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> One doesn't "target" an innocent person. He indeed said that we should target not only those that are an "immediate threat". I'm guessing he meant people who took part in October 7th's attack but are not currently fighting.

That's a lot of leeway for Ben Gvir, a guy that clearly doesn't mind killing innocent civilians. For years he proudly hung the portrait of the israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein in his living room, the terrorist who in 1994 entered a mosque and killed 29 Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 more.

by yoavm2 hours ago|

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I was aiming to translate what he said, not to guess we he deeply believes. The OP suggested he was saying this on television, hinting that this would be some kind of acceptable opinion in Israel. Ben Gvir's history, while I too believe still plays a big role in his ideas, is something that at least publicly he had to apologize for in order to get into the position he's at.

by rideontime20 minutes ago|

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We don't need to "guess." When somebody shows you who he is, believe him.

by Planktonne4 hours ago|

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> He was discussing targeted assassinations. One doesn't "target" an innocent person.

Quite apart from anything else, I don't think these statements hang together, and we wouldn't accept them in any other context. Being targeted is not the same as being guilty.

by yoavm4 hours ago|

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I'm sorry but I can you elaborate? What exactly isn't hanging together? I'm assuming you don't mean that in other contexts is is okay to target an innocent person, but I'm not sure what you do mean.

Being targeted is indeed not the same as being guilty. One is being used in the context of war, and the other is used in the Justice system.

by jbstack1 hours ago|

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I believe what they are saying is that "He was discussing targeted assassinations. One doesn't "target" an innocent person" seems to imply a logical fallacy:

(1) Person X is targeted -> (2) innocent people don't get targeted -> (3) therefore person X must not be innocent

The problem is that (2) contains too many bad assumptions: that the person doing the targeting is benevolent, that there's sufficient due process to ensure the targeter is correct, that there's a universally agreed definition of "innocent", etc.

History has proven that innocent people DO get targeted, so even from a common sense perspective your statement doesn't withstand scrutiny.

by yoavm1 hours ago|

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Thank you for explaining. I did not mean to say the innocent people in Gaza were not targeted. Of course they did, and many times. I meant to say that in Hebrew (and I believe that in other languages too), when someone calls for "targeted assassinations", it precisely means targeting non-innocent people. The term is literally used as the opposite of "carpet bombing", collective punishment etc. The fact that innocent people were targeted during the war is clearly a crime, but again, it is not what was being called for in the aforementioned quote.

by jbstack50 minutes ago|

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I can't comment on the Hebrew, but in English the phrase "targeted assassination" says nothing whatsoever qualitative about the person being targeted. It merely says:

Targeted -> this will be a specifically identified person

Assassination -> they will be killed

For example, a dictator might perform a targeted assassination on a rival, in order to stay in power. Innocence or non-innocence has nothing to do with it. Or to give a more relevant example, someone might target and kill a Palestinian so that settlers can take their land. Whether the Palestinian was innocent or not doesn't matter. The land was the objective.

by yoavm22 minutes ago|

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Languages are different, I guess?

This is the term in Hebrew, as it appears on Wikipedia: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%9C...

I will leave it to you to translate the first paragraph and see what it means in the Israeli, Hebrew context.

by x3ro2 hours ago|

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My god how many „Israeli snipers are shooting children in the head“ statements from non-profits and doctors do we need before people finally stop peddling this „only evil hamas members are targeted“.. Just look at satellite pictures of Gaza man. Every palestinian is a target, which is why we are calling it genocide.

by yoavm2 hours ago|

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I do not disagree with any of the things you said, hence I'm not sure what you're rambling about.

by x3ro16 minutes ago|

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My point is that the Israeli government has been claiming, in every way imaginable, that their actions are „targeted“, when the evidence clearly shows that they are not. So when someone like Gvir says „targeted assassinations“, what he means (based on previous evidence) is „let’s kill some Palestinians“. What people say needs to be put in context of how they have behaved in the past.

by danmaz741 hours ago|

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30-40 per day means between 10,000 and 15,000 Palestinians killed per year. Just think about that number for a minute. I think that you're giving Ben Gvir way too much benefit of the doubt here.

by yoavm1 hours ago|

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And a 1,277,500 in ten years! Except no where did he say that this is the plan until the end of days, or until the end of the year. He said what he think Israel should do now.

Again, to clarify, I do not support him nor wish for any of his plans to become real, and I'm deeply said and ashmed of every plan of his that did become real. What I was commenting on what about what he said, though, which is already a deviation from the original post in discussion. If we're going to start talking about Ben Gvir in general, for all the I care he should be sitting in jail, already since the 90s.

by danmaz741 hours ago|

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How long has this war been going on? A year is a totally realistic time frame if you evaluate his words.

by yoavm1 hours ago|

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I'm sorry, but what does the current length of the war has to do with this? During an armed conflict one can be asked what they think needs to be done, and it doesn't mean that this is what they think needs to be done even one week from now. And again, even if he thinks so, it is clearly not what he said. If we're trying to guess what Ben Gvir really wants, I can only agree he probably wants terrible things. If we're talking about what is said on Israeli TV, then that's simply not what was said and I'd like to believe that it's not something the general public would accept.

by skrebbel4 hours ago|

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Fwiw I appreciate this context. My national news site (usually pretty trustworthy, and scary neutral wrt the Israel/Palestine situation, which I know because they’re constantly under fire from both sides) pulled this out of context in exactly the same way.

by yoavm4 hours ago|

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Thanks for writing, it's nice to be reminded that some people actually read the comments here. I think the signal you pointed out is a very important one and I use the same one. Back when I was living in Israel I took part in organizing the shared memorial day event for Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides thought we were crazy, and therefore I concluded we must be doing something right.