Disengagement 710 - Ethnic cleansing!

[Squeezingwildoranges]

If the current Israeli government manage to expel all Palestinians from the land, should all Israelis be held culpable for not trying to stop it.

That's 2 million who took to the streets. The biggest protest the UK has ever seen. It is a small percentage of the population but is indicative of what the millions of other people thought. How many millions that disagreed with it did not turn out. That is exactly what I'm asking if you look at my previous posts. You are right by the way. Collective punishment is very illegal and immoral. I'm talking about collective blame. A very different thing. I have also stated that quite clearly in the previous posts.

I was on the big march. Its completely irrelevant and your argument is incomprehensible.

How is it incomprehensible. Let me ask you, why did you go on the march?

Obviously to protest and influence government policy. Not to prove I wasn't culpable for my government's actions.

I don't understand your reply. You're now asking something completely different to your OP. Your OP was objectively nonsense. No, every single person should not be held to blame.

Most? Some? Maybe. I don't know. I'm not privy to their thoughts, actions or fears regarding any action they take against their government.

Your reply to another poster was a cop out. Blame requires consequence. In some form. So if they were blamed, we wouldn't just ignore that, would we? Otherwise, we'd be sanctioning their behaviour.. no.

It's fine to wonder why they haven't done more but ultimately, what can they do? They didn't move there by accident. My understanding is that only people who wanted to live there moved there. They knew what they were doing. Did they know how things would play out? Probably not.

2 million out of 80 million... Okay.

So obviously, had you agreed with the government policy you wouldn't have marched. Now even though this was the biggest protest march it was a tiny percentage of the population. 3% to be precise. But now we are back to percentages. What percentage of the UK population were against the policy but didn't march. A MORI poll showed that opposition was 77% of the population. A further IPSOS poll showed that 83% opposed the war. From those figures, I would say the UK were 'culpable' in not supporting the war and were against government policy. So back to my original question. If Gvir gets his way, do you think Rabin square will be full of protesters against the expulsion.

What nonsense.

Read my earlier posts. I discussed this.

@Awkwardisfunny, "Blame requires consequence. In some form." Since when? Sometimes, yes, but definitely not always.

Where?

Page 3

What are you getting out of flogging this dead horse @Squeezingwildoranges - why don't you just get on with it and be explicit about the point you are trying to make?

You didn't commit yourself to a figure.

So come on, its your thread. What % Israelis voting for BenGivr et al would you think sufficient to be morally correct to blame Israel as a whole?

I am not trying to be elusive. The point is to discuss the concept of collective moral responsibility among a citizenry when a government proposes mass displacement policies like Disengagement 710. If you don't wish to engage with that question, you don't have to participate in the thread.

And lots of people think its morally wrong to hold a whole population responsible for the actions of its government. Apart from you. So we are asking you what % of the population has to be in active support of a specific policy for you to feel its morally appropriate to hold the whole population culpable?

I clearly stated I didn't know. There is an academic study by Erica Chenoweth that shows the magic figure for non-violent protest to be 3.5% of the population.

So you are asking us all a question you won't answer yourself?

Are you saying there is some figure but you personally don't know what it is?

Some polls found that 72% of Palestinians felt that the attack of 7 October was the correct thing to do.

Should we hold all Palestinians culpable? I don't think we should. I think we should hold those who commited the attack culpable. What about you?

Surely if we hold Palestinians as a whole culpable then that is collective blame, justifying collective punishment. I don't believe you think Israel would be justified in holding all Palestinians culpable at all.

So why are you asking if we should hold all Israelis culpable?

Can you clarify your position?

I already have. Look at my posts on page 3. Also I would say the Gazans have been collectively punished.

No you haven't. You seem to be the only person who thinks there is an 'interesting discussion' to be had whereby you can hold all Israelis responsible for something you disagree with. whereas the rest of seem to have some moral clarity about the rights and wrongs of collective blame, whether its Palestinians or Israelis.

I did.

You've taken no position yourself. You've discussed possible numbers but haven't said which you agree with. You're asking people what they think but being elusive about what you think.

Basically, I think you're dressing up your obviously prejudiced position as a philosophical argument.

Others have clearly stated their position. No, a population is never to be held responsible for the actions of its government. And that goes for all people everywhere in the world. Palestinians and Israelis among everyone else.

Where a whole population of civilians is collectively punished for the actions of its government, a morally indefensible action has taken place.

It's harder to tease out what is collective punishment and what is unintended and unavoidable consequences yes.

But its surely simple enough to take a moral position that whole populations are not responsible for the actions of their governments.

Okay, let me put it like this. Israeli society are not adverse to protesting when there is something they don't like. So when the Israeli government start bussing the Palestinian population into the Sinai desert, Jordan and who knows where else, (yes, I do believe it is when, not if) will there be protests in Israel about the policy? If not, I would say the general population agrees with the policy and are therefore culpable. I can't be clearer than that.

Also I would say the Gazans have been collectively punished
Yes I would agree with this and they still are

I do not believe any civilian population should be held accountable for the actions of their elected representatives and even less so in countries where the civilian population do not get the choose them. If however Ben Gvir, Smotrich, Netanyahu get reelected I will absolutely judge those voters for that because they voted with their eyes wide open knowing what they were voting for, but that is as far culpability should go, judgement.

Sounds like you're keen to blame Israelis for something that hasn't even taken place... while refusing to consider examples of wrongs by Palestinian leadership that definitely have taken place..

We know you don't hold ordinary Palestinians culpable for October 7. Neither do we. So why are you discussing holding Israelis culpable for a hypothetical that hasnt even happened?

Can't you see how obvious you're being?

You'd judge the voters, so would I. But you wouldn't judge those who voted for the opposing side or every person of that population without specifically knowing their position, right?

Thats how I would feel too.