this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
280 points (94.0% liked)

World News

38522 readers
2303 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

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 !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


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
[–] ButtermilkBiscuit@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I disagree that state actions can't be considered terrorism, even given the overwhelming power differential. Israel has and continues to conduct terrorist acts in this "war", which makes them a terrorist state in my thinking. Just because they give press conferences in the nightly news, or conduct air strikes, or poses advanced weapons my taxes paid for doesn't make it less terroristic.

They've wrapped a terrorist campaign in the trappings of a traditional war to convince us they're not terrorists, but I believe they are. If their actions are not terrorism, what do we call it? It's clearly not a war as you point out. It's also more than just state violence, the entire campaign is genocidal but at the same time their tactics are those of terrorists.

Incidents like killing civilians waving white flags in the street with impunity highlight this. It's not just in Gaza this is happening in the west bank as well. It's not about a specific political group, many Israelis just hate all Palestinians and kill them where they find them. That's how terrorists behave.

I'd argue that not distinguishing between regular forces and civilians is another classic tactic of terrorists. Israel is famous for this, their penchant for collective punushment bears that out. Blowing up apartment buildings to get one Hamas commander, knocking down your family home and annexing your land because your cousin launched a rocket or whatever other atrocious shit they've done this week.

Concocking false pretenses to commit war crimes is another terrorist tendency, although I'm sure the IDF will find that command bunker under a hospital any day now.

Another example stands out to me in this conflict, if you starve a single ethnic or religious group because they don't believe in the same imaginary sky god you do, that's terrorism. When you operate an apartheid state and your population subjugates a different ethnic group in every aspect of life due to their beliefs, that's terrorism. When you conduct a "war" that kills mostly civilians, women, and children, that's terrorism.

All of these terrorist tactics set the pretext for genocide, which is what we're witnessing I agree fully on that. My take on Israel is you gotta call a spade a spade, and Israel is a terrorist state.