Israeli troops are fighting with Hamas militants on the edges of Gaza City, as the Palestinian death toll rises above 9,000. U.S. and Arab leaders are raising pressure on Israel to ease its siege and at least briefly halt its attacks in order to aid civilians.
I’m going to assume you’re familiar with this long, complicated conflict. If you were in Israel’s shoes, how would you respond to the Hamas attack?
Hamas has a leader in a tunnel under a refugee camp. You can 1) go into the tunnel and kill the Hamas fighters, possibly losing IDF soilders along the way, or 2) you can bomb the fuck out of the civilian houses on top of the tunnel and hope that collapses the tunnel and kills the leader, killing hundreds of civilians. A righteous country, an explicitly religious country who answers to god, would choose to sacrifice it’s soilders over sacrificing innocent lives. Israel instead decided to commit a war crime. And then after being called out by the international community, did the same thing the next day.
Since you like asking questions, maybe you can answer one. Please explain how cutting off food and water for 2.1 million people is a legitimate military tactic and not just the war crime of collective punishment?
Sacrifice your soldiers today for potential enemy soldiers in the future, while you’re at war and under attack by said enemy? Great plan.
You’re suggesting Israel should have to keep open supply lines open for enemy forces. Embargoing and cutting off your supplies from a hostile force is pretty standard when it comes to warfare. What’s different here is that said enemy is totally dependent on Israel for their basic necessities, and they attacked them anyway. The results were predictable and tragic, and Israel is being portrayed as villainous for denying those who are actively trying to kill them its resources. This isn’t a mediaeval siege, Gaza can still get essential supplies from Egypt via Rafah, as they have been.
My plan is to comply with international humanitarian law. It is a great plan. Its an awesome fucking plan in fact.
And here you acknowledge the cage.
2.1 million Palestinians are a hostile force? Also its literally a requirement of international humanitiarian law
Your literally defending war crimes buddy. Maybe take a look in the mirror.
The territory of Gaza is at war with Israel. That means the people in these territories are at war with each other. And territories at war, war with each other collectively. Government-sponsored violence against another government subjects the entire territory they control to violence. That’s the way war works.
Israel is allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.
You literally asked me to defend it!
I am sorry but this humanitarian aid is extremely insufficient, plenty of people can’t access it, there are no pauses of fighting, they are indiscriminately killing people. Israel doesn’t really care about the civilian suffering and deaths and they are proving it every day.
What Israel is doing with Gaza is horrific and eerily resembles what the Jewish people went through during the Holocaust, just this time they are the aggressor. You know Gaza is like an open air concentration camp where people are starved and killed, forced to live in makeshift tents and dehumanized by their oppressor. Shame that you haven’t learnt your lesson!
And perhaps you should also self reflect on your morality and perhaps check your karma
The increase in humanitarian aid just started.
That they are providing it at all is pretty incredible as far as warfare goes. Could you imagine if the world criticized the US for not sending humanitarian aid to Nazi Germany while they were still belligerent to them, before they unconditionally surrendered, and then after providing some, the world criticized them for not sending enough?
Gaza has been so thoroughly defeated that they are dependent on Israel for the most basic necessities, yet refuse to surrender, choosing instead to escalate attacks. This is very strange warfare, historically the consequences for refusing to pacify would have been far more dire than what Israel has done, they have shown great restraint so far. If they played by the same rules as Hamas there would be no Palestine.
They are at war after