The destruction of Gaza's internet is complete
wired.com
wired.com
[1] Israels warns Palestinians on Facebook but Israel bombing decimated Gaza Internet Access:
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/12/israel-gaza-internet-acc...
[2] #KeepItOn: Telecommunications Blackout In The Gaza Strip Is An Attack On Human Rights:
https://m.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2310/S00117/keepiton-telecom...
[3] Destruction of Watan Tower: A Blow to Press Freedom or a Military Necessity?
https://bnn.network/world/palestine/destruction-of-watan-tow...
I don't think you are being honest here.
What evidence do you have that the Israeli intelligence was wrong in this case?
The evidence here is not a press release of isreali government/military saying that they destroyed it because it was being used by hamas for military purposes. They can say whatever they want and you can do, but without providing evidence this becomes a lie.
Note that I am here talking about very specific case and claim. If you want to say hamas lie too that's fine but completely irrelevant in our context here.
We are talking about this specific claim and this specific claims because I don't want this to go in general direction.
And the burden of proof is on you not you. You claimed something and you should provide the evidence. Don't try to tweak things by redirecting the question
I get that Israel should be held to a higher standard than the Hamas. But your specific attitude makes no sense. Intelligence information is internal, wartime bombings target decisions are privileged information.
This is not the problem, people who claim something have to provide the evidence if asked, you don't respond to them by re-directing the question and ask them for counter-proof. At least in the normal world. I don't know about you.
> I get that Israel should be held to a higher standard than the Hamas
Providing evidence to claims is now a higher standard? man you live in a wild world.
> But your specific attitude makes no sense. Intelligence information is internal, wartime bombings target decisions are privileged information
So they can attack and kill anyone and claim they were military targets, and when asked for evidence then they will not provide because it is internal? Do you know what claims without evidence can be considered, yes propaganda like the one you tried to spread in this comment which is our discussion context.
No we don't. However, I did provide evidence which you choose to ignore. You also claim that the army would bomb a place for no real reason which just doesn't make sense. Especially for the first target in a campaign. It's you who should provide evidence, not me.
> > But your specific attitude makes no sense. Intelligence information is internal, wartime bombings target decisions are privileged information > > So they can attack and kill anyone and claim they were military targets, and when asked for evidence then they will not provide because it is internal?
Nonsense. This is an attack on a building. Bombing is a coarse instrument and the IDF holds regular briefings where they provide evidence.
All the papers spent a day claiming Israel bombed a hospital killing 500 people. Total lie and the Hamas knew it when they came out with it. The IDF gathers and provides evidence for relevant situations (e.g. the Hospital bombing). It is accountable unlike the Hamas which is not.
Thank you, that was the answer that you should just say from the beginning.
Yep, that's the world we live in. Politicians, corporations, journalists frequently don't. Even "scientists" from time to time fake data & results. Military at least have a valid reason for not publicizing intel, specially in times of war.
Are you for real expecting this for an ongoing war still in its early days? I'm not saying those questions shouldn't be asked and of course the IDF will make mistakes but you are being unreasonable.
> They can say whatever they want and you can do, but without providing evidence this becomes a lie.
It's not necessarily a lie, just not verified yet.
> If you want to say hamas lie too that's fine but completely irrelevant in our context here.
It's not irrelevant. Hamas and the IDF are not equivalent.
It's a long established fact that Hamas modus operandi is terrorism. Recently the Hamas lied that the IDF bombed an hospital and killed 500 Palestinians, there is ample evidence that this was a blatant lie. All over the Internet there are reports/videos that show Hamas faking stuff to generate commotion.
Israel military intelligence is one of the best in the world. The IDF go steps further than any other country in history to minimize collateral damage. They warn civilians in the area before striking, they use roof knockers.
Maybe Israel lied about this, I don't know. But I do know the Hamas lied about many things. Just now a Hamas representative was interviewed by the BBC claiming they didn't kidnap or target civilians... Wow. The audacity of the lie is staggering.
The symbolic nature of the building doesn't appear to be a lie. Since there were many offices in the building it would make sense the Hamas has some offices there. I don't see that as a huge lie.
> during the war you cannot demolish communication infrastructure, churches, mosques, hospitals, news agency offices, schools, civilian homes, etc. As demonsrated in this war, the first casualty is the truth that paved the way to countless atrocities.
It's very evident that you didn't say synagogues... I'm guessing I know where you're coming from to this debate...
Umm you can if they are being used for military purposes.
Still, there are levels of blame and the current situation. The Palestinians in Gaza are held hostage by an evil organization that keeps escalating and using ceasefires to increase armaments. I would love it if Netanyahu would be out of office right now and someone "competent" were running things. But this is the position we're at.
Many governments are dictatorships or autocratic. Some are democratic. I dont think it matters. You have the same responsibility to civilians regardless of the form of government.
> carte blanche to raze the city
Generally not. But you can certainly destroy buildings used for military purposes. Where this conflict falls on this scale is pretty unclear thus far.
> eliminate its civilian population
Definitely not. Israel has not done this.
> displace ... its civilian population?
Maybe. There are certain circumstances under the geneva convention where this is allowed, and it seems likely the criteria was met in this conflict. You of course have to let them back once the fighting has subsided.
For cases where the original person is now dead (1948 was 75 years ago), i think its reasonable that that person's descendents should split appropriate compensation.
What im getting at here is - if someone was driven out and owned a 1 bedroom apartment, they are only owed a 1 bedroom apartment. If they had 50 grandchildren they are still owed only the single apartment not 50 apartments, one for each heir.
The other big issue is this was 75 years ago. Much of this property probably doesn't exist anymore. I think due to pure practicality, cash compensation would have to be the way to address this issue.
No, I'm not saying that the hospital was actually bombed by Israel; I'm saying that everything that Israel bombs is labelled with the "used by Hamas" tag as justification for what this really is.
No one actually believes that all or even most of the buildings destroyed in this campaign was "used by Hamas" if you are being honest with yourself. It's obviously collective punishment and revenge with a little bit of show ("we dropped leaflets" or "we sent warnings by SMS") for those who need it in order to go to bed at night.
Notice that Israel also used phone tracking to check that civilian population moved away from the target. No county that ran a campaign of this type in the past used such an approach to avoid civilian casualties.
I think the bombings are very problematic. But from current reports it seems the ground invasion will be worse in terms of casualties (on all fronts). So it seems like a lesser evil when a building goes down.
It's not about whether I trust them or not (I don't!). It's that everyone is following the same playbook. Israel can do whatever it wants and blame Palestinians with impunity.
Every teenager shot on the street is a militant. Every house that is flattened was used by terrorists. Every journalist that was dies while working was actually killed by the Palestinians themselves.
The power imbalance is not just military in nature. Israel has command of the message as well and the is frighteningly effective because it's just plausible enough.
>Notice that Israel also used phone tracking to check that civilian population moved away from the target. No county that ran a campaign of this type in the past used such an approach to avoid civilian casualties.
What about all the people who can't charge their phones because Israel only allowed 4 hours of electricity per day before the most recent campaign? Or whose phones were lost when their homes were destroyed?
This is a great example. The IDF can make claims about how they "avoid civilian casualties" but why do you believe that it's anything more than for show?
> It's not about whether I trust them or not. It's that everyone is following the same playbook. Every teenager shot on the street is a militant; every house that is flattened was used by terrorists; everyone who has any criticism whatsoever is an antisemite.
I was specifically indicating that my information came from a reputable paper. Not from an a*hole on Twitter. Social media is full of nonsense and terrible people, I don't take part in that.
There is a lot of rage there and a lot of grandstanding.
> What about all the people who can't charge their phones because Israel only allowed 4 hours of electricity per day before the most recent campaign? Or whose phones were destroyed when their homes were destroyed?
This works based on numbers. There are still enough mobile phones to get a sense of movement patterns and target areas that are mostly empty. The army demoed the system to foreign press where areas are marked on a map indicating "safe to bomb" areas. It isn't a perfect system by any stretch but it's the best that can be done in this situation.
I wish there was a way to resolve this without violence. I don't think even the heads of Hamas should be killed. I hope they can be captured and would stand trial if possible. No one should die, especially not the many civilians that are there. But there's absolutely no choice. Every time the Hamas was given leeway it used it for attacks.
Israel released 1000 prisoners, many of them terrorists with blood on their hands as part of a trade a few years back. Most of those terrorists took part in the October 7th attack. They can't help themselves, they are religious fanatics. They are clever enough to manipulate the sentiments we liberals have. Our knee-jerk reaction is to stop violence and they appeal to that. They even manufacture violence against their own people for that purpose.
Its impossible to "pick a side" in this conflict, there are good people and a*holes in both countries.
Guess which country is the 4th or 5th most secular country in the world... It might surprise you: Israel. Yep.
That's thanks to the "Jews" who are jews in creed, not religion. Israel has its fanatics for sure and they gained more power in the last election. But it isn't controlled by its fanatics by any stretch of the imagination.
Israel doesn't have civil unions. It only has religious marriage any religion is OK but the religions do discriminate. This is both problematic and a blessing. I'm not married to my spouse because I'm an atheist, but Israel has a "known in public" status which gives us the same rights (and some obligations) as married people. That means Gay and inter-religion couples can enjoy all the rights.
Another option some people take is to fly to nearby cypress to have a civil union which is recognized in Israeli courts.
About the broader question. Yes, there are religious elements in the government that have been pushing the secular envelope. This creates a lot of friction within Israeli society. E.g. there's a law against pastries in passover which is just the dumbest thing ever... Unenforceable and just stupid. There's also regulations prohibiting Jews from working on a Sabath (supposedly as a labor protection). Notice that both laws mostly affect people who are listed as "Jews" even if they are secular.
And, on both sides, its the a*holes (a mild term for people who have engineered decades of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity, including waging war against or actively using inflammatory language to incite the murder of less extreme voices on, nominally, the same side for being less disinclined toward peace) running the war machine and state or state-like apparatus while the good people are trying not to get killed.
> What about all the people who can't charge their phones because Israel only allowed 4 hours of electricity per day before the most recent campaign? Or whose phones were lost when their homes were destroyed?
If they were trying to answer the question "how many people are in this area?" it could make a big difference, but to answer the question "what fraction of people who were here have recently left this area?" sampling just people with powered on phones just be enough to figure it out, assuming Israel has decent statisticians to analyze the data.
Sorry, no. I don't believe that.
Granted, I'm Israeli, and have far more trust in the Israeli public and soldiers than most people in the world. But it really is true that Hamas uses human shields. It really is true that they place bases in places like hospitals.
And it also is really true that many, hopefully most Israelis, wouldn't comply with an order to bomb a building only to kill civilians with no military value.
I understand why that might be a statement that outsiders wouldn't trust. And I'm sure there have been plenty of mistakes and even many times where people did do the wrong thing, like in every conflict in the world. I just don't think that as a matter of policy, Israel is bombing buildings with no military reason.
If that's the case, then the government propaganda has done its job. There's nothing more to say.
It’s only natural to err on the side of false positives when the alternative is allowing your enemy to live and kill your people later.
This shouldn’t be seen as any sort of approval for this war. I would prefer no war, to the natural consequences of having one.
Then don't fucking bomb it. You're defending war crimes and terrorism.
1. It's not a war crime. If one side places their militants in a hospital, the hospital is no longer afforded protection. If anyone is commiting war crimes, it's Hamas, by placing their HQ in a hospital.
2. As much as I'd love to not bomb anybody, they are actively at this moment shooting rockets at me. What exactly should I do? Just wait until they inevitably manage to kill me?
I stand by my statement. You're defending war crimes and terrorism. It's what it is, no matter how justified you believe it is to kill these innocent people.
The Hamas militants that are using hospitals as a base of operations.
If you honestly want to discuss this, then here's my suggestion - let's set aside the factual question for a second. If it's true that Hamas is firing rockets from within hospitals and/or using hospitals as a base of operations, would you then consider it justified to attack back?
If yes, then we just have the factual matter of whether it's true or not and we can check that.
If no, then my followup question is - so what should we do? What other option is there if someone is firing rockets at you right now, if you refuse to fire back? I'm asking in all sincerity, I'm literally running to a bomb shelter multiple times a day as rockets are fired at me, is there something you think is ok for my government to do to try and defend me?
That you're comparing children throwing rocks to using advanced military equipment to bomb them back says a lot about your values. As if doing the first in any way excuses doing the second.. A child being told to throw rocks doesn't know any better, and doesn't deserve to die for it. Holy crap some of you are out of touch with humanity.
> Then just not fucking bomb the children.
Do you think the IDF is purposefully looking for children to bomb so they can look bad? Hamas use children as human shield and their deaths as propaganda.
Do you want to help Palestinian children? Condemn Hamas for using children as shield. Condemn Iran & Russia for funding Hamas. Condemn Qatar for giving asylum to Hamas leaders. Stop romanticizing "Palestinian resistance" (evil adults sending children to stupid deaths).
It's for the best if all you have to contribute are personal attacks and nonsensical accusations.
> I'm literally running to a bomb shelter multiple times a day as rockets are fired at me
I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, constantly in mortal fear of attacks from the other side. I will be the first to admit that I cannot relate to this, I've always lived in peaceful/stable environments (touch wood).
Can I pose a completely hypothetical counter-question, based on your own question with one variable changed: If it were somehow true that Hamas was firing rockets from _within Tel Aviv_ hospitals and/or using _Tel Aviv_ hospitals as a base of operations, would you consider it justified for the IDF to bomb that hospital?
Thank you. I will say that there are people in much worse situations, we still feel relatively normal, except for running to bomb shelters a few times a day and except for the worry that worse is coming. But we're in the center. Many Israelis have had to evacuate their homes and probably won't be back for months.
And of course, the Palestinians in Gaza have it much worse than us, even on a good day.
> Can I pose a completely hypothetical counter-question, based on your own question with one variable changed: If it were somehow true that Hamas was firing rockets from _within Tel Aviv_ hospitals and/or using _Tel Aviv_ hospitals as a base of operations, would you consider it justified for the IDF to bomb that hospital?
An interesting question. I suggest you think about it the same way as what would happen if bank robbers took over a bank in New York, and were firing rockets at the population - would you consider bombing the bank justified? If it were the only way to prevent mass casualties outside the bank, then yes, I think it would be (and would be effectively what the police/army would do.)
But here's what makes this situation unrealistic/different: If Hamas had taken over a hospital in Tel Aviv, the hospital wouldn't continue to operate like normal. The people in the hospital would either evacuate, or would fight Hamas. If Hamas somehow managed to take over the hospital anyway, we'd be talking about a hostage situation where Hamas had a hospital-full of hostages. Then probably what would actually happen is we'd send in soldiers and/or police to try to root them out by force.
If they were somehow holed up in there, and were actively firing rockets that were killing people, then I assume there'd be some determination of whether the army/police were able to remove them quickly, before the death/damage from their rockets proves too much. If not, then for sure there'd be a discussion of whether bombing the hospital is the right choice, though it would have to be a pretty extreme situation (since ground troops probably would be able to get in, and the hostage casualties would be far too high in directly bombing it.)
The difference with the situation in Gaza is obvious IMIO. Whereas in a hospital inside Tel Aviv, Hamas is surrounded by an endless amount of Israeli ground forces that have access to it, inside Gaza that's not the case. I imagine this is actually one of the reasons for the large bombing campaign - to prepare the way for ground forces to invade, so that among other things we can surround any building with troops.
I think it suffices to say that quite a bit of thought and justification would precede striking a hospital in all of these scenarios. I do hope that this level of thought and consideration is standard operating procedure in the retaliations right now. Mainly to restore some morcel of faith I have in humanity. But I, and those disconnected from internal Israeli military comms (ie most of us) can't be sure.
The political optics/rhetoric aside, the images that I see of wounded children are heartbreaking. The recounts I've read about what happened on October 7th are horrifying. If the stats are accurate, they are depressing as hell. This war has amassed almost a fifth of the total civilian death toll of the 20-year long US War in Afghanistan. In. One. Month.
Collectively I think we can agree that this needs to stop. I hope it stops. But given the track record of skirmishes and hostilities in the region, I'm losing faith.
If the statistics of civilian and children deaths are even 50% accurate, even if Israel succeeds in destroying Hamas, I fear the collateral damage and the cost of human life will just create a future generation of armed boys who all lost their parents in air strikeS in October 2023. They might just call themselves something different.
And so the cycle continues.
I know many people on both sides alike want peace. But it will take a truly superhuman person to walk across that border and say "I forgive you."
When that day comes, a person who's death would be mourned by both sides, we may have some hope.
Until such a day, stay safe. I'll go give my kids a hug now.
That's also not to mention the many times Israel has been caught lying to cover its own military actions. You only have to look as far back as the targeted killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
7x as many Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than Israelis. And on average, in the West Bank alone, Israel kills a Palestinian every day.
Moreover, to 'sit back' as an occupied in a situation founded on mass expulsion, in which settlers actively continue illegal territorial expansion is an act of real, profound, material violence.
For me it just underlines how people need a flimsy excuse so they don't have to openly support killing civilians.
The Hamas terrorist attacks were the pent up thing. Israel's retaliation is war crimes, terrorism and absolutely inexcusable.
Don't blame the deaths of Palestinian children on Hamas. If Israel didn't want to kill innocents, they could just not bomb them for fucks sake.
> Israel's retaliation is war crimes, terrorism.
You're wrong but if you repeat it a thousand times maybe it will become truth. A war crime is using civilians as human shield. Terrorism is indiscriminately launching rockets at civilians areas, of which ~30% hits Gaza. Terrorism is killing civilians purposefully in barbaric ways to send a message and incite fear. Hamas and Iran are the architects of what is happening today in Gaza.
All you wrote about war crimes is exactly what Isreal does as well. If you can't see that, you should think hard about what propaganda you're listening to.
But maybe it's a coping mechanism? Because acknowledging the truth about the amount of innocents being killed would be unpleasant?
> you should think hard about what propaganda you're listening to.
I listen to both. It's just that Israel at least say some truth (that can be independently verified) while Hamas only lies and play victim.
> But maybe it's a coping mechanism?
I'm far from these events. Maybe you are the one coping and avoid unpleasant facts.
There is no way to support Israels bombings, killings thousands of innocent children, no matter how it's framed. If you do, you might as well spell it straight out instead of hiding behind weak arguments: you support the killing of children.
The minister of communications has said Israel will “use all means at its disposal to fight” the use of Elon Musk’s Starlink to support connectivity for aid groups in Gaza.
Israeli official says will fight Starlink’s deployment in Gaza
The minister of communications has said Israel will “use all means at its disposal to fight” the use of Elon Musk’s Starlink to support connectivity for aid groups in Gaza.
Posting on X, Shlomo Khari said if the Starlink satellite internet is deployed “Hamas will use it for terrorist activities”.
“There is no doubt about it, we know it, and Musk knows it,” he wrote.
“Perhaps Musk would be willing to condition it with the release of our abducted babies, sons, daughters, elderly people,” he wrote.
Musk had made the offer to use Starlink in Gaza earlier today, although further details have yet to emerge.
Cutting communications before an invasion is pretty basic military strategy. Unfortunately, it also cuts civilian population off but as we asserted... The Hamas is embedded in civilian population and uses them as human shields. It steals fuel destined for hospitals and has made itself rich over the backs of the Palestinian people.
