God help them. The slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining

  • Lemmygradwontallowme [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, I'm a bit shocked at the other celebrators. I mean I won't say the Israeli settlers and the gov't didn't deserve it, but honestly I'm a bit cautious of doing that...

          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            happy there had finally been any kind of response to the regular killings of Palestinian civilians

            What is there to be happy about? When this is over we'll return to the regular scheduled sporadic killing of Palestinian civilians, but in the meantime we're going to be inundated in a wholesale slaughter of Palestinian civilians, with some Israeli citizens thrown in as well. That's the material consequences of the current uprising, which are universally bad.

              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                natives shouldn't fight against their oppressors, because their opressors will opress them

                I didn't say anything remotely like that. If you care about actually ending the oppresion, nominally your strategic goals should be ending that oppression, not doomed violence for it's own sake. We even have a word for this on the left: 'adventurism'. The Viet Minh opposition to the French may have been violent, but it wasn't a fruitless and doomed affair, and their leadership went to incredible lengths to make sure their attacks where strategically fruitful.

                what are do you people want Palestine to do?

                Uhh not this, because it won't achieve any of their political aims and is just going to get a bunch of civilians killed. I don't need to posit a better idea to point out how much of a shit-sandwich that this is going to be for the Palestinians and that leftists shouldn't be treating it like their team scoring a goal in a football match.

                On the flip side, can you point to why this is a good thing to be happy about from a material perspective, and not a vibes based 'psychological' victory?

                • JohnBrownsBussy2 [she/her, they/them]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  Honestly, I think that you're wrong on the possibility of material victory. This offensive has shown the world that Palestinian resistance is not dead and that they can stand up to deal a devastating blow. If they can disrupt Israel's attempts to re-align various Arab nations, and if the hostages and threat of Hezbollah intervention can pre-empt a ground invasion in Gaza, then the resistance could make significant material concessions/gains. Depending on how the next few days go, then I think there's a chance of reforging the broader pro-Palestinian coalition amongst the various countries of the Middle East, especially in light of the Saudi-Iran rapprochement. If changing the geopolitical alignment into one that's much more favorable to the survival of the Palestinian people isn't a material gain, than I don't know what is.

                  There was clearly an incredible degree of effort and coordination to pull off an operation of this scale without alerting the Israeli security apparatus. I don't think this operation is particularly irrational or feckless. It's a gamble, but the alternative to action is a slow death.

                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 year ago

                    devastating blow

                    They haven't done that though. They've shown they're capable of bloodying Israel's nose. They've killed scores and taken a base, but Israel's ability to wage a war against them has not been reduced one iota. This isn't some distant colony half a world away were a big psychological victory is enough to cause a pull-back. They're right on the border, and are treated as an imminent security threat by Israel, so in order to prevent them from waving war you have to actually reduce their ability to, not just their desire.

                    if the hostages and threat of Hezbollah intervention can pre-empt a ground invasion in Gaza,

                    Which, if you know anything about Israeli governments, especially right wing ones, you know has a 0% chance of being effective. They've killed their own men before to avoid this. A ground invasion is absolutely coming.

                    • charly4994 [she/her, comrade/them]
                      ·
                      1 year ago

                      The Easter Uprising ended up with pretty much everyone dead. There was no military victory. The Brits bombed out the area and executed everyone they could. But it didn't stop with the Easter Uprising, it shifted the narrative and galvanized more of the population. It made them feel like they actually had chance again. I'd say they were on the border of the British Empire still quite at its peak as well. Modern military tech might have changed but the psychological effects can't be written off whole cloth a day into what's actually happening.

                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        1 year ago

                        The UK didn't view Ireland as an existential security threat like Israel does with it's neighbors (or say like Russia does with Ukraine).

                        This is already being compared to Pearl Harbor, which if you recall, ended with millions of dead Japanese (and even then Japan was not viewed as an existential threat). I don't think it especially likely here, but you have already seen how the western propaganda machine can rewrite not just genocide but wholesale population extermination as being justified on spurious claims of 'self-defense'.

                        Look, if I'm wrong and if turns out that this does improve things for the Palestinians celebrate that, then. But maybe put away the champagne until the bodies are counted.

                        • ferristriangle [he/him]
                          ·
                          1 year ago

                          You seem to be incredibly hung up on this idea of celebration, but most of what you're attacking are messages of support.

