Conflicts among civilized people.

As a preface, this is gonna be a roundabout way of making a point about the war between Israel and the terrorists.

I'm going to use some words that will trigger people. In most cases, I'll be using the words of people who...well...aren't me.

Also, I still maintain that anybody who is engaging in a conversation about this conflict without bringing up religion is simply intellectually blind.

Anyway, strap in.

Expanding bullets have been a thing that existed since the 19th century. In Europe, they were banned in warfare. They weren't banned in warfare in these United States during the Civil War, and a lot of the carnage was attributable to that.

The reason for the ban that more people know, is that expanding bullets create more violent wounds. What fewer people know is that, the reasoning behind the ban in Europe, and the eventual restrictions in regard to the Geneva Convention, was based under the belief that war would be fought among civilized people. It was understood that, if a man were wounded by a bullet, he would want to preserve his life and stop fighting. He would effectively tap out of the fight and look for a medic.

The reasoning was that not using expanding bullets would preserve life in combat. But, that was based on the assumption of a shared mentality with the enemy that preserving life was a value.

During the peak of European colonization, a lot of soldiers on the ground realized the hard way that not everybody shared the value of preserving life.

The British, French, and what-not Europeans went to Africa and South Asia with the same guns and, more importantly, the same ammo that they would use against each other during conflicts on their own continent.

The thing is, when they were facing conflict with the locals, they found that they wouldn't stop fighting after they were shot. The wording used by some British officers was that the "savages" didn't fight like "civilized" men. The "savages" could be mortally wounded, and they'd just keep charging and fighting.

So, to get to the point, intelligent people have figured out that we've known for longer than any of us have been alive that different cultures value life on this earth differently, and that that influences how people behave in conflict.

So, Hamas hasn't been coy about their hatred for the Jews. They also have said that they'll win because they love death more than the Jews love life.

This is a component of why this conflict can't end with stable minds sitting at a table and hashing out a deal.

The ceasefire deals that have been reached in the past have come as a result of a tiny center of a ven diagram of conflicting values. It's always come in a context of Israel winning the fight, valuing human life, and wanting to stop the bloodshed, combined with Hamas simply wanting to regroup for the next breach.

The reality of Hamas's use of human shields should tell us why, for all of Netanyahu's flaws, he's probably smart for not capitulating to Hamas in their ditch attempt at self-preservation in exchange for the hostages.

The Israelis value life. The men and women of the IDF want to go home at night. If they got shot in the shoulder, they're gonna probably do what a "civilized" person in 19th century Europe would have done -- tap out and look for a medic.

The Gazans are worse than the "savages" in the 19th century. The colonized Africans and South Asians (who, unlike the "Palestinians" were actually colonized), were seemingly never responsible for anything like October 7th.

It's worth remembering that Sinwar, the douche who planned the October 7th attack on Israel, was cured of a brain tumor by a Jewish doctor while incarcerated in Israel. He turned around and murdered that doctor's nephew on the 7th.

You can't negotiate with psychopaths and savages.

What are you expecting Israel to do? Would you trust a cease-fire agreement with a group of two million Nazis when they've already broken every cease-fire agreement that you've reached over the last twenty years?

One side of the conflict is the side that we expect to behave like civilized men and women. They want to preserve their own lives. They value the lives of their enemies more than their enemies value the lives of their people.

On the other side, you have the savages who wouldn't mind dying if they can manage to kill a couple of Jews in the process.

Like it or not, I think that Netanyahu has been around long enough to understand this.