Personally I think it could have worked given time and more intelligence work but now it will be much harder. The Hamas controlled the school system in Gaza. I just watched a video of a bunch of kids, no older than mine. Cute as pie, telling the camera how horrible the Jews are and that they want to drive a car into them when they grow up. That nothing is more holy than to be a martyr for god. Pretty fucked up stuff.
It's pretty tragic.
Reference for people reading this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_Pioneers
Something really bad has been happening there for the last decades, but it's so messed up and mixed up in past mistakes, revenge and religion that there is no more ability to reason with either side.
What really galls me is that we were so close to finally solving this and then Rabin was murdered (by his own side, go figure) and it all went to pieces.
I don't think you can really call the lunatic who killed Rabin (or worse, the lunatics that urged him on and enabled him) part of Rabin's side.
When Israel invaded Gaza in 2014 they killed 2,310 people. 70% were civilians. In return they lost only 67 soldiers. They also destroyed 7-10k homes and damaged 87k other homes.
Between 2005-2008, 1,754 Palestinians and 117 Israelis have lost their lives due to the ongoing occupation. Between 2008-2023 2,329 more Palestinians and 308 more Israeli people lost their lives.
The vast majority of Israeli casualties are soldiers and the vast majority of Palestinian casualties are civilian.
Now in the span of just a few days Israel has killed over 7k more Palestinians. This isn't "retribution". This is an ongoing genocide. One which the UN has tried to intercede OVER and OVER and OVER again but always fails. Despite almost every single country in the UN voting on the side of Palestine there is one country that ensures Israel is never held accountable for its war crimes: the United States.
Between 1954 and 2023 the US has used its Veto power to strike down 34 resolutions relating to Palestine and Israel. Resolutions that the entire rest of the world's countries supports. Resolutions that could've stopped or significantly reduced this ongoing bloodshed
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/10/03/more-whit...
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2005/04/15/american-eva...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/25/many-evan...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/14/h...
I think there's a problem when you apply different standard to Jews vs. everyone else or are parroting some narrative that has anti-semitic aspects to it.
For example, I would call people contesting the right of Israel to exist, despite many generations of Israelis living in that area, despite the UN's recognition of the state of Israel, and despite the historic connection of the Jewish people to that land (and there are ofcourse many non-Jewish Israelis which people tend to overlook), anti-semitic. If someone aligns themselves with this message, I would also tend to consider them anti-semitic.
I would likely agree with much of your criticism of the west bank settlements and the behaviour of the settlers there and in general that is not anti-semitic. It's not black and white- there are many lies being propagated and there is are many truths that deserve criticism. Propagating lies about jews is basically what anti-semitism is all about and it is rampant.
Both sides need to take care of their extremists. Otherwise this will just go on and on.
The fact that both of those conflicts are at the root religious conflicts is probably not a coincidence. Believing Israel can not co-exist with the Palestinian Arabs is as good as bankrupting the state of Israel or accepting eternal conflict, neither of which are good outcomes. This won't last.
Likely the only workable solution is a single state solution with some special protections for the Jewish people. Maybe a federation of some sorts. This is not going to happen in this generation. Given the demographics of the region I'm not sure it'll ever happen. Unfortunately the future looks bleak, more so for the Arabs, but really for everyone.
Personally, I don't think any country has the "right" to exist. Neither the Israelis nor Palestinians have any moral right to a country, and I think that the notion that "nations", which are often ahistorical fabrications, have the right to self-determination is bullshit.
I agree with you "right to exist" is bullshit. A country exists or doesn't exist and it may also cease to exist if it can't remain a country. That's about it.
Oh, sorry I misunderstood.
Not all Jews though.
The 'right of Israel to exist' is the right to maintain (by force) a demographic majority created by mass expulsion because Israel is an ethnostate in which only one race has full civil rights. Allowing the right of return to Palestinian refugees and their descendants to the homes from which they have been expelled since 1948 is the negation of Israel's 'right to exist' because 'existence' here has nothing whatsoever to do with the existence or survival of Israeli citizens.
There is absolutely nothing annihilationist (nor anti-Semitic) in denying Israel's 'right to exist'. Despite its pretensions to the contrary when convenient, Israel is not 'the Jewish state' and its people is not the Jewish people.
The US singleminded support of Israel has cost an incredible amount of money and political capital, but it helps congressmen and senators get reelected and lines the pockets of defense contractors, so clearly it is keeping the right people happy.
The USA generally is unpopular in the Middle-east, but Israel is a very strong and strategic foothold in that part of the world for the USA. Likewise, Israel is also very unpopular in the region, so they welcome any resources they can get. With all that being the case, it is mutually beneficial for the two countries, especially militarily.
And lest anyone misunderstand where I'm coming from, I believe almost anything that is beneficial to USA military interests is probably bad.
Vox has a good high level summary of the history here: https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23916266/us-israel-suppor...
You say "in return" 67 soldiers died. That's not how any of this works. In conflict, you try to kill as many of the enemy soldiers as you can, while getting the least amount of death on your side as possible. You're not trading some number of kills until everyone is even.
More Palestinian civilians die because the Israeli military is far stronger than the Palestinian's "soldiers", and because Hamas uses human shields.
> Now in the span of just a few days Israel has killed over 7k more Palestinians. This isn't "retribution". This is an ongoing genocide
Please, I've asked this of many people - in what sense is this a genocide? Provide some definition of genocide that this falls under. There is none, because this isn't a genocide. Israel's goal is not the eradication of Palestinians. It never has been. The way we know this is that the Palestinian population has basically doubled in the last 50 years.
And despite the terrible, terrible civilian cost on the Palestinian side (which is horrible, and which any decent person should be appalled at), the amount of dead in Palestine is basically a tiny blip compared to any other conflict in the world, including several going on right now.
Any dead civilian is too much, but the amount of dead in Palestine is just the opposite of indicating a genocide.
But like I asked, if you have a different way of thinking about this, please, tell me what you mean when you say there's an ongoing genocide.
keep in mind the blockade and hindering the economic development of Gaza is not new.
there is no such thing as eradicating hamas because Israel and its policies are a recruitment tool. This conflict will continue and the children today will be fighting in a few years because what choice do they have than resist.
The palestinians don't hide that their high fertility rate is politically motivated and have structured their society to marry young and have a lot of children as it is an act of Resistance.
not all children make it, the malnutrition rate was around 15%. again, all caused by Israel as they have control major aspects of that open air prison.
I think if you are shooting fish in a barrel and the international community lets you do it, you don't get to complain about the splashes and you certainly shouldn't be claiming the moral high ground.
no matter how much the politicians or corporate mainstream media keep repeating it, Israel and its apartheid genocidal policies don't have international support.
The blockade of food and water is new. And if you're saying this is not new, how can it be a genocide if people aren't dying because of it? Genocide is defined as killing off a population, but while life is certainly not great for Gazans (to say the least), Israel is not killing them.
> combine it with a bombing campaign that is indiscriminately targeting civilians and their infrastructure, from internet to hospitals is a war crime.
Your facts are wrong. It's not indiscriminate shooting. Israel is targeting militants, which make it not a war crime. It is an unfortunate (truly unfortunate!) reality that the militants choose to place themselves among civilians, including under hospitals, on purpose, which means that Hamas is responsible for two crimes - both shooting at Israelis, and getting Israel to fire back on their own civilians that they are supposed to protect.
> there is no such thing as eradicating hamas because Israel and its policies are a recruitment tool. This conflict will continue and the children today will be fighting in a few years because what choice do they have than resist.
Well there is eradicating Hamas. It is a specific group with specific people in it. ISIS was eradicated, after all.
But yes, it's a complicated situation.
But there is a choice other than resist - if they give up on the idea of getting back all of Israel (which effectively means eradicating the Israeli state), if and they give up armed resistance, there could be peace tomorrow. The Palestinians have had many deals put forward and chose to continue fighting.
I really wish there was a for everyone to get what they want, but if what they want is for my country to disappear - well, sorry, what am I supposed to say to that other than no?
> not all children make it, the malnutrition rate was around 15%. again, all caused by Israel as they have control major aspects of that open air prison.
Just to be clear, Egypt is also blockading Gaza. No one is blaming Egypt, and no one is committing terror acts against Egypt. Why is that?
Also, you call it an open-air prison, in what sense? Gaza is under the control of Hamas, Israel left it twenty years ago. All they've done since then is wage war against Israel.
It's not new. Food insecurity has been an issue for years.
The blockade has caused severe food insecurity and malnutrition among the 2.3 million people living in Gaza⁴⁵. According to the World Food Program (WFP), more than 60% of households in Gaza are food insecure and rely on humanitarian assistance⁵. The blockade has also affected the availability and quality of food in Gaza, as many products are scarce, expensive or expired⁵.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/25/un-report-80-p...
>> how can it be a genocide if people aren't dying because of it?
I'm not waiting to see what happens when people are starved for weeks and I'm not the only one calling it a genocide:
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evide...
- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/10/28/kilj-o28.html
>> It's not indiscriminate shooting.
The strength of hamas is their tunnels and underground networks and how they use them to traffic weapons, goods and people to circumvent the blockades. That's the source of their power and bombing buildings changes little to Hamas infrastructure or leadership (which is in Qatar/overseas). Even destroying civilian infrastructure like cell towers and Internet does little. Hamas uses hardwired lines and radios as again, the city is small enough to be called a prison and they are fully aware of Israeli digital surveillance.
Did bombing civilian villages change anything to Viet Cong tunnels in Vietnam? Or, the allies during WW2 bombing campaigns in Japan and Germany, did it rally the people against the authorities? The answer to both is no.
>> If and they give up armed resistance, there could be peace tomorrow. The Palestinians have had many deals put forward and chose to continue fighting.
Honestly, if you want to continue this conversation, I'm open to discussing those deals and brainstorming solutions such as grassroot peacebuilding projects, virtual diplomacy (difficult now that the population is voiceless, huh?), and economic integration.
But, I don't believe it's honest to say Israel has displayed good will when Israel has implemented a system of permits and licenses that restricts the ability of Palestinian workers and businesses to access Israeli markets. Palestinians face limitations on exporting their products to Israeli and international markets, which can hinder economic growth and development.
Any palestinian allowed to work are usually limited to agriculture and construction sector and often restricted to the occupied / settler zones.
I want to define "Grassroots Peacebuilding" clearly because it's something I'm interested in and I believe in the power of individuals: "Prioritizing grassroots initiatives that bring Israelis and Palestinians together for dialogue, joint projects, and community-building activities can help build trust and understanding from the ground up. This approach emphasizes the power of individuals and communities to drive change."
>> Egypt is also blockading Gaza. No one is blaming Egypt, and no one is committing terror acts against Egypt. Why is that?
People are not blaming Egypt because it's not bombing Gaza and preparing a ground invasion.
Egypt is blockading Gaza (as evidenced by the fact the border was only open for 23 days in 2022) https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/6/15/the-seven-borde...
The rationale for the Egypt blockade as I understand is:
- Egypt considers Hamas a threat as it is an offshoot of the Muslism Brotherhood which was ousted from power in 2013.
- Egypt accuses Hamas of supporting militant groups in the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt has been fighting a long insurgency https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypt-arab-co...
- Egypt also wants to maintain its peace treaty with Israel, which it signed in 1979. By preserving the status quo of the blockade until a lasting solution is foudn, Egypt maintains its role as a mediator and is not undermined by siding with one party over the other. It also continues to benefit from economic and military aid from the United States https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypt-arab-co... and avoids fueling the conflict which could spill into its borders as it already hosts millions of refugees from conflicts in Syria, Sudan, Ethiopia etc.
Please note I have to get going with my day but I will reply later.
Thank you
Edit: because I got my links mixed up
> The blockade has caused severe food insecurity and malnutrition among the 2.3 million people living in Gaza⁴⁵
First of all, I'm not sure I understand where your citations are (the 4, 5 superscript), am I missing something? I didn't see any mention of food insecurity in the link immediately following.
The outside view here is that Palestinians haven't been dying of malnutrition over these last twenty years. Yes, outside aid is necessary, but Israel isn't denying that outside help in general.
Btw, it's worth asking why this is automatically Israel's fault. Hamas is the government of Gaza, if Gaza is doing poorly, aren't they at fault? They could invest in improving their lives.
> I'm not waiting to see what happens when people are starved for weeks and I'm not the only one calling it a genocide:
I'm willing to bet whatever you want that Israel will not cause mass starvation among Gazans. We wouldn't do that. If we do that, then yes, that's evil. But despite everyone being super worried about the Israeli response, it's been 3 weeks, we're currently at war, and there's be no mass death of Gazans. (Again, the thousands of civilians killed is tragedy enough and I don't want to minimize that, but it's also definitely not a genocide.)
Btw, the groups you link to are... not very persuasive to me.
> The strength of hamas is their tunnels and underground networks [...] Did bombing civilian villages change anything to Viet Cong tunnels in Vietnam? Or, the allies during WW2 bombing campaigns in Japan and Germany, did it rally the people against the authorities? The answer to both is no.
Now you're talking strategy, you're asking if in practice Hamas can be rooted out. I have no idea! I'm doubtful about it as you are. I hope we can, because I think the only way for Israel to be safe, and coincidentally the only way for Gazans to be safe, is with Hamas gone.
I don't expect the bombings of Germany to have turned the populations against the government directly, but I don't think that was their only goal or the fact that they didn't means they weren't worth doing. Though I know very little about this topic - very possibly these weren't morally justified! Idk.
> People are not blaming Egypt because it's not bombing Gaza and preparing a ground invasion.
Yes, but I meant why are people not saying that Egypt is starving Gaza too, or causing Gaza to be underdeveloped too.
And yes, Egypt isn't bombing Gaza, but Gazans aren't sending rockets at Egypt either. Which, reminder, they're continuing to do to Israel! I have had to run to a bomb shelter almost every day for 3 weeks, sometimes multiple times per day, as they try to kill me. Surely my government is allowed to do something to respond, like trying to bomb the people shooting at me to get them to stop?
> [...] I don't believe it's honest to say Israel has displayed good will when Israel has implemented a system of permits and licenses that restricts the ability of Palestinian workers and businesses to access Israeli markets. Palestinians face limitations on exporting their products to Israeli and international markets, which can hinder economic growth and development.
I mean, I think it's absolutely ok for Israel to not allow any Palestinian into Israel. For one thing, it's a separately governed entity - I'm not allowed to come work in the States, because the States has an immigration policy that precludes it. This doesn't mean the States is oppressing me or that it's not showing good faith towards me.
As for export limitations, don't know much about which limitations exist. You might be right about this. (I certainly don't get behind everything the government does, especially this government which is terrible in so many ways.)
> Honestly, if you want to continue this conversation, I'm open to discussing those deals and brainstorming solutions such as grassroot peacebuilding projects, virtual diplomacy (difficult now that the population is voiceless, huh?), and economic integration.
I'm definitely open to discussing it. And I've seen several Israeli Arabs and several Palestinians speaking out against Hamas and for peace.
I'm all in favor of peace. But Hamas has made it very clear that they are not, and that no peace is possible with them, nor any security for Israel. As an Israeli, the security of myself and my family has to come first - it shouldn't be at the expense of anyone else, but because of Hamas, it is at the expense of their own people.
I'd love nothing more than a way out of this horrible situation we're in. It's not up to me, and I honestly believe that, despite how Israel acts, it's not up to Israel either - it's up to the Palestinians to decide they actually want peace. I honestly believe that as soon as they do, Israel will jump at the chance to make peace. (And just to be clear, I think Israel is pushing this away too, mostly because most Israelis believe that peace is not currently possible.)
First, I didn't know you were Israeli. I live in Canada, far from the conflict and although it has been going on for decades, this moment feels different. It feels we are witnessing collective punishment on a large scale (and it's only beginning) and no one is attempting to de-escalate or even consider the future and its ramifications.
Having said that, I don't live under an "iron dome" and my life is not at risk; so, I can sympathize but will not be commenting on that as I have no lived experience of that level of stress and anxiety. No one deserves to live like that.
In Canada and many western countries, the media is biased towards Israel and the double speak to hide the truth and remove context is off the charts. When comparing the coverage with the Ukraine conflict, there is a silence similar to the Saudi's genocide in Yemen. You don't hear from Yemeni people, you don't see coverage from their perspective. It's the same thing now with people in Gaza. Compare this to Ukraine where we had the stories/experiences of individuals constantly relayed in the corporate media.
>> it's not up to Israel either - it's up to the Palestinians to decide they actually want peace
I completely disagree with that. Again, I see little to no good will from Israel. There are no humanitarian corridors open. People cannot escape. People can go south but even the Rafah (Egypt's border) area was bombed and they also bomb the south of the city in general. I will spare you repeating the talks of dehumanization, eradication from your democratically elected government officials as you've already expressed more empathy than any of them towards civilian lives.
But, I completely reject the notion that this violence is happening in a vaccuum and that Israel didn't play a role in causing this. Again, not alone here, as there are at least 15 U.N resolutions condemning Israel in 2022 alone and of course, vetoed by the U.S.
When I read about the lives of people in Gaza (before October 2023), I'm not surprised a movement of resistance like Hamas emerged. Gaza is under a blockade, their movement is restricted, their trade and goods are restricted, electricity, food etc. and it has been like that for years. It's why it's compared to a prison and Israel is its warden, literally. Israel shows little regard for Palestinian lives and they are treated more like a pest to be managed than the long distant cousins they are.
The lie is: Gaza has been left alone and the people/government have failed to make something of themselves. Meanwhile, I read/watch the lives of people in Gaza (very little footage as many journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza by Israel and are accused of being propagandists) and I can't even imagine how I would live my life under those circumstances without resorting to violence, radicalization or desperation.
Here are two videos that influenced me:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw4CH-Jg6lY This was filmed before October 2023 and shows the reality of the blockade, the lives of people in Gaza and their resourcefulness despite the safety/economic constraints.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZSaKYmP2s This was filmed in 2019, mostly in the west bank (which is a whole other disaster) and convinced me about Israel's intent and its so called "good will". I watched it when I heard Abby Martin on the Joe Rogan podcast. I haven't watched since.
Feel free to educate me if you have good material / videos / projects / initiatives you'd like to share that would change my perspective and help put an end to this conflict.
My wish for you is to find security and peace, and I hope that it will not come at the expense of many lives.
Oh nice, I have lots of family and friends there, and I've been many times, what a wonderful country.
> Having said that, I don't live under an "iron dome" and my life is not at risk; so, I can sympathize but will not be commenting on that as I have no lived experience of that level of stress and anxiety. No one deserves to live like that.
Thank you. No one really deserves to live in any kind of war zone. For sure the people in Gaza have it far worse than we do here.
I will say, one thing that I think keeps getting "lost" by outsiders to conflict is just how different it is to live under threat of annhilation. That's something I think outsiders don't really understand, because they mostly think Israel is "all-powerful" in this conflict. And for sure Israel is more powerful. But people here vividly remember that we are surrounded by enemies that have attacked us many times, and that absolutely might be able to overwhelm us. It's happened before, and this current situation makes us all feel incredibly scared that a wider war will break out. Many Israelis I know have fled the country for fear of a wider conflict.
I'm not saying this excuses all behavior, but for sure, when talking with Westerners, it often feels like they just don't have a concept of a real war that could destroy their country. And that makes sense - most Canadians/USians are hundreds of years removed from that kind of worry.