                          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                            ·
                            1 year ago

                            I mean my entry into the conversation was specifically asking what there was to be happy about. You can support Palestinians without being happy about what's about to happen to them.

                            • ferristriangle [he/him]
                              ·
                              1 year ago

                              lol, "I was just asking questions! I wasn't actually attacking people for expressing support, everyone should have known that my questions were a non secuitor that is completely unrelated to what I was replying to!"

                              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                ·
                                1 year ago

                                Did you even read the specific comment I was replying to because you're acting like I'm in every comment chain tut-tuting, when I'm fact that is, uh, the opposite of what has happened

                    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
                      ·
                      1 year ago

                      They haven't done that though. They've shown they're capable of bloodying Israel's nose. They've killed scores and taken a base, but Israel's ability to wage a war against them has not been reduced one iota. This isn't some distant colony half a world away were a big psychological victory is enough to cause a pull-back. They're right on the border, and are treated as an imminent security threat by Israel, so in order to prevent them from waving war you have to actually reduce their ability to, not just their desire.

                      No, it's more than that. They're demonstrating that Israel is weaker than ever, both militarily and domestically. Just compare 2021 and right now. In 2021, the iron dome was partially effective as a countermeasure against rockets (although the fact that it was only partially effective and not have a "95% interception rate" was itself a victory). But now, the iron dome is completely out of the picture, mostly misfiring and being useless since the Palestinians are no longer relying exclusively on rockets. In 2021, there wasn't much ground troops from the Palestinians while now, they are merking Israeli soldiers at military bases and commandeering Israeli tanks. At the geopolitical front, Israel's allies are weaker than before while the Palestinians' allies are stronger than before. The French is getting chased out of the Sahel and the much-anticipated counteroffensive in Ukraine turned out to be a dud. Now is the time to strike. In terms of weapons, I didn't remember much drone use by the Palestinians in 2021, but now drones are everywhere, blowing up tanks and merking Israeli soldiers. Israeli domestic politics is more of a clusterfuck right now than in 2021. There will of course be a rallying behind the flag, but that domestic unity will complete crumble when hostilities end, which will further weaken Israel and set the stage for another Palestinian offensive. Israeli propaganda game is also weaker compared with 2021, mostly because they got caught off guard and 2021 punctured much of their PR.

                      There's a qualitative leap between what we saw in 2021 and what we're seeing in 2023. Even the Israeli response was harsher in 2021 with more bombed buildings, bombed hospitals, and bombed cemeteries within the same time frame than right now. Why? Because Israel is weaker in 2023 than 2021.

                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                        ·
                        1 year ago

                        Even the Israeli response was harsher in 2021 with more bombed buildings, bombed hospitals, and bombed cemeteries within the same time frame than right now. Why? Because Israel is weaker in 2023 than 2021.

                        Israel has initiated a full mobilization and is about to launch a ground invasion. Maybe, at the end of all the suffering and death on the Palestinians, they'll be a better position and that fact may be worth celebrating, but the only thing absolutely certain right now is that you're going to see somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 dead Palestians at the end of this, so the score is definitively bad at this stage, and there is no cause for celebration.

                                    • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
                                      ·
                                      edit-2
                                      1 year ago

                                      Yes you are, you just go about it in a smug disaffected and condescending manner where you act above it all. Then you are now acting like that’s a virtue of yours and not yet another symptom of your privilege and chauvinism.

                                      So odd how you often speak up telling others how they are posting is wrong, and it’s always on behalf of some centrist/Liberal/imperialist topic. There are things you will not abide, such as slurs or islamophobia or “celebration of violence” - you do act moralistically about these particular topics. Yet when it comes to the primary contradiction suddenly nothing matters again. How convenient how everything lines up exactly as one would expect for a chauvinist

                                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                        ·
                                        edit-2
                                        1 year ago

                                        I'm not above this conflict, I'm away from it, all of us are. I don't have the arrogance to believe I'm involved in it as part of some cyber front like you apparently do.

                                        You want to take the Palestinians struggle and claim it as yours despite not having any skin in the game and without any acknowledgement of the real human toll it's going to have. You're not at any risk, so yeah, I am going to open up my liberal maw when I see it treated like a football match.

                                        • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
                                          ·
                                          edit-2
                                          1 year ago

                                          I don’t think I’m in some cyber front, but you think being thousands of miles from a conflict gives you a right to both sides and take the chauvinist position. It’s the quintessential chauvinist error of the western left and you just can’t stop doing it. You are addicted to being wrong on imperialism.

