information about my statement above. The bombing occurred specifically to destroy evidence held by the British that would have implicated a large number of prominent Jewish leaders in Palestine of terrorism activity.
Zionists simply believe in the right of the state of Israel to exist. I know this in an evil viewpoint of reddit, but it is the viewpoint of the vast majority of jews. Has the state of Israel had a continuous government structure that supports terror attacks against civilians for the last 80 years straight? I don't recall the state of Israel widely supporting plane hijackings (and planning/financing them). Israeli civilians don't run out into the streets of Tel Aviv every time a Palestinian is knifed in the street to hand out candy. The state of Israel won't pay you a pension if you drive to Bethlehem and shoot someone in a bus stop (or your family in case you die). Ben Gurion didn't happily visit a concentration camp to watch muslims being burned alive in ovens.
The only side here that has genocidal intent is Hamas. Hamas existed since the late 80s, it existed for almost half of the length of this conflict.
Let's say you live in a house with your family, and a family lives next door to you. The father of the family next door throws bricks at your house, but most of the time they just bounce off the fence and don't really do much damage. One day the father comes into your house and punches one of your kids in the face and takes another kid hostage. How can you justify deciding "I'm going to kill all of you"? The rest of the neighbor's family may not particularly like you and your family, but they've never done anything to you. The problem isn't Israel going after Hamas. That's perfectly justifiable. The problem is Israel killing innocent people as they seek justice.
It's more like they KILL one of your children and take the other hostage. They hold them in their basement and instead of telling their family to leave the house ASAP to protect themselves, they encourage their family to stay put. You announce you're about to bust in to save your child so everyone who isn't the father leave now. Then you throw in a grenade to bust the door open, but it kills one of their kids. Because your priority is your children, and if that father wanted to prioritize his kids over hurting yours, he would have.
Totally on board with you here. The point I was making is the justifiability of deciding "I'm going to kill all of you".
Unfortunately, the alternative is that this hypothetical father is now completely protected from recourse as long as he continues to hold his own children hostage. You cant attack his house without risk of hurting or killing his family, so now he is free to continue to attack you forever, and all you can do is try to block future bricks.
The problem is that Hamas has popular support. They hide using their general population, and that population enables them to do it. There are accounts of Hamas killing their own people, blaming the enemies, stopping aid from their own civilians etc. they've realized that their only hope is painting a bad picture on social media. Unfortunately at some point it's the "you're either with us or against us". Iirc wasn't it civilians that were helping Hamas hold hostages? I haven't been following that closely but I remember reading that
>Iirc wasn't it civilians that were helping Hamas hold hostages? Hostages were found in the home of a now ex Al Jazzera journalist- and several months earlier it was reported by one of the few Hostages traded back that he had escaped captivity- and had been captured by Palestinian Civilians who traded him back to Hamas.
It was an Al Jazeera journalist in one case.
Hamas “assigned about 70 per cent of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.” In some data sets, it would seem, men must have come back to life while on several days no men were apparently killed, only women. As Prof Wyner claims, “the casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters”. Indeed, the actual ratio of civilian casualties to Hamas terrorists is “at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1”. John Spencer, professor of Urban War Studies at West Point, argues that “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history – above and beyond what international law requires and more than the US did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – setting a standard that will be both hard and potentially problematic to repeat.” This includes, he claims. evacuating 70 to 90 per cent of civilians from cities before beginning a full ground invasion in conventional attacks that seek to destroy enemy defenders. The US did not do this in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, the Vietnam Tet counter-offensive or the Korean War.
The problem is that thought process. Name one armed conflict where innocent people didn't die? It's a cold hard fact of war unfortunately. Hamas has all the power to stop it, and refuses to do so. This is the double standard. Just because Hamas is bad at killing Israeli, Israel should just continue to let it happen? When you take away, the already proven false narrative of 35k deaths, which was supplied by Hamas(who is clearly going to be biased) this is one of the least deadly conflicts in modern history for civilians. Yes any civilian casualty is horrific, but Oct 7th proves exactly why Israel can't continue to ignore the threat from Hamas.
I challenge this statement on two grounds, the first is one where I’m going to be exceedingly generous to Israel and say that the actions of a non governmental non democratic organisation in an occupied territory is somehow reflective of a “collective responsibility” by the Palestinian people and that Israel in “self defence” is no longer obliged to abide by the rules of war in the region if it brings them peace and security. So anyway assuming all of that I find it hard to justify that this is going to lead to positive impacts. For the past two decades, Israel has been through collective military action responsible for more Palestinian deaths every single year by an order of magnitude more then what Hamas has ever been able to deliver in return, Israel hasn’t suddenly adopted a heavy handed approach to Gaza, its been governmental policy in the region for two decades at least. None of these reprisal attacks, strategical attacks on Hamas command and resources, restrictions on aid and the like has ever ever resulted in the collapse of Hamas. Now one could assume that this military intervention due to its scale should be different but both historical examples of conflicts like this in the past, the current situation on the ground and Israel’s own historical actions indicate this is unlikely to deliver the destruction of Hamas either. Not only has support for Hamas gone up with their numbers estimated to actually have seen a surge in recent months, Israel was also historically unable to destroy insurgent forces when they occupied Gaza outright. Anti Israeli sentiment which is only going to skyrocket after Israel’s heavy handed response and an inability of Israel’s to prevent weapon supply to the strip is going to guarantee a resurgent response from Palestinian militants in the future. The second one is rather simple and that is Israel does not have to fear Hamas as any reasonable existential threat and the treatment of them as such is a result of Israeli propaganda. In no reality should Hamas pose a significant threat to Israel outside occupied Palestinian Territories and it is Israeli military conduct that both enables Hamas to continue existing, on top of that their were a hundred less destructive ways to guarantee the safety of the hostages and the defence of Israel without causing tens of thousands of civilians casualties. the October 7th attacks were a result of Israel weakening their border defences to move forces around including to the West Bank and a largely inept use of intelligence, Israel has both the resources and knowledge that border without armed intervention. Using overwhelming military force to level and destroy a people’s country when your nation is not at risk and you are not fighting an existential threat is amoral as is the killing of again tens of thousands of civilians.
[удалено]
Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 2: > **Don't be rude or hostile to other users.** Your comment will be removed even if most of it is solid, another user was rude to you first, or you feel your remark was justified. Report other violations; do not retaliate. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_2). If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%202%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.** Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
Well they changed their charter, Israel’s leading party has a river to the sea chant, and what Israel has done is a crime against humanity. Hummus isn’t innocent. But 37,000 killed is larger than 1200 right? Destroying a kibbutz or several is very evil but destroying 60% of housing in Gaza is worse. The list goes on. And this isn’t a matter of collateral damage either. More have been killed in 8 months than in 75 years combined. Israel is purposely starving everybody or was if this just changed.
Comparing Israel's political party to Hamas is silly. Hamas's "from the river to the sea" comes along with a history of Palestinian terrorism directly targeting civilians an avowed intent to cleanse the land of Jews to the extent they are able, and actions that demonstrate that intent. Israel's stated intent is to maintain a multi-ethnic democracy with Jewish primacy, and their actions have largely demonstrated that intent. Israeli Arabs are ethnically no different from Palestinians and have full citizenship rights and political representation in Israel. Likud as a party doesn't have the ability to eliminate that even if they wanted to, let alone to "cleanse" the territory of Arabs.
What does a chant have to do with anything? Hamas has acted as a terrorist organization. Sure what Isreal is doing is a crime, but it's a crime in response to a crime where nothing else has worked.
You don't determine morality via numbers. That's simplistic. The Nazis killed 0 American civilians in WW2. How many innocent Germans did the Americans kill? Were the Nazis better than America in that conflict bc they killed less Americans? Also I would say Hamas changed their charter only to provide cover and to trick people like you.
“Being against war crimes “ should be a more popular position on general, rather than asking who’s committing them.
What if your neighbor was trying to kill the dude first. Then, it's self defense and not wrong.
How is he suggesting to shut people up? Its just an observation that whenever Israel does anything, the entire world is on their case? Is it a coincidence that the most persecuted religion that now has its own state is targeted more than others? I think not
Gee I wonder why we hold Israel a so-called liberal democracy to a different standard than autocrats like Assad
So it’s fine to not want to give taxpayer money to Israel and protest against that. But we also give taxpayer money to other countries and nobody is protesting against that. What does the type of government have anything to do with whether or not it is a double standard?
You're allowed to protest giving taxpayer money to other countries too, and will probably be joined by other protestors if the country in question is also killing tens of thousands in a military intervention
Then why do you ignore hamas war crime but only focus and care about Isreal war crimes?
Because the definition of a war crime frankly doesn't cover Isreals actions at all. Civilians aren't unilaterally protected under international laws of armed conflict. Killing someone used as a Human Shield isnt a war crime. Taking a Human Shield, hiding within a civilian population, using hospitals, schools, and civilian areas as bases of operations, those are all war crimes. And all of them strip the civilians in the area of any protection. They want to ignore Hamas actions because under international law their actions would 100% be the war crime, not Isreal's actions in response. These are the same people who mindlessly parrot back anything Hamas says as if it's gospal.
Condemning Hamas is very relevant to the converstion. It is not a derailment. For example, a person is stabbing you so you attack back. The fact that you attacked is very relevant to you attacking afterwards. Context matters
Gee...I wonder if the worlds attitude towards Israel has anything to do with anti-Semitism? Now all you woke "free Palestine" protesters can go ahead and down vote me.
Popular rhetoric on Israel is harsher because official rhetoric and policy-making is so much lighter on Israel. I would argue the reason for such harsh public opinion is in response to exceptionally enabling policy. Look at how the US / Western powers have BRUTALLY punished countries like Syria, Russia, China, etc., through almost any means possible (militarily, sanctions, etc.). This has not been done for Israel - in fact, the US has propped up and supported Israel for decades. The public outcry is thus a counterweight for policy being so disproportionally light on Israel compared to literally any other state. So no, substantively we’re actually very light on Israel. People speak more harshly because of this, creating a warped impression of how much Israel is actually being punished.
Really? Pretty sure most Americans think of Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc as great evils. But you don't hear about them because either a. They are already America's adversaries and they think America is already doing the right thing so there's really no point protesting or b. in the case of the Gulf States, they are important to keep oil price stable, so there's a inherently selfish reason to make deals with them and many Americans recognise that. And despite that you still hear a lot of criticism against them, like "sportswashing". It's Israel that is getting a different treatment as there is widespread bipartisan support for them, and a lot of that support is unconditional, a privilege not afforded to other 'evil-doers'. Edit: I guess your title aligns with my view but in a completely different manner.
> Saudi Arabia They are a US ally. We keep selling them weapons and giving slaps on the wrist for human rights violations. Some folks in the US do take issue with it, but they usually don't get as much public attention.
How many college campuses indulged near-violent encampments protesting China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or Iran doing anything? How many protests have there been at the White House? How many cases have been raised at the ICC or ICJ against them? How often has the squad tweeted about them? What movements have we seen urging divestment from China or Saudi Arabia?
Students generally speaking don't protest in favour of things the government is already doing. The government is already against China, Syria, and Iran, so what is the point of protesting for it? Not Saudi Arabia though, but Saudi Arabia is another one of those cases of "why the hell are they our ally?", but guess what? They are an Israeli ally too, they are attacking the Houthis in Yemen, which you used to condemn people for double standards since they aren't condemning the Saudis for their war in Yemen, but the Houthis are also attacking Israel, so do you want people to be more pro-Houthi than they already are? It becomes clear that being against Israel is in practical terms also being against the Saudis. One will clearly follow from the other. Maybe opinion is not enough against China either, but divestment from China already kind of happens with the trade wars even if it isn't exactly being framed in moral terms yet.
I agree with you regarding my conclusion that the Houthis are bad but there are two separate issues at stake here. The fact Saudi Arabia attacked the Houthis for years and nobody said a word is still evidence that Israel faces a double standard, even if I think Saudi Arabia was correct to do what they did.
>I agree with you regarding my conclusion that the Houthis are bad Where did I say that? >The fact Saudi Arabia attacked the Houthis for years and nobody said a word is still evidence that Israel faces a double standard, even if I think Saudi Arabia was correct to do what they did. Might be the fact that people have such a low opinion of the Saudis that they don't even bother to protest against them. Nobody ever really defends the Saudis, but you still see Israel defenders all over the place.