> But, I completely reject the notion that this violence is happening in a vaccuum and that Israel didn't play a role in causing this.
I agree, of course it didn't happen in a vacuum. I'm not trying to say Israel is faultless, or that the Palestinians don't have very legitimate grievances.
> Again, not alone here, as there are at least 15 U.N resolutions condemning Israel in 2022 alone and of course, vetoed by the U.S.
I just want to give you an Israeli's perspective on this. We absolutely hate the UN, and assume it is incredibly biased against Israel. Which makes sense, since it's not a democratic institution, it's far closer to a popularity contest, and there are more than 20 Arab countries, representing 200 million Arabs, as opposed to only one Israel representing 7 million Jews (or 15 million worldwide Jews).
As proof of this bias, per Wikipedia:
> Since the UNHRC's creation in 2006, it has resolved almost as many resolutions condemning Israel alone than on issues for the rest of the world combined.
Now, say whatever you want about Israel, I don't think there's any legitimate way to make the claim that it deserves more condemnation than the rest of the world combined. Not even close.
> I will spare you repeating the talks of dehumanization, eradication from your democratically elected government officials as you've already expressed more empathy than any of them towards civilian lives.
Just for the record, I am against that kind of talk. I understand where it comes from, and I think in some cases people are blurring between things said against Hamas vs. against all Palestinians, sometimes intentionally (on both sides). But I think it's wrong.
> Gaza is under a blockade, their movement is restricted, their trade and goods are restricted, electricity, food etc. and it has been like that for years. It's why it's compared to a prison and Israel is its warden, literally.
Israel withdrew from Gaza, after which they elected Hamas, with the avowed intent to destroy Israel. Israel then implemented a blockade to prevent them getting weapons.
Let's say Israel lifted that blockade and allowed free movement - do you think that Hamas wouldn't just arm themselves even more and commit even more violence? Even under the current situation, where aid and things are going through the blockade, you have videos that Hamas themsleves put up of them digging up water pipes meant for the populace, and turning them into rockets.
> Again, I see little to no good will from Israel. There are no humanitarian corridors open. People cannot escape. People can go south but even the Rafah (Egypt's border) area was bombed and they also bomb the south of the city in general.
If we're talking in general, I think you can see goodwill by the fact that Israel has agreed to several peace deals that the Palestinians walked away from, the fact that Israel completely left Gaza, the fact that after every time Hamas started shooting rockets at Israel, it has agreed to a ceasefire despite being objectively much stronger than Hamas. As terrible as the rockets alway were, it's not like Israel couldn't have any of the dozen times this has happened decided to go in and do far more damage.
Also, I do ask that you judge Israel not by some ideal moral standard, but by the standard of how other countries have acted or would act in similar situations.
As for goodwill in the current situation, all I can say is, two weeks ago everyone was up in arms at Israel saying that it was giving Gazans 24 hours to evacuate, turning off the water and blocking food, etc. I said then, that Israel would not let Gazans starve, and would not create a mass casualty event. Israel still hasn't, and I continue to stick by this statement - while many Gazans will regrettably lose this lives (and I really do regret this), Israel is not going to indiscriminately kill Gazans, there will be no mass casualty event neither by bombing nor by mass starvation etc. While Israel has bombed a bit in the south, it is mostly not bombing there and mostly allowing Gazans to escape to the south.
I don't have proof of any of this, but all I can say is that I've been right so far and all past actions have shown that Israel is not trying to mass kill Gazans, despite always having had the ability to do so, and there's just no real way to think otherwise when looking at the actual numbers.
(And I will reiterate again - every civilian death is a tragedy. I even think it's a tragedy that any terrorists/militants have to be killed, because despite the civilian/combatant distinction, most of them are scared/angry teenagers too! I definitely think Israel has sometimes killed innocent it didn't have to, just like any other army in the world, but I don't think any of Israel's actions are consistent with it trying to create a genocide, period, and I've seen no reason to think otherwise except people saying "this time is different and Israel will cause a genocide".)
> The lie is: Gaza has been left alone and the people/government have failed to make something of themselves. Meanwhile, I read/watch the lives of people in Gaza (very little footage as many journalists are not allowed to enter Gaza by Israel and are accused of being propagandists) and I can't even imagine how I would live my life under those circumstances without resorting to violence, radicalization or desperation.
I don't mean to sound callous, truly, but people live in bad conditions all over the world. Gazans are certainly not living in good circumstances, but there's many people around the world who live in far worse conditions. And it's worth reiterating - if they would agree to ceasing violence and compromising with Israel, we would have peace. They don't have to resort to violence any more than anyone else does - it's only because they refuse to accept Israel existing as it currently does, only because they refused and refuse to compromise, that they continue to be in this current situation.
(And once agian, I mostly blame their leaders for this, not the "average citizen", and also put a lot of blame on Israeli leaders, who have for years done nothing to encourage peace and done plenty to discourage peace.)
> Here are two videos that influenced me:
I don't have time to watch these right now (they're long), but will try to watch them soon. I'll try to think of good resources.
I wish for peace too. Unfortunately, it's a two sided thing, and one side really hasn't tried to achieve peace all these years. (And the Israeli side is somewhere between "giving up" and "actively try to discouarge peace", so it's not like our side is perfect.)
A lot of people share concerns regarding potential escalation in the region, although I hold a different perspective on Israel's vulnerability to annihilation. There may be retaliatory actions, yet it is evident that the United States is providing support, as demonstrated by the presence of two (or three) carriers ready for engagement. On the other hand, Gaza faces a significant threat of annihilation. I do agree with you that the likelihood of Canada experiencing war is low, with the primary concerns being terrorism within our borders or the possibility of a nuclear strike.
>> We absolutely hate the UN
And, also, the ICC (Internal Criminal Court) apparently. Along with a few countries like: United States , China , Russia , India , Indonesia , Israel , Sudan , North Korea , Syria.
The resolutions are often a response to actions taken by Israel that are perceived as violations of international law or hindrances to peace efforts. It is not a matter of bias against Israel, but rather an attempt to hold all nations accountable for their actions. Although there are many Arab nations, the resolutions are passed based on the consensus or majority vote of the member states, which includes a wide range of nations with different perspectives and interests.
Dismissing the U.N as a biased organization isolates Israel on the international stage. Perhaps it doesn't matter given the emphasis on catering to the United States as the primary base of support and main audience.
>> Israel withdrew from Gaza
I believe statements like this is where you and I will strongly disagree.
When I see snipers shooting children who are fenced up, shooting medical personnel, shooting journalists, all deliberate, done with intent by IDF snipers; I don't call that withdrawing from Gaza.
This is the video I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/HnZSaKYmP2s?t=2673 explaining the practice of picking targets and killing them. Explained by General Zvika Fogel
This is a recorded video of the practice and performed by Israeli snipers: https://youtu.be/HnZSaKYmP2s?t=2844
This explains how food is restricted or as Israel puts it: "Putting Gaza on a diet" (2006) - Dov Weisglass, an adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. https://youtu.be/HnZSaKYmP2s?t=464 by only allowing 4 hours of electricity per day (cannot store food) and watching the caloric intake requirements to avoid malnutrition.
This was all filmed in Gaza around 2018/2019. You are welcome to watch the rest if you find the time; I hope those short segments change your perspective.
We have many problems with indegenous tribes in Canada (long history) but they are not fenced up, blockaded, shot at and bombed. This is what Israel snipers remind me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0DqnUk90lo and why Israel is condemned internationally.
While I may not fully endorse Hamas, I hesitate to label it as a terrorist organization without further examination. Instances of violence, as depicted in the video mentioned and recognized by numerous U.N resolutions, involving IDF soldiers and the actions of "settlers" in the West Bank, are acts of terrorism.
When you watch those video segments, do you still believe Israel is a nation interested in peace? Because all I see is a nation interested in the degradation, humiliation and brutalization of people. Israel certainly doesn't get to act outraged when Palestinians resist and fight back against that type of oppression and occupation.
A few definitions so words still have meaning because they easily get distorted in this conflict:
``` A terrorist is an individual who engages in acts of violence, typically targeting civilians or non-combatants, with the intention of instilling fear, spreading terror, and advancing a particular political, ideological, or religious agenda. These acts are usually carried out as a form of asymmetric warfare, where the perpetrators lack the conventional military power to engage in direct conflicts.
A terrorist state, also known as a state sponsor of terrorism, refers to a nation that provides financial, logistical, or ideological support to terrorist organizations. Such states may offer safe havens, training facilities, weapons, funding, or even intelligence to terrorist groups, enabling them to carry out their activities. This support can be motivated by various political, ideological, or strategic interests.
```
Since no international governmental body can, I genuinely hope Israeli individuals can hold their government accountable through democracy and better access to information/education.
Again, I'm 100% open to new material if you want to share your perspective and change minds.
I mean, I think it's unlikely Israel will be completely annihilated, but a larger conflict in which we are attacked from several different countries can be devastating. And it's definitely a real possibility that Israel could be conquered.
> It is not a matter of bias against Israel, but rather an attempt to hold all nations accountable for their actions.
Well, do you think the fact that there are more resolutions against Israel than against all other countries combined is reflective of Israel being worse than all other countries combined? If not, how do you explain it?
> Although there are many Arab nations, the resolutions are passed based on the consensus or majority vote of the member states, which includes a wide range of nations with different perspectives and interests.
There are many Arab nations. There are also a huge number of Arabs and Muslims, many of whom are ideologically opposed to Israel. Many of them live in various countries, including many countries in Europe. Just look at the vast anti-Israel protests that are happening across many countries.
This gives a lot of political pressure to many countries to oppose Israel in various ways. Voting against Israel in the UN is a cheap way to appease large blocs of voters.
I'm not saying this necessarily means the UN is biased against Israel, but for sure take that together with the fact that a majority of resolutions are against Israel, and it paints a picture in my mind. (Remember, big as the conflict with Palestine is, the number of dead is tiny compared to any other conflict, including some happening as we speak).
Btw, here's one example of why Israelis dislike the UN so much - it is fairly common knowledge that Palestinian children, taught in UN-run schools, get material which teaches them to hate Jews/Israel.
Here's one video on the subject I randomly found on YouTube, there are lots of others but I tried to find one that isn't from an Israeli channel (just in case you don't trust it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkOPVXiTqoI
> >> Israel withdrew from Gaza
> I believe statements like this is where you and I will strongly disagree.
> When I see snipers shooting children who are fenced up, shooting medical personnel, shooting journalists, all deliberate, done with intent by IDF snipers; I don't call that withdrawing from Gaza.
To be clear, by withdrawing from Gaza, I mean that Israel literally removed 7k of its own citizens, that were settlers in Gaza, removed them and forced them back into Israel. The existence of these settlers were one (very valid) complain the Palestinians and the international community had against Israel.
So Israel forcefully removed these settlers, withdrew all soldiers from Gaza, and said that Gaza can govern itself. Gazans then elected Hamas (or Hamas took over, not sure what's the correct way to put it), which caused Israel and Egypt to blockade Gaza fully in order to keep weapons out of their hands.
> This is a recorded video of the practice and performed by Israeli snipers: https://youtu.be/HnZSaKYmP2s?t=2844
While I certainly condemn killing anyone unarmed and for no reason, this video doesn't give much context on what's happening. I don't believe there's large-scale targeting of medical personnel and journalists. But the border is the border, and soldiers do defend it.
As far as I can tell about that specific clip of a sniper, while it's a pretty horrible video, there does appear to be important context. For one, that person wasn't killed (which is unclear from the video). For another, it appears he was trying to plant a bomb on the border. (I don't know for sure that's true - I just tried to search for a bit of context online about it and that's what I found.)
But it's just not true that there is a large scale IDF campaign of shooting random civilians. Yes, the IDF gets things wrong, and yes, they do zealously protect the border. But that's a very different thing than what you're alleging, and despite the fairly horrible video, it's not evidence of what you claim. I can find thousands of videos of US soldiers doing horrible things, that doesn't mean the US is using its army to commit terrorism and war crimes.
> While I may not fully endorse Hamas, I hesitate to label it as a terrorist organization without further examination.
Ok let me disagree with you strongly here. In what sense is Hamas not a terrorist organization?
On October 7th, Hamas entered into Israel and killed 1400 people, and took 200 people hostages. Most of those were civilians. They raped and tortured people, did absolutely horrendous deeds. In what way does this not fit your definition of a terrorist organization?
Have you seen some of the stuff they did on October 7th? It is absolutely horrible, the worst crimes imaginable. If you have not, I urge you to look into it if you want to actually understand what Israelis feel they are up against. (Though don't watch if you don't want these kinds of horrible images burned into your brain forever).
Btw, if we're already talking about international recognition, Hamas is designated as a terrorist group by the US, UK and Canada. (And iirc, not by the UN, which again leaves many Israelis questioning the UN.)
Force is the only thing you will respect and is why Hamas exists. Until Israel starts treating others with a semblance of humanity, there will never be peace.
If you visit Canada, feel free to say hi. Perhaps I could introduce you to my jewish neighbor (and Israeli reservist) who hopped on the first plane to go commit war crimes. Only a few weeks vacation to commit atrocities and he will be back. Of course, no one will call him a terrorist or war criminal or hold him accountable; hell, he even gets called "Canadian" despite not hesitating to obey the orders of a foreign government.
All cool and normal.
Ummm, I didn't accuse any dead children of planting bombs. And what I deny is that there is large-scale planned killing of journalists, I certainly don't deny that it ever happened.
> Perhaps I could introduce you to my jewish neighbor (and Israeli reservist) who hopped on the first plane to go commit war crimes.
You, on the other hand, flat out say that someone flying to Israel to defend their country is literally going to commit war crimes. Unless you know something more specific about what your neighbor is going to do, that's a pretty serious accusation to make.
So, just to know - is there anything at all that Israel could do right now that wouldn't be considered a war crime? Or do you honestly believe that the only moral move Israel can make at this point is to lay down our guns and, what, hope for the best?
I'm sorry zionists thought that they could steal people's land, force them out of their homes, kill the ones who resist, put the rest behind a fence, treat them for generations with no humanity and act surprised when the oppressed hop the fence, return to their homes and still have the house keys to massacre the intruders and thiefs occupying their property. Unlike Israel, Hamas doesn't have a fancy prison system to lock up Israeli children and show them what "humane treatment" really means.
But hey, I apologize if I can't continue this back-and-forth banter with you. I highly doubt I can change your mind, just as you won't be changing mine. The footage I'm seeing only confirms my belief that there's a slow and deliberate genocide happening. No amount of fancy rhetoric can justify bombing hospitals just to close a tunnel or destroy a weapons depot, or whatever excuse they come up with. It's as simple as that.
This level of carnage and punishment inflicted on an entire population is absolutely unjustified. Sadly, I have no power to stop it, but I won't let Israel get away with washing off all the blood with empty words of forgiveness and forgetfulness. This will forever stain your civilization, just like Germany has been marked by the Nazi regime. And unlike the Germans, you will never learn or grow from this. Instead, you'll keep playing the victim card.
You hit the nail in the head. Why they don't pursue peace? Why they engage in Jihad?
It is impossible to look at this blackout, especially knowing Israel's history of covering up and reading their war crimes since before the foundation of the state (see: the Katz controversy and the massacre of Tantura), and not think that its purpose is to minimize the images and information coming out of Gaza so that Israel can conduct its genocide in the dark.
The voices of Palestinians do not count, especially when they are only telling eyewitness accounts (see, again, the Katz controversy). When it comes to Israeli war crimes, only documentary evidence presented by (and ideally curated from) Israeli voices seems to reliably count.
Whatever happens in the next few days, surviving Gazans will doubtless remember. But to the rest of the world, and to history, much of it will be 'lost'.
From the foreign press: https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/middle...
If you are wondering why, here are the absurd reasons used:
- lack of electricity / internet. No one heard of generators and starlink satellites?
- Israel wants to prevent fake news and propaganda. This backfires as when a hospital gets bombed, we can't know who did it since there are no independent journalists on the ground. It sure doesn't help when your high officials brag about it on twitter.
"Initial posts on X sent by Hananya Naftali, a digital aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aroused suspicion. “Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza,” he wrote, but the post was almost immediately deleted."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/18/what-is-israels-na...
- Israel cannot guarantee the safety of journalists. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-journalists-safety-israel... Looks pretty bad when an IDF soldier shoots a journalist https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/11/shireen-abu-akleh-i... Of course, guaranteeing journalists safety doesn't seem to be an issue in conflicts like Ukraine.
Israel is afraid of the international scrutiny and condemnation that would follow if the world saw the true extent of the suffering and devastation in Gaza
So, better hide it.
Honestly, however dire the need, I don't see what Israel is thinking. If Israel, the US, Europe, China and Russia all held hands and invaded the Gaza strip together, they still probably couldn't route out Hamas.
I'm starting to feel radical myself, and I have no connection at all to events, other than being able to spot a bully obviously about to carry out systematic barbarism in retribution.
.. a rush job to test two different designs for a new weapon, snuck in before the very same cities were destroyed much more cheaply with conventional heavy explosives and incideriaries, just as 72 Japanese cities had already been destroyed.
That answer because you asked about the nuclear bombs rather than the total destruction of complete cities in the European and Japanese theatres.
You can compare the death toll from the Tokyo firebombings to that in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, you can look up the names of the other 71 cities destroyed and you can find the full list of planned targets (now long forgotten save for H & N) in the archives.
That doesn't mean dropping those bombs was the right thing to do, neither militarily or morally. But at the end of the day, that's what war is, and people thinking differnetly is why Germany was able to conquery several countries in WW2 and trigger a war that caused 50million deaths.
How many Chinese victims and American servicemen (mostly conscripts) were you willing to sacrifice on this altar of stupidity/hindsight?
Not to even mention the fact MORE JAPANESE themselves would have died without the bombs being dropped and I really begin to question not just the morals of the OP but your intelligence as well. Get off YouTube and read some David Glantz if you want to learn what WW2 was really like.
More to the point, the bomb(s) could have been dropped on military targets away from civilians and still fully display their destructive power to the same effect of forcing a surrender. Did they absolutely need to be dropped on top of cities and murder so many civilians? This IS a display of barbarism and revenge, no matter how conducive to the goal of ending the war.
Pearl Harbor was not then a desperate attempt to upturn the rotten-apple cart, but a simple imperial power grab.
Things were looking optimistic during the Oslo talks, I don't see a reason why we can't get back to that state of affairs with enough steady work over a 30-year timeframe.
The alternative, an invasion, is also a multi-decade investment, by the way. You can't just remove Hamas and not occupy for decades if you don't want another Hamas to emerge.
I want the US to force their hand to stop the invasion. Then Netanyahu's reckoning will come with the Israeli population. Likud needs this invasion to happen to distract the population from accountability. But if the US forces them to not invade, that reckoning can come sooner.
> What happens if Israel does what you say but are still suffering attacks?
That's where the DMZ and continued investment in missile defense comes in. Heck, get some security assurances from the US as part of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. There should be creative solutions.
You know what I mean. I am obviously not claiming that a DMZ can be perfectly impenetrable. I'm talking about one that's actually manned, and one that is significantly better than what is currently in place, to the point that a repeat attack is sufficiently unrealistic.
> The US can't force anything either.
Yes they can. Israel relies on them for their security umbrella and trade relationships. US has an extreme amount of leverage, if only it would use it.