                                          Real Palestinians are cheering. Westoid shits like you are whinging. You have no perspective as to what you are

                    • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
                      ·
                      1 year ago

                      You hate Palestinians standing up for themselves instead of quietly getting choked out over decades. You do have to have a viable alternative if you are gonna shit on Palestinian resistance, unlike what you stated. You are an idealist

                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                        ·
                        edit-2
                        1 year ago

                        quietly getting choked out over decades

                        I fail to see how getting it over with in one mass slaughter is an improvement. Look if you're going to use your political ends to justify violent slaughter of civilians, you have to have a plausible path forward to showing how it achieves your political ends. So I'm telling you right now, walk me through this. How does today get us closer to Palestinians liberation? If you can't or won't do that, I'm absolutely going to treat you as though your just a spectator at a horrific sporting match.

                        You do have to have a viable alternative if you are gonna shit on Palestinian resistance, unlike what you stated

                        I in fact, do not have to. Just because this shit plan is the only one being discussed at the moment doesn't mean I have to pretend it isn't shit.

                        • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
                          ·
                          1 year ago

                          Hamas and Palestinian forces on the ground know the conditions and stakes better than you do. They have made their decision. It is not your role to question it, only to support it. You have a really hard time accepting your role and instead you want to be an idealist from the heavens, I have interacted with you before and I know this is how you are.

                          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                            ·
                            edit-2
                            1 year ago

                            Hamas and Palestinian forces on the ground know the conditions and stakes better than you do.

                            They know them differently, but considering they're not operating from the same political or moral framework as leftists, being specifically islamist, I don't feel the need to defer to their views on the matter.

                            your role to question it, only to support it.

                            No one here is supporting it, they're posting about it on a shit posting website. My role in the shit posting charade is to shitpost whatever I feel like.

                            instead you want to be an idealist from the heavens

                            Two nimrods argued in the heavens and the former was better than the latter because the former actually thought he was helping in battle.

                            • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
                              ·
                              1 year ago

                              No one here is supporting it, they're posting about it on a shit posting website. My role in the shit posting charade is to shitpost whatever I feel like.

                              You always use this “it’s just posting none of it actually matters” defense to defend your half-baked liberalism and imperialist both-sidesism. If posting doesn’t matter, why can’t you post correctly instead of like a Liberal coward?

                                • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
                                  ·
                                  1 year ago

                                  Haha so funny, dodge the point like always and retreat to your smug chamber of “nothing matters but I need to speak up all the time to talk about how nothing matters”

                                  Seriously you should take your own motto more seriously and shut the fuck up

                                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                    ·
                                    edit-2
                                    1 year ago

                                    Look, when people start popping corks in the prelude to 10,000 dead Palesitans, I'm going to open up my gaping maw of liberalism and you're just going to have to come to terms with that fact, if you can be bothered when you're not busy celebrating the imminent deaths of 10,000 Palestians for no foreseeable gain.

                        • ferristriangle [he/him]
                          ·
                          edit-2
                          1 year ago

                          I fail to see how getting it over with in one mass slaughter is an improvement.

                          I'm failing to see how your concern trolling is particularly relevant to the question of whether or not we should be expressing support for Palestinian resistance.

                          Your protestations can basically be summed up as "I know what's best for the Palestinians and their resistance better than they know themselves. Our job as distant observers should not be to support the decisions that those resisting oppression have made, we should instead concern ourselves with armchair quarterbacking and second guessing them out of an abundance of caution that we might end up backing the wrong horse and get egg on our faces."

                          You don't seem to be in possession of any specialized knowledge that would make you a higher authority on matters of strategy and tactics than the people actually organizing a resistance movement who have access to all the same information that you do plus an entire life of living in those conditions and an intimate familiarity with the on the ground reality. This isn't a rogue group doing some adventurism, this is an effort organized across several different Palestinian resistance groups who will have already discussed the exact concerns you're bringing up before committing to a joint plan of action.

                          I'll listen to your concerns about whether there is a more effective strategy for resistance once you are the one putting your life on the line. In the mean time, I'm going to assume that the people who are actually living through that struggle have a better grasp on their situation than I do, and I'm not going to treat it like it's my job to second guess them.

                          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                            ·
                            1 year ago

                            I'm not telling the Palestinian resistors anything, I'm telling everyone here who is repeating the exact same folly celebrating at the breakout of ever hostility that has played out throughout history that there excitement and celebration is premature.

