Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
Which raises the question of whether there is a moral difference, or whether there should be a legal one (in terms of what gets you sent to the hague) between:
a) A military decision to fire a rocket at an apartment building because you have credible info that there are terrorists who attacked your country in there, despite either not knowing whether there are children in there or even being confident that there are and that those children will die; and
b) Deliberately targeting and murdering children as an end in itself, using hand-held weapons, as has been credibly alleged has happened repeatedly in the past week.
I do see a difference between those two things despite the fact that they both result in dead babies because I think the intention matters - others may disagree. Regardless, murdering babies for the sake of murdering babies is not a new thing in situations like this one, where an armed, semi-organized group of militants is attacking another group that they hate en masse largely on the basis of their identity - Rwanda is the obvious example, but here's another one. There's no real reason to suspect that anyone would need to make this sort of thing up - it's horrifying and yet not even terribly surprising given the context. |
I agree there is a difference, but I don’t know. It’s really a case of whether you think “the ends justifies the means” and what you think the end is for each. Hamas’ goal was not simply to murder babies, that was just the horrific means they sought to complete their goal. If Hamas wanted to kill babies as an end, there are plenty of babies to kill in Gaza. Much like Israel’s goal is not to murder babies, it’s just an acceptable result to them. Is cutting off a baby’s head more barbaric than knowingly dropping a bomb on one? No. Not to me, at least.
At best, you can say Israel does not intend to kill children but it is prepared to do so and will do so to achieve its ends. That Hamas chooses to kill children and Israel makes choices that kill children. And, so long as the ends are good or can be justified, people will cheer them on.
Either way, I imagine a parent holding their dead infant and what that person would be going through, and I think it’s the same whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. It’s easy enough for us to talk about the “difference” here, but would anyone stand in front of two parents holding their dead child and tell them one was justified and the other wasn’t? One was barbaric, and the other wasn’t? One was for the greater good, and the other was for nothing? I don’t know.