That didn't work for Ukraine.
Even ignoring cost, a few percent of rockets get through, and the technological gap is narrowing thanks to Iran. I think the damage could drastically increase as Hamas starts using faster rockets and guidance systems.
Whatever the solution, or at least, path forward, is, it is never 'more aggression', especially from a position of power.
Hamas has basically won because (IMO) the Gaza strip is nigh untakable without turning it into a smoldering crater with civilian blood.
https://www.vox.com/23910085/netanyahu-israel-right-hamas-ga...
The question is what will fill the void after Israel withdraws. Biden discussed something that sounded a lot like a marshal plan which I hope will help "kill" the Hamas by showing the Palestinians a better way of life and hopefully a Palestinian state.
When has this ever been a success in recent military history?
Hamas is dug in like a tick, in a big city, with international Patrons. Israel is not a superpower. Major powers have "gotten most of them" but unequivocally lost much more favorable insurgent situations.
Furthermore, if this is coupled with a peace process, Israel can get help from Palestinians who despise the Hamas.
But yes, it would be an amazing accomplishment.
That's really the core issue, and when the smoke clears from the current episode everyone will move on to other things, and we'll be having the same discussions in several years time when a new conflict inevitably emerged. Back in the 90s there was real hope and a path forward, but we seem further away than ever from that.
The entire problem seems intractable, without a clear "just do this" solution. I'm not seeing the will for a two-state solution among the population on either side, and Hamas is not like the IRA (or Arafat) who can be satisfied with a compromise, and neither are the extremist religious Jewish nutjobs for that matter.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/new-real...
Anyway, occupying power can't displace occupied population to other country, for any reason, without violating Geneva Convention:
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...
Not that Isreal cares, but rest of the world does.
At least, that certainly has to have crossed the mind of someone in power.
When Israel "resettles" Palestinians in Gaza (interesting concept), they do it by bulldozing the homes they want them out of.
Yeah, I really feel for Israel after reading this. Always thinking of those poor Gazans to give them more space behind the fence.
100%: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231009-israel-mk-calls-f...
"The Misgav Institute is headed by former Netanyahu National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat, who remains influential in Israeli security circles. The Institute’s former chairpersons and founding associates include Yoaz Hendel (chair 2012-19), a right-centrist who was Minister of Communications intermittently in the years 2020-22; Moshe Yaalon, former Defense Minister (note that both Hendel and Yaalon have become opposed to Netanyahu in the recent years); Moshe Arens, also former Defense Minister — and other top political personas."
[1] https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/israeli-think-tank-lays-out-a...
Anyway, if Gazan citizens learn the lessons of their mistakes, they still have a future. In Germany about 5 million German soldiers were killed, almost as many as the 6 million Jews they slaughtered. At the time that was a double digit percentage of the entire male population. But Germany rebuilt and is now a thriving country.
1) https://www.axios.com/2023/10/21/palestine-hamas-military-po...
> Anyway, if Gazan citizens learn the lessons of their mistakes, they still have a future.
That is genocidal language where you are holding civilians accountable.
The Gazan population does not favor Hamas according to polling prior to October 7th: https://twitter.com/ForeignAffairs/status/171800792755696451...
Hamas was also boosted by Netanyahu in part to prevent a two-state solution and diminish moderate Palestinian leadership: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
Like it or not, a significant percentage of the adult Gazan population are responsible for Hamas because they're actively fighting for Hamas or directly supporting them. Pointing out that those people are accountable, and can choose a different future, is not genocidal language. It's stating the facts of the situation.
Germany also faced the same choice after WW2. They chose to eradicate Nazism, which is a big part of why Germany is the successful country it is today.
1) https://www.axios.com/2023/10/21/palestine-hamas-military-po...
You are putting the blame of the situation on the civilians. That is the problem. Do you think they chose to live in such a place? Did you read on how Hamas came into power and who helped them?
Israel wanted Hamas to rule Gaza though and supported it financially while working against moderate Palestinians:
> Netanyahu said: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas, ... This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
https://www.vox.com/23910085/netanyahu-israel-right-hamas-ga...
This means that this attacks of Hamas by Israel is unlikely to lead to a better situation post war, because Netanyahu's position is to always have a reason why the Palestinians should not have freedom.
It is more likely that things just get worse for the Palestinians after this war.
Maybe we should learn the lessons of WWII, and allow Palestinians a future. Otherwise it is genocidal language.
The entire situation is deeply regrettable and it's hard to find any heroes here, but I feel like we forget our own history so easily.
The United States, within living memory, conducted a firebombing campaign of Dresden, which had limited military value, killing over 25,000. We interned over 100,000 of our own citizens of Japanese ancestry. We conducted a firebombing campaign of Tokyo, killing around 100,000 civilians and leaving over a million homeless.
And of course we dropped two atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing mostly civilians and causing deep scarring both psychological and physiological for the survivors.
The reality is that these rules of war are more like guidelines. There is no one to enforce them if you win. When a nation feels existentially threatened, the gloves tend to come off.
I don't seek to excuse anything, what is happening is a tragedy and as a matter of public policy there needs to be more diplomatic costs associated with unnecessary loss of civilian life. But there are not many countries that truly occupy a moral high ground in this regard.
The United States was the most powerful country by far at the time. Israel is tiny in comparison; it can't afford to just disregard public opinion and make enemies with all its neighbours, because the US won't be able to protect it forever.
too late.
Israel exists because it won the 1967 war, when many of its neighbors simultaneously tried to invade.
Singling out countries is naive.
What exactly is your point? Are you saying that genocide can happen, have happened and so nothing here is a big deal. I would prefer to stand against genocidal language and call it out. I would prefer to avoid a moral nihilism stance personally -- maybe something better like "Never Again": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_again
Like, what is really the point of your comment? I don't see where the person to whom you replied said "if only Israel was like the US" or something
Basically that what matters are international norms rather than international laws, and while Israel is plainly breaking international laws, it's less clear that they're breaking international norms.
It's about the basic morality of its imposition of collective punishment on the population of Gaza, while of course its population rages incandescently on the collective punishment Hamas sought to inflict on them, and stuff like that.
Collective punishment is rarely a moral answer.
Luckily, in this thread, we seem to have no people who are deranged enough to approve of Hamas's attack. But we do have people deranged enough to approve of Israel's response and who want everyone to think that when a Palestinian is killed, it's either a lie, or just tough, just collateral damage, but that when an Israeli is killed, it justifies the killing and further dispossession of hundreds and thousands of Palestinians in recompense.
Nevertheless when people point out that this is a "genocide" or that Israel is committing "war crimes" I wonder what point is actually being made. If it wasn't against international law, would that make it ok to collectively punish Palestine? I certainly don't think it would.
At some level it just feels like weaponization of language, or at the very least like lazy thinking. One party is breaking laws, and breaking laws is bad, so that party is bad. But that logic would've applied to the USA in WWII, so as far as I'm concerned it's not at all elucidating.
With war crimes, I recall there being some specific evidence thereof, potentially from the UN. It was brought up during PMQs in Ireland, I think.
> But that logic would've applied to the USA in WWII, so as far as I'm concerned it's not at all elucidating.
I think most of us:
a) Do not think this should prevent us from calling a spade a spade;
b) In any event, can see quite a few differences between the two situations, such as the relative power disparity between the 2 sides in the middle east, the fact that Germany had taken over or was engaged in active hostilities with...most of Europe, etc.
Maybe the US was wrong to bomb Dresden; maybe it was a war crime, and maybe it could have won the war without doing that, and without dropping atomic bombs. But that doesn't mean we have to hesitate before calling out similar crimes in the future just because we live in the US.
But this is exactly my point. The moral imperative was clear in WWII, but the same pejoratives ("war crimes", etc) would equally apply.
These terms are at best uninteresting and at worst distracting, which is what I'd originally intended to highlight with the quote referring to "genocidal language".
That’s how the law is written. There is no maybe about it.
However, the fact that people are largely sympathetic to the US implies that maybe the law is a little too harsh, and does not provide any caveats for situational violence.
International law today is a perfect ideal. It’s like a criminal code that bans murder, but doesn’t include any leeway for self defense or reduced sentences for manslaughter. Only perfect people can hold to its standards and no one is perfect.
What future would that be?
The whole reason this conflict keeps going is because of faulty reasoning like this.
Gazan citizens do not have a say in much of anything, they're either combatants, captives or hostages depending on what your perspective from outside Gaza is.
A future where they stop killing Israeli's and slowly build up the trust to restore normal relations and trade. Gaza was given the chance when Israel decoccupied Gaza in 2005. They decided to vote in Hamas in a democratic election instead.
> Gazan citizens do not have a say in much of anything, they're either combatants, captives or hostages depending on what your perspective from outside Gaza is.
As I have said elsewhere, about 6% to 8% of the entire adult male population are Hamas soldiers. Hamas is a significant percentage of the entire population. Of course they can choose a different path.
It's notable that Hamas doesn't even bother to censor internet access in Gaza, beyond porn. They don't need to. They have enough support without internet censorship.
You would have to be an utter idiot to believe otherwise given how strong their surveillance apparatus is and the type of equipment it took to break through the barrier.
It's really surprising indeed that they were not aware of the attack and that they could not defend their settlements. But that could also be explained by thinking themselves untouchable, leading now to an overreaction to hide their responsibility in this failure to protect their citizens.
It's an awful funny coincidence that Netanyahu, who had been under political and prosecutorial pressure, suddenly and magically found himself a new conflict to embroil himself in so that he could take additional powers for himself.
Hamas slaughtered over a thousand Jewish civilians three weeks ago. They've been continuously launching rockets into Israel since then. They have been able to do that because Israel had chosen to partially normalize relations, eg by allowing trucks to import goods into Gaza, allowing the import of concrete and other building supplies, and allowing Gazan's to enter Israel to work. The latter is particularly atrocious, as it appears that many of those cross-border workers used their access to Israel to help Hamas massacre Israeli civilians.
Obviously, normalizing relations prior to Hamas taking steps to reject violence comes at enormous risk. If Israel had instead decided against taking steps to normalize relations with Gaza, 1400 and counting Israeli's would probably still be alive today.
Hamas has given Israel a good reason to strike back but not indiscriminately and in retribution you have to work really hard to not sink to the level of your attacker - or even lower. Note that Israel has zero reasons to keep settling more and more ground and bulldozing more Palestinian homes and that as long as that keeps happening and they overreact to various attacks this conflict will simply never end. And that's exactly how Hamas and the Hawks want it, because it legitimizes their existence, they relish the conflict.
> Hamas has given Israel a good reason to strike back but not indiscriminately and in retribution
I want to argue against your framing here, because that is not how Israelis see things. At least the normal ones don't think of it as "striking back in retribution" or anything like that.
The thing is, Hamas has declared war on Israel. They slaughtered 1400 people, took hostages, and are actively and continually firing rockets at Israel. There's been 3 weeks of rocket attacks. Luckily Israel has lots of defensive capabilities to block these kinds of attacks, but they are actively waging a war in the hopes of killing as many Israelis as possible.
So the situation from Israel's perspective is - we are bordering a semi-state, whose government is intent on destroying Israel, have shown themselves capable of killing many Israelis, and is continuing to wage war. What should Israel do? The only response that most Israelis come to, which is what any other country in the world would do when faced with a similar situation, is to attack the enemy country until it doesn't have the capability to hurt you anymore.
It's not some kind of "tit for tat" terrorist attack. It's literally a bordering country intent on destroying you and actively trying to do so.
And btw, people seem to think that Israel is all-powerful or something here and can just choose whatever response it wants - but several other countries are actively threatening to join the war and attack Israel all at once. It's as if Mexico invaded the States, killed thousands of Americans, was firing rockets at American cities, and Canada was threatening to join in the war. What kind of response would make sense in this context?
I mean that sincerely - what do you think Israel should do given this current situation? Because I sure as hell don't have a better idea than "try to destroy Hamas before they kill me".
I think the answer to that is to first figure out what kind of vision people have a for a long term view of what that part of the world will look like. If the vision is that at some point all these people are going to have to live together and mix freely then we are already on the wrong pathway for 70 years. If the vision is that Israel is forever going to be a state surrounded by enemies that slowly expands by virtue of being a forward post of the West with nukes then that is effectively condemning Israel and its citizens to pawns on the geopolitical chessboard.
It's possible that 'the end of oil' will somehow tip the scales in Israels' favor, but it is also very well possible that at some point the Arab world will become more of a nuclear power than they are today. And in a world where 'might makes right' and proliferation worries dominate a lot of these discussions the current situation is highly unstable.
If Israel doesn't manage to get to the first kind of solution in the foreseeable future I fear that in the longer term is may cease to exist entirely.
By the way: thank you for the respectful discussion on this extremely sensitive subject. Given some of the incredible garbage in this thread it is a welcome relief.
Likewise!
> I think the answer to that is to first figure out what kind of vision people have a for a long term view of what that part of the world will look like.
I think the only viable option is a two or possibly three state solution. For obvious reasons (obvious to Israelis at least), Israel must remain a majority-Jewish state, so a one-state solution is simply impossible. That means a two state solution where the Palestinians have their own state.
But how to get there from here is the problem. There have been many attempts at peace, including several peace deals that the Palestinians walked away from. The common line is that Israel has agreed to every compromise peace deal that's ever been put forward, which I'm sure isn't accurate, but is largely true; I fully believe that if the Palestinians had a decent leadership that would try to negotiate with Israel today and offer a deal, Israel would accept it.
But as long as the Palestinians insist on things that are unrealistic - with Hamas obviously being the worst example, insisting that Israel stop existing! - as long as that's the demand, I just don't see how we get to a peace deal. And obviously, Israeli leadership has been somewhat between apathetic to the Palestinians and full-on discouraging any kind of deal, so it's not like the Israeli government are exactly saints on this topic.
The only possible hope I have is that the current war is so bad, it forces Israel to actually wipe out Hamas, but then help get a more decent leadership on the Palestinian side that will actually help get to peace. I'm very doubtful that will happen, because I don't really trust either side to acutally pursue peace.
Note that the IRA wasn't 'wiped out' (in spite of many years of trying to do just that, but less visibly aggressive), they simply ran out of support and that was that. Something like that might work. But Israel would have to commit to some kind of compromise, for instance to halt any kind of settlement program, hand back land taken by settlers and to vow to stick to some kind of well defined border. And that's the bit that I don't see happening and every time someone gets murdered it will simply escalate right back to where we are today only then with more chance of really spiraling out of control.
Hardliners thrive on conflict, and as long as - on either side - hardliners are major players the conflict will be prolonged and possibly expanded. And each side has the capability to do something about their hardliners.
edit: this is the sort of thing that will come back to haunt Netanyahu no matter how the current fight unfolds:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
You don't play 'divide and conquer' with what is effectively a terrorist organization just because you think that you've got them bottled up and they serve your goals of destabilizing any attempt at normalization and/or paths that would force you to compromise.
The cynical side of me wonders if the hardliners and the right wingers aren't still quietly (privately) cheering on Hamas just so they can strike back that much harder and impose more restrictions on Gaza and possibly the West bank because that is what they really have set their sights on and the occupants of those areas are seen as best removed in some way or other.
I worry about that too. At least in terms of the world opinion. In terms of Gazans, I don't think it matters much - Hamas is effectively a dictatorship that's ruling Gaza.
I have no idea if we can actually take out Hamas. I don't know if we can do it in terms of an "acceptable" amount of collateral damage, or an "acceptable" amount of Israeli soldiers killed. Acceptable at least to the Israeli public. A few months into this, if we have dozens/hundreds of dead soldiers (and dead Palestinians, which some people do care about), will the public continue supporting something open-ended? I don't know.
Still, I honestly don't see an alternative. We've had, what, 10 ceasefires in the 20 years they've been in power and they've used them to restock and re-attack. I don't see much of a choice for Israel to actually stay safe that doesn't involve destroying Hamas.
> You don't play 'divide and conquer' with what is effectively a terrorist organization just because you think that you've got them bottled up and they serve your goals of destabilizing any attempt at normalization and/or paths that would force you to compromise.
That's true, though not sure what alternative Bibi had. There's lots of criticism from within Israel about Bibi effectively helping prop up Hamas, but like, the alternative that most people suggest is that Israel should've gone harder after them in the past, not accepted ceasefires, not compromised on allowing in aid and resources, etc. Not sure what was the other alternative.
> The cynical side of me wonders if the hardliners and the right wingers aren't still quietly (privately) cheering on Hamas just so they can strike back that much harder and impose more restrictions on Gaza and possibly the West bank because that is what they really have set their sights on and the occupants of those areas are seen as best removed in some way or other.
Some right-wingers are already using this situation to do what they want. E.g. lots of settlers are doing horrific things, like threatening close-by Arab villages, under I guess the assumption that no one will stop them right now. I hope they're wrong. I fear they're not, and the government will just ignore it (if not actively encourage it, at least parts of the government).
Just speaking for myself, obviously: if it were me living with my family in Israel I'd move out. Simply because too many deeds are being done for which I would not want to be fractionally responsible, besides the safety issues. At scale that would result in Israel disappearing but this isn't happening at all, instead the population of Israel is growing and quite rapidly so. As a result there will be ever more pressure to continue to expand and that sets the stage for an interminable confrontation, unless all parties are willing to significantly compromise on their current positions.
But religion and various non-public agendas seem to stop any such compromise from happening.
The thought has occurred to me.
But here's a few things worth remembering:
1. Would you be comfortable leaving all your family to go to another country? Most of my family is here.
2. It's not like I can necessarily leave, other countries usually don't just allow anyone to move there and become a citizen. I'm lucky in that I work in high tech and can probably get a job working in most countries, but many people aren't so lucky.
3. I do genuinely think a Jewish state needs to exist, because while I don't particularly care about being Jewish, much of the world most emphatically does care that I am and has tried to kill the Jewish people throughout most of history, and antisemitism definitely appears to be on the rise.
4. Almost any country I move to will be doing deeds that I don't love. It's not like the US or any other country has exactly clean hands.
5. If I and others like me leave, while it wouldn't cause Israel to disappear as you said, it will only push Israel to being even more extreme as the populace will be ever more extreme. The population of Israel is rising, but it's largely driven by the religious population, not by secular leftists.
I already did that (several times, in fact, Poland, Canada, Romania). I eventually returned to the country where I was born but it was for very practical reasons family hardly figured in to it. I have a lot of family but we're not all that close.
> It's not like I can necessarily leave, other countries usually don't just allow anyone to move there and become a citizen. I'm lucky in that I work in high tech and can probably get a job working in most countries, but many people aren't so lucky.
True, there are all kinds of obstacles to emigration. But I figure that being an educated person there are at least some options. Not all places are equally easy to get into though.
> I do genuinely think a Jewish state needs to exist, because while I don't particularly care about being Jewish, much of the world most emphatically does care that I am and has tried to kill the Jewish people throughout most of history, and antisemitism definitely appears to be on the rise.
I think so too. But: does it need to exist where it currently exists? Does it need to exist in the way it currently exists? Does the Jewish state need to behave like it currently does?
Those are all open questions to me and not all of them have easy answers. There are all kinds of arguments thrown around to answer each of these and I have problems with almost every one of those arguments, including the argument of 'now it is so so it should stay so' (the argument by default).
> Almost any country I move to will be doing deeds that I don't love. It's not like the US or any other country has exactly clean hands.
True, but at least that would not intimately affect your personal identity. By living in Israel and effectively refusing to vote with your feet you are fractionally responsible for what your government does (just like I am responsible for mine). That's all good if your government is doing good stuff but if they start murdering people with very little effort at discriminating combatants from citizens then that can cause all kinds of problems for people who have some degree of personal ethics. Just like the Arab world kills Israelis the Israelis seem - from my perspective at least - to have very little restraint when it comes to killing Arabs/Palestinians. What is happening in Gaza right now is utterly disproportional and merely a reflection of how much the Israeli government values Palestinian lives. Ironically it will only cause more Israeli lives lost, a detail that they seem to have forgotten in their zeal for revenge. It won't make anybody safer, that's for sure and any gains on that front will be temporary. It may be good for the votes within Israel though, but in the best case it will result in the symptom to be treated, the root causes remain utterly unaddressed.
> If I and others like me leave, while it wouldn't cause Israel to disappear as you said, it will only push Israel to being even more extreme as the populace will be ever more extreme. The population of Israel is rising, but it's largely driven by the religious population, not by secular leftists.
I'm aware of that. And given that religious zealots do not care much for reality that would be a real problem, but it would be their problem, not yours. And I suspect that if enough people turned their backs on the current state of affairs that it would send a powerful message. Note that religion is the only reason Israel is where it is today, and that the location was known from day #1 to be problematic, even before the official recognition of the state of Israel there was growing strife between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews. I've read myself silly about this conflict and my main take-aways are:
- The parties with the biggest stake in the outcome were not consulted.
- Israel was established only by breaking promises made to Arabs already living there (the argument that it wasn't that many of them doesn't really matter to me).
- Israel has been continuously at war pretty much since a scant few years after its founding, either 'hot' wars or low key continuous streams of attacks and this likely will not ever stop, it simply comes as a price of the location chosen.
- Israel was mostly established as a result of the Holocaust: the Western countries, especially the USA felt that they had failed the Jews in pretty much every way possible and to assuage some of this guilt effectively gave away a lot of land that wasn't theirs to give and on top of that gained a powerful ally in a place that they knew was not overly friendly to the West. Zionism had been slowly but surely working towards the establishment of a Jewish state for a long time and the aftermath of WWII is what sealed it, not exactly something that the then inhabitants of the region had much of anything to do with. It would have been far more justified to take a chunk of Germany instead, but obviously that didn't happen and on top of that the Zionists really wanted 'the Holy Land' to be Israel.
- Without the continuous backing of the United States both in the UN (the large number of vetos) and in various deeds and subsidies Israel would likely not have managed to survive or survive in its present form. It's such a precarious situation that should the USA ever turn inward - of which there is substantial risk - or become distracted enough then Israel could suffer tremendously. I don't think it is safe to count on the USA for stability on the time-frame of centuries, it is itself still a young country and it has substantial inner fractions.
The religious population of Israel - the outgoing part of it, anyway - is spoiling it for everybody else and the militant Arabs are spoiling it for everybody else as well. As long as either one of these groups has a way of getting at the other this won't stop. Until then personal decisions - even very hard ones - are the only way to affect the outcome for you and your family and I totally understand that this may not be a feasible option for you. But for me it would be: I'd rather have my kids grow up in safety than in a place where two sets of unhinged religious fanatics are going to duke it out for the foreseeable future and if the family ties are that strong that simply translates into a budget for a lot of traveling. Again, I can only speak for myself.
If it were up to me, no! I think it was a huge mistake to have Israel where it is. Granted I basically don't care about religion, nor do I care about "historical ties" to the land. For sure I don't care about them more than all the deaths that have occurred.
That said...
> [...] I have problems with almost every one of those arguments, including the argument of 'now it is so so it should stay so' (the argument by default).
I mean, what's the alternative? Almost every country in the world was founded in a way that is, shall we say, not ideal. It's not like Israel can up and move at this point. Advocating for Israel to no longer exist is like advocating for the Native Americans to take back the United States.
The only realistic way out of this mess is a compromise between Palestinians and Israelis. It's shitty that the world works this way, but it does, in every case.
> Just like the Arab world kills Israelis the Israelis seem - from my perspective at least - to have very little restraint when it comes to killing Arabs/Palestinians. What is happening in Gaza right now is utterly disproportional and merely a reflection of how much the Israeli government values Palestinian lives.
I will note that while I have a lot of problems with the Israeli government, I don't agree with you on this. I don't even think "proportionality" is the correct frame here - it's a war, the object is to win. It's not a "they did this attack so we'll do that attack" situation, it's a "we have an enemy on our border that is legit trying to kill us, we need to stop them" situation. People (in the West) have forgotten what wars our like, but this is what a war is like.
Specifically, I don't think it's true that Israel indiscrimnately kill civilians. I think Israel takes great pains to not kill civilians, more than most armies. The situation is made far worse because Hamas uses human shields, on purpose, in order to have them killed. It's hard to believe that Israel is trying not to kill people indiscriminately given the amount of dead, but I'm comparing Israel vs. how other countries behaved in similar situation, and I honestly don't think Israel is different, and in many ways behaves better, than in similar situations. (Again, just compare to the States attacking Afghanistan and Iraq.)
>> > If I and others like me leave, while it wouldn't cause Israel to disappear as you said, it will only push Israel to being even more extreme as the populace will be ever more extreme. The population of Israel is rising, but it's largely driven by the religious population, not by secular leftists.
> I'm aware of that.
Well I'm not sure about the morality here, but even if I leave Israel, I don't think I'll ever not feel responsible for what it does. For one thing, despite everything else, it will always be the only true "safe haven" for me as a Jew. It's sad that the world works this way, but it's not my fault - it's the fault of the fact that the world has decided to blame and kill Jews over and over again throughout history.
> I've read myself silly about this conflict and my main take-aways are:
I don't disagree with you on all these points, but I think you are giving the Zionist movement more blame than it necessarily deserves. It really is true that there was never a Palestinian state, and that large amounts of the land of Israel were undeveloped. The first Jews that moved in did so completely legally by buying up the land and being granted entry by the existing owners of the land (the Ottomans, then the British).
So it's not like they found a full functioning country and decided to conquer it, not at all.
Also, there really were strong Jewish ties to that land, including Jews having continuously lived in that land for the last 2000 years. (I'm not saying you, but some people think this is only a religious belief - it's really not, it's historical fact that the Jews lived in that land and were scattered, and always had some presence there.)
That said, yes, there was strife for a big part of the time, and as I said before, especially given what we know today, I would've much preferred a different location for Israel.
> The religious population of Israel - the outgoing part of it, anyway - is spoiling it for everybody else and the militant Arabs are spoiling it for everybody else as well.
Agreed. Though I don't even think it's fair to say "the religious population of Israel", it's not just them - there are plenty of secular people with pretty terrible views on this conflict too. Many, but not all settlers are religious. etc.
> If it were up to me, no! I think it was a huge mistake to have Israel where it is. Granted I basically don't care about religion, nor do I care about "historical ties" to the land. For sure I don't care about them more than all the deaths that have occurred.
Ok.
> That said...
> I mean, what's the alternative? Almost every country in the world was founded in a way that is, shall we say, not ideal. It's not like Israel can up and move at this point. Advocating for Israel to no longer exist is like advocating for the Native Americans to take back the United States.
Agreed, and it will likely continue to exist. But unless all parties climb down from their respective religious high horses - and that includes Iran - this isn't going to be resolved. So either we accept the fact that Israel will be forever at war or something will have to change. In some way America shielding Israel from the consequences of each and every action poisons the world against Israel, it's as if only the opinion of the USA and Israel matter. I've seen veto after veto of things that made quite a bit of sense to me whereas if any other country would do things like that it would likely backfire in much more concrete ways.
>
> > Just like the Arab world kills Israelis the Israelis seem - from my perspective at least - to have very little restraint when it comes to killing Arabs/Palestinians. What is happening in Gaza right now is utterly disproportional and merely a reflection of how much the Israeli government values Palestinian lives.
> I will note that while I have a lot of problems with the Israeli government, I don't agree with you on this. I don't even think "proportionality" is the correct frame here - it's a war, the object is to win. It's not a "they did this attack so we'll do that attack" situation, it's a "we have an enemy on our border that is legit trying to kill us, we need to stop them" situation. People (in the West) have forgotten what wars our like, but this is what a war is like.
But what if there is no 'win' possible, and all that can be done is to destroy more and more lives for zero actual gain in the longer term? Because a short-term win could easily translate in a long term bigger loss. That's why you have this Hamas mess in the first place: in the (previous) short term backing Hamas seemed like a great way to keep the other side divided and neutered, but that has now resulted in a massive backfire. There is a pretty good chance that that will happen again with more short term thinking.
> Specifically, I don't think it's true that Israel indiscrimnately kill civilians.
That's not the outward image right now: as long as there is a massive asymmetry between Israeli armed forces casualties and Palestinian civilians that picture will just get worse and worse. Note that from many thousands of kilometers away it is easy for me to pontificate, if it was my house that was in danger I'd probably feel different. And I feel just the same about the way Hamas has been targeting Israeli civilians. It's barbarian.
> Well I'm not sure about the morality here, but even if I leave Israel, I don't think I'll ever not feel responsible for what it does. For one thing, despite everything else, it will always be the only true "safe haven" for me as a Jew.
The quotes are not an accident I take it. Safe as in 'relatively safe' but not perfectly safe in practice due to the number of parties that aim to destroy Israel in toto. And in a way that is the real issue: by making Israel Jewish majority state (at least, in the foreseeable future this will likely hold true) it also paints a huge target on it.
Israel, the Jewish Religion and the Jewish identity are strongly overlapping and given the number of attempts at wiping out the Jews I totally understand that that identity has been re-inforced to the point where self protection of the Jews overrules any other consideration. But no country is an island, and Israel is today surrounded by countries that would like to see it disappear and just like with other security issues they only have to get it right once whereas Israel has to be successful for eternity. That spells to me that a security rooted in violence is eventually going to fail.
> I don't disagree with you on all these points, but I think you are giving the Zionist movement more blame than it necessarily deserves. It really is true that there was never a Palestinian state, and that large amounts of the land of Israel were undeveloped. The first Jews that moved in did so completely legally by buying up the land and being granted entry by the existing owners of the land (the Ottomans, then the British).
> So it's not like they found a full functioning country and decided to conquer it, not at all.
No, that's clear. What conquering was done was after Israel had been founded. But it almost immediately led to the displacement of a large number of people and that alone should have been avoided at all costs.
> It's sad that the world works this way, but it's not my fault - it's the fault of the fact that the world has decided to blame and kill Jews over and over again throughout history.
Indeed. And that should stop.
> Also, there really were strong Jewish ties to that land, including Jews having continuously lived in that land for the last 2000 years. (I'm not saying you, but some people think this is only a religious belief - it's really not, it's historical fact that the Jews lived in that land and were scattered, and always had some presence there.)
Yes, plenty of them, iirc never less than tens of thousands up to hundreds of thousands.
> That said, yes, there was strife for a big part of the time, and as I said before, especially given what we know today, I would've much preferred a different location for Israel.
But it's a done deal and moving Israel isn't going to happen. And even if a fraction would want this where would it go and what would happen to the remainder? It would be another exercise in forced migration.
>> The religious population of Israel - the outgoing part of it, anyway - is spoiling it for everybody else and the militant Arabs are spoiling it for everybody else as well.
> Agreed. Though I don't even think it's fair to say "the religious population of Israel", it's not just them - there are plenty of secular people with pretty terrible views on this conflict too. Many, but not all settlers are religious. etc.
Right, that's absolutely true and I should have been more careful there. But from what I know - and feel free to correct me, you are obviously much better informed - it is mostly the religious fanatics that drive the ongoing settlement program.
Agreed.
> No, that's clear. What conquering was done was after Israel had been founded. But it almost immediately led to the displacement of a large number of people and that alone should have been avoided at all costs.
I mean, yes, but it was mostly conquering because Israel was attacked. The UN did decide to partition the land into a "Jewish" part and "Palestinian" part, and the Palestinians are the ones that rejected it, while the Arab world attacked Israel. It's not that Israel decided to go out a-conquering.
> But it's a done deal and moving Israel isn't going to happen. And even if a fraction would want this where would it go and what would happen to the remainder? It would be another exercise in forced migration.
Yes. That's the reality that the Palestinians have to accept if we have any hope of peace.
> Right, that's absolutely true and I should have been more careful there. But from what I know - and feel free to correct me, you are obviously much better informed - it is mostly the religious fanatics that drive the ongoing settlement program.
That's an interesting question. People become settlers for various reasons; partially it's religious, partially it's ideological, but also partially it's an economic decision - living in the territories is much cheaper (both because of less demand, and also because the government gives economic advantages to living in the territories IIRC, which btw is another way the current government of Israel is undermining peace.)
While the main ideological thrust of wanting a "greater Israel" is religious, it certainly isn't enough, and there's the implicit backing of enough of the population for this to continue. This is driven partially because of security concerns after so many years of strife, partially out of apathy, partially out of some form of "racism", partially at this point some people just consider Palestinians to be the enemy, so everything is justified... it's a mix.
I think if the religious component didn't exist, there wouldn't be a settlement program, but I think for sure a large part of the Israeli population is complicit in the ongoing settler situation, unfortunately.
That's true. And I could see how a buffer zone would have made good sense after the six day war, but to turn it into a landgrab was effectively not letting a crisis go to waste and that in itself became a serious problem. And you have to appreciate the level of naivety in the UN and in the USA at the time for thinking that such a massive restructuring of a region where there had already been long term stability issues would not lead to some kind of upheaval.
I wonder if there was even a single person there who didn't see it coming or whether or not there was some other agenda at work (but that's my cynical side). It's clear that the USA didn't have any real friends in the region (not for lack of trying) and Israel may well have been viewed as some kind of forward base or staging area. The Russians too were making plans to invade and they may well have done so if not for United States unequivocal support for Israel. This is pretty ugly especially given that many Russian Jews had fled to Israel by then. It also had the potential to spiral out of control into a nuclear conflict.
> I think if the religious component didn't exist, there wouldn't be a settlement program, but I think for sure a large part of the Israeli population is complicit in the ongoing settler situation, unfortunately.
Interesting, ok, thank you for setting me straight on that. It also explains better why the government doesn't act more forcefully against the settlers, effectively they are executing on an undeclared agenda that suits a much larger swath of the Israeli population than I was aware of. Unfortunately that also makes it a much harder problem to solve.
I mean, I don't want to overstate things. I haven't done statistics on this, and obviously I'm a fairly left/liberal leaning Israeli, so I tend to look on all pro-settlement people fairly critically. I'm giving you my personal sense of things.
> It's clear that the USA didn't have any real friends in the region (not for lack of trying) and Israel may well have been viewed as some kind of forward base or staging area.
I think US support of Israel was far smaller in the 1960s, back then France was a closer ally iirc. But I wasn't alive back then, I'm not sure how accurate this is.
> That's true. And I could see how a buffer zone would have made good sense after the six day war, but to turn it into a landgrab was effectively not letting a crisis go to waste and that in itself became a serious problem.
Yes. I wonder what would've happened if we hadn't gotten that land, and the Palestinians had just continued to be refugees of other countries.
I'm not sure, but I think it was well understood by the Israeli government at the time that taking that territory, along with the refugees, would be a problem.
I've been a fan of yours on this site for many years :)
(For that matter: Jewish people in Europe also fled pogroms, even after World War 2; by way of example, 40 Jewish people were beaten to death with iron pipes in Kielce after a child and his father spread a blood libel story.)
One reason Jewish people get prickly about rhetorical attempts to illegitimize the entire existence of Israel (the "river to the sea" stuff) is that all of the surrounding countries have comparable legitimacy. Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, all drawn up by European powers. Jewish supporters of Israel notice that it only seems to be the Jewish people whose residency is so questioned, and not, say, the Alawites who run Syria.
This most recent conflict has been resplendent with what aboutism and false narratives and accusations that certain groups aren’t represented.
I'm (sincerely) interested to know what you consider the "predictable" take on the situation for a white blue state liberal.
I wasn't even aware of that myth so I wonder how popular it really is. Israel consists of original inhabitants of the extended region around present day Israel, population expansion and immigration (about 3 million immigrants). The part that is most visible to Europeans though is the fraction of the latter that stems from Europe because of continuous family ties between Jewish people living here and their family in Israel.
> In fact, a majority of Israeli Jewish people are Mizrahim, all of them of middle eastern origin, and themselves victims of a series of counter-Nakbas that took place during and in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war. Yemen, for instance, was once a center of middle eastern Judaism, but the Yemenite Jewish community fled pogroms there en masse.
Exactly.
> (For that matter: Jewish people in Europe also fled pogroms, even after World War 2; by way of example, 40 Jewish people were beaten to death with iron pipes in Kielce after a child and his father spread a blood libel story.)
Poland is - to this day - quite antisemitic, a shockingly large percentage of the population would qualify for that label. There are big variations depending on which region of Poland you are looking at but overall the picture is quite horrible. I blame the clergy for some of this.
> One reason Jewish people get prickly about rhetorical attempts to illegitimize the entire existence of Israel (the "river to the sea" stuff) is that all of the surrounding countries have comparable legitimacy.
Yes, and that's why the whole region has been an almost eternal source of conflict. The only reasons the West appears to be even remotely interested are oil and Israel, and maybe the latter because of the former.
You'll often literally hear opponents of Israel use the term "European settler colonialism", which lays the misapprehension bare.
What if they didn’t treat it like a prison, or Palestinians like subhuman prisoners? Do you think that maybe then they wouldn’t want to go on raids and kill people? That those 1400 soldiers and civilians would still be alive?
Note that 'The State of Israel' is not synonymous with the Jewish people - even though there are a lot of people on both sides of this who seem to want to propagate that, and that religion and land (the two major things this conflict is all about) are not worth millions of lives lost.
'now' implies that both sides back down from their frankly ridiculous stances and that in turn would require both sides to drop some fragments of their religion and to start controlling the hardliners in their factions. But as long as Arab money and Iranian weapons subsidize Hamas, as long as Israel sabotages any kind of compromise or real government on the Palestinian side and as long as settlers continue to piecemeal expand the size of the state of Israel this isn't going to happen.
You can't have change without wanting change and you can't solve a problem if neither side really wants it solved. Israel would like Palestine to disappear and pretty much all of the Arab world wants Israel to disappear. If that doesn't change eventually one of these groups is going to get their way and that would be a loss for the world as a whole because I predict that that stain will not be easily washed away if at all.
Most, but not all of them.
>> Israel would like Palestine to disappear
There is more than a million Palestinians living and working in Israel as its citizens. They hold positions in offices even such as a supreme court judge.
>> as long as settlers continue to piecemeal expand the size of the state of Israel this isn't going to happen.
Israel removed all its settlers from Gaza in 2005. In return it received shelling from Hamas.
Hamas in not interested in solving anything, having talks about anything or making any kind of compromises.
That's fair.
> There is more than a million Palestinians living and working in Israel as its citizens. They hold positions in offices even such as a supreme court judge.
You equate 'Palestine' with 'Palestinians', that's not the same thing. It's on par with equating Israel with Israeli's and many would point out that there is a very important distinction between the two.