                            It's the same "we'll whip johnny reb and send him crying" arrogance and disconnection that absolutely destroyed morale when it turned out into a bloody years long slog. Literally tens of thousands of Palestinians are about to die and pointing that out has a lot of piss babies here up in arms because I'm yuking their yum.

                            • ferristriangle [he/him]
                              ·
                              1 year ago

                              You are once again conflating messages of support with celebration.

                              Yes there will be horror. There has been horror for the past several decades. Resistance is an act of hope. No one engages in resistance because they are under some false pretense that they will come out unscathed, but because what they are fighting for is worth the sacrifice.

                              So it falls incredibly flat for you to come in here and tell people "Why are you sharing in the hopefulness displayed by the people resisting? Don't you know how much sacrifice they are risking?!?!"

                              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                ·
                                1 year ago

                                This is what I responded to.

                                listen bro being happy there had finally been any kind of response to the regular killings of Palestinian civilians is fucked up bro we need to weep for the lost Israeli souls as well bro c'mon bro

                                Not support. The right to loudly be 'happy'. There are 300 other people in this thread expressing support for Palestine and I haven't said a peep against any of them. One can and many have shown support without acting like it's Christmas morning and that there are nothing but candy and nuts on the horizon.

                                • ferristriangle [he/him]
                                  ·
                                  1 year ago

                                  Oh, so you didn't actually find some celebrating to reply to, you found someone mocking someone else for their both sidesism and used the word happy as the slightest bit of pretext to go on a comment spree ranting about people celebrating the loss of life.

                                  I'm sorry, your moral crusade is so clear to me now.

                                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                    ·
                                    1 year ago

                                    Look if no on is happy then don't worry about me, but given I'm getting the exact same "let people have their treats" response doesn't do much to convince me that's the case.

                                    • ferristriangle [he/him]
                                      ·
                                      1 year ago

                                      I guess I just don't understand what end you hope to achieve by policing people having a positive response to resistance against genocide and colonization.

                                      Are you just hoping to extol the virtues of stoicism?

                                      Because the point you keep trying to make over and over again is "you shouldn't be happy, do you know that resisting oppression will actually incite even more oppression?"

                                      Which is barely half a step away from a general defeatist attitude. Your position is basically "You're allowed to show support, but remember to couch it in extreme pessimism about the hopelessness of ever changing the world for the better." With friends like that, who needs enemies?

                                      I just don't understand why that's the hill you're choosing to die on. The most charitable interpretation I have is that you just picked a bad position to defend, and you need to stop trying to post through it

                                      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                        ·
                                        1 year ago

                                        I'm extolling the virtue of sobriety, not stoicism. This isn't a football game where we get to cheer when good team score and bad team fumble. These are real lives at stake, and we should actually wait to see that this current uprising improves their lives before we decide it actually was a good thing.

                                        If Israel launches a ground invasion (which they will) and kills 200,000 Palestinians, and you ask us "was this good" everyone here will rightly answer no. That won't stop the uprising from being justified and understandable, but it will from being good.

                                        Liberationary struggle is not hopeless, that's clearly evidenced throughout history, but pretending every revolutionary act of violence no matter how ineffectual it is is good is exactly how you breed adventurism. We know this in a leftist context I don't know why it's so hard to transfer that to a Palestinian context.

                                        • ferristriangle [he/him]
                                          ·
                                          1 year ago

                                          You're just using the logic that rationalizes pessimism as a virtue.

                                          "If I'm pessimistic and I'm right then I avoid disappointment, but if I'm pessimistic and I'm wrong then I can be pleasantly surprised."

                                          Which, if that's the the worldview you want to adhere to them more power to you. But if the only thing at stake is whether or not you have egg on your face for something that is incredibly good and justified in principle but might maybe later turn out to have been a blunder tactically, then I don't see what's so important about making sure everyone else is as pessimistic as you choose to be.

                                          The "real lives at stake" will be at stake no matter how we feel about it, because our input has literally no bearing on how Palestinians choose to resist. And I don't see how second guessing the people who are putting their lives at stake is the more principled stance to take which you must endure everyone adheres to. The fact they have enough hope and revolutionary optimism to take action despite suffering under decades of genocide occupation is itself worthy of hope and optimism.

