Believe it or not, I’m doing the responsible thing and starting a new thread, so as not to derail the Ukraine thread.

At the end of the day, we have 2 similar stories of territorial infringement and slaughter by oppressors… so why the disparity?

If you're 🇺🇦 but not 🇵🇸, ask yourself why. pic.twitter.com/mzAxzfK8yQ

— Protest Stencil (@protestencil) August 7, 2022

I think you’ve grown as a person.

[thread closed as a duplicate]

Good post btw, they are such big and extremely serious topics, that although they have parallels and links with parties involved one inevitably drowns out the other. Particularly so when the topics are, as emotive as these.

Moved from the other thread.

I’ve yet to see an example of using the word “terrorism” do anything other than expose the prejudices of the writer.

There are formal definitions of terrorism. Off the top of my head, I think it requires that targets be non-military and that the aim is to affect policy by inducing fear or terror.

The destruction of the World Trade Center is one very clear act of terrorism. On the same day, the Pentagon was also attacked. That’s a bit trickier because it’s a legitimate military target, but the hijacking of a civilian airliner and crashing it is terrorism. If the attackers had attacked the Pentagon with a missile instead, I would say it’s not terrorism.

Attacking Israeli soldiers on duty is similarly not terrorism in my book (which doesn’t mean it’s not a crime, just not terrorism), but Israeli soldiers also have the right to shoot back, that’s not a crime as long as they are firing at armed attackers, not indiscriminately at civilians. Firing rockets indiscriminately into Israeli cities is very clearly terrorism. The people who do it are textbook examples of terrorists.

Serious answer: it’s not an area of great knowledge for me.

Russia invading Ukraine was relatively new, clearly unprovoked, and all over the news. There is very clearly The Goodies and The Baddies.

Palestine, I know I should probably educate myself but I genuinely don’t have a clue what’s going on or why. War is not a topic that is generally a great deal of interest for me and I engaged with politics relatively late having avoided it for most of my life (that’s probably the one positive thing to come out of 2016).

Closer to home, I mentioned this recently in another thread but I’m utterly ignorant of Irish history. But that’s probably a topic for another thread.

The west still feels guilty about the holocaust and Israel have managed to argue that their offensive is justified on protectionist grounds?

You must clearly be aware of the differences, a quick read of the history on the Wiki page would clear that up for you.

They come from a different place, and quite some time ago. The original issue was caused by a third party (the British) and regardless of the morals of that, the fact that militant groups keep lobbing rockets into Israel allows observers to equivocate about the right to defend your territory on both sides.

I think it requires that targets be non-military and that the aim is to affect policy by inducing fear or terror.

Which would put shooting children, unarmed protesters and journalists, seizing property and land and bulldozing houses of “suspects” into the terrorism ambit?

Is killing nuclear scientists terrorism?

The Israeli government and military have been engaged in terrorism for years, it’s hypocrisy to say otherwise, ymmv.

Thols is doing his usual and swallowing the propaganda whole with his thoughts on Palestine. He’s miles off.

Perhaps if the Palestinians formed a recognized army they could fight back without risking the terrorism label.

Oh…

The State of Palestine has no land army, nor an air force or a navy. The Palestinian Security Services (PSS, not to confuse with Preventive Security Service) do not dispose over heavy weapons and advanced military equipment like tanks.

In the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, Israel has consistently demanded that the Palestinian state would always be demilitarized. Israeli negotiators demanded to keep Israeli troops in the West Bank, to maintain control of Palestinian airspace, and to dictate exactly what weapons could and could not be purchased by the Palestinian security forces.[4] In June 2009 at Bar-Ilan University, Benyamin Netanyahu said: ″We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarised

To address the OP’s question, there may be some similarities between Palestine and Ukraine, but there are very important differences. Trying to fit every problem into one box just does not work.

