Oddbean

thought experiment for you: if you are a Palestinian and say "boy it sure sucks Israeli bombs are destroying my family and home" does that lead to Israel deliberately targeting you for retribution? no. Does saying "fuck Hamas" on camera as a Palestinian result in reprisal? probably. you can't judge people based solely on abstractions like you have when those people are caught in a hellish dictatorship cauldron. You would behave exactly as they are if you were caught in similar circumstances

It’s not a dictatorship cauldron as much as it’s simply a barbaric death-cult, a political tool for foreign regimes to strike the only non-islamic country in the region as part of their religious fantasies. Gaza is not North Korea. Many of them worked in Israel and were open to western media, they have seen the world and still choose political Islam over the alternatives, just like many of their brothers that migrated to Europe. The symmetric approach, that people actions are only a result of their environment, leaves no room for discussion. If you were born a Viking you probably would have become a Viking… well I don’t expect much from kids but I want to believe that as an adult, that knows better, I would have acted like those brave Iranians that spray graffiti, burn propaganda street signs and film themselves in secret. Instead, the adults rally their kids like this: https://x.com/themossadil/status/1802394628513206411 (and this was filmed in Tulkarm in the West Bank under the PLO, the so called “moderates” that Biden wants us to make peace with, located here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wWP56eZht895MfP38 ).

Meh, a democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, rights for women and (not perfect) rights for homosexuals - makes one side better than the other (and better than regimes ruling hundreds of millions of people around us).

Fact is, israel attack free speach Jeremy loffredo arrested for journalism, for example. No i did not have been in israel. Too barbarick death cult for me to feel safe in there. Civilians are civilians. You cant kill them just because you declar them as part of some sort of “subhuman” civiliasation in your eyes. When you ask “which civilisation are those civilians part of” you just make a proof that you are part of barbaric death cult.