Israel brazenly admits to bombing a school, full of school children, in order to get at what they say was a 'Hamas base.' So there's no doubt that Israel is fine with killing children. It somehow feels that if it can kill one terrorist for every 5 or 10 children, that's a worthwhile deal. No one else on Earth thinks that. No one else on Earth does that.
There are plenty of pictures of dead and injured children at the school, so there's no doubt Israel just bombed children. Hamas denies having any operatives there, so there's a great deal of doubt whether any terrorists were killed, or how many. But it doesn't matter. Even if there were exactly one terrorist for every child, or two terrorists for every child in the school, normal people wouldn't blow up the school and say 'it couldn't be helped, there were terrorists there.' Nor would they dispute the casualty figure saying, "Gaza says 80 children died, but they're exaggerating." That's called Holocaust Denial when people on the other side do that exact same thing to the Holocaust.
They cry and scream when people say "Sure children died in the Holocaust, but it wasn't as many as they say." That's an arrestable crime in much of the world. And here Israel is smugly doing the exact same thing without blinking. "Sure we bombed kids, but they're making too big a deal about it. Calm down already, sissies."
Everything Israel does is recognized as a crime, not just a moral violation, but a legal crime, everywhere else on Earth and in history. Everyone else who did this sort of thing has already been put on trial for war crimes and executed. It's astounding. Even 95 year old German ladies who minimize the Holocaust are put on trial and jailed for their crime of making light of a human rights violation. But Israeli officials do it without batting an eye. After they just openly murdered children. With a precision munition they admitted they aimed at a school full of school children, knowing the children were there and not caring.
What really gets me about this Israel story is how the exact same logic never flies when applied to any other group or historical event. Things that magically justify Israel's behavior in the press have been widely 'debunked' and 'panned' by that exact same press in every other case. If anybody else did the exact same thing as Israel and used the exact same reasoning, they would say that person is a ranting, lunatic moral monster. By the way, Hamas killed more soldiers than civilians, as a ratio, on October 7th than this school bombing killed pure children compared to terrorists by Israel. Hamas was condemned as a terror group that did unspeakable atrocities on October 7th, but Israel is given a pass by the press, saying, well, there were some armed militants there so it couldn't be helped. Do you see what just happened right there?
The double standard has never been more apparent. I keep thinking back to the Holocaust. What if the Nazis had said, "sure, we wiped out 6 million Jews, but among those Jews were partisan resistance fighters so it couldn't be helped." Would that then completely exonerate the Holocaust? (There were of course Jewish partisan resistance fighters in WW2, they openly brag about it in memoirs.) Apparently, according to Israel itself. Where does that leave us? Remember the Armenian Genocide? There were of course Armenian traitors aiding Russia against the Ottomans in WW1. So was it okay to kill all the Armenians then? Remember the Albigensian Crusade? There were of course some heretics among the purged. Does that mean killing the Cathars was also justified? What about the Inquisition? There were of course covert Jews who only pretended to convert to Catholicism. Does that mean the Inquisition was morally justified?
Jews themselves have whined about all the endless atrocities done to them by mixing in innocents with the guilty. They keep saying the ruling power was too harsh, it used the crackdown on some small minority as an excuse to target the whole community. So it's so outlandish to see Israel, the land of the poor oppressed Jews, who to this day keep whining about all their historical oppression, use the exact same moral reasoning that they say everybody else was wrong to use against them. How do they get away with it? Shouldn't they be the people least allowed to do the crimes they say were the worst in history when done to them? Shouldn't that mean they are the most opposed to such behavior? Or is it only bad when Jews are hurt?
If the actual standard is there's no such thing as an innocent Goyim, only innocent Jews, why should the rest of the world have any sympathy for Jewish suffering across all time? If that's how they want to play, why should we extend them any fellow feeling at all? Why mourn the death of Jews if they won't reciprocate? This is just basic social contract theory, game theory, whatever you want to call it. You can't simultaneously demand we repent for the Holocaust while bombing schoolchildren and saying 'there were a few bad apples there so it was okay.' That's exactly what the Nazis said. "The Jews are bad apples so there's no point distinguishing between innocent and guilty, just wipe them all out and be done with it." If the reasoning of the Nazis was correct, what are you whining about?
I honestly wanted to side with Israel for this war. I thought it was another Islamic terror attack like the poor children run over by a truck in Nice, France. I thought 'how despicable and how typical of Islam, attacking an advanced civilization with their barbarism simply for the crime of not being as barbaric as they are.' It was an open and shut case, the answer being the same as ever, the never ending war on terror must continue. Whether it's called Al Qaeda, Chechen Separatists, ISIS or Hamas, it's always the same and the answer is always the same, to find and destroy the terrorists so that they can't continue such destructive attacks in the future. But in every other case, every other nation on Earth fought a reasonable, directed campaign against the terrorists and defeated them. Al Qaeda no long bothers us, Chechnya no longer bothers us, ISIS no longer bothers us. We dealt with the problem and fixed it. Israel alone decided to go full. . .what?. . .full. . .what the hell is this? Full lunatic? Israel openly bombs school children, little children, and says 'Hamas is like Al Qaeda so it had to be done.' Did they watch our last 20 years of war with Islam? When did we defeat Al Qaeda by intentionally bombing schools full of children? What the hell is this?
Meanwhile, the Olympics continues to shine. The winner of the Rhythmic Gymnastics Individual All-Around competition was Darja Varfolomeev, supposedly a German but actually a Russian, born in Russia. So even when Russia is banned from the Olympics it ends up getting more prestigious Olympic medals than Ukraine. I love that twist of irony. Arguably Rhythmic Gymnastics is more beautiful and entertaining to watch than Artistic Gymnastics. I know I loved it. The group competition saw China win gold, a China team coached by a former Russian rhythmic gymnast, so actually that was Russia winning twice over.
Watching Lebron James and Steph Curry beat Serbia in the basketball semifinal and France in the final was awesome. They put on a heroic display, showing exactly why they're so famous, why Lebron was the flagbearer for the United States, overcoming a 15 point deficit to ultimately triumph, or in Steph's case preventing a French comeback by sinking 4 3's at the end of the game in a row -- one while fading back and double covered. I'm not sure he could even see the basket from that vantage point and it still went down. Absolutely legendary.
I've watched Chinese women divers win and win and win, with effortless, splashless dives again and again and again.
I watched a crazy exciting gold medal men's soccer match with the highest scoring final in history, 5-3 Spain over host country France. I also watched the USA women win Olympic gold due to an out of this world goalie stopping deserved Brazilian goal after deserved Brazilian goal.
I watched an American come out of nowhere and win the women's road race, a sort of miniature Tour de France.
I've watched virtually all the track and field competitions, with world records and Olympic records being made every day, fulfilling the 'faster, higher, stronger' portion of the Olympics to a T. (And yes, we broke the pole vault record, so 'higher' was right in there.) I love it when the USA wins, and I love it when little island countries win, or impoverished African countries win (though actually Botswana is richer than people think), or whites miraculously win races thought to be completely dominated by blacks. Every victory by every group entitles them to a little bit of pride. National pride, racial pride, cultural pride, I don't care. It's fun giving everyone something to be proud about. I'm even happy for that gold medal javelin thrower from Pakistan. It's nice to prove your nation has some worth in this world, however little.
There's still a bit more Olympics to come, and I intend to enjoy every drop of it. Russia may have been banned from the Olympics, but the athletes who are actually here are still putting on an astounding show. It's not like they suddenly became subpar athletes themselves. They're all bursting with talent and breaking records anyway. They are still worthy Olympians, and they put on a worthy Olympics.
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