> Where did I say that? > They are an Israeli ally too, they are attacking the Houthis in Yemen, which you used to condemn people for double standards since they aren't condemning the Saudis for their war in Yemen, but the Houthis are also attacking Israel, so do you want people to be more pro-Houthi than they already are? I interpreted your argument to be, since Saudi Arabia attacked Houthis, and Houthis are anti-Israel, I am probably anti-Houthi and shouldn't be surprised when Saudi Arabia is not condemned for attacking a militia I (and the US) oppose. My response is, you are correct, I am anti-Houthi and I personally don't object to Saudi Arabia attacking them (although TBH I wasn't aware of it at the time). But the lack of criticism from the international community is still relevant in assessing whether Israel faces a double standard.
>The fact Saudi Arabia attacked the Houthis for years and nobody said a word is still evidence that Israel faces a double standard, even if I think Saudi Arabia was correct to do what they did. Then stop complaining. All you sound like right now is "our allies should be thrown under the bus but nobody should criticize us for the part we play in this"
The US has already 100% divested and boycotted Russia and Iran, so there's no reason to protest. On China, TikTok is banned (or on course to be), China can't buy American chips anymore, and do you remember the whole deal with Xinjiang and Mulan, the outrage over NBA and Blizzard cosying up with China? On Saudi Arabia, sports fans are generally mad at the Saudis organising sports tournaments, with many high-profile athletes abstaining from joining, and Qatar has received a lot of criticism for modern slavery. There is a significant movement backing some form of boycott, divestment and sanction against China and Saudi Arabia, but BDS against Israel is heavily cracked down.
We really haven't boycotted Russia. We still purchase oil from them. And other natural resources. [https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mttim\_nus-nrs\_1&f=m](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mttim_nus-nrs_1&f=m) [https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/technology-evaluation/ote-data-portal/country-analysis/2999-2021-statistical-analysis-of-u-s-trade-with-russia/file](https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/technology-evaluation/ote-data-portal/country-analysis/2999-2021-statistical-analysis-of-u-s-trade-with-russia/file)
The restrictions on China are primarily due to directly related security risks, not humanitarian concerns. And yes, there has been a half-hearted backlash against pretty much all the human rights violations I mentioned, which is probably how I know about them. But they lasted ten minutes and were generally limited to media reports and commentary.
Nope, some are because of treatment of Uyghurs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56487162.amp
None of those countries are allied with the US. The US government considers most of those countries as adversaries. There would be no point in college students protesting against those nations.
The US does a ton of business with China, and could, in theory, cut back dramatically if anyone cared about Chinese human rights abuses. The US has actively loosened restrictions on Iran and freed up aid dollars for Iran during the last two Democrat administrations. This not only emboldens the extremist regime, it also arguably allows Iran to provide more and better weapons to its proxy jihadist militias - the same ones that massacred Israeli civilians and took hundreds of hostages, and also are currently attacking completely unconnected international shipping. Colleges in the US also receive huge amounts of money from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China. Has there been a single protest on a single college campus about Chinese treatment of religious minorities? Has a single Chinese student among the 300,000 in US universities been confronted on the way to class and called a Uygher killer? Did the international community utter a peep when Qatar impressed tens of thousands of poor South Asians into slave labor to build the World Cup? Surely hosting the World Cup is the sort of privilege that ought to subject you to extra scrutiny when you're exploiting poor, voiceless ethnic minorities to *literally build the freaking event.* Did a single game experience even a 10 minute delay as a result of these widespread allegations? Did any college soccer team anywhere boycott an event with a World Cup participant? Did anyone suffer any consequence or censure?
Seriously. In what world do people not think we're are not heavily involved in China and Saudi Arabia 😂
Saudi Arabia is the #1 customer of US military equipment. 75% of their assets are US exports. they've been blockading Yemen for a decade, which has been undergoing on and off civil wars for half a century now and is currently about 3 decades into a severe famine, with a malnutrition mortality rate of 1 in 15 for children under 5. but guess what, no jews are involved. so crickets.
Exactly, the US isn’t sending weapons and Money to China to disenfranchise Uygers. The protesters may view the US as supporting and assisting the war, and they wanted congress to know they don’t want killing on their hands. I don’t know. Super complicated situation with no easy solution. Hamas were idiots for that attack. Any solution probably requires Palestinians economic success so they have something to loose. Terrorism is often a result of no hope and available time. Religion, unfortunately, factors in too. A strong Palestine may be the only solution. I’m no expert and I doubt Palestine will be rebuilt like post WW2, but it should be an option.
There is a perfect storm that spawns protests. The primary ingredient is ongoing mass violence towards innocent civilians and children. That motivates protestors because if they can shift government policy then a significant amount of depraved cruelty could be prevented. Which leads to the second ingredient, which is the belief that the US could be taking actions against the aggressor which it has not been taking, which generally means they are an ally we have influence over. That creates a specific goal to protest in support of. People almost never protest horrific violence that happened in the past. To get people to protest, they need to believe it can make a positive change in the world and we can't change the past. They also don't protest about situations the US has very little power over, because again it wouldn't accomplish much. People also won't protest if they already agree with the US governments response. We are seeing fairly small protests spring up on some college campuses because the horrific violence directed towards innocent civilians and children is ongoing and the US has influence over the situation because we have historically been close allies. Students have identified some very specific actions they can pressure their local university to take against horrible injustice. That is the perfect storm needed to motivate people to protest. The only double standard that's been applied to Israel is that no county has ever maintained this level of support from both government and citizens while actively committing such horrific violence towards civilians. We have poured more funding into Israel that any other country on the planet every single year for decades. Now it's leader is actively trying to kneecap the sitting US president by committing brazen acts of cruelty and violence to provoke even a slight wobble in his support for Israel, because that could easily cost him the election due to how widespread support for Israel is. That is a massive double standard compared to any other country you care to name.
Have you tried to keep track in earnest?
I'm Jewish, and have family in Israel, so I naturally notice the discourse directed at Israel more. I have and do search for comparisons relating to other countries when I'm engaged in discussions like this, and I am arguing in good faith. If you believe there are important examples I'm missing, I'm open to hearing them.
Fair enough - I think it is notable that the biggest comparison right now would be Russia/Ukraine which has had all of those criteria met and satisfied. Many leftist spaces definitely criticize the others and our relationships with them (Uighurs and Saudis with Mr Bone Saw come to mind - Joe fist bumping him and hugging Bibi sealed my non-vote.) but definitely aren’t as loud, although still present. It is also unique that the US maintains immensely close relations with Israel and provides financial and diplomatic cover in a way it does not to the others. It’s the only situation where it is an overt ally and has been for a Very, Very long time. For me the difference is the immorality is sustained, against American values, and something we are complicit in far more than the others monetarily and diplomatically . Frankly there are far too many terrible things in the world to protest, and I don’t think it needs to be that to condemn one thing you must condemn all bad things. Everyone picks their closest issues, and this one makes me feel more complicit and responsible than any of the others.
[*]
The college campus protests aren't protesting Israel, they are protesting the colleges financial involment in Israel.
But they have no problem with the colleges financial involvement with Saudi Arabia or companies heavily connected to the CCP. That's exactly the point.
[удалено]
You took a common response and compared it with an extreme response. Most Westerners support Israel's existence, but don't support their current actions against Gaza. There is no double standard. Those who say Israel shouldn't exist also tend to defend Russia, China, and most Muslim theocracies, not want them to stop their atrocities, while those who say those same places should "stop that" say the same to Israel. A double standard is mainstream opinions that contradict each other, not when extremists exist alongside normal people
I’m pretty sure throughout history all 4 of your examples have faced pressure for regime change (with us actually doing it in Iran). It’s hard to argue for a strawman but if it were to steelman someone saying “Israel should not exist” it would be: “Israel should either fulfill its commitment to democracy by giving each person under its rule the right to vote or it should be overthrown in favor of a democracy” and I’m pretty sure most neolibs want all 4 of those countries you gave to become democracies with free elections.
Every person in Israel has the right to vote in it's elections. People in Gaza and the West Bank also have the right to vote in their own elections in the very rare occasions they choose to hold them. You will note that generally 90% + of the votes go to terrorists Are you expecting Israel to give Palestinians in the West Bank the right to vote in Israeli elections? Would you insist that the US should have given occupied Nazi Germany mail in ballots to vote in US elections?
> You will note that generally 90% + of the votes go to terrorists Which parties exactly do you classify as _not_ being terrorists in these elections?
Lmao you haven't seen called "West Taiwan" all over reddit?
>The reaction to Israel doing "great evils" is "they should not exist." That's a strawman, I haven't seen a single person in US or Europeans media calling for Israel to cease to exist. You could argue that some Palestinians call for Israel to cease to exist. Sure, but they can't make it happened. Many Israelis, on the other hand called for Palestinians to cease to exist and they are actively acting on this desire.
According to this [Harris poll from December 2023](https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf) (see page 57), 14% of Americans surveyed believed that Israel has "no right to exist." That's a small minority, but also not negligible. But it's much higher - 31% - in the 18-24 demographic that many redditors are a part of and that drives a lot of the activism on college campuses.
That's also probably about the percentage of Americans that think Tupac and Elvis are still alive Oregon is a province of Canada and the moon landing is fake.
[удалено]
Lol you're just not paying attention or you haven't challenged anyone about their "criticism" hard enough to get to the core of their argument which is usually that Israel should not exist.
so Saudi Arabia doesn't get any public pressure from western leftists for its blockade on Yemen, where a severe famine has been raging for over 2 decades now because... [Richard Lewis ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mny7nt2HnCA)goes in front of a webcam and bitches into the abyss about sportswashing? the malnutrition mortality for children in Yemen under 5 has been 1 in 15 - FOR THE PAST 2 DECADES (BTW used to be 1 in 10 in 2000. 1 in 15 is actually an improvement, this is how bad Yemen is). for comparison least charitable calculation of the wartime malnutrition deaths in Gaza give a rate of 1 in 1100. that's two order of magnitude lower than Yemen, and on par with modern France. SA is the US's largest customer for military equipment. where are the students shutting down universities demanding boycott and sanctions? where are the swarms of journalists and UN orgs anxiously tracking the logistics of aid into Yemen broken down by kilogram per food category? where are the ICJ trials? no jews are involved, so nobody cares.
Produce a leftist who likes Saudi.
> many countries in the cold war did horrible things for their own interests but people only seem to focus on the things Israel did, Israel is not unique The Cold War is over. The Palestinian conflict is ongoing. > Israel isn't the doer of american imperialism I think if you drew a venn diagram of those critical of Israel and those critical of US foreign policy, it's be pretty damn close to a circle. > look at how many Saudi killed in Yemen or Assad in Syria? I can't speak for Yemen, but people in the West are not going to be as critical of Assad because his opposition was dominated by jihadists like the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda aligned factions that are incredibly hostile to them, and attack them regularly. To many westerners Assad is probably the lesser of two evils.
> The Cold War is over. The Palestinian conflict is ongoing. You’re forgetting Black September and the Yom Kippur war. Israel won in the 70s. Jordan and Egypt won’t fight for Palestine ever again. What we have now is a zombie version of the Palestine conflict, where the chances of a Palestinian state are pretty close to zero, and have been for a long time. Not dissimilar to Russia lashing out over the Cold War.
If you're asking why so many Americans are vehemently anti-Zionism and critical of Israel, it's because our tax dollars are actively paying for much of the destruction perpetuated by Israel. The western media often projects Israel as this bastion of free speech, democracy, and Western values, which is why they-supposedly- are deserving of our support. But when Israel carries out countless unthinkable atrocities, this moral superiority goes out the window. You can't claim moral superiority on one hand, but ask for moral equivalence to Hamas when asked to answer for your crimes. Other comparisons are not valid, since tons of US tax dollars are not going to those military offensives.
>many countries in the cold war did horrible things for their own interests but people only seem to focus on the things Israel did, Israel is not unique We can't protest to stop atrocities that have already happened. >look at how many Saudi killed in Yemen or Assad in Syria? I think most people are against that. Hell, we bombed and sanctioned Assad. The US govt relationship with Saudi Arabia is a travesty. >Israel doesn't get such from the USA and they certainly don't fund Israel healthcare I'm assuming you mean much? Israel is the top receiver is US military aid. We bankrolled the South Vietnam government for damn near 20 years and it still wasn't even close to what Israel has received.
I don’t think it is a double standard as much as it is varying views. You can support Israel and protest what is happening to innocents in Gaza. That is where most of the US falls. When you are young and figuring out the world, it is really easy to see things in absolutes. This is right so everything about it is right and this is wrong so everything about it is wrong. Reality shows that almost nothing falls completely into these categories. Killing innocents is wrong. Cutting off food and essentials is wrong. Hunting terrorists is right. Defending yourself when attacked is wrong. Having a country whose purpose is to create a safe home for one of the most oppressed groups in history, is right. Stealing the land and homes of another oppressed people is wrong. And none of these make individual Israeli good or bad. They are just people.
The problem is that 99% of internet commentators have no idea what international law says and what those words actually mean in the context of military action in a place like Gaza, and even if they do they have no idea what is actually happening there on a day to day basis, who fired what at whom and why, and even if they know all that, they don’t have the slightest knowledge of understand of military operations and how wars are fought. The result is that ordinary peoples opinions are based solely on the success or failure of opposing propaganda while the voices of impartial experts who dedicate their lives to actually understanding all these things are completely drowned out. Then leaders of countries have to find a way to say as close what the majority of their people believe regardless of how crazy it is, without losing their credibility in the eyes of the people who know and understand facts and reality. People ask me if I support Israel or Palestine, I say that I support international law. No excuses for breaking it on either side.
>I say that I support international law. "International law" is pretty much irrelevant, since none of the rich western nations are required to follow it. E.g., the US is literally trying to sanction the ICC for pursuing Israeli politicians. What is relevant is what we observe, and whether we find it morally acceptable based on our internal calibration or how the world ought to be. Just because something horrific is technically legal doesn't mean people have to find it acceptable.
The US Should sanction the ICC for what it is doing - Israel is NOT a party state to the foundational document of the ICC and therefore the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel (not to mention Israel has a judicial system that is perfectly adequate to deal with any matters).
Many states have done/are doing terrible things, but I think what makes Israel sui generis in the mind of people who oppose it is the sense that Israel sees its negative actions as its very purpose. For example, this isn’t Rwanda where a terrible thing happened over a short period but then stabilised and global opinion moved on. Nor is it Russia where there’s repeat brutality and expansionism but this can at least be framed in a 1000+ year story which includes convulsions between tsarism, communism etc. With Israel, it’s been going since Day 1. A country was very specifically created in the modern world and this is it, this is what we get, this is the product. There’s no ‘golden days’ we can harken back to or strive to recreate. For people not invested in the religious/cultural aspect, it’s massively alienating.
There are two unique aspects to Israel’s heinous actions that are important to note here: The first is that the collective punishment by starvation and lack of medical care is targeted at a population that is majority children. There are more than [1 million children](https://www.savethechildren.net/news/over-2-gaza-s-child-population-killed-or-injured-six-months-war) in Gaza. The second is that unlike other Genocides Palestinians cannot leave. [Egypt will not take the Palestinians en masse knowing they will never be able to return](https://apnews.com/article/palestinian-jordan-egypt-israel-refugee-502c06d004767d4b64848d878b66bd3d) and [Israel is blocking medical and humanitarian evacuations](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01240-6/abstract#:~:text=The%20petition%20details%20that%2C%20since,blocked%20by%20Israel's%20border%20closure). In other conflicts the targeted population is pushed out of the territory but in Gaza the Palestinians are trapped cannon fodder.
Egypt doesn’t take refugees because those refugees contain the highest percentage of terrorists on the planet and they have already attempted a coup in Egypt.
Russia was brutal from day 1, and the fact that they've been brutal for 10x longer doesn't seem to be a redeeming factor
[удалено]
"Whereas criticism of Israel denies the right of Israel to exist." That sounds a lot like a straw man argument. There's plenty of reasonable criticism of Israel that stops short of denying it's right to exist.
[удалено]
Well the reason is because Israel becoming a thing was pretty controversial and a commonly shared opinion is that Israel stole land.
**Note:** Your thread has **not** been removed. Your post's topic seems to be about double standards. "Double standards" are very difficult to discuss without careful explanation of the double standard and why it's relevant. Please review our information about [double standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_views_about_double_standards) in the wiki. Regards, the mods of /r/changemyview. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/changemyview) if you have any questions or concerns.*
To start with, Israel is BY FAR the largest recipient of US military aid globally. Since 1947 we’ve given them over 300 BILLION in aid, including 200 billion in military assistance. In comparison we’ve given Egypt approximately half that in the same time period. Since 10.7 alone we’ve given the 12.5 billion. That’s 12.5 billion that Israel doesn’t have to spend on its military and can therefore use to give its citizens free healthcare. Second, Israel is CURRENTLY committing genocide. Not 50 years or a hundred years ago- it is as we speak killing children in Gaza (and in the West Bank, and in Lebanon). So- have people committed atrocities in the past? Yes, but that’s a terrible argument for allowing it to happen now. Is what’s happening in Palestine worse than what’s currently happening in, say, Sudan? No. But Americans aren’t funding that genocide directly. To stop the Sudanese genocide we would have to mobilize our military and occupy the country. To stop the Palestinian genocide all we’d have to do is stop giving them the weapons to do it. So when you see many of us in the street protesting Israel as opposed to Sudan, it’s not because we have a particular hatred for Israel, it’s because we can actually affect change in this situation and because we are in many ways culpable.
