Look. We're discussing horrible things here. I want to make sure it's clear that I think every civilian death is a tragedy. Hell, almost every non-civilian death is a tragedy too - Hamas militants were born in a pretty awful situation, all things considered. I'm taking a pro-Israel side in these comments, because I honestly disagree with your characterization of most things Israel is doing, especially as compared to other wars. (Though I do thank you for discussing fairly horrible topics in a civil manner.)

But as a disclaimer for everything else - I consider myself firmly in the Israeli left, possible far-left. I think Israel has done a lot of morally wrong things for (at least) the last 15 years. And while I think the war's aims are absolutely legitimate, I think it has gone on far, far longer than it should and that Israel has done many immoral things as part of that war. (And to make this all worse - I think one of the main reasons it has gone on this long isn't even because it's good for Israel - it's just that it's good for Netanyahu personally.)

That all said, I will answer your specific points that I disagree with -

> Every single Palestinian in Gaza has lost their home, a family member, or a limb. This is not the case in the Syrian civil war (as horrible as that was) nor among Uyghurs in East Turkistan. As horrible as those atrocities are (particularly the Syrian Civil war) it is still dwarfed by the atrocity which Israel is inflecting on Gaza.

To parse what you're saying here - you honestly think killing 600k civilians is not worse than killing ~30k civilians? Because there are less total civilians so this needs to be measured in percentage of the population? I don't agree with that kind of calculus, at all.

Also, Israel is not targeting civilians, as opposed to many of the other situations I mentioned. This doesn't matter much to the civilians killed, but it is very different morally speaking.

And yes, most Gazans know someone who was killed. That's awful and will absolutely traumatize them even more. I wish it were possible to wipe stop Hamas with no one dying. Hamas has made it impossible. They've said so, in their own words, many times - which is why most Gazans despise Hamas at this point.

But you know what - many if not most Israelis know someone who was killed on October 7th too, and everyone hears daily of the 100 hostages still in Gaza. That's awful too. But I don't think that is proof that the number of dead Israelis is somehow a bigger atrocity than other things, just because Israel is small. Lives are lives.

> Bashar al-Assad never committed a genocide (ISIS tried but were beaten). Israel has been committing a genocide for over a year now, with no end in sight.

I don't agree with your characterization of what Israel is doing. But even if you think it is a genocide - that's not a separate claim to what you were saying above. You're saying, as I parse it - Israel has killed far fewer civilians than in other situations, but it is doing a genocide so that makes it worse. But that's nonsensical - the death of the civilians is what genocide means.

And btw, you call it an ongoing genocide, which I really disagree with. There are very few civilians killed on an ongoing basis right now, and there hasn't been for months. It's certainly an ongoing case of mass displacement, which I really hope is temporary as Gaza is rebuilt.

And it really is relevant to say - Israel has lost hundreds of soldiers in Gaza. It could easily lose zero soldiers by attacking more from the air, with a 10x higher civilian death toll. That is relevant to considering whether killing civilians is Israel's goal - because it could easily do so with minimal losses if it didn't care about civilian casualties.

> But even in the Syrian Civil War, which caused millions to flee their homes (by some very plausible estimates half the country), most Syrians kept their homes,

It is true that one of the main things Israel has done in Gaza that is objectively worse is the destruction of much civilian infrastructure and homes. That's bad. A lot of it is because of the cynical use Hamas has made of civilian spaces, making it impossible to stop Hamas without destroying massive civilian infrastructure. But it's entirely possible that Israel has gone far beyond this in the destruction it has wrought.

I personally think lives are more important than property, so looking at the actual civilian death toll is a far more important metric.

> > Mostly because I reject the idea of Israel never having been decolonized- it was, it turned into Jordan and later Israel.

> [...] It sounds like you are saying that the nation or territory of Palestine does not exist, and that Israel’s (unambiguously) illegal occupation of Palestinian territory is not just justified, but also complete and absolute. I hope that is me misunderstanding, because if that is what you mean, than you are advocating for the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and on the West Bank.

I'm absolutely not advocating any such thing, and I have no idea how you got there.

Historically speaking, there was no nation of Palestine. That's not a POV - that's a historical fact. The territories Israel occupies were not Palestinian territories - they were Jordan's and Egypt's territories at the time that Israel captured them. That is Israel's position on why this isn't an occupation, iirc - that the countries don't want those territories back.

That all said, of course a relatively new and distinct national identity of Palestinian now exists, they existed in the territories of Palestine before, and they deserve to have their national aspirations met, which is why I am a big advocate for a two-state solution. It is the obvious and only solution to the conflict - two peoples with legitimate claims on the same territory, so they should each have a state on that territory.

> > "the Arab countries are historically against Israel".

> This is factually incorrect. Most Arab countries (as do most countries in the UN, and the UN it self) favor a 2-state solution with an independent Palestine along the 1967 line and a capital in East Jerusalem.

I was more referring to how they vote in terms of the UN and how their people perceive Israel, which influences a lot of policy etc.

And I don't think favoring a 2-state solution is being against Israel, btw - it's just common sense.

I do completely agree that Israelis tend to overlook the real progress made in relations with the Arab world. Israel is no longer quite as surrounded by enemies as it used to be, and that's a huge and important shift that most Israelis have not internalized, IMO.