> Israel removed all its settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Yes, but they kept on settling more and more area in the West bank and continue to do so even today, almost two decades later. It's akin to removing 'whites' from areas that were to be turned into 'homelands' prior to the establishment of the 'Apartheid' doctrine in South Africa, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan , there are a lot of parallels between those and Gaza / West Bank.
> In return it received shelling from Hamas.
In 2005 Hamas was a fringe group and all eyes were on the Palestinian Authority, which Israel has structurally undermined while at the same time supporting Hamas.
> Hamas in not interested in solving anything, having talks about anything or making any kind of compromises.
Neither are the Israeli hardliners who make a lot of policy.
What specifically should Israel do to "not treat Gaza like a prison"? Allow more goods in, which would specifically mean that Hamas gets even more weapons? What other steps would you want Israel to take, given that they left Gaza and gave it into Palestinian hands to run?
People need to separate the Palestinian people (most of which don't want a conflict) and the Hamas. The Palestinian people are sandwiched between the extremists and Israel. These things can't happen until the Hamas is eliminated which is what Israel is trying to do right now. I'm hopeful that this will end up as a "good thing" for the Palestinians and result in a Palestinian state.
Israel does a lot of bad things, like the settlements in the West Bank. No question about that. But if Israel were to stop with those tomorrow, I honestly don't think it will make a difference. See e.g. what Israel did with Gaza - it forcibly removed its own citizens, left Gaza entirely, and what we got in return was Hamas.
On the other hand, if the Palestinians agreed to a peace treaty whereby they get some land and give up their right to destroy all of Israel, the war would be over. Period. This was offered to the Palestinians several times, and they refused several times.
I'm not saying Israel is faultless, far from it. But at the end of the day, Israel is in a situation where the other side wants something that Israel can't agree to - they want Israel gone. That's the heart of this conflict and something you just can't negotiate around.
That’s completely ignoring the other completely faulty aspects of your comparison, e.g. which populations are being displaced?
> It's estimated that Hamas has between 30,000 and 40,000 soldiers(1)
This article does not provide a source for that figure but it's definitely on the high end. The number of members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' armed wing) has been estimated anywhere from 15-40k.
their goal can be to target soldiers, and at the same time they kill civilians (because they are near soldiers which are being attacked)
Israel's illegal settlements have a history of state-sponsored pograms and brutal violence against Palestinians in both Gaza and West Bank
Mistakes?
To be clear, before I continue further: Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas also has a lot of support within Palestine.
Now then, scenario 1) how, realistically, do you propose that the regular non-Hamas supporting Palestinian works to eradicate Hamas? Hamas have arms. (Let's not also forget how hard right Israeli leaders also supported Hamas, because a moderate Palestine is not really a true goal of theirs) Israel makes sure that Palestinians do not get access to weapons in general (i.e. Hamas obtains them by smuggling), 2) how do you prevent legions of new Hamas supporters being 'born' every day?
By 2, I mean, if you as a child grow up in the Gaza strip, regularly watching Merkava Israeli tanks cruising up and down your streets, often accompanied by bulldozers demolishing the homes of your friends, how are you likely to react?
Perhaps you pick up a rock and throw it at the tank. Oops. The IDF has on many occasions responded to children, throwing stones and rocks at main battle tanks, with live ammunition.
Good way to foster resentment, that. And maybe you don't support Hamas yet, but you hear of another rocket attack. The Iron Dome takes care of it, but Israel doesn't care - they turn off electricity to the entire strip for a few days in punishment. Not just your home, but your school, your hospital. Or they turn off the internet. Or phone. A few times, they even turn off fresh water.
Maybe now you start thinking you don't agree with Hamas' methods, but they're fighting for your right to survive, something the Israelis don't seem to care overly about, given their attitude to collateral damage.
Any other country on the planet responds like this, these things are considered war crimes. But when it is Israel? Not so much.
Edited to update reference to the tank type per reply.
Fully open the border with Egypt and provide documents usable internationally. Then many educated Gazans would happily leave for better opportunities elsewhere. It would make a dent large enough in Gazans’ demographics that Hamas would not longer be able to extract the same level of material support from the civilian population and camouflage its operations using that population.
Israel haven't closed the border, Egypt did.
The Israeli army has regularly been in Gaza, including but not limited to 2019, and 2021 (where the IDF had to discipline soldiers for unauthorized attacks).
There may not be a permanent presence there, but nonetheless.
Mind you I 100% disagree that it is possible. Israel is looking at a long occupation.
That's basically what happened to WW2 Germany. The country was crushed to the point where they unconditionally surrendered, killing 5 million German soldiers in the process.
Nazism is pretty much dead in Germany. So the approach did in fact work, and quite possibly would have worked even without the Marshal plan.
You wish.
Only way for Gazans will be to assimilate to israeli/western values I guess (if they want to have a proper life)
OK, let's for a second assume that all this crap started on Oct 7. What exactly have the Palestinians' in West Bank got to do with any of this shit? 1k arrests, settlers gunning down people walking down the street there. This whole shit is absolutely disgusting and the fact that people sit in the comforts of their home and preach about teaching "Gazan's their lessons", whatever the hell that means.
Roughly a fourth of all their trained personnel and a seventh of all the males available for conscription.
Nearly all of Gaza is built up urban centers and Hamas has had a decade plus of preparation time for this event. The urban fighting for the attackers is going to be some of the worst since Leningrad. It's going to take years to fully clean out the ~100 sqmi of Gaza.
Such an invasion will reverberate in Israel for 100 years. It'll be not quite as bad as what happened to the USSR's male population after WW2. But it's going to be really really bad all the same. The PTSD alone is going to be unimaginable.
Nothing good can come of this for either side, even the back of a napkin math is clear on that.
There is zero reason to think the IDF is going to take that many casualties. They are much better equipped than Hamas, and if needed, they can simply besiege areas to force Hamas to either leave or starve.
Half or so of the population is <=18 years old. What mistakes did they do to deserve being killed and have their homeland destroyed?
Enlighten us.
Such a bizare argument. Just justification for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Are you seriously suggesting that the children killed are to be victim blamed, because they somehow didn't learn a lesson?
Is that some kind of coping mechanism to be able to sleep at night? Where you demonize the population to make it easier to grasp. Or are you just that evil that you actually think these children deserve this?
Sick and tired of whitewashing genocide.
Are you confusing Israel with russia? Afaik they declared proper war and are abiding to Geneva convention.
Israel formally declares war against Hamas https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/08/israel-hamas...
"Okay, they did, but it doesn't matter."
Got it.
There are a lot of historic things that are its fault, but at this point the Hamas left it no choice whatsoever. It won't accept anything less than the destruction of Israel. It still holds kidnapped children and elderly civilians. It's still firing missiles into Israel as of today...
The Palestinian people got squeezed in the middle because of that and it's terrible. What more can Israel do if the Hamas is willing to sacrifice its own civilians and literally places its headquarters under a hospital (which Israel didn't bomb).
Both sides have elements that seem to want to drive this conflict ever forward. You end this conflict without a way to control the extremist elements on both sides, and given that Hamas has - successfully, which they shouldn't have been able to do in the first place - attacked Israel and now Israel will respond with even more violence the only thing that will happen is that both sides' fanatics will gain a larger fraction of the population to support them. The opposite is what should be happening and Israel arguably has the strongest position in this conflict and also by far the most to lose.
NO!
None of that crap. Israel isn't great as a democracy and its current government is the absolute worst possible... It's still not in the "both" camp by a mile.
It is held to a higher standard than the Hamas (as it should) and it is far "cleaner" in its bombing campaign than any recent western country (sure, mostly the USA). This is despite continued Hamas missiles against civilians and their holding of kidnapped children as young as 3 years of age!
> Both sides have elements that seem to want to drive this conflict ever forward.
No. The Hamas attacked. Up to that point Israel was increasing the number of Gazans allowed into Israel for work etc. Moving to relax hostilities. The Hamas has no interest in any movement towards civility or peace. There's literally no choice.
The only way to finish this is to get every single Hamas operative. Otherwise this will happen again. Hopefully this will end up as good for the Palestinians and as part of a road for the moderates among them to rise. That's why Biden has spent a lot of time in Israel talking about the day after the war. That's very important and can be a good thing overall for both sides.
Palestinian blood is just as red as Israeli blood.
I have Palestinian friends and people in Gaza. I feel terrible for them.
But there's really no choice here. This is the point you're ignoring. Hamas is a cancer on the Palestinian people. It must be removed. It would be painful and probably result in many casualties on both sides. But it has proven that it will not rest until Israel is destroyed.
No. Two wrongs don't make a right. Killing civilians while aiming at the Hamas is never "right". But letting the Hamas keep going is far worse than the alternative, it will embolden it further and it will kill far more.
You are seeing a cause, I'm seeing a symptom.
> Killing civilians while aiming at the Hamas is never "right".
Not only is it not right: it strengthens Hamas and will result in more anti-Israel sentiment in the rest of the world. "Look at what you made me do" doesn't work on that level.
> But letting the Hamas keep going is far worse than the alternative, it will embolden it further and it will kill far more.
Yes, agreed, Hamas should not be allowed to keep going. But for that to happen Israel too will need to make concessions and as long as both sides only think in terms of violence this will simply not stop. The idea that you can get rid of a terrorist organization by killing its members has been refuted many times over. Terrorist organizations disband because their cause has been invalidated and because the individual members lay down their arms. I can't recall a single terrorist organization that was forcibly erased and I'm sure you'll correct me if I am wrong about that. But all of the ones that come to mind over the last 40 years that stopped being active did so because they lost support, not because they were 'wiped out'. You kill a terrorist: another one steps into its place and the cycle will continue. And if you're lucky that's just one.
Nonsense.
There were two major Palestinian terrorist organizations. The PLO was the older and back in the day the more violent of the two.
It was able to get over its aggression and come to a peace settlement with Israel who also put everything behind it.
The Hamas blew up busses, cafes etc. Killed MANY civilians in suicide bombings and destroyed that peace. They were always an evil fanatical organization that doesn't care about their own peoples well being in favor of an extremist insane goal.
> > Killing civilians while aiming at the Hamas is never "right". > > Not only is it not right: it strengthens Hamas and will result in more anti-Israel sentiment in the rest of the world. "Look at what you made me do" doesn't work on that level.
On that I agree. I think Israel should better communicate how it is trying to avoid civilian casualties in this process. But yes, this is just terrible.
> But for that to happen Israel too will need to make concessions and as long as both sides only think in terms of violence this will simply not stop.
100%. That's why I'm thankful for Biden. He was blamed for being too much "pro Israel" by idiots who don't understand his savvy. He was really hated in Israel who mostly loved Trump up until 3 weeks ago. This flipped overnight. Now he has deep control over the government and can use it both for humane aid and to guide the exit plan after. He understands the nuances deeply and is navigating them very well.
It's still a pretty hard task. Eliminating the Hamas is hard. Eliminating the idea of the Hamas is impossible. Making it unpopular is a difficult but probably attainable goal.
That's why to me it is a symptom.
As for the rest, we are mostly in agreement, I think the latter bit is the key but for that Israel would have to back off of certain policies and they would have to be able to accept that some fragment of Hamas / and or terrorist factions funded by other countries around it will cause some degree of damage. There is some analogy with 'force protection' here, if you focus too much on protecting your own side at the expense of your status with respect to human rights on the side of your opponent you more or less automatically breed terrorists.
Leaving hundreds of thousands of youths with the image of an enemy next door has to result in a terrorist organization. More so if you occasionally kill a bunch of them and/or remove their kinsfolk from land that they've lived on their whole lives.
A symptom would be a fight for freedom. The Hamas is a symptom of religious extremism first and foremost. The PLOs terrorist period is indeed a symptom of Israels bad policies.
And some people are saying "That's a big fat nope."
Honestly, I don't know if it is or if it isn't. But what can Israel do here?
Israel said the area they will target which puts its soldiers at risk. In the interest of avoiding civilian casualties. Israel already withdrew settlements from Gaza so the chances of this coming back is pretty slim.
It's a pretty terrible situation for the Palestinian people and it's 100% the fault of Hamas. Unfortunately, if Israel won't destroy the Hamas now this will happen again and it will be worse.
Yes, that's what I've been reading. Various nations do not want to welcome "temporary refugees" because they feel they've seen this before and it will not be temporary. There will be no going back if that option is accepted.
I have no idea what "should" be done. I'm still trying to understand the situation.
There are deep and bitter roots. All parties to the conflict have grievances and there are no obvious solutions to seemingly anyone, especially not some sort of win-win talking points solutions.
When the Oslo accord was signed and peace broke out, they started blowing up busses with suicide bombers (and coffee shops and many other things). They essentially destroyed the chance for peace, enabled the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu and moved Israel to the right. Netanyahu actually supported them and helped them financially due to a misconception that they will prevent the formation of a Palestinian state due to their extremism (yes, he really is THAT stupid).
Unfortunately, despite their leaders sitting on buckets of cash in Qatar etc. They made a very deliberate choice of burning down Israel.
They are the main reason we don't have a Palestinian state. They would literally pay with the blood of their own people due to a crazy religious interpretation. It's not about hate, it's not about revenge. They are a cancer on their own people. They are killing them and Israelis. They will burn everything down.
Unfortunately, like any cancer they're embedded deep and rooting that out is painful and almost impossible.
People don't understand this, they think that peace or ceasefire are always the best options. But there are these very rare occasions where evil must be eliminated for the sake of everyone involved.
So perhaps it will get resolved.
I mean, this is obviously untrue since there is no other country they can go to. Gaza shares a border with only israel and egypt and neither is letting anyone leave (a fucked up situation for the innocents caught in the middle)
Like sure people can leave, hamas could leave with them, but then they wont have their big guns and hamas loses the terrain advantage.
Similarly hard to move hostages without being discovered.
Israel denies attacking anyone on the way. There was plenty of reporting showing people moving along the main arteries that were recommended and those look clear with no debris or any other evidence of attack. I'm aware of a single incident where it was claimed Israel attacked someone evacuating and this is still contested.
Israel has never said it will not attack in the south of the Gaza strip. It just said the bulk of its operation will be in the north. It explicitly said it would go after military targets in the south as well.
Excuse me if I'm not going to take that as a source.
Israel only provided some fraction of water and electricity to Gaza and is under no obligation to keep providing that in a state of war. Do you have other examples of countries at war when one side provides the other with water and electricity?
Look- you're right that Israel has asked people to leave everything behind and move. War sucks. I can't say I don't sympathize with those people, I do. You seem to have some emotional connection to this situation and I certainly do. I don't have any solutions unfortunately. Israelis have been pushed to the corner right now.
> Al Jazeera is a Qatari state-owned Arabic-language news television network"
You don't have to. Amnesty has written about water in Israel-Palestinian as well, here is a report:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occu...
> Israel only provided some fraction of water and electricity to Gaza and is under no obligation to keep providing that in a state of war.
Israel is actually the one who forced Egypt to not deliver aid for 2 weeks and is limiting it now to just 15 to 20 trucks a day:
"Israel imposed a total two-week blockade on the Palestinian territory, [...], on October 7." Then starting on October 20th or so "Israel has only agreed to allow the delivery of drinking water, food, medicine and other medical supplies. Israeli security forces are checking the contents of the trucks in a transit zone [in Egypt]."
https://www.dw.com/en/gaza-how-much-humanitarian-aid-is-gett...
Both the UN and WHO say that the aid is not enough:
"There are families that are unreachable and are probably starving to death," said Abeer Etefa, senior communications officer for the WFP in Egypt.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/gaza-aid-world-food-prog...
HRW considers it a war crime and outright says it:
"Israel has also engaged in the collective punishment of Gaza’s population through cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel. This is a war crime, as is willfully blocking humanitarian relief from reaching civilians in need."
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/27/how-does-international-h...
If Egypt allowed, and the UN drove aid trucks in, Israel would not bomb the UN. So aid isn't getting in because Egypt doesn't let it in.
How much water do you think the Hamas has stockpiled in their tunnels for the scenario where they have to continue fighting from there for months? Just asking. How much gas that could be used for desalination? Food? How about asking them to share a little bit with their citizens?
Also please tell me why can't the foreign nationals on the Gazan side leave Gaza into Egypt? Is Israel also preventing them from leaving?
All that said, the civilian population of Gaza should have access to water and should generally be protected as much as possible under the circumstances. I do not support withholding water from them.
Israeli explicitly ordered a total blockage of Gaza:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/israel-announces-to...
> If Egypt allowed, and the UN drove aid trucks in, Israel would not bomb the UN. So aid isn't getting in because Egypt doesn't let it in.
Are You sure? Israel repeated bombed the Rafah crossing this month as a warning to keep this blockage in place:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/10/alarm-as-israel-ag...
Israel only relented when Biden said to let aid in - that is reported in this article:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-to-allow-egypt-to-...
> Also please tell me why can't the foreign nationals on the Gazan side leave Gaza into Egypt? Is Israel also preventing them from leaving?
No, that is Egypt I believe. With regards to mass outflows, Egypt is worried that Israel will push the Palestinians in Gaza out and they will never return. That is problematic for Egypt for other reasons, such as Hamas's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. For a few foreign nationals, I am not sure the reasoning.
The Rafah crossing looked pretty intact in the videos showing the aid convoys going through. We've also seen lots of videos of people waiting on the other side to exit.
Indeed Israel did announce a blockage and/or siege of Gaza. That said they can only blockade areas they control which does not include Egypt. I think they are extremely unlikely to attack aid convoys directly though they may take indirect action against them (such as attacking the roads). Most likely this is done by mutual agreement of the involved parties but this is me speculating.
I honestly don’t know.
With regard to the blockade it only ended once Biden told Netanyahu he had to stop it. We can keep talking about this but all articles say the same thing.
Apparently there is now Israeli checks of all goods on trucks entering via Egypt. It may be a new development but they are now there on the Egyptian side of the border.
- Why does Palestines are restricted from using their own water?
- Why does Israely military rules apply on Palestine?
- How does Palestinian citizens are responsible for the failure of Israely government of precise and targeted attack?
- Why does Israely government including the prime minister dehumanising the Palestinian citizens reminding of exact strategy of Hitlar?
- Why does Israely government not interested in getting their citizens back and take that opportunity for a war ?
Being pushed to the corner and that is a licence to do that horrible things is a dangerous argument, similar argument is used by Hamas. Similar argument was raised by Hitler and he convinced significant part of German population that Jews are evil, and they need to be eliminated for the safety of Germany.
Such arguments bring humanity back to stone age.
- It is true that some Palestinians in the west bank are treated very badly including taking over their water wells. There's a long story or a short story there. We have a right wing government in Israel that supports right wing settlers in the west bank and is trying to kill any hope of peace with Palestinians.
- Israel occupied the west bank from Jordan in 1967. The status of that land was never settled and therefore it is still considered (by Israel and the world) to be an occupied territory and is under military rule. So that's why this area is under military rule. This is international law btw. In the various peace agreements nobody wants this piece of and back. Israel did not annex it. And there's been no agreement with anyone (e.g. Palestinians) about it.
- I think we're talking Gaza again. Are you asking why are Palestinians in Gaza responsible for Israel's failure to protect its citizens from them? I'm not sure how to address this seriously.
