• NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians were killed by American bombs during WW2, and now Nazis don’t exist anymore as a political or military power. Germany is a liberal democracy and a firm ally of the USA. The same is true about Japan.

    That’s because of post-war reconstruction of those countries. Like hell Israel intends to reconstruct anything in Gaza except Israeli settlements.

    I recognize that radicalization is a real phenomenon, I still think the claim that inflicting civilian casualties during war dooms them to failure is not strongly supported by historical precedent.

    It does depending on the number of casualties. People with grudges tend to want vengeance, which is how you get more Hamas.

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      The USA rebuilt West Germany but the Soviet Union subjugated East Germany. In both cases the Germans didn’t resist - their will to fight had been broken. Note that I’m not saying that Gaza will be or ought to be treated the way Germany was, just that a society’s reaction to occupation is complicated and the prediction that casualties lead to vengeance is not always correct.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I guess that’s true, but taking other examples like Vietnam, Iraq, North Ireland and Afghanistan, which are all closer to what Israel is doing, definitely led to vengeance. I guess it’s the difference between a proper fight, if you get what I mean, and just getting bombed/shot/whatever by a random guy you did nothing to.