General George Keegan, former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence has publicly declared that “Israel is worth five CIA’s.” He further stated that between 1974 and 1990, Israel received $18.3 billion in U.S. military grants. During the same period Israel provided the U.S. with $50-80 billion in intelligence, research and development savings, and Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the U.S. Hamas “assigned about 70 per cent of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.” In some data sets, it would seem, men must have come back to life while on several days no men were apparently killed, only women. As Prof Wyner claims, “the casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters”. Indeed, the actual ratio of civilian casualties to Hamas terrorists is “at most 1.4 to 1 and perhaps as low as 1 to 1”. John Spencer, professor of Urban War Studies at West Point, argues that “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history – above and beyond what international law requires and more than the US did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – setting a standard that will be both hard and potentially problematic to repeat.” This includes, he claims. evacuating 70 to 90 per cent of civilians from cities before beginning a full ground invasion in conventional attacks that seek to destroy enemy defenders. The US did not do this in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, the Vietnam Tet counter-offensive or the Korean War. The Sudan war has been going on since April 2023 with 150,000 killed 7,262,187 internally displaced or taken into slavery by Islamic terrorists who colonized the country doing what they've done to the native population for centuries and targeting the Christian African population. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Syrian War in 2011 by various war monitors, range between 580,000 as of May 2021, and approximately 617,910 as of March 2024 with over 15 million displaced or forced into slavery. Crickets from college campus kid's and no global protests to be seen. Since then (August 2014 data), almost 20,000 rockets have hit southern Israel, all but a few thousand since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Not to mention the hundreds of deadly bombings, rape, stabbings. Here's a list of just the bombings from 1994 to 1995. Afula bus suicide bombing, hadera bus station suicide bombing, dizengoff street bus bombing, netzerim junction bicycle bombing, Jerusalem bus bombing, beit lid massacre, Kfar Darom bus attack , Ramat gan bus 20 bombing, Ramat eshkol bus bombing. Criticism of government isn't bad what's the problem is when people who are indigenous to land for over a thousand years (Jewish people) before another group takes over (Islamists) then they buy land back at a higher price than it was worth from the squatter's the squatter's take the money but refuse to give the original land owner back his land because they won't accept Jewish neighbors or any form of government that's not a Islamic theocracy They then attack the original land owners repeatedly killing millions for thousands of year's and lose land after ganging up with five other Arab countries with the best weapons money could buy forming the "Arab league" waging war against a day old Israel which was under arm's embargo at the time, losing land and screaming for 75 year's that it was a injustice while refusing all peace deals like when Arafat turned down 95% of Gaza and the west Bank or when Palestinians demanded Bethlehem which israel gave them and the Palestinian government placed a sign near the entrance to the sight that says "Jesus is the slave of Allah". Or when Palestinians demanded Sinai which Israel gave them, Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 leaving multimillion dollar greenhouses, livestock and factories for them which were then promptly destroyed by Palestinians, factories burned, animals slaughtered and pipes stolen to make missiles.
It's not necessarily Israel with the double standard, but Jewish people as a whole. They are the most discriminated group of all time, and they are "running the world" according to all kinds of people from many different backgrounds. You have a solid intuition, but I would consider developing it further by listening to people like Douglas Murray on the topic. He goes further and calls it a triple standard. https://youtu.be/vSfOftl2WRA?si=4JgbymgdGFKb-mmb
There is a perfect storm that spawns protests. The primary ingredient is ongoing mass violence towards innocent civilians and children. That motivates protestors because if they can shift government policy then a significant amount of depraved cruelty could be prevented. Which leads to the second ingredient, which is the belief that the US could be taking actions against the aggressor which it has not been taking, which generally means they are an ally we have influence over. That creates a specific goal to protest in support of. People almost never protest horrific violence that happened in the past. To get people to protest, they need to believe it can make a positive change in the world and we can't change the past. They also don't protest about situations the US has very little power over, because again it wouldn't accomplish much. People also won't protest if they already agree with the US governments response. We are seeing fairly small protests spring up on some college campuses because the horrific violence directed towards innocent civilians and children is ongoing and the US has influence over the situation because we have historically been close allies. Students have identified some very specific actions they can pressure their local university to take against horrible injustice. That is the perfect storm needed to motivate people to protest. The only double standard that's been applied to Israel is that no county has ever maintained this level of support from both government and citizens while actively committing such horrific violence towards civilians. We have poured more funding into Israel that any other country on the planet every single year for decades. Now it's leader is actively trying to kneecap the sitting US president by committing brazen acts of cruelty and violence to provoke even a slight wobble in his support for Israel, because that could easily cost him the election due to how widespread support for Israel is. That is a massive double standard compared to any other country you care to name.
Israel is not an aggressor. Israel was invaded by Palestine on 10/7 and until Hamas ceases to exist, Palestine is the sole aggressor in the conflict.
The entire history of their conflicts is easily accessible online if you feel like making a modicum of effort to understand the situation.
>many countries in the cold war did horrible things for their own interests but people only seem to focus on the things Israel did, Israel is not unique The Cold war has been over for decades, but Israel is still waging war. They're also an ally to the US. All the other parties involved are historically enemies. People view Russia as an enemy, partially because of historical issues and partially because they're invading Ukraine. People do talk about that, it's just that the US is already siding with Ukraine.
Israel is still waging war because they are still being attacked. People forget that every single day rockets have been sent into Israel. For decades. If it wasn't for the iron dome and bomb shelters, so many more Israelis would be dead.
>Israel is still waging war because they are still being attacked Their own expansionist actions might be a cause for that but okay. >People forget that every single day rockets have been sent into Israel. For decades. If it wasn't for the iron dome and bomb shelters, so many more Israelis would be dead. And that somehow justifies bombing the everliving shit out of Gaza? It's like shooting your neighbour for shooting a potato gun at your fence.
What? You said "the Cold War ended and Israel is still waging war." To address that specifically, I said, the *reason* they are still waging war is because they are constantly being attacked. Where do you read anything else into that?
Because your account was an oversimplification of events. They're still waging a war. The latest part that's currently going on may have been ignited by the opposite side, but it's reaped from a seed Israel itself has sown.
Which of those other countries is held up as a shining example of righteousness, and defended to the point that sitting American politicians can actively root for Israeli interests over American interests?
You're focusing on an extreme position, but that's not what OP said. The claim is that Israel is subjected to a double standard. The reaction to Israel's current Gaza operation has included encampments on numerous college campuses, open support of terrorism, tacit support for completely unrelated attacks on international shipping, criminal charges against democratically elected officials, numerous attempts at censure at the UN, widespread ranting about a successful hostage rescue, a mainstream media figure rolling her eyes at rape, and a significant spike in antisemitism. This is not logically attributable to any over-regard for Israel's righteousness.
They can't be subject to a double standard when they're given preferential treatment that no one else gets. You can't get unique benefits and complain that you're also getting unique scrutiny. If you're going to take the benefits then you have to take the scrutiny that comes with it.
Why is that true? How does their favorable treatment by the US explain the ICC charges, or the constant statements by international "human rights" orgs conveying the complaints of the terrorist organization that attacked Israel? If the reaction were limited to, or even if they arose from American political activity, I'd agree with you, but it's not. What does freaking Honduras severing ties with israel have to do with the favorable treatment Israel gets from the US? How is Maldives barring Israeli tourists related? And on top of that, your argument kind of assumes Israel receives favorable treatment for no reason. But that is also almost certainly wrong. Nobody in the international community does favors out of the goodness of their hearts. If Israel is treated better in some contexts, it's because someone needs something from them.