- This isn't an excuse but everyone in Israel is in shock/PTSD at the moment. It's a small place and everyone is personally impacted. Calling Hamas sub-human isn't right. They're very human in the worst possible way. Somehow I don't think the analogy between the Jewish people in Europe and Hamas really holds though. I don't recall the Jewish people going around with RPGs and assault rifles and butchering Europeans.
- Hamas is never going to return those hostages and the price would be unacceptable. Israel also has to be concerned about the next round of attacks and hostages. Some of Hamas's leadership today are people that were exchanged for a single Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, who was exchanged for 1000 Palestinians, many of which were in jail for killing Israelis. There is no scenario here unfortunately where Israel can get security and the return of the hostages. If there was there wouldn't be a war right now.
And yeah, these recent events aren't exactly a win for humanity.
Or is starving everyone to death so that there won't be any vengeance is the strategy?
When two neighbours, who genuinely believe that their neighbour will kill them if they get a chance, peace is hard and time consuming task, especially when they have wounds that will take decades to heal.
The least human thing to do there is to stop causing more wounds, as UN secretary general said, Oct 7 wasn't happened from the vaccuum.
What the UN secretary general said isn't helping because it's excusing the Oct 7 attack which is inexcusable. Nothing ever happens in a vacuum. Israel's blockage of Gaza hasn't happened in a vacuum either. Should we trace back the conflict all the way to prehistoric times?
I don't think Israel is going to starve all Gazans to death. It's also not going to kill every single Hamas member. But yes, it will leave another layer of residue on top of this endless conflict.
If Israel stopped now the Hamas would celebrate it's victory, hold on to the hostages forever, or kill them and hold on to their bodies, and Hezbollah would be emboldened to do a repeat performance of this from the North (what exactly is the reason for Lebanese Shea or for Iran to fight Israel btw? Did Israel also steal their lands?). At least that's what this looks like to an Israeli.
I'm just watching this from the sidelines like everyone, how exactly do we stop causing more wounds?
By focusing on that which can be influenced which is usually limited to your own side. Go back to the Oslo accords, enable a UN peacekeeping mission (with teeth) and abandon any territory settled. That should be a good start. Not that I even dream of the hardliners on either side thinking that is acceptable.
UN peacekeeping is bullshit. What country is going to trust the UN to guarantee it's security. There is UN peacekeeping in Lebanon where attacks against Israel are and were coming from, they do zilch. The history of UN peacekeepers in the region is that at any hint of violence they move away.
On the Israeli side nobody will trust the Palestinians over anything. There's also a minority that believes the entire land belongs to Israel and screw the Palestinians. On the Palestinian side (IMO) there's a majority that is unwilling to take any settlement other than all the Jews should leave the middle east. There's fractures and nobody that represents all of them that can agree and/or enforce any agreement. So here we are.
Not really. The territory abandoned was systematically kept down to the point where any kind of improvement was destroyed again. And much more is being destroyed right now. What do you think all these bombings will do short of just creating the next 20 years of personnel supply for Hamas?
> Abandoned the territory settled?
No, it wasn't just abandoned. The houses that were there were gone and the houses that were built were demolished. So the land was barren. That's not giving the other party a chance, that's the kind of scorched earth tactics that make things worse.
> Imagine if Hamas controlled both Gaza and the West Bank? Israel would be destroyed.
Yes, Hamas is a problem, we are in agreement on that. But so is the Israeli government, the problem is to get them both to back down from their violence-begets-more-violence cycle. And it looks like things are going to get a lot worse rather than better. So you can expect many more Israeli lives to be lost as well as many more Palestinian lives.
> UN peacekeeping is bullshit. What country is going to trust the UN to guarantee it's security. There is UN peacekeeping in Lebanon where attacks against Israel are and were coming from, they do zilch. The history of UN peacekeepers in the region is that at any hint of violence they move away.
I have had family members in Unifil deployments and that's not what I hear. Both sides criticize the UN peacekeepers as being on the side of their enemy, that's usually a good sign.
> On the Israeli side nobody will trust the Palestinians over anything.
Makes you wonder why there isn't a solution possible. But: with the dubious ways in which Hamas was financed there may be enough blame to go around for everybody.
> There's also a minority that believes the entire land belongs to Israel and screw the Palestinians.
Unfortunately that minority has a disproportionate effect on Israeli politics. It should be obvious that this is one of the root causes of this ongoing conflict.
> On the Palestinian side (IMO) there's a majority that is unwilling to take any settlement other than all the Jews should leave the middle east. There's fractures and nobody that represents all of them that can agree and/or enforce any agreement. So here we are.
I'm missing the proxy war that the Arab world has been fighting against Israel using the Palestinians in just as much a cynical way as the right wing in Israel has been using them to keep the conflict alive as much as possible.
And yes, the settlements were razed. The land was not barren. The Palestinians had their destiny in their own hands.
When parties are in principle willing peace is hard enough but when hardliners on both sides use each and every opportunity to deepen the conflict peace is as good as impossible.
I'm not really sure what you're asking for here. The IDF isn't there yet, so they don't know numbers killed. The Palestinians do, however Israel and the US don't believe their numbers.
...so... what is it that you expect to receive?
Yes, Gaza MoH publishes the stats: https://t.me/s/MOHMediaGaza (see the numbers in the map)
Which clearly demonstrates that the focus is on the northern parts of Gaza.
That requires amazing precision and dedication, bombs are designed for mass killing. Yet even the inflated numbers show less than 1 casualty per bombing. Those numbers don't separate the number of actual combatants that were killed (as opposed to civilians).
I'm not for bombing in general, I think it's a terrible weapon. But the ground invasion will probably kill a lot more civilians as it's harder to fight in narrow streets. Stray bullets and shelling kill a lot of innocent bystanders.
Overall, Israel doesn't have a choice here. The Hamas is still holding civilian hostages. It is still firing missiles on civilian Israeli cities. It is the reason this is happening.
I'm sorry for the Palestinian people but they will probably be better off without the Hamas.
And it links to a piece describing the conflict that began October 7th.
https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-ga...
Thank you.
I'm not accusing you of being perverse or anything, but what is your motivation and your reasoning?
Hell, even the IRA did a better job of issuing warnings about their bombs in The Troubles...
Total BS propaganda from the Israelis
> Residents in Gaza reported that Israeli planes rained red leaflets on neighborhoods Saturday, urging residents to evacuate. Those with cell phones also received the message digitally, according to social media reports.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/21/idf-prepares-for-gr...
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/why-is-israel-atta...
This is just unsourced lie.
There are thousands of victims in the south. 9/11 was a mild attack by your judgement.
You're giving numbers from Telegram which isn't exactly a reliable source either.
I'm not a fan of the bombings. Every alternative seems worse though. It seems that far more people will die on a widespread ground invasion. A ceasefire is a ridiculous option, there are kidnapped hostages (children and elderly) still held by the Hamas. The Hamas is still firing rockets at civilians on a daily basis.
What would you do in this situation if you were the Israeli government?
They murdered and kidnapped children. They are fanatics who won't take anything less than the entire country you live in. They hide behind civilians and literally placed their headquarters under a hospital.
Every option sucks and it's going to get MUCH worse.
Your math is off:
9/11 = 2996 dead civilians israel attack = ~1000 dead civilians
So it's about 1/3 of 9/11 as far as dead people go. Extrapolating to the whole population would just make Gaza numbers even more horrible than the ones in Israel, because of the lower total population in Gaza.
Anyway, my point was that attacks in the south are not mild. They have more victims than the initial attack on Israel itself.
Stop blocking humanitarian aid, ceasefire and prisoner swap/release, as always. Then some political solution involving UN peacekeaping mission, or something. It's been done in many places already. It kinda needs trustworthy figures on both sides and a lot of effort at reconciliation on both sides.
Destroying Gaza, severely damaging the west bank economy by heavy restrictions associated with a prolonged war, making people there even more frustrated with PA than they already are, just doesn't seem like it will lead to anything good for regular Israelis.
The math isn't mine, it's about the size of the attack scaled to the population size. It's 1,300+ dead and it's adjusted to the size of the population. Since the country is small everyone in Israel knows someone who was there. That's the scale of the attack.
> Anyway, my point was that attacks in the south are not mild. They have more victims than the initial attack on Israel itself.
No. You're counting combatants, victims of Hamas and equivocating bombing with cold blood murder. All are false. You're also trusting Hamas, an organization who had a representative on the BBC claiming that they didn't kill any civilians...
* Hamas doesn't mention how many of the dead are actual operatives or were around such operatives. I'm sure that if they do those calculations Israel will come out on top. Israel is subject to intentional law, right now there's a Hauge court investigator in Israel verifying that records are kept and tracking facts. Every bombing must have actionable intel associated with it for proof in court if it is deemed a crime.
* Murder in person is a completely different situation from bombing. There's no comparison. A stray bullet might hit a civilian but the vast majority of the 1,300 dead on October 7th were civilians. This is an organization that sent suicide bombers into busses and restaurants. That is explicit and intentional targeting of civilians which is a crime against humanity. Israel is actually liable in court if it could be proven that it threw a bomb where it shouldn't go.
They literally mutilated bodies, there's a video of a Hamas terrorist just chopping off a guys head with a shovel. They are insane...
> Anyway, my point was that attacks in the south are not mild. They have more victims than the initial attack on Israel itself.
Again. Israel would be 100% liable and would lose US support if it was indeed bombing invalid targets. We can't see the docs but I'm sure the US is reviewing everything as they want to keep their relations in the region.
As proof look at the Hospital bombing. Israel was able to show multiple different evidence that it was not it. It was able to show that over 400 misfires of missiles happened in Gaza. A lot of these "bombings" might be due to such misfires of missiles intended to land in Israel. After all, the Islamic Jihad placed the missiles right next to a Hospital then blamed Israel...
> Stop blocking humanitarian aid,
Israel allowed humanitarian aid and has done so a few days back. I suggest keeping up.
> ceasefire and prisoner swap/release, as always.
No.
A few years ago there was one kidnapped soldier. The Hamas demanded 1,000 prisoners a lot of which had blood on their hands. Israel relented and released them with a promise that they will not attack.
The vast majority of them took part of October 7th attacks. They learned. They kidnapped hundreds of people. They used ceasefire times to dig deeper tunnels and get more weapons.
These people negotiate only for the purpose of coming back with stronger forces. They have no intention whatsoever for peace or co-existance. Their charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel. They don't care about peaceful co-existence or the lives of their own people. All negotiation is just a ploy with these people.
> Then some political solution involving UN peacekeaping mission, or something.
Sure. After the Hamas is completely destroyed. It is an organization that cannot exist. It destroyed the Oslo accord and has done tremendous damage to the Palestinian people as well as Israel.
> It kinda needs trustworthy figures on both sides and a lot of effort at reconciliation on both sides.
You need to understand that it is an evil organization that executes LGBT people. Considers wife beating to be normal marriage. Educates its children that murdering Jews will get them to heaven.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a lying a*hole. But they are at a different level of corrupt, murderous, fanatic lunatics. There can never be anything as long as they exist. They need to stand trial for crimes against humanity and spend the rest of their lives in prison. Don't use nonsense like "both sides". Then some political solution involving UN peacekeaping mission, or something. It's been done in many places already. It kinda needs trustworthy figures on both sides and a lot of effort at reconciliation on both sides.
> Destroying Gaza
Gaza isn't destroyed. Some neighborhoods. Sure. Specifically the "rich" areas where the Hamas honchos live off the money they stole from the poor Gaza residence.
Unfortunately, some destruction is inevitable in war. This is a war. There are kidnapped people and an organization intent on destroying Israel. The goal of the war isn't to destroy Gaza. It's to destroy the Hamas.
> severely damaging the west bank economy by heavy restrictions associated with a prolonged war
The war is damaging to Israel too. It wants it over quickly. Obviously the Hamas will never surrender so it will take a while. That's the only option as explained above.
> making people there even more frustrated with PA than they already are
The PA has nothing to do with Gaza right now.
> just doesn't seem like it will lead to anything good for regular Israelis.
In the short term: bringing back the kidnapped children is something good. Bringing down the Hamas is something good. Stopping missiles that are fired daily (even today) on Israeli cities is something good.
In the long run ending the Hamas might finally open a path to a Palestinian state. That would be a great thing for everyone involved (Israelis too). The Hamas is the main reason the Oslo accord fell apart. I'm not sure how this would work but I'm hopeful in that regard.
As for Al-Ahli bombing, I don't trust IDF on that one. Too much mis-direction early on. Like showing video from AJ arabic (which I managed to still capture in FullHD via youtube livestream, and scroll back to various times prior to the event and see wider context, geolocate, identify camera direction, etc., so when IDF showed their map with rocket paths + AJ video, I knew they're not serious, and "proof" is just propaganda in this instance) NYT a few days later came to the same conclusion as to IDF claims about AJ video. So that's just inconclusive, can be either way to me as who did it, atm.
As for my argument around Gaza destruction, that's refering to the final state (not the current one). If Hamas destruction is the goal, Israel will have to plow through the entire strip for that to happen. North is pretty much destroyed already, and IDF didn't really enter the city, yet in any meaningful ways. IDF will also likely want to destroy the tunnels, which is likely to cause massive destruction to the city, unless they'll use some method that will preserve the city.
> As for Al-Ahli bombing, I don't trust IDF on that one.
The IDF provided multiple different sources one of which were obtained by al-jazeera. It included recorded calls, missile and bombing information. Pictures from the ground that showed the impact. This was then reviewed by both foreign press (not just NYT, also CNN and other sources) and by the USAs defense department. All concluded that Israel told the truth.
Israeli bombs are accurate. Israel would have no motivation to bomb a hospital and doesn't bomb a hospital where it KNOWS the Hamas is headquartered.
The fact that you explicitly still choose not to believe the facts shows that you made that deep choice. I suggest you re-evaluate that.
Yes. Israeli settlements are terrible. Israel did do a lot of bad things in the past too. But there are no settlements in Gaza. In this particular point in time Israel isn't perfect, but you shouldn't let past biases dictate the current situation.
> As for my argument around Gaza destruction, that's refering to the final state (not the current one).
So besides judging Israel in general, you also judge it for crimes it will commit in the future?
Are you reading what you're saying???
Not a single word included anything against how terrible the Hamas really is. How it places its own people in danger, how it treats its own civilians in times of "peace". Nothing?
Israel did and probably will do bad things. Blaming it for stuff it didn't do damages the cause of protecting the Palestinian people. Facts matter, it's a fact that the Hamas is a racist, murderous organization. The IDF has its faults, but it is ultimately accountable for its actions and usually does provide well documented information that complies with international law.
This smells odd to me.
But a quick search found https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/hamas-preventing-gaza-r...
Reuters doesn't mention it but it did mention that the Hamas explicitly told residents to stay home: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-tells-gaza-r...
- No electricity to charge your cellphone.
- Leaflets from previous strikes flying around in this small area for many days.
- A lot of injured people, hard to move.
- sometime you need to you have to sleep too, how do you check for new flying leaflets outside all the time?
In a war we should just assume that everything is false and true at the same time. Involved people have choosen a side, but others are to assume that everyone involved is lying.
This could turn into a pretty big war, dragging in all kinds of countries. If they end up destroying all of Gaza and killing 50k and no one does anything then the Palestinians should understand they have been abandon by the Arab world and have no future.
Interesting times...
They'll do nothing -- because they can't -- and then get overthrown by hardline Islamists. West Bank, Jordan, Egypt, who knows. They'll then become yet another security risk for Israel instead of a potential ally.
One of the many possible unintended consequences of an invasion that Israel is failing to consider in its post-9/11-esque emotional fervor.
This is also called playing the victim...
If there's any comparable damage to internet/mobile infrastructure of Israel, feel free to share, otherwise I don't see your point.
I haven't seen any comparable damage on the Israel side to be sympathetic about.
Not sure if you realize how destructive, and dangerous to regular people complete prolonged blackout of all communication is. People give briths, have hart attacks, strokes, get injured, need to organize aid delivery so not to starve, disabled people need contact with people that can help them, thousands of people daily call for medical help for general health issues, psychological issues,...
Disabling the entire communication infrastructure is absolutely disastrous. Many people died because of this.
A war is happening of course. Communications are critical to military operations, and Hamas has been happy to use civilian infrastructure for military purposes. Of course Israel is going to destroy it all.
Sure, Hamas can still use older tech like radios. But that's a huge win for Israel's signal intelligence units: radios are much easier to intercept than internet connections, especially fiber.
(While Signal still offers an .apk for download from its website, the organization does not recommend it. Moreover, that APK comes with its own update functionality where the same risks may exist as with the Play Store.)
I'm sure Hamas could figure out how to install Signal from clean APKs, or use something else entirely. They may be barbarians. But they're not stupid.
People forget that Gaza isn't a particularly poor country. It's GDP per capita is on par with neighboring Egypt, and only a little less than Ukraine. The supermajority of Gazan's have internet access too.
I think you are overestimating how technically savvy guerrilla fighters – or armies in general – typically are. Even if a handful of elites were savvy, the vast majority are going to have less knowledge and show terrible opsec. And considering that even many security researchers complain how difficult it is to ensure a secure setup for Signal or any other smartphone-based system, I wouldn’t expect Hamas to be any better.
Of course Gaza wasn’t a particularly poor country. It even has its own dev community attracting outsourcing work. But that doesn’t make opsec in this area any easier or them any more qualified than the average.
Person-to-person on the other hand is simple, easy to understand, and while not entirely foolproof (or idiot-proof), it's a lot harder to screw up and when you do, the damage capabilities are more likely to be more limited. I'm also going to guess that Israel has a rather hard time recruiting supergrasses among Hamas/Gaza population after the last 15 years (which is different from the IRA, which was thoroughly infiltrated).
What this will achieve:
- information supremacy re. what goes out of Gaza
- makes it harder for reporters to do their job
- makes it impossible for the people who happen to live there to stay in touch with the rest of the world
Whatever this is it is not a war.
“ The ethnic cleansing of Zamojszczyzna by Nazi Germany (German: Aktion Zamosc,[4] also: Operation Himmlerstadt)[5] during World War II was carried out as part of a greater plan of forcible removal of the entire Polish populations from targeted regions of occupied Poland in preparation for the state-sponsored settlement of the ethnic German Volksdeutsche.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Zamojszc...
I don't see how your comment refutes anything.
Wars have armies on both sides.
Wars aren’t fought between an army and a bunch of trapped civilians who can’t escape between people with the latest high tech military equipment and another group who have some small arms, ancient equipment and rocks.
When Israel again invaded Gaza in 2014, they killed 2,310 people, 70% civilians and lost 67 soldiers in return. Even more destructive was the 7-10k homes completely demolished and 87k homes severely damaged.
Since 2008 until before the recent invasion of Gaza, Israel has killed 6,407 Palestinians—mostly civilians—and lost only 308 Israelis in return.
Doesn't make it right. But there's no easy way out of this.
Look at the US response to 9-11 to see what other countries would do...
The one country that still supports the far right genocidal Netanyahu administration is the United States. The US has used its veto power in the UN 34 times since 1954 to block resolutions that would've otherwise passed and led to some peace in the area. Instead the US is ensuring Israel is never held accountable for its crimes
The entire rest of the world is up in protest currently. Americans are in an incredibly absurd denialist bubble:
https://www.vox.com/2023/10/25/23930875/protests-palestine-i...
You've got the history backwards, friend.
- Israel is not intermittently but continuously under attack since 1948 for its mere existence.
