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I have always been very very skeptical of the motives and intentions of various BDS groups over the years. Lots of issues with hypocrisy, propaganda, and double standards.
But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen.
It's possible for both things to be true: Hamas is bad and committed a heinous act of terrorism, and Israel is committing a horrifying atrocity against Palestinian civilians in retaliation.
1,200 Israelis were killed, not "a few dozen". 250 were kidnapped and held hostage, of those about 130 are still being held.
Second, Israel isn't "murdering" civilians in collective retribution. It's fighting a war against a neighboring "government" that has just invaded it, slaughtered thousands of its citizens, and has promised to do it again and again.
Many civilians are dying in this war, which is a horrible tragedy, and is unfortunately true of every war, which is one reason wars are so terrible. But it's hard to say this war isn't justified given the promises of Hamas.
This is exactly the rhetoric that made Hamas think it was okay to kill Israeli civilians. Both think the other is an existential threat.
Hamas has promised to do this over and over again, saying that October 7th was "just a rehearsal".
I'm not at all saying that every action is justified, but fighting to stop Hamas from having the capability of doing this again is definitely justified.
(And for what it's worth, the "other side" thinking October 7th was justified makes no sense, because it isn't going to help them achieve their actual goals, only cause immense suffering to their own side. In that sense Hamas's actions are double-crimes - both killing Israelis, and doing so in a manner that was bound to cause the death of their own populations.)
Dehumanization is the first step to a genocide.
Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas.
> Additionally, this does not explain the violence being done in the West Bank to Palestinians, a population that is notably not ruled by Hamas.
There are definitely Hamas operatives there as well, not to mention a public that is overwhelmingly supportive of Hamas's actions. I'm not saying this to say they should be "punished", I'm saying this to explain that there are genuine security threats that Israel needs to deal with in the WB as well.
That said, some of the violence there is totally unjustified, especially violence instigated by settlers and not the IDF.
To call these deaths simply a casualty of a normal war is seriously undercutting how heinous the actions by the IDF are.
> You don't kill about 20k civilians in 2 months without targeting civilians.
None of us have any way of knowing if that 20k civilian count is accurate. Gaza's Ministry of Health doesn't, as far as I know, give a breakdown of whether the deaths are militants or civilians. So according to their numbers, literally 0 Hamas militants have been killed and all 20k deaths are civilians.
Obviously if that's true, then that would prove the IDF is targeting civilians. But it's obviously not true.
The IDF's own estimation is about 5k militants dead, and around 10k civilians dead. A terrible tragedy that any civilians die, of course - but not an order of magnitude difference to other conflicts, as some people are presenting it.
Additionally, how many "Hamas" combatants were just executions of unarmed individuals like this? https://x.com/Shepherds4Good/status/1734241654465343594?s=20
The Israeli Occupying force is not a trustworthy source. Neither is Hamas but Hamas has been seemingly fabricating less things, and providing proof to claims, unlike the IOF. Remember the decapitated babies? or babies cooked in ovens? None of that was ever proved.
I'm sorry, not sure how else to say this, but this is just not true, and I'm fairly sure the fact that you think this means you're in a very particular internet bubble that likes to just make things up about the IDF. Both by deciding that true things are actually not true based on flimsy evidence, and by talking constantly about things that they think the IDF has said that are wrong, and ignoring the vast amounts of things that are for sure true. (Unless you don't believe in any media, in any other Western government, etc, in which case I have no way to convince you.)
> The Israeli Occupying force is not a trustworthy source. Neither is Hamas but Hamas has been seemingly fabricating less things,
This is a ridiculous. Hamas are a terrorist organization that is also effectively a dictatorship. They don't allow free press, they have a lot of active control over what their own citizens are allowed to say, etc.
Israel has free press, citizens that are free to say whatever they want, etc.
The fact that you hear more critical things about the IDF is a consequence of Israel being more trustworthy. Israel has journalists that are critical of the IDF and fact-check statements, and sometimes write stories that show falsehoods. That's the system working - that's how you know that the rest of the stuff isn't lies.
You don't see similar information about Hamas because they don't give that kind of access to journalists, and will kill civilians that speak against them.
> Remember the decapitated babies? or babies cooked in ovens? None of that was ever proved.
This is an example of being in a Twitter bubble. I'm not sure what exact claim you think was made by the IDF and that has no proof, because so many versions of this have gone around. Some of it is real and confirmed by various sources (afaik there were some beheaded babies, though unclear if the beheading was before or after death). Some are things that first responders or others said to news reporters and got signal-boosted, but were never said or confirmed by Israeli officials (like that 40 beheaded babies were found). Similar to the "babies cooked in ovens" thing - this was said by a first responder, I'm not even sure what is the truth there.
But to hear Twitter talk about it, these are the only stories that matter or that anyone is talking about, rather than unofficial rumors that were spread because they are ghastly. The real, completely verified things that happened on October 7th are plenty horrible enough.
And none of that even matters when what we're talking about is the credibility of the IDF's reports on the fighting in Gaza, which is a completely separate thing.
(Seriously though - if you're taking the word of Hamas, a terrorist dictatorship, over the word of Israel - you are fundamentally misunderstanding what the two sides in this fight even are, or misunderstanding what being a democracy with a free press means.)
Not really, no. There's no argument.
The entire world is calling for a ceasefire because so many civilians are being murdered.
There was some intelligence about a potential threat, but hardly anything specific that they could easily respond to. Coupled with the fact that Hamas has their own counterintelligence laying out deceptions in the months leading up to the attack.
I guess Israel could have just stationed a few battalions over the full length of the border....forever.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-h...
Yes, they had intel about the attack method, but not the dates, or even if it was real or aspirational.
This goes to my question about the person break into your home... What changes or adjustments could Israel have taken based on the intel? Like I said, maybe they could just place a bunch of battalions along the entire border, but then maybe Hamas would just lay low until they were gone.
There have already been real-life anti-semitic attacks on people and property. There have been synagogues and cemeteries burned, people murdered, shot, and stabbed, businesses trashed. [0][1][2][3][4] You can find hundreds more sources of recent, very real, physical violence against Jews and Jewish places worldwide.
Jews have been subject to thousands of years of very real pogroms, genocide, and conspiracy theories. These are not "possible" bad outcomes, they actually happened, we're seeing some of it now, and we have every reason to believe that it will happen again.
0. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-a...
1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-...
2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson...
3. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up...
4. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/i...
Your characterization of military action against military targets in Gaza as mass murder is an interpretation, but not a reasonable one. Israel was attacked by thousands of Hamas soldiers. Hamas governs Gaza (poorly, and undemocractically, but they do govern it). Israel is responding to the attacks by Hamas by attempting to destroy Hamas. Hamas is still launching rockets at Israel from Gaza even today. They are still fighting.
War is hell. Civilians die, especially when the opposition hides in and under civilian structures. There is no magic weapon or method that will eliminate Hamas without killing civilians. And Hamas has demonstrated over and over that they will not respect ceasefire or stop killing, and they have been widely supported by Gazans. Hamas must be eliminated and Palestinians must actually want and accept peace for there to be peace.