[tovej]

How can you claim this with a straight face, when Israel has slaughtered Palestinians like cattle every chance they have. And when they're not killing them with direct violence, they are robbing them of basic necessities and human dignity.

And how can you claim October 7th wasn't an act if war? The main thrust of the attacks were targeting military installations. Much more than Israeli actions in Gaza before or since, which have clearly been done in service of genocide since Israel was created.

The Palestinian genocide has not been a regular war, it has been an absolute extermination campaign that is still ongoing.

[dijit]

"The main thrust targeted military installations"— of 1,139 confirmed dead, 828 were civilians. That's 72%. They also massacred 364 people at a music festival, which Hamas later described as a "coincidence" because they "may have thought" ravers were soldiers "resting". That's the defence you're endorsing.

Nobody serious disputes that Gaza's suffering is real or that Israel's conduct warrants scrutiny. But "genocide since Israel was created" is doing a lot of work for you; the ICJ found Palestinian rights were "plausibly" at risk, not that 1948 was a genocide.

Words mean things. Overreaching doesn't help the people you're claiming to defend, it just makes it easier for the other side to dismiss everything else you say.

[Cyph0n]

So the best you can say about Israel’s conduct over the course of the past 2.5 years is that it “warrants scrutiny”?

And if you want to play the number of victims game, even pre Oct 7 one side has always had it significantly worse than the other. After all, one side is a sovereign state that has a technologically advanced military, an air force, a navy, and air defense systems.

[holmesworcester]

A reminder: Israel counts Hamas soldiers as military targets, even when they are out of uniform and in civilian life.

If we apply the civilized world's standards of war then yes, Israelis who are also off-duty soldiers or reservists don't count as military targets.

If we apply Israel's standards, however, they are.

Are Gazans not allowed to apply the same standards to their adversaries that their adversaries openly apply to them? Would you be this courteous, in their position?