                                          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                            ·
                                            1 year ago

                                            I don't see how "wait and see" is pessimism. There are lots of immediate consequences that can be reasonable inferred (like the death toll from a Israeli land invasion), and those immediate consequences are on the whole bad, so a realistic, not pessimist take on the situation is that the next few days are going to be very unpleasant for the Palestinians even if they do achieve strategic victories in the end. Maybe I'm taking a more consequentialist tack than you, but a move that is justified on principles but strategically folly is still a bad deal in the end.

                                            The "real lives at stake" will be at stake no matter how we feel about it, because our input has literally no bearing on how Palestinians choose to resist.

                                            At least we agree on that.

                                            • ferristriangle [he/him]
                                              ·
                                              1 year ago

                                              I don't see how "wait and see"

                                              I don't see how "wait and see" is so important of a principle that you must ensure everyone adheres to it.

                                              but a move that is justified on principles but strategically folly is still a bad deal in the end.

                                              But you don't have any special knowledge to evaluate whether it's a bad deal at this current moment. That's what's I'm describing as pessimism, and that pessimism is no more justified than optimism is.

                                              To say that we all must share that pessimism does not seem to be necessary as a matter of principle, especially when the people who are putting their lives on the line clearly must have some degree of revolutionary optimism themselves or else they would not have acted. And they are in a much better position to judge whether their course of action is strategically sound than you or I are in.

                                              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]
                                                ·
                                                edit-2
                                                1 year ago

                                                must ensure everyone adheres to it.

                                                I don't get to ensure everyone adheres to it, but if someone asks the hypothetical "why shouldn't I be happy about this right now", I'm going to chime in.

                                                But you don't have any special knowledge to evaluate whether it's a bad deal at this current moment

                                                The bad aspects are baked into the cake. The only thing certain right now is that Israel is about to kill thousands of Palestinians, and I take it that we both agree on that. That's going to happen whether or not they achieve any strategic aims. It's not pessimism to acknowledge that any gains are going to have a steep cost, and that such gains are no where near as certain as the cost. Maybe they will come out on top, but they've taken a gamble and I don't feel bad for saying we should wait to see which side the coin comes up before celebrating.

              • Staines [they/them]
                ·
                1 year ago

                If I was a civilian benefiting from and supporting an apartheid regime, it would be very tragic for the brutal savages we keep locked up in a city sized cage to escape and kill me.

              • GodDamnAmercia [he/him]
                ·
                1 year ago

                No, only the dead Jews/Communists/Slavs/Roma/Disabled/ are a tragedy, the Germans deserve whatever they get because they aren't people

          • Kuori [she/her]
            ·
            1 year ago

            yeah how about you prove it if you're going to accuse people here of being bloodthirsty monsters? "c'mon man" isn't very compelling

      • ProxyTheAwesome [comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Why are you taking this moment to start up your little civility lib crusade against hexbears? Seriously shut the fuck up

      • edge [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Literally no one here would be disappointed at that.

      • Lemmygradwontallowme [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Quick question though, if Israel's gov't was gone and replaced, would it be better to name it "Palestine" or "Israel-Palestine" to be more inclusive, like how Rhodesia was once temporarily "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia"... ?

      • GivingEuropeASpook [they/them, comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I can only come to the same conclusion. Its one thing to attack a military checkpoint directly on the border with your territory, heck it's even another thing to occupy the territory of your oppressors, but I don't see how anyone can excuse going out of your way to target random civilians in their homes or to shoot at any moving human you can see.

        • CarmineCatboy [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Its one thing to attack a military checkpoint directly on the border with your territory

          The palestinians do not have territory. They do not have borders to defend nor any standing as human beings before the regime in Tel Aviv. They live in open air concentration camps under permanent blockade of water, supplies and electricty. It's not surprising that you enjoy misrepresenting the conflict given that your only recourse so far has been a knee jerk reaction to anyone who even so much smells as pro palestinian.

      • CarmineCatboy [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        'rooting for the underdog in a war' is a rather inhuman way of putting it. this isn't a sports game. this is a reaction to a monstrous apartheid regime.

          • CarmineCatboy [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Yes, you're the one acting like with levity towards every murdered palestinian in this decades long american-israeli war of extermination.

            'what am i to say to this injured occupier family i've seen in every news media around the world?' 'oh no the minorities will be really genocided now they shouldn't have reacted!' 'what will they tell that poor occupation soldier's family?? this will only make them more vengeful!'. gaslight after gaslight. we've heard it all before. from ireland to pretoria.