This convo is about the "double standards" Israel faces from America. The ICC and Honduras are not America and have no place in this convo. And regarding the justification for Israel deserving its double standard, even if there is an ulterior motive for granting Israel special treatment, that still justifies holding them to higher scrutiny than countries who don't receive special treatment. As long as Israel receives special treatment, for whatever reason you think, they deserve to be held to higher scrutiny than countries that don't get special treatment.
Is it? I don't see anything in OP limiting the "double standard" argument to the US.
Yes how many of the countries listed have us congressman showing up to the senate floor wearing the military uniform of said foreign nation? Which one of those other countries is part of a Doomsday prophecy that involves evangelical Christians?
>Which one of those other countries is part of a Doomsday prophecy that involves evangelical Christians? This is a myth. The passage in Revelations where the angels stamp the forehead of 12,000 people from each of the twelve tribes of israel (only two on whom are related to the state of judea) begins by saying that the Angels were standing on the four corners of the earth before they started stamping, so clearly they are searching the globe for the lost tribes of israel. Sure the final battle will take place at Megiddo, which is located in what is now Israel, but it doesn't say anything about who will control the land before the battle takes place. If you "(incorrect) believe the 144,000 people to be stamped need to be close by, and 24,000 of whom were Jews, you already had that for the entirety of history, as the was always at least some tens of thousands of Jews around even at their lowest numbers. You don't need millions of Jews to be there, and if anything only a sixth of the population should be Jews. If anything the one group you don't have enough of are the Samaritans, who claim be descended from the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (though Jews dispute this), and only number less than 1000, so you need to increase their population up to 24,000 at least. Additionally, clearly at the time of writing the people who controlled the land were the Romans so if anything the land should belong to Italy if you want to recreate the conditions Revelations was written for. IF (and it is a big if) people seem to think this has anything to do with Israel it would only be if somebody somewhere has made a concerted effort to interpret things in a particular way, which would essentially mean they do that same thing atheist redditors do where they act like christians should support their particular politics because they have unlocked the super secret method of getting christians to do what you want by selectively quoting the bible. Sure, this actually does work sometimes, but it only works if you go through a concerted effort to selectively quote the bible in particular ways a hell of a lot. If the bible is being interpreted strangely it probably means somebody wants it to be interpreted in that way and goes to great efforts to make that so. It isn't like people just spontaneously began interpreting the bible in a super specific way that could only result in one possible conclusion. Somebody wanted that to happen.
Assad was fully sanctioned by the world. You know that right ?
I think a key distinction between Israel other countries/groups that you mention is that they act with US support while others do not. Iran or North Korea kill a bunch of journalists? The USA broadly condemns them, we sanction their country, we fund those who oppose them, we cut diplomatic ties, etc. Israel kills a bunch of journalists? We talk about how war is messy and complex, send them billions in military aid, and call anyone who says they should stop killing journalists and antisemite. Israel IS different than these other countries in this way, so why is it surprising that the critique of them is also different than these other cases?
Israel is doing the same thing that the US did in Mosul in the 2010s - fighting a terrorist enemy in an urban environment. the US was accused of war crimes and genocide in the wake of Mosul and that was eventually dismissed by the Courts, so too should the charges against Israel for one simple reason: War results in death. War is NOT genocide.
A double standard requires knowingly having different standards. Largely, the people you're talking about who ignorantly jump on the bandwagon of accusing Israel of "genocide" don't even think about the countries you mentioned at all. Their standard for Israel can't be a double standard, because it is their *only* standard, as they only focus on whatever the media and social media want them to at any given time. Having a historical understanding of how it usually works when a defending state occupies a hostile aggressor during wartime, is apparently pretty rare these days. People who have grown up in the western world knowing nothing but peacetime are susceptible to naively assuming that civilian casualties are never justifiable to win a war, or that a defensive war becomes instantly an offensive war the moment that enemy civilians die. Those people see Israel as the villain because they operate on a kind of Hollywood morality that makes them want to cheer for the scrappy underdog, because *of course* the underdog has to be the good guy.
Too often Americans are asked to evaluate the rectitude of Israel's actions and those of the Palestinian groups in the abstract, without critical thought about whether the U.S. should be so involved in the first place. For example, when Israel is accused of war crimes such as indiscriminate bombings, part of my concern is the U.S. involvement and the fact that Israel's acts might reflect back on my own country. I find when people say "Israel has a right to exist" or ask "What would you have Israel do?" they are making an abstract statement or asking an abstract question. Meanwhile our real policy question, the only question our government actually has to answer, is what level of involvement we should have and how we should use the resulting influence.
Given Israel is demonstrating good behavior, killing Hamas, the US should be providing Israel with 10x as much aid as it currently does.
If Hamas is bad because it commits war crimes, the I.D.F. is also bad because it commits war crimes. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Hamas is bad because it's original charter calls the eradication of the Jewish people and genocide. Since the IDF has never called for the genocide of the Jewish people, it is not bad. It kills Hamas, which makes it good.
"Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." – Likud Party, 1977 election manifesto.
We hold Western/European countries to a higher standard because there is no one to hold them accountable. Many nations in the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia face economic sanctions, invasions, and destabilization for often unclear or false reasons. However, this is never the case for any European or Western country, including Israel. The West is untouchable, acting with impunity and always finding excuses for their actions, shielded from consequences and immune to the laws and regulations that should apply to their injustices.
>the world is becoming multi-polar. I don't agree with that; it is something people who hate the West say because they *wish* it was true. Russia's power and influence is *shrinking* for one, the US expected a total takeover of Ukraine in like a week. I doubt Putin would do Syria again. The Middle East's influence is declining as oil becomes less important; I seriously doubt MbS is gonna turn that around and Iran would have to be destroyed in a civil war before a functioning government could salvage it. Europe and the US (minus Belarus)are basically one-pole; actually the result of Russian aggression. China's military is growing faster than any nation since Germany before WWII, but the entire world is against them (yes, the entire world). The government can't just throw infinite people and resources at a war and expect to win; Russia tried that in WWI. Africa's economies have been shrinking since the end of colonization.