Ukraine is a sovereign nation that is a member of the U.N. They had established borders and treaties with Russia. Russia launched an unprovoked attack and their military strategy is quite literally just terrorism – they are destroying Ukrainian cities, torturing, murdering, raping, and kidnapping Ukrainians. There really isn’t a more clear-cut case of an unprovoked attack on an innocent neighbor.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for over 70 years. The Jewish side won the first war back in 1948 and created Israel. That’s been recognized by pretty much every other country and is a UN member. That left a huge problem of displaced Palestinians. Arab nations initially refused to recognize the existence of Israel and there were major wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973. Israel won all those, if they had lost any single one, Israel would have been wiped from the map, something that Israelis are extremely conscious of. The 1973 war started very badly for Israel before they regrouped and defeated the Arab armies. After that, Israel realized that they would never be able to trust other countries to guarantee their security so they built atomic weapons. Whatever you think about that, that is Israel’s guarantee that they won’t be invaded again.

In the decades since, other middle-eastern countries realized that they just had to accept the fact of Israel’s existence however much they might hate it. That left the problem of the Palestinians, who have been treated by pawns by everyone, not just Israel. Once the Arab countries started recognizing Israel, the PLO position that Israel must be destroyed was no longer remotely possible. So, the PLO and Israel began working towards some sort of peace settlement. That was derailed by hard-liners on both sides. Quite justifiably, the right-wing Israelis are criticized for their constant provocations and theft of Palestinian land.

The problem here is that there is no Palestinian state (massive difference from the Ukrainian situation) and some of the Palestinian leaders still claim to want to destroy Israel. They keep launching attacks on Israeli civilians, which is a war-crime.

So, the situation is different in very important ways from Ukraine. Palestine is not a sovereign state (which doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be, just that it isn’t). Many Palestinians refuse to acknowledge that Israel has any right to exist, so their policy is genocide, which is a crime against humanity. Ukraine recognizes Russia as a sovereign nation and isn’t trying to destroy it and isn’t launching indiscriminate attacks on Russian civilians.

That’s not to say that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians isn’t horrible, but there are some very important differences between the situations. The support for Ukraine is because they are unambiguously victims of aggression. The situation in Palestine is much more ambiguous and Palestinians are constantly attacking Israeli civilians.

Which would put shooting children, unarmed protesters and journalists, seizing property and land and bulldozing houses of “suspects” into the terrorism ambit?

Not every crime is terrorism. Collective punishment is, I believe, considered a crime. That doesn’t mean it’s terrorism. Bulldozing a building used by terrorists (or even legitimate combatants) isn’t terrorism.

Is killing nuclear scientists terrorism?

If they’re working on a nuclear weapons program, it’s not terrorism. Doesn’t mean it’s not a crime. Not every crime is terrorism.

The Jewish side won the first war back in 1948 and created Israel

So you’ll be supporting russian claims to territory won when this war calms down and Russia tries to assert its form of might is right?

So you’ll be supporting russian claims to territory won when this war calm down and Russia tries to assert its form of might is right?

No, because there weren’t recognized sovereign states in Palestine at the time. The war was fought over the creation of a state, not changing the borders of existing states.

The situation in Ukraine and Palestine are not the same, there are very important differences. Just asserting that they are the same is not useful in any way.

They are very different aye. Russia isn’t quite at the stage where it blockades a very large open air prison.

A blockade is an act of war btw.

They’re very similar situations, particularly since Ukraine declared that it refused to recognise the right of Russia to exist and committed itself to its complete destruction

Oh… hang on a minute…

Off the top of my head, I think it requires that targets be non-military and that the aim is to affect policy by inducing fear or terror.

So – Hiroshima, Berlin, Dresden etc etc.

Not every crime is terrorism. Collective punishment is, I believe, considered a crime. That doesn’t mean it’s terrorism. Bulldozing a building used by terrorists (or even legitimate combatants) isn’t terrorism.

So why make a big deal about Palestinian “terrorism”.

