this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
686 points (93.8% liked)

World News

39149 readers
4018 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] victorz 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

death count isn’t stratospherically higher

You also can't prove how much higher the death toll would actually be, because we're all just speculating fools. You are using an argumentative fallacy, which is "you can't explain why this hypothetical thing isn't occurring" when it doesn't really have to be occurring. Can't remember which that is. Red herring? Straw man? Ah, I can't remember.

Anyway, we're going by what we're seeing, which is the bombing of innocent civilians. Terrible, terrible state of the world right now.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I can’t say exactly how many people they could kill if they were targeting civilians, but I can with certainty say it would be significantly more than have currently died.

They could drop many more bombs and shell the entire strip for weeks. These aren’t hypotheticals - we know they have the armament to do that.

There are around 20,000 people dead - out of almost 800,000 in Gaza. If their goal was a maximizing death, they could have killed significantly more. They certainly have the ammunition and means to do it - and that’s not a hypothetical.

[–] victorz 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're phrasing it too black-and-white. If the "goal was maximizing death" they'd just nuke the site, right? But doing so has other consequences. It's probably much more complex than that. You can't just go all in even if you have the means, even if it accomplishes one of your goals. It's obviously the goal of both sides to exterminate the other, as they openly say so, but there's a process if you want to accomplish your other goals, whatever they might be. Or not cause unnecessary unrelated problems to the land itself if they want to conquer it, etc.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sure - but I’m saying they can do it without nukes. They could have easily ratcheted up to 30,000 or 50,000 with conventional weapons - they could actually carpet bomb the strip.

My point is if they were trying to maximize death they could have kill many more people indiscriminately.

Assymetrical warfare in a densely populated area always is going to have a lot of civilian casualties.

[–] victorz 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Please, would you explain to me what your analysis would be of their actual point of the war, then? Both sides have explicitly claimed that they want the other side exterminated. That's what I see as the point of the war from both sides at face value. But if you know more, please educate me!

If you otherwise agree with that, then surely you could agree that there's a lot of strategy going into warfare, and that maximizing death doesn't have to mean that it has to happen as quickly as possible, because that might not be as efficient, or it might damage things that they value as spoils. Infrastructure, buildings, fertile land... "Maximizing death" doesn't have to be the same as "having one of the goals be to exterminate the people". Because they might have other goals beside that one, e.g. taking over the land, as they have been doing already.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Their stated goals are to rescue hostages and regime change by eliminating Hamas. If the goal is to kill maximum civilians they’re doing a really poor job.

If you just want the land, you just need to move people forcibly or buy it (it’s not like they’re particularly wealthy) and a plan to keep it. If your goal is genocide which so many people suggest, you kinda have to kill them no?

This is part of my problem with all the reactionary takes here - they aren’t consistent with what we’re actually seeing behavior wise.

[–] victorz 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If the goal is to kill maximum civilians they’re doing a really poor job.

Again, you're focusing on it having to be executed in minimum time, and on that being a single goal, but as you say, there are more goals, and some of the goals may need to be accomplished before the others (like rescuing hostages), hence it not happening immediately or... as fast as you personally expect, or something. I also think some goals could be political bullshit, no offense. Just going by how racist both sides are towards each other, and hearing them both say the other side needs to be exterminated... 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Fair enough. There’s a lot of animosity there. But it feels like all of the reactions here are focused on calling it and framing it as a genocide at all costs.