Yes. It is why prion diseases are crazy scary. From the chronic wasting Wikipedia article:
“ How the prions that cause CWD spread is unknown, but recent research indicates that prions can be excreted by deer and elk, and are transmitted by eating grass growing in contaminated soil.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease
It’s a legal argument because South Africa is raising the case. Painting it as a silly conspiracy theory by saying that Israel identifies any criticism as Hamas is reductive - a common trend here. You may not agree with Lior but he is doing his job in defending Israel to the UN.
Israel is innocent of genocide (of course this is the standpoint of a lawyer defending Israel against accusations of genocide).
If the court decides against Israel, it will make provisions which will make it more difficult for Israel to freely execute its military strategies against Hamas (because the argument is that all of the military operations so far have had the sole objective of wiping out Hamas)
South Africa is therefore attempting to make it harder for Israel to pursue Hamas
South Africa is assisting Hamas, indirectly.
I think that’s right?
So there are a few problems here, firstly the claim that South Africa is the legal arm of Hamas is clearly propagandising. It attempts to paint South Africa and Hamas as collaborators without evidence and it is a stretch to say this from the logic above.
Secondly, there is a fallacy present, it seems to me, in the assumption that if Israel were to be found guilty of genocide, then that would be aiding Hamas, which is unacceptable. This is a fundamentally flawed assumption: censuring Israel for genocide is a goal in itself regardless the consequences; crimes cannot be allowed even if they are perpetrated in pursuit of the goal of stopping other crime; Israel should be able to pursue Hamas without committing genocide.
It’s also an unsound tactic because it does fit so well with the narrative that Israel blames Hamas for everything. When interrogated about questionable Israeli military actions, on many occasions, their representatives have publicly blamed Hamas, often to the point of absurdity. This argument therefore seems like an extension of that tactic.
That this is his chosen, and presumably best available strategy belies the shakiness of the ground he is on, and does not bode well for Israel’s defence. The consensus among impartial academics is hat Israel is guilty of this crime, or is imperceptibly close to it.
It’ll be interesting to see how things unfold, and I stand ready to have my mind changed from my current interpretation of the facts on the ground and the legal definition of genocide which are pointing to Israel’s being guilty.
You misused the word belies, which really sums up the very issue with your argument - at its core is a fundamental misunderstanding of the courts, language and the nature of what’s at play here. South Africa is doing what its financiers want - to destabilise the region and in particular that of the US and its partners . They had the opportunity to arrest Putin for war crimes last year and bent over backwards to avoid doing so while also inviting a delegation of the some of the worst of Hamas to visit the country seeking funding. ZA cares about war crimes when it suits them to grab some distraction from their own political woes.
I’ll overlook what appears to be a baseless insult about me fundamentally misunderstanding language for the moment.
It is irrelevant that South Africa might have tried a different case, it’s irrelevant that they may care about some war crimes and not others, irrelevant where the funding might be coming from, what their motivation may be for trying this case and it’s irrelevant that may be experiencing political woe. None of these have any bearing on the credibility of the legal arguments being made. Discrediting the character of the source of an argument does not change the veracity of the argument; it stands or falls on its own merits. While you’ve raised a lot of interesting questions, they are separate and distinct from the question “is Israel committing/has Israel recently committed war crimes”, which is what the court is hearing.
P.s. his confident, yet flawed rhetoric belies the shaky legal ground he stands upon. I thought that would be implicit.
Hang on, were you misunderstanding my reference to “the court”? Had you forgotten that we’re discussing a court case? You did mention it in your reply.
Yet you thought I was referring to this forum as a court, is that what you were saying here?
Have another read of it, and take your time by all means.
The real problem is that the orphans need a crushing machine themselves so that they could prevent to be crushed. We must protect the second crushing amendment.
In short, effective altruism is commonly viewed as being about the moral obligation to donate as much money as possible to evidence-backed global poverty charities, or other measurable ways of making a short-term impact.
Just be the philanthropist that your broke ass wants to be.
Work 120 hours a week so you can receive 15% of the value you generate as a paycheck. Then take the 75% you receive from that after the tax man and donate it to a charity. It’s so simple.
You want to be a better human? Just work more, and then donate more.
Or just actually work for a charitable organization if you’re not super rich. Like a doctor is important to humanitarian aid, but so is getting them to and from the area, so is student loan forgiveness as med school is incredibly costly, they also have to offer their workers a (paltry) salary and per diem, etc, which is where the money is quite important.
Could it be done differently in a better society that we should absolutely be working towards? Yes. Can and should we also congratulate the people in our society for working with what they have? Yes.
Except it’s worse than that. The argument goes, if I could donate $1m right now to a charity, or invest that money in subprime mortgages for a year and donate $5m next year, plus keep a little bit of that profit to live on, obviously the optimal course of action is to be a capitalist and not donate right now.
Project this rationalization forward indefinitely and you get all the benefits of the 1% lifestyle while retaining the ability to feel morally superior to everyone else not in your little trust fund cult
Not to say that argument is flawless. You can give a starving child 5 meals today, or 500 meals in a year - except in a year, he’s starved and can’t eat a single one.
It basically ties in with “Justice delayed is justice denied”.
IDK why people are downvoting my post. That’s literally what that is.
I visited a talk with Peter Singer in Washington, D.C. a few years ago where people applauded a guy who had considered joining an NGO and decided to become an investment broker and donate to Effective Altruism instead. 🤔
Somebody gave me Strangers and I loved it! Never before had I read anything like it, completely clueless over halfway into the book about what’s going on. Bizarre clues throughout, good characters. Then when you find out what’s going on it’s so far fetched but somehow believable. The next Koontz book I read was Watchers and it was the exact same formula. Bizarre clues, kept in the dark, far fetched premise. I think I read another (long time ago) and it was similar. Don’t get me wrong it’s a good formula but if all of his books are like that then I can see why people poke fun
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