[flagged]
It's why referendums exist - however the more authoritarian a government becomes, the less they want the population voting specifically on issues to maintain more control over policy (and the population), e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Canada
Logically the odds of the hostages being alive would be higher if this wasn't the tactic the IDF decided to use, right?
If I was in command of a military then the hostages would come first, and I would send in soldiers who signed up to potentially give their lives - to exchange soldiers lives for civilians, if need be.
I ask this question very genuinely: what world efforts are seeking to legitimize Hamas? I have seen a great many pro-Palestinian perspectives but have not seen anything pro-Hamas beyond fringe kooks.
As for double standard… I think the reason you see the double standard is precisely because the comparison is racist, homophonic, misogynistic, etc. Israel is held to a higher standard than neighbouring countries because it’s a liberal democracy as opposed to a theocratic dictatorship. I (as an outsider of course) would think it a great loss for the world if Israel starts to consider Iran to be the bar they have to clear rather than anything higher.
No real efforts. But a surprising number of young people don't believe Israel has a right to exist.
That's often not productive in terms of continuing the conversation, but I'm not trying to be clever or evasive; I genuinely don't understand why I should accept the premise of the question.
It generally means do they have the rights of a nation-state. That said, I agree it’s a new way of framing the one-state solution.
Israel was created in 1948. If that didn't happen and Israel didn't exist today, imagine how different things would be today for better or worse.
Maybe the people you're talking about believe it would have been better. Is that such a radical belief?
- Why wasn't Germany divided into half - 50/50 - or even 55% given to the Jewish people [and force the Germans off of their lands that they were on for - whether they were Gestapo and toeing the line as vicious or blind citizens during NaZi Germany] - which would seem to be a fair-reasonable punishment for Germany's authoritarians' behaviour? How fair is that to do to a population who's society was trying to genocide you vs. doing that to a population that had no part in trying to genocide you?
- Why didn't America - where the Israel lobby is arguably the strongest legal influence on the political system, politicians and policy - instead give a large amount of land to the Jewish people in America instead of Balfour Declaration somehow allowing Britain to "give it away"?
Also, there's an unmentioned sentiment usually attached to to the phrase of "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" that it's somehow akin to "Jews don't have a right to exist."
I think that feeling or belief is planted by propaganda has purposefully conflated - along with Israel state equals Judaism [just because they arguably misappropriated the Star of David for their state flag; one of multiple tactics for the what I argue is full of wolves in sheep's clothing].
Re: Hamas' Charter
Other foundational propaganda that's propagated deep and wide, and even those who are very well-informed - possibly because in reality it's a moot point, as Hamas-like organizations are inevitable to form from within an occupied-suppressed and segregated state of existence:
- The claim that in the Hamas Charter it says their goal is to "obliterate all Jews globally" stems from an arguable purposeful mistranslation, where instead it appears to be propaganda to demonize Hamas and Palestinians via guilt by association campaigns, where the proper translation says their goal is to "invalidate" any UNJUST behaviour - written within the context of speaking of just vs. unjust behaviour - which means any just behaviour, e.g. non-violence, truth, etc. is fine and won't be targeted by them; from my understanding that means actual practicing Jews wouldn't fall into this category but the specific behaviours of the specific heads of state driving towards genocide,is party to unjust behaviour, will be held to account and have their actions "invalidated" based on their Charter. Source: https://jstor.org/stable/26331116
Conclusions,
I think it's critical people begin to be asked into thought exercises to understand just how isolated in algorithmic bubbles we all are - unless we're conscious of that and not prone to confirmation bias - to understand how people could be so deeply and firmly indoctrinated into one set of beliefs, where one side is completely delusional as to the truth and reality; they know only a shallow and misleading version of the truth, but not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - so help us God.
The incongruences are glaring as the relatively unsophisticated politicians [useful fools] et al stumble their way through, placed there are useful puppets - and why the bad actors ultimately need full control over speech and communications, or else a critical mass forms against them - and those blindly toeing the line for them in various institutions waken at exponential pace: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5y-lc7RtcE/
Let us not forget: Julian Assange has been being essentially tortured in prison without being convicted of anything - because he published leaks from a violent-authoritarian regime's security apparatus, exposing illegal actions by bad actors - and instead of the bad actors who have currently captured our systems going through justice process - Assange is suppressed as an example - https://www.instagram.com/p/C5X_KC2twid/
Former head of IDF intelligence agency: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5pI0nLBxR3/
The truth is out there.
It now must be compiled and accessible in a way that is gentle enough to breakthrough and onboard the ideologues believing the nearly century of propaganda; this will also arguably take a cultural shift towards healing and developing self-awareness, the cognitive dissonance of logic working towards realizing must be fierce and will harden people in place to avoid the torment they were blindly supporting, so learning how to forgive oneself is perhaps the first fundamental lesson most ideologues need to learn - we all make mistakes, we all can be mislead until we learn better; "forgive them father for they know not what they do."
There's an obvious pattern of behaviour of producing propaganda with sleight of hand to misdirect attention to who's likely actually pulling the strings for such scenarios.
This is a common talking point that makes no sense when you think about it. Could you please explain how you envision the hostage release to be achieved through bombing and systematic destruction of the area that they are held in? It sounds much more likely to kill them instead. Why not simply negotiate a hostage exchange? Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
That presumes that there is something hamas wants that is viable for israel to give them. Its far from obvious that is the case in this conflict.
Its not like "carrot and stick" negotiating tactics are unique to this conflict.
If that’s true (and I agree that it may well be) then surely Israel’s army’s efforts can’t be in aid of hostage release, because it’s an entirely unattainable goal?
I think that’s what the OP is getting at. The tactics we see don’t seem like they’d be effective ways to rescue hostages. Nor does it feel all that viable to persuade Hamas to release the hostages. So what are the current tactics in aid of?
- putting pressure - even if there is nothing now to negotiate with, military action could reduce hamas's negotiating position and in principle cause them to sue for peace. I'm a bit doubtful in this conflict, but traditionally this how war works. If your enemy refuses to surrender, you take their land until either they surrender or they have no more land. For example in world war 1, there was still a lot of deaths right up until the armistice even though people knew fighting was going to stop soon, because the sides thought the more land we have now, the better our position will be during the peace negotiations.
- second, Israeli army could find where the hostages are and take them back by force. Also pretty hard, but if negotiations are unattainable its not surprising they would go here as the only other option.
Most wars happen to obtain goals that are unattainable by peaceful negotiation. I don't think this conflict is any different in that regard than any other.
Because there are two war aims: hostage release and the removal of Hamas.
> Do you expect that if Hamas was about to be completely wiped out, that they would not simply kill all the hostages that were still alive up to that point?
No, for the same reason countries don't kill all their prisoners of war right before surrendering. You still need to negotiate the terms of the peace.
You might have reasons to believe that Israel's persecution of Hamas is going to generate a new generation of Hamas, but reasonable people might disagree and say that to the extent Israel is creating new militants, they're likely to look more like Fatah's armed wing than Hamas.