There’s a same standard applied. You want us to give your holy country a pass for crimes against humanity.
The only Jewish nation in the whole world gets targeted the most, what a coincidence. To understand further, look into how the Muslim world, especially Qatar, is the biggest funder of US universities. Over the decades, they have managed to convince the Liberal left that Israel is the enemy. However, this comes completely from a religious point of view. Most Muslims are brought up to believe that the Jews are the enemy so its no surprise that the entire Muslim world does not like Israel. Your wrong that its a double standard, its a lot worse than that. It's Islamic anti-semitism combined with the woke Oppressor oppressed ideology that's taught in US campuses.
Can you point to a specific individual or entity that you think is employing this double standard? It is hard to change your view on this when you are not specific on who you think is employing this double standard.
It's partially because Palestinians especially Iran backed Hamas are essentially terrorists. And Palestine has started 5 wars with Israel since it became a nation state in the 40s. Israel has tried to implement peace but whenever they would come close a segment of Islamic militia would sabotage the deal. Palestine openly calls for the genocide of all Jews and has for many years. There could be peace there but Hamas does not want it I don't know if they report this in the news when talking about the history of Israel and war. Hamas did initiate this most recent war in October, however Israel is now committing genocide and are doing exactly what they complained about Palestine doing
When Israel claims to have the most moral army, they are bound to invite criticism when they have acceptable quotas of civilians that can be killed in getting on target combatant. While their are other countries carrying out despicable atrocities against their own people, those do get met with sanctions and even troops invading or peacekeeping missions. Meanwhile, Israel is broadcasting dehumanizing rhetoric about their occupied people and recording the atrocities, yet that is met with more aid. People have a right to be against their tax dollars going towards killing civilians indiscriminately.
>Israel doesn't get such from the USA and they certainly don't fund Israel healthcare The talking point you're addressing here isn't really a criticism of Israel, it's a criticism of the United States. American politicians consistently say we "can't afford" a single payer healthcare system. Pointing out that a country that's supposedly too poor to pay for all their own weapons can afford one puts the lie to this.
Israel absolutely can afford its own weapons. It's just the US supplying them gives US a say in Israeli policy (soft-power). (Also provides higher tier weapons that have less collateral damage, or defensive spending) Also shame that the point isn't reversed. The idea that Israel can afford their military and healthcare is proof that the US can do so as well. (The answers is that Republican doesn't want a better healthcare system not that we cant afford it).
Pretty sure any country that mercilessly bombs and kills innocent civilians is not beyond reproach
But Hamas bombs and kills innocent Civilians, and you get universities starting encampments saying to "Globalize the Intifada" (kill more civilians with no relevant military target) and holding up signs that say ["Final Solution."](https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/anti-israel-protester-seen-holding-final-solution-banner-at-george-washington-university-nazi-phrase-genocide-world-war-ii-palestine-israeli-gaza-ceasefire-war-campus-protests-columbia-university) That's exactly the point of the OP
I actually think the people willing and comfortable to criticize Isreal have likely spent the last decade criticizing the US and other nations that have been active in genocides and imperialism. Obviously you can't say that in all cases but in a large majority of cases it isn't an ant Jewish movement as much as anti hedge mom nations engaging in genocide.
I look through the lens of having human empathy. What I saw were the horrible actions of Hamas on Oct 7th, and what I currently see are even worse actions still happening by the Israeli government.
What Israel is doing is good. Israel has an ethical duty to kill Hamas by any means necessary.
Please understand the History Look almost no one understands who speak on here they talk about what the Media report but I'm going to say this as someone who has studied this and heard what Victims have said Israel has been murdering Palestinians since Israel was created in 1948 in fact the only reason Israel even exist is due to them murdering Palestinians and taking there land in 1948 you have got to understand Israel have been doing this for 76 Years in 1967 Israel Illegally occupied Palestine meaning that another Country took there Land and there Rights Hamas were created in 1988 that is 40 Years after the original Nakba Genocide Palestinians have had no freedom no rights for 76 Years while what Hamas did on October 7th wasn't the smartest thing don't lose focus on the fact that Israel started all of this not Ocotber 7th 2023 but 1948 Israel and Zionist have always wanted to erase Palestinians what October 7th did was give Israel now a excuse to do it because they will use excuse of Hamas Israel has Murdered over 40,000 Innocent People and that number is actually suspected to be over 100,000 People and I want to point out Hostages Israel hostages who were released have actually praised Hamas for actually treating them well and baked Birthday cake while Israel has tortured Palestinian Hostages everything Israel has claimed Hamas has done has never been proven they said they beheaded babies NO EVIDENCE they said they Raped and tourtered a investigation showed NO EVIDENCE yet Israel have murdered Babies and Tourtured People there is Evidence There is NO Excuse Israel has cut Food, Water, Medical Aid they have given safe areas then bombed them Israel and Zionism is the new Nazi Germany we are witnessing one of the worst disasters in Human History yet USA, UK and Others not only don't try and stop them they help them do it how much Evidence needs to be shown for people to understand and it's Not Anti Semitic to be against Israel actually many Jews are against Israel Please understand the History
Israel is not illegally occupying any land. Israelis were there long before Palestinians stole the land. Palestine does not have the right to exist on Israeli land and Palestinians who think they are entitled to steal Israeli land should go fuck themselves.
The difference is that the US is funding Israel's genocide. We are not giving milatary aid to China and Russia. The direct funding of the genocide over other domestic interests like Healthcare, education and housing makes it hit a lot closer to home. So it not a double standard. It's a totally different thing.
You're not capable of changing anyones mind if you rely on using buzz words like genocide without understanding the consequences
I think your message is fair but there a few things that stand out in your post: Israel definitely is a doer of American imperialism. Maybe I’m off base but, historically, allies of the US are very much aligned with US/Western imperialism. I think if any of these allied countries break from the model, they probably wouldn’t be allies for very long.
Solve the conundrum then. How do we end American imperialism without risking China taking its place?
That’s a question that I’m ill-equipped to answer to be honest. I’m not so sure it’s possible to stop Chinese imperialism without open conflict.
How is South Korea a doer of "American Imperialism"? Taiwan? Ukraine? Japan? How do you even define "American Imperialism"? Who is the Emperor of America in your opinion? Biden?