CPS defines, from a UK legal perspective, terrorism as

The use or threat must also be for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

The specific actions included are:

serious violence against a person;
serious damage to property;
endangering a person’s life (other than that of the person committing the action);
creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public; and
action designed to seriously interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

Israeli activity would seem to be state terrorism using that definition

So – Hiroshima, Berlin, Dresden etc etc.

Yep. Terror bombing. After WW2, people looked at what happened with horror and set about defining things like that as war crimes. I guess the Russians didn’t get the memo.

Neither did many others

Careful now. Any criticism of Israel is classed as antisemitism.

Yep. Terror bombing. After WW2, people looked at what happened with horror and set about defining things like that as war crimes. I guess the Russians didn’t get the memo.

I think Vietnam was post-WW2 ? Not just the Russians not reading their mail.

Israeli activity would seem to be state terrorism using that definition

Israel is very careful to target people who they can point to as posing a danger. Killing someone who is attacking you is not terrorism.

I suspect Israel thinks they are being clever about this, I personally think it’s counter-productive. They basically come out with plausible legal arguments that often push common-sense to the limit and it makes them look bad. However, they do seem to put quite a lot of thought into limiting their actions to things that a lawyer can argue is justified.

Russia and the extremist Palestinians have a different policy. They just announce that they don’t accept that their opponents have any right to exist so the laws don’t apply. Murdering Israeli civilians isn’t seen as any sort of crime because they aren’t acknowledged as having any right to exist anyway. Same with Ukrainian civilians.

I think Vietnam was post-WW2 ? Not just the Russians not reading their mail.

Yep, Vietnam was a catastrophe of America’s own doing. It pretty much broke the U.S. military. Doesn’t make Russia’s war crimes acceptable though.

Israel is very careful to target people who they can point to as posing a danger.

OK – at, this point the discussion stops having any value, if indeed it ever had any value. If you’re just going to make stuff up that flies in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, there’s just no point continuing.

Careful now. Any criticism of Israel is classed as antisemitism.

Nope. Criticizing Israeli policy and advocating for change is perfectly fine. Calling for the destruction of Israel (which means genocide) is not.

” I have in my hand a piece of paper”

If you’re just going to make stuff up that flies in the face of clear evidence to the contrary

The problem here is that Israel is trying to be too clever. They put lawyers on the job and look for legal justifications. It runs counter to commonsense and it makes Israel look bad, but it makes it difficult or impossible to actually bring a legal case because they have checked all the legal boxes.

Neither side is close to genocide. One side is killing an awful lot more people.

So – Hiroshima, Berlin, Dresden etc etc.

I think it’s very difficult to look at those events in isolation and label them, certainly events like Hiroshima need to be looked at from a perspective of 5 years of continuous war against an opponent showing no signs of surrendering and every indication that they would continue the fight until the bitter end. On the day Tokyo was firebombed for instance (itself a controversial event) it’s been estimated that Japanese forces murdered at least 100,000 -120,000 civilians in areas that they occupied.

Dresden similarly. Looking back at records at the time, after 6 years of war with Germany, decisions with regards to it’s military significance, the approaching Russian army, and the public’s willingness to see area bombing continue, you can see the logical steps that it takes to get to point where the destruction of Dresden is acceptable.

In either case, I’m not excusing them, I’m just attempting to highlight that it’s somewhat easy with hindsight to look at these events and make decisions about them that were different at the time, and less useful than a fuller understanding of the events of the time that led to those decision.

” I have in my hand a piece of paper”

Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was wildly popular…right up until the point that it wasn’t

I think it’s very difficult to look at those events in isolation and label them

True, but there is no hesitation in labelling the actions of desparate people after DECADES of struggle

In either case, I’m not excusing them, I’m just attempting to highlight that it’s somewhat easy with hindsight to look at these events and make decisions about them that were different at the time, and less useful that a fuller understanding of the events of the time that led to those decision.