- Since when does being "oppressed" give anyone the right to launch rockets on civilians and commit suicide bombings? There are many people in this world who are much worse off than Palestinians who would never imagine engaging in these sorts of acts.
- The Hamas wants Jews erased. It doesn't matter what Israel "stops" or does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter
Sorry, this will not work anymore. More and more people now are learning about the massacres in '47/'48, Nakba, ethnic cleansing, violations of UN resolutions, or even the original partition plan, war crimes, constant illegal settler harrasment and land grabs, and the disgusting nature of the oppression, political machinations of the Israel's ruling class, etc.
Ivoking morality or rights when the occupier doesn't respect either, will just keep working only on the most gullible.
Israel is powerful, and has well established PR machine and lobbying, but the tide of public opinion can turn against it eventually, if it will push too hard.
More and more people are learning nothing and are just repeating propaganda and promoting hate.
I'm not denying there was violence against Arabs by Jews. I'm not denying there's settler harassment and land grabs. That does not justify the violence from the Arab side. It is not right but it also does not justify. If you're going to be stuck in 1947/1948 (and the picture isn't as simple as you're trying to paint it, conveniently forgetting the surrounding counties attacking Israel or the attacks of Arabs against Jews) then this is not going to get resolved. If the dialogue from the Palestinian side is stuck on their historic injustices, some of them are true, some of them maybe less true (to put mildly), without acknowledging the other side and without looking at how they might have contributed to where we stand they are going to lose more.
Israel's PR sucks and it's not that powerful. Public opinion changes on a dime.
EDIT: I just want to address a few more points:
- "Ivoking morality or rights when the occupier doesn't respect either". There is no equivalency here and there are important details that are intentionally left fuzzy in this statement. The morality of building a settlement on occupied territory (from Jordan) is not equivalent to the morality of shooting a baby in the head in front of their parents. There is no piece of land on this earth that is not built on "occupied" territory. What is different about the west bank is that its status has never been resolved after it was won from Jordan in 1967. Some refer to the entirety of Israel + West bank + Gaza as occupied territory which is factually wrong. The fuzziness here is not random, it is intentional.
- "original partition plan". Can you be more specific on the partition plan? It's generally the Arab side who avoids mentioning it and avoids mentioning that the Arabs rejected it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_... "Arab leaders and governments rejected the plan of partition".
- "war crimes". Generally speaking Israel is not committing war crimes. There is a vast legal apparatus in the IDF that advises on the legality of various actions. You may not like those those actions, and it's true that the Palestinians and some others label them as war crimes, but technically they are not. This is just more demonizing rhetoric justifying violence. It's basically blood libel. What most Arab PR calls a war crime is allowed under law of war. I'm sure there are some exceptions. The Israel-Arab situation is somewhat unique but if you compare to many other wars the Israelis are fighting relatively within the allowed legal frameworks. I think if you point out to specific actions, that are clearly war crimes, that's fine. If you just say "war crimes" that's propaganda.
Not really. It's pretty rabidly pro genocide and pro Israel in my country. I don't know what would have to happen for this to change. Minister of defense even suggested leaving UN after the last UN GA vote.
> I'm not denying there was violence against Arabs by Jews. I'm not denying there's settler harassment and land grabs. That does not justify the violence from the Arab side.
So the violence of one side doesn't justify the violence on the other side? Then we agree.
> The morality of building a settlement on occupied territory (from Jordan) is not equivalent to the morality of shooting a baby in the head in front of their parents.
That's just some cherry-picked example. I can just as well tell you that shooting children into knees or heads over the fence is not equivalent to throwing some rocks, etc. This random cherry picking will lead nowhere.
Anyway, this is just a mirror argument to the one above. Either rights apply to both side, or to none of them.
Current example of a war crimes would be usage of starvation of civilian population as a means of warfare. Or attacking hospitals - eg. current attack on Al-Quds hospital https://twitter.com/PalestineRCS/status/1718660055883514087 making it barely inhabitable, and endangering patients there, just because Israel wants the people there to leave.
I agree random cherry picking leads nowhere.
Violence on one side doesn't justify the violence on the other is a bit of a tricky statement. Sometimes violence is justified so context matters. What Hamas did on Oct 7th is never justified. There are possibly (EDIT: actually likely) some examples of Israeli violence that is also unjustified. Rocks kill by the way. What would be your proposal of how Israel should respond to Hamas's attack? If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
Under international law hospitals cease to be protected if they are used by enemy combatants and if ample warning is given (which Israel has definitely given, the combatant use I'm not sure). The population of Gaza is also not starving. If Israel were to attack hospitals that are not involved or used in any way by enemy combatants or if the population of Gaza indeed ends up starving then those would be war crimes. There is still food in Gaza. I've heard there is agreement to increase the amount of aid flowing into Gaza significantly. At the same time Israel isn't responsible for feeding Hamas fighters or for how Hamas distribute their provisions in Gaza or does not. I don't think Israel benefits from violating international law (many other countries don't even blink at doing that, but that's beside the point) and should not.
I also disagree that either rights apply to both sides or apply to none. Right always apply to both sides.
I find everything going on right now very deeply disturbing on many levels. Whenever there's any glimmer of hope that something better can happen in the middle east there's always some player that's going to literally blow everything up. I do think the truth matters (vs. the untruthful narratives from almost everyone) as there's no path forward on top of lies. Too many people are just brainwashed. So yes, the truthful events of 1948 (mostly discussed by Israeli historians that Palestinians are happy to quote) are important but so is the Jewish history of the region in modern and ancient times.
EDIT: btw I watched the images on that Twitter video. There is war going on outside and so yes- there is very likely some impact on the hospital. At least the video itself seems to show that it's not a place I'd want to be but also people are still alive and uninjured there.
I'm in Czechia, a country that supports Israel unconditionally, without an ounce of sympathy for Palestinians. Vast majority of comments on news articles that allow commenting just call for genocide, for leveling the place, justify killing children, call Gazan's not human, express excitement when they are being killed, etc. (yes we have laws against genocide and incitement to genocide) Politicians are not much better, except they're just acting out callous disregard for human beings on the "other side". Media is not showing or describing the human toll in Gaza pretty much at all. A country that sold a lot of planes and weapons to Israel in 47/48 during the arms embargo.
You can show people videos like these, and they'd still tell you it's Palestinian's own fault, and they'd still vote even against an unenforcible, largely symbolic resolution calling for a meaningful ceasefire and distribution of aid, so that there's at least an anesthetic, and safe route to get these patients transfered outside of Gaza.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17jfd8o/warning_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17jeq4r/kids_inj...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17c269h/saving_a...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17c9igd/israel_h...
Or who can scroll a few weeks back through this this https://t.me/s/eyeonpal and think that killing, maiming and terrorizing these people in such horrendous ways, and continuing to opress them after the war, will not make them susceptible to even more radical views than what Hamas have now in the future.
Or the news like:
"Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he ordered a halt to transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority as a result of, what he says, their “support” for Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“I would like to inform you that I have instructed the Finance Ministry to stop the transfer of payments this month,” Smotrich said in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quoted by the Israeli media."
a day after warnings about "explosive situation in West Bank" from security services. It all almost seems designed to trigger as much mayhem as possible, just to guarantee some uprising there. Defunding PA will not make it stronger. It's guaranteed to make it look impotent and useless in people's eyes and make them turn elsewhere.
Anyway, I cope by reading books and learning, so I can confront the ignorance in my country.
> If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
My country was occupied twice. It didn't fight back, and just accepted the fate. (aside from people joining foreign legion or partisans, during WW2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_uprising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czec...
Lots of nasty stuff. I obviously won't defend the Nazis but Czechs didn't exactly play by the rules of law against the Nazis who also didn't play by the rules of law.
The Germans seem to have a reasonable grounds to claim parts of your land. If 3000 Germans armed to the teeth with assault rifles, heavy machine guns and RPGs went on a rampage through Prague killing 1000 civilians, taking hostages, and retreating back to Germany... What would be your take on that?
Maybe it's not a good analogy, I'm totally ignorant of European history like most are about middle eastern history, point is that without context you can't make a moral judgement.
Smotrich is an idiot. The PA has no interest in making peace. But Israel and the PA do collaborate because the PA corrupt officials want to remain in power and their people will slaughter them without Israel's protection just like they did to the Fatah in Gaza.
EDIT: So why aren't Europeans killing each other all the time when basically every inch of land there was stolen from someone in some war not too long ago? They were for a long time. Because at some point you move on and you stop thinking that you're going to solve the problem by killing your neighbor. The Palestinians are just not willing to move on. Israel has been willing to move on a long time ago but its neighbors want to kill it. Those neighbors also don't generally share the values of the west at all. Just look at the human right situation in the middle east and how neighboring countries (unrelated to Israel) treat each other. It's not Western Europe.
EDIT2: this is ancient history but since we've gone back to WW-II: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini ... I am not super familiar with this guy's history but supposedly the family originates from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husayn_ibn_Ali who lived in Medina (modern day Saudi Arabia) and not in "Palestine". I've heard some Palestinians claim they're the descendants of the Canaanites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan ... anyhow, context history and such.
I do feel on a human level for the individuals who are suffering and being pawns in a bigger game.
People would be pissed, but that's about as much as they could do. Czech would have to negotiate.
I can certainly make a judgement that killing 100x more children than were killed during Oct 7 is more immoral. Don't need any history for that.
A 17yo Hamas combatant counts as a child btw.
It is terrible that children are dying. Most of that is on the Hamas. Hamas intentionally aimed their attacks at children. Hamas kidnapped babies. Executed children in front of their parents. Israel asked people to evacuate and at least in theory is targeting Hamas in an extremely densely populated area where Hamas is using population as human shields.
I can't deny that seeing images of dead children on the Palestinian side is deeply disturbing. Not getting to those Hamas terrorists is not an option. What is the option? Another by the way there is that this monstrosity of Hamas was created with international help and pressure on Israel and now somehow it's all Israel's fault. There's also a clear propaganda war going on here as well and what I'd call double standards.
If Israel could get at Hamas without hurting a single child that would definitely be preferable. You're asking Israel to sit back and be slaughtered. This isn't only about the Israeli children already murdered and taken hostage, it's also about the safety of the rest of the children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_Israeli%E2%80%...
EDIT: just in case you say the option is to "negotiate" this current state is a result of the historical negotiations. How do you negotiate with a brutal enemy that wants you dead? The theory was that they've given up on wanting Jews dead.
EDIT2: Another thought experiment to engage in is if the Hamas was even more successful in their attack, and the other settlements and towns where they were repelled failed, and they killed 10000 Israeli children would there be a different morality? I don't think the ratio of dead people is necessarily a morality factor at war. That does not mean it's good that people (including children) are getting killed.
EDIT3: Interesting the NY Times is also asking similar questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7K327quaEc ... I didn't listen to it yet.
Where exactly are they supposed to operate out of?
And it turns out it’s quite easy to not bomb civilians. You don’t drop bombs in cities.
Is your theory that if the Hamas had more land on which to place rockets they fire at Israeli civilians then they would take more care to place them ("operate out of") away from civilians?
To answer your question, they're not supposed to "operate out of" anywhere in the first place.
Israeli civilians and cities are under more or less constant attack or threat of attack.
The US response to 9/11 was to attack the wrong country.
My immediate response to seeing the planes hit the towers was "oh fuck, we're going to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the middle east".
And those wars didn't turn out well.
Justifying this by analogy to 9/11 doesn't cut the way that you think it does.
This number comes from Hamas, so I would take it with a grain of salt. Hamas intentionally uses its civilians as shields for their military equipment. Here is a quote from Hamas's 1988 charter:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." [1]
The UN said just 5 days ago that the figure was 5k. Given the increase in intensity 7k does not at all seem unreasonable to me
2. Despite Biden's doubts, humanitarian agencies consider Gaza toll reliable [2]
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-says-over...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/despite-bidens-dou...
> "Health Ministry in Gaza" literally the health ministry of Hamas. Why would such organization lie?
This is language that justifies death, by minimizing it. There are likely not perfect, but in the past numbers from the Gaza health ministry haven't been wildly wrong: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/despite-bidens-dou...
See e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/26/can-we-trust-c...
They are just straight up lying
Could just have been some yahoos firing a rocket from the bushes and getting it wrong, and that Hamas has just as much information as the rest of us do. That is, basically this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESOhN-SaH-s
I don't see why you put the "Health Ministry" in quotes. If you scroll prior to 7th oct you'd see content any normal health ministry in any country would produce.
Just so much demonization going on, these days.
> This number comes from Hamas, so I would take it with a grain of salt. Hamas intentionally uses its civilians as shields for their military equipment.
Both of these statements are spreading FUD around death numbers that most people in the know believe are accurate: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/despite-bidens-dou.... It isn't a great look for you.
Your link even says: "International groups, even some operating in Gaza, and global media including Reuters are not able to verify the figures but reporters have seen large numbers of bodies.".
Hamas is motivated to inflate this number to make Israel look bad. You have to be incredibly naive to think they're above that. Maybe they do it a little, maybe they do it a lot.
Why are we even playing this numbers game in the first place?
> How can there be "most people in the know" when the Gaza strip is under the tight grip of Hamas?
If you read the article is says that in past conflicts Gaza Health Ministry numbers were within 10% of Israel reported numbers. In the past there haven't been issues with the numbers being wrong.
> Why are we even playing this numbers game in the first place?
I am unsure. It is quite likely that there is a massive amount of death in Gaza, more after this evening. I think those spreading FUD about the numbers are trying to minimize what is going on, sort of a way of deflecting guilt about it.
Some people say that the numbers are not real, others say that Hamas brought it upon the civilians, or others say that all civilians are responsible since they didn't over throw Hamas, etc. All I know is that it will probably get worse.
Let's agree that no innocent civilian on any side deserves to die. I think the best hope for that is that Israel has some magical success in getting to the Hamas leadership and hostages in the tunnels under Gaza. Very unlikely that Israel will yield to international pressure at this point.
EDIT: It's also theoretically possible that Hamas would surrender and/or free all the hostages. I think that's pretty unlikely but we'll see.
My best case would be that Hamas exchanges their hostages as they have many times before. Preferrable Hamas releases all the hostages, and in exchange the Hamas leadership (the top leadership, 100s maybe) gets safe passage to somewhere else - go to a Qatar or somewhere not directly adjacent. And then the PA takes over Gaza with international peacekeepers and we drive towards a 2-state solution aggressively.
We would need Netanyahu sidelined for that as well - that guy has long boosted Hamas just to weaken Palestinian moderates and has aggressively expanded the settlements as well as opposed multiple US presidents when the pushed for a solution.
Personally, I am a big fan of the Geneva Initiative as the outline of a 2-state solution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Initiative
They did lie about 500 people dying due to a parking lot being blown up, though. It's a stain on their credibility. But how much of a stain? Do we disregard their previous track record because of it?
I mean, it's possible that they see this current moment as judgement day, so they have decided to use up all of their historically built-up goodwill and start lying for info ops purposes, which would be an understandable strategy. On the other hand, the numbers they're giving don't appear unrealistic, and John Kirby has said that the US does not dispute that it's "in the thousands". So some number between 1000 and 7000 appears correct, and I would err more towards 4000-7000.
Here's a more uptodate charter: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
By what possible metric was it not a 9/11-magnitude event? Proportionally, on a per-capita basis, this attack was to Israel the equivalent of killing 50,000 people out of the US' much larger population. And one in ten people in the US personally knew someone that was killed or wounded on 9/11. Almost certainly far higher, in Israel.
And the videos of people's parents, children, grandchildren being murdered were posted on social media by the perpetrators themselves.
Comparisons to 9/11 are certainly not "played up". The opposite, if anything.
I believe if they could the Hamas leadership would not only want to destroy the Israeli military and any collateral civilians but would, if they could also destroy all civilians.
Also realize many Palestinian civilians are victims of their own government who intentionally use them as human shields.
Did I get that right?
If a government initiates an unannounced attack on neighboring one, specifically seeking out and killing civilians without any restraint whatsoever and moreover mercilessly kills the most vulnerable of a population in personal and gruesome ways, I usually come to the conclusion they would not hesitate to undertake their stated purpose and promises.
So we agree Israel is committing genocide.
I'm more surprised it took this long.
Israel is clearly defending themselves against a genocidal adversary who just killed more Jews in one day than any day since the Holocaust. They have every right to invade Gaza to eliminate that threat.
And Israel had previously killed way more Palestinian civilians than that. Why is a Jewish life worth more than a Palestinian life?
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/27/middleeast/gaza-death-toll-re...
Right now you can not call ambulances or firetrucks or anything. Not all 2M Palestinians in Gaza are combatants, but I think that some people consider them to be.
That's not comparable because that is not a military operation and there was no military advantage to the action.
> Right now you can not call ambulances or firetrucks or anything. Not all 2M Palestinians in Gaza are combatants, but I think that some people consider them to be.
I don't know what people think happens in a war, but generally innocents always pay the price. That's true in this conflict and it is true in literally every other conflict that has happened ever.
If only the guilty died in wars, we wouldn't say war is hell.
Generally from an international law perspective, the obligation is to ensure that civilian damage is porportional to military advantage. There is no obligation under the geneva convention to never do anything that could harm civilians, it just has to have enough of a military advantage to justify it (this is a gross over simplification)
> Generally from an international law perspective, the obligation is to ensure that civilian damage is porportional to military advantage.
This new report from HRW details both Hamas and Israeli war crimes:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/27/how-does-international-h...
On the Israeli side (but you can read about Hamas in the report above):
"Israel has also engaged in the collective punishment of Gaza’s population through cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel. This is a war crime, as is willfully blocking humanitarian relief from reaching civilians in need."
"There’s also concern about Israel ordering the displacement of much of Gaza’s civilian population, which is permitted only if required for the civilians’ security or imperative military reasons. The civilian population needs to be able to return as soon as possible - permanent displacement is a crime."
"In addition, the Israeli occupying authorities have committed and continue to commit other international crimes, including with West Bank settlements. If the occupying power transfers any of its civilian population into the occupied territory, either directly or indirectly, it is a war crime."
I fully agree the west bank is fucked up (i do not think that justifies oct 7, which on the scale of atrocities seems much worse)
As far as the blockade goes, i don't know - it seems like there might be a grey area between blocking humanitarian aid vs being required to provide it. At least personally i think blocking the water was too far, but blocking fuel seems reasonable to me, but ianal and this doesn't seem clear cut to me so id like to wait for more analysis.
> There’s also concern about Israel ordering the displacement of much of Gaza’s civilian population, which is permitted only if required for the civilians’ security or imperative military reasons. The civilian population needs to be able to return as soon as possible - permanent displacement is a crime."
Given there is a ground invasion there starting right now, in a dense urban environment "civilians’ security or imperative military reasons" criteria seems met imo. I agree its imperative they be let back when fighting is over.
In the context of this conflict, it should be noted that the Palestinian side has commited a crazy amount of war crimes over a very long time (both by hamas but also past groups). That doesn't excuse israel's misdeeds, but when only one side is held to account, it delegitamizes the whole project of international law.
Looks clear-cut whose fault it is, everything was just peachy for everyone until Hamas just decided to attack out of the blue.
???
Take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Israeli%E2%80%... for an very short example of Palestinian suffering in this 70+ years of conflict.
Wilful ignorance isn't a good reason to spout nonsense.