Who is the bigger terrorist?

Remember the old saying "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter?"
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims. State terrorism is that perpetrated by nation states, but is not considered such by the state conducting it, making legality a grey area. "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible", said Jacobin leader Maximilien Robespierre.

For arguments sake, I'm going to use these two definitions:
"the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders" (Michael Walzer, 2002).
"the organized use of violence to attack non-combatants (‘innocents’ in a special sense) or their property for political purposes" (C. A. J. Coady, 2004).

So let's look at the numbers for the Israeli-Gaza conflict.
Hamas: Out of the roughly 1,200 people killed on October 7th

The most recent death toll from the military had 318 service members killed during the attack itself (37 more have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in Gaza), with police citing another 59 dead. Such figures include armed fighters who tackled the terrorists head-on, but also unarmed service members in non-combat roles who were killed inside their bases, sometimes in their beds.
Police said they have identified 845 civilian deaths.

So roughly 45% of the casualties were security forces (none of them babies).
Now there's no possibility of knowing how many Hamas fighters have been killed since October 7th. So just assume that every Palestinians adult male killed was a Hamas fighter. That would obviously be an exaggeration, but let's say that anyway.

IDF:

Since October 7th, 2023, more than 10,300 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 4,000 children and 2,700 women, and more than 25,000 have been injured in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH).

There are more than 2,200 persons reported missing in Gaza, including 1,270 children most are trapped under the rubble. According to the Palestinian MoH, more than 70% of fatalities are children, women, and the elderly.

So who is the greater terrorist?

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earthling1's picture

is antisemitic.
s/

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

lotlizard's picture

@earthling1  
Funny thing, that.

Anyone reporting on Israel-Palestine who hasn’t been accused of antisemitism yet, is not doing an honest job of reflecting reality.

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@earthling1 that term is about to hit the dustbin of history.
those boys cried wolf once too often.

Apartheid?
Genocide.
Our side?
Suicide.
BDS now.

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Cassiodorus's picture

There is some kind of "March for Israel" going on right now. Chuck Schumer will be speaking. So to counter such a march, Norman Finkelstein has posted this poster:

F-ShXBMXoAEZRLG.jpg

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“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser

QMS's picture

against their 'neighbors' are too deluded to understand
which does not preclude grandstanding. The Palestine state
is not made up of 'animals', in spite of the rhetoric to the
contrary.

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question everything

@QMS
I prefer the words "ethnic cleansing". I don't think that Israel wants to kill them as, as much as they want them forced out so that settlers can steal their lands.

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QMS's picture

@gjohnsit

the only 'cleansing' going on is wiping out their barrels
after a fuselage. I appreciate your word choices, but
targeting hospitals is not cleansing. It is slaughter.
Inhumane treatment of a captured people by any
description is despicable. And the US supports it!

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question everything

Cassiodorus's picture

@QMS -- for the statistics to come in as to how many Gaza residents died of starvation- and dehydration-related ailments. I have seen nothing yet.

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“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser

@gjohnsit
Hitler would have preferred other countries accept the jews.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@crescentmoon when he (Hitler) was conquering those countries. Hitler was famous for using conquest as a means of paying off debts. Also Hitler coveted Jewish gold, so he liked to steal it when he could.

And, remember, moreover, that Poland, Lithuania, and a large portion of the Soviet Union were to be made nonexistent, their inhabitants mostly slaughtered, so that they could be German homelands, so Hitler annihilated the Jews in those countries first.

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“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser

snoopydawg's picture

@gjohnsit

Israel bombed the refugee camp not just once or twice, but 3 times. How is that not attempted genocide?

Cutting off food, water, electricity, ect and leaving people to starve, die of dehydration, from various diseases is the definition of genocide. On top of all the people dying from those things I have to wonder how many people are dead and buried in the rubble from the bombings. People can only dig out those bodies that are buried under just a few feet of rubble and they have no equipment to get to those buried much deeper….will they ever be recovered?

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

Cassiodorus's picture

to the native peoples of this land. You can call it "ethnic cleansing" all you want. At least one-sixth of the participants on the Trail of Tears died while on forced march to Oklahoma. And how many of the original tribes are still in existence today?

You know, Hitler was inspired by what the US did to its indigenous peoples.

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“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser

@Cassiodorus Every time something like this happens it's as if it were a throwback to some singular event, when it's happened time and time again. We're shocked maybe because it's in our recent history, experienced by relatives perhaps. Going back further it becomes dry history, dusty, faded, intellectualized of all power to shock. Of course the means justify the ends, we got this great country in return *wave flag here*. In the end, this is us, reinventing new and improved atrocities, impoverishing ourselves and handing power over to those who will misuse it.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@Snode @Snode That's why I wrote this:

https://caucus99percent.com/content/gaza-some-help-castoriadis

In fact, this morning I was listening to The Duran, with The Alexes:

Their complaint is that there is no imagination among the political class in Britain and so they keep elevating the same old hacks who failed them the last time to solve the problems that said hacks caused in the first place. This looks to me like Castoriadis' "complete atrophy of political imagination."

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7 users have voted.

“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser