Hey that was an excellent response and I appreciate it - good faith arguments are few and far between here. To your points I disagree with one and agree with one.
I don’t think Israel has any responsibility in preventing Hamas from recruiting child soldiers. If it was an internal terrorist group under Israel’s jurisdiction, my opinion would flip. As an example, the US is responsible for preventing the Proud Boys from recruiting children, but are not responsible for Mexican cartels doing so.
To your second point, Israel absolutely is required to treat child soldiers as victims from the moment they are captured, surrender, or are meaningfully “separated” from Hamas. I haven’t seen any evidence of this and personally doubt they are doing so. If we discover minors being interrogated in POW camps, that’s going to be a huge problem.
. If it was an internal terrorist group under Israel’s jurisdiction, my opinion would flip.
Palestinians are not sovereign so I think that means they are under Israel’s jurisdiction. Gaza is a ghetto under Israel’s control and Israel doesn’t even recognize Hamas as a government, so that goes doubly for them.
. If we discover minors being interrogated in POW camps, that’s going to be a huge problem.
Just speaking to your first point, prior to the invasion Israel was not in control of or administering Gaza. They had withdrawn 20 years prior and Gaza was operating independently albeit subject to blockades and trade interference. That’s why we call it an invasion - they’re literally at war to gain control. I don’t think it’s fair to hold Israel responsible for policing Hamas’s internal recruitment policies during that period.
Israel had a records of all births, deaths, where people live, what jobs they have, and intimate knowledge of their personal relationships and politics. They controlled all imports and exports, to such a degree that they restricted the amount of food flowing into Gaza by counting the amount of calories needed to sustain the population. They control fuel, water, electricity, waste, travel, communications, everything.
Gaza has always been a ghetto, and just because the ghetto is self-administrated doesn’t mean it is sovereign.
I think it is entirely fair to hold Israel accountable for a ghetto that exists almost entirely within its borders.
I actually dispute a lot of that, but I think we can distill this down to a simple question: In your opinion, could Israel stop Hamas from recruiting children without a full-scale war? If not, I think that settles both the sovereignty and responsibility questions.
I believe they could, because if Israel stopped victimizing people in Gaza then Hamas wouldn’t be able to recruit in the first place.
That means ending their superexploitation of Palestinian labor, ending their import controls over Gaza’s essential supplies, and by ending the racist apartheid system within Israel. People join Hamas to fight Israel. If Israel stopped giving them reasons to fight, they would stop.
It sounds like you’d hold Israel responsible for anything Hamas does because you feel Hamas is reacting to Israel’s actions. This implicitly justifies all of Hamas’s actions as “rightful” resistance. I think this both infantilizes Hamas and provides cover for them to do literally anything. If they nuked Paris, is that also Israel’s fault? Is there maybe a middle ground where a group can simultaneously be oppressed and responsible for their own actions?
The middle ground is “Israel shares responsibility for everything Hamas does because Israel created the conditions for Hamas.” Hamas has agency, of course, so that isn’t a free pass for Hamas to do anything without any responsibility. That shared responsibility does implicate Israel in everything Hamas does, because settlers are always responsible for the blowback they create.
I can accept that as we move backwards from effect to cause we can aggregate some level of responsibility, but where does that end? Israel wouldn’t exist without the British, so are they responsible? To what extent is Hitler responsible? Or the Moorish invasion of Spain? Ultimately I guess we end up back in Egypt and it’s the Pharaoh’s fault?
Ultimately Hamas (and the Palestinian people, separately) are making choices and actions that are either appropriate or inappropriate to their situation. I don’t find the use of child soldiers (and historically, child suicide bombers) to be a reasonable response, and so I don’t hold Israel responsible.
And just to show that I am in fact operating in good faith here, I think the great match of return was an appropriate response, and hold Israel responsible for the resulting deaths.
Hey that was an excellent response and I appreciate it - good faith arguments are few and far between here. To your points I disagree with one and agree with one.
I don’t think Israel has any responsibility in preventing Hamas from recruiting child soldiers. If it was an internal terrorist group under Israel’s jurisdiction, my opinion would flip. As an example, the US is responsible for preventing the Proud Boys from recruiting children, but are not responsible for Mexican cartels doing so.
To your second point, Israel absolutely is required to treat child soldiers as victims from the moment they are captured, surrender, or are meaningfully “separated” from Hamas. I haven’t seen any evidence of this and personally doubt they are doing so. If we discover minors being interrogated in POW camps, that’s going to be a huge problem.
Palestinians are not sovereign so I think that means they are under Israel’s jurisdiction. Gaza is a ghetto under Israel’s control and Israel doesn’t even recognize Hamas as a government, so that goes doubly for them.
It’s something that was going on before this latest flare-up in the conflict and wrt recent months they have dramatically increased arbitrary arrests.
I won’t be surprised if more evidence is uncovered by the ICJ or ICC in the coming months.
Just speaking to your first point, prior to the invasion Israel was not in control of or administering Gaza. They had withdrawn 20 years prior and Gaza was operating independently albeit subject to blockades and trade interference. That’s why we call it an invasion - they’re literally at war to gain control. I don’t think it’s fair to hold Israel responsible for policing Hamas’s internal recruitment policies during that period.
Israel had a records of all births, deaths, where people live, what jobs they have, and intimate knowledge of their personal relationships and politics. They controlled all imports and exports, to such a degree that they restricted the amount of food flowing into Gaza by counting the amount of calories needed to sustain the population. They control fuel, water, electricity, waste, travel, communications, everything.
Gaza has always been a ghetto, and just because the ghetto is self-administrated doesn’t mean it is sovereign.
I think it is entirely fair to hold Israel accountable for a ghetto that exists almost entirely within its borders.
I actually dispute a lot of that, but I think we can distill this down to a simple question: In your opinion, could Israel stop Hamas from recruiting children without a full-scale war? If not, I think that settles both the sovereignty and responsibility questions.
I believe they could, because if Israel stopped victimizing people in Gaza then Hamas wouldn’t be able to recruit in the first place.
That means ending their superexploitation of Palestinian labor, ending their import controls over Gaza’s essential supplies, and by ending the racist apartheid system within Israel. People join Hamas to fight Israel. If Israel stopped giving them reasons to fight, they would stop.
It sounds like you’d hold Israel responsible for anything Hamas does because you feel Hamas is reacting to Israel’s actions. This implicitly justifies all of Hamas’s actions as “rightful” resistance. I think this both infantilizes Hamas and provides cover for them to do literally anything. If they nuked Paris, is that also Israel’s fault? Is there maybe a middle ground where a group can simultaneously be oppressed and responsible for their own actions?
The middle ground is “Israel shares responsibility for everything Hamas does because Israel created the conditions for Hamas.” Hamas has agency, of course, so that isn’t a free pass for Hamas to do anything without any responsibility. That shared responsibility does implicate Israel in everything Hamas does, because settlers are always responsible for the blowback they create.
I can accept that as we move backwards from effect to cause we can aggregate some level of responsibility, but where does that end? Israel wouldn’t exist without the British, so are they responsible? To what extent is Hitler responsible? Or the Moorish invasion of Spain? Ultimately I guess we end up back in Egypt and it’s the Pharaoh’s fault?
Ultimately Hamas (and the Palestinian people, separately) are making choices and actions that are either appropriate or inappropriate to their situation. I don’t find the use of child soldiers (and historically, child suicide bombers) to be a reasonable response, and so I don’t hold Israel responsible.
And just to show that I am in fact operating in good faith here, I think the great match of return was an appropriate response, and hold Israel responsible for the resulting deaths.