I’m just saying that calling something “terrorism” serves no useful purpose. Hiroshima fits the bill as terrorism, but is excused by some people along the lines you mention. Killing people is bad. There isn’t some sort of special killing that we do that is different. Killing a child because someone of the same race made some idiotic speech about rights to exist or whatever is still an evil crime.

Simple fact when it comes to Israel, is that Israel holds all the cards, it utterly dominates Gaza with the blockade and in the West Bank it’s going about the slow enchroachment of settler building and straight up theft of the land.

There is no possible 2 state solution. Israel won’t let ‘Palestine’ live a normal existence.

So if Israel wants the land. It should take the people and immediately institute 1 vote 1 person across Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

There really isn’t another solution to this.

Otherwise it’s a straight up fascist state, operating a couple of open air prisons that it needs to quell once in a while, imo.

There really isn’t another solution to this.

Well the solution favoured by the Israelis is to do as you say, but without the troublesome democracy bit.

I’m just saying that calling something “terrorism” serves no useful purpose.

Having a legal definition of terrorism as opposed to legal acts of war is extremely useful. Using terrorism to mean anything you disapprove of corrodes that, just like calling anyone you disagree with a fascist corrodes the true meaning of fascism.

An important thing here is that war isn’t a war crime. Nations are allowed to conduct war under some conditions (self-defense is the obvious case), so killing enemy combatants is not a war crime and it’s not terrorism. Killing civilians accidentally while fighting enemy combatants is not a war crime either. If the enemy puts an artillery battery in a school, you are allowed to target the artillery battery. It was the enemy’s responsibility to clear civilians away from the area. Other things are not legitimate violence. The torture, rape, murder etc. that Russia is inflicting on Ukrainian civilians has no direct military purpose, it done as a policy of terrorizing Ukrainian citizens. Utterly clear-cut case of war crimes and an illustration of why having legal definitions is necessary to separate (legal) war from war crimes.

Otherwise it’s a straight up fascist state imo.

You don’t know what fascism means. Not every bad or authoritarian government is fascist.

What is the legal position on war when you don’t have an army?

Perhaps if the Palestinians formed a recognized army they could fight back without risking the terrorism label.

Oh…

The State of Palestine has no land army, nor an air force or a navy. The Palestinian Security Services (PSS, not to confuse with Preventive Security Service) do not dispose over heavy weapons and advanced military equipment like tanks.

In the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, Israel has consistently demanded that the Palestinian state would always be demilitarized. Israeli negotiators demanded to keep Israeli troops in the West Bank, to maintain control of Palestinian airspace, and to dictate exactly what weapons could and could not be purchased by the Palestinian security forces.[4] In June 2009 at Bar-Ilan University, Benyamin Netanyahu said: ″We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarised

Israel is very careful to target people who they can point to as posing a danger.

You must be trolling? How many children have been killed this week alone?

thols2
Free Member
Otherwise it’s a straight up fascist state imo.

You don’t know what fascism means. Not every bad or authoritarian government is fascist.

We are seeing the subjugation of millions of people, mate, that’s Fascism.

I’m just saying that calling something “terrorism” serves no useful purpose

Personally i can see both sides of the argument, you could quite clearly draw an non-equivalence between actions designed to simply terrorize citizens an an otherwise largely peaceful environment to affect sociological change, under that definition events like 9/11 and the Tokyo firebombing are clearly different. However you could also argue that there are also such similarities to some events perpetrated in warfare as to make the distinction worthless. See Operation Phoenix in Vietnam and say; Operation Anthropoid in WW2

If we’re being honest about it, the separator is time. Look at the way books about Julius Caesar’s genocide in Gaul or Genghis Khan’s invasions of just about anywhere, are written. Writing in similar ways about Hitler or Stalin or Mao would appear to be grotesque to us, I’ll bet money that give it 500 years and the history will be written differently.