Israel 42,

April 29, 2024,

Hi Everyone,

I am sending the following article to you because the author has responded on paper what I truly believe to be true. I would welcome your comments. 80% of countries that belong to the UN do not have legitimate votes in their own countries. But at the UN, they come and ‘vote’ as a bloc against Israel the only true democracy in the Middle East. I will put this on my blog for all of my followers to read. 

Today I saw videos of tents being put up on the McGill campus, my alma mater, where I am currently a Clinical Lecturer. What does trespassing on private property mean in Canada? The students who are protesting, except for their cries of ‘free Palestine’ would be tied to a pole and whipped if they ever made their ‘woke’ points of view public in a Free Palestine with a Hamas government or in any other Middle East country for that matter. Look at what they have done to women in Iran who rebelled against the religious authorities. Where are the world wide demonstrations against Iran?

Quora

The problem with Antonio Guterres’ statements is that they are deepities.

The term “deepity” was popularized by American philosopher Daniel Dennett, who described it as a statement that sounds thoughtful and profound to someone with a shallow mind, but is in fact trivial and either meaningless or false.

Take, for instance, Guterres’ comment that Hamas’ pogrom did not take place in a vacuum. This is a textbook example of a “deepity”. The carnage Hamas inflicted on Israeli civilians didn’t take place in a vacuum? Really? No shit, Sherlock! Nothing takes place in a vacuum. The founding of the modern nation of Israel didn’t happen in a vacuum. Israel’s stance towards its neighbors and other countries in the Middle East didn’t occur in a vacuum. The Holocaust didn’t happen in a vacuum. World War II didn’t happen in a vacuum. World War I didn’t happen in a vacuum. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t happen in a vacuum. The French Revolution didn’t happen in a vacuum. Every event in human history has a context. Every serial killer, every gore-soaked monster has an origin story full of moral ambiguity and heartbreak. Nothing under the sun — nothing under any star in the cosmos — happens without a reason. Cause-and-effect is one of the most fundamental realities of the universe.

So to begin with, the statement that what Hamas did, it didn’t do it in a vacuum, is breathtakingly trite.

Beyond that, what it insinuates is false. One insinuation is that Hamas and its fighters have no agency, because of the historical context — while Israel doeshave agency, no matter the historical context. But why? Why does “no vacuum” means “these people are not fully responsible for their actions” in one case, but “you can’t do “x” to defend yourself no matter what the circumstances are” in another? The implication that Hamas is not fully responsible for its actions is false, and also insincere because of the double standard applied here.

It also implies that whatever Israel did wrong is fully responsible for the rise of Hamas and its ideology. No responsibility is placed on Islamic extremism or antisemitism. No responsibility is placed on Russia’s age-old machinations in the region, either. Rather, it is insinuated that to the extent Islamic extremism and antisemitism exist, Jews are to blame for them for not being 100% morally pure to a man at all times. This is the same argument that was used to rationalize the Final Solution.

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You want to talk about things not occurring in a vacuum?

Let’s talk about the actions of the Soviet Army as it marched through Germany and later occupied parts of Germany at the end of World War II.

To begin with, nothing Palestinians ever suffered can even remotely compare to what the citizens of the Soviet Union went through in the context of the Nazi invasion of their country. In addition to the outright extermination of Jews and Gypsies, the Nazis considered the “Slavs” to be subhuman and brutalized them without regard for civilian life. As a result, the Soviet Union experienced carnage on a scale the world had not seen since Genghis Khan conquered China back in the12th century.

As the tide of the war turned, and Soviet soldiers began marching westwards, they had to pass through what was left of their country. They passed through flattened cities, burned villages and barren fields. They passed rotting corpses and saw charred bodies of children and old people. They saw barely covered mass graves. They saw mutilated and defiled bodies of women and girls. In addition, most of those soldiers had lost friends and close family to the war. Many had lost their entire families.

And then they arrived in Germany.

You probably know what happened next. I just want to make sure you realized it didn’t happen in a vacuum.

And you know what the curious thing is? Apart from a couple of extreme Russian apologists, I don’t think I’ve ever heard — and I certainly haven’t seen on Quora — anyone rationalizing or defending Russian atrocities in Germany as something that “didn’t occur in a vacuum”. Where be the rousing voices defending the mass rapes and the beatings and the murders as an understandable reaction to extreme psychological trauma, never mind a valid liberation technique? Where are all those lovers of freedom and humanity, who believe we simply can’t judge someone who’s ever experienced aerial bombardment, no matter what they do?

From what I gather — and believe me, I’ve scrutinized the profiles and the feeds of many, many pro-Hamas commenters here — the same people who act as apologists for the torture, murder and kidnapping of Israeli and Jewish civilians, including small children, also believe there is absolutely no justification for what the Soviets did in Germany.

What is the difference, I wonder?

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Guterres’ statement that Israel has to follow international law is another deepity.

EVERYONE has an obligation to follow international law. His comment is technically true, and also meaningless.

It also implies something false. International law does not ban military retaliation for an attack. International law does not prohibit civilian casualties, as long as civilians are not targeted and reasonable — reasonable — steps are taken to minimize those casualties. International law does not require a country that’s at war with another to supply food, medicine, water and materiel to the enemy. International law does not mandate that two countries at war suffer comparable civilian casualties.

Is it possible the Secretary General of the UN doesn’t know diddly squat about international law?? Well, hell, we live in a world where nothing matters anymore, so sure, why not.

That he is an ignorant, uninformed, superficial moron, and that all his numerous aides, researchers and advisers are also ignorant, uninformed, superficial morons, is actually the most charitable interpretation of his comments.

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Housekeeping note: I am keeping the comment section open for now, but I will not dignify any antisemitic or pro-Hamas (but I repeat myself) comment with a response. I will delete it immediately and block and mute its author, as well as the author’s tens of followers and anyone who’s ever upvoted any of their antisemitic posts. Yes, I am doing “block bans”, because I’ve had it with the antisemites these past couple of weeks. If you lean that way, we have nothing to talk about, and I am fine with us not having any kind of a dialogue, ever.

UPDATE: Comments closed. Maybe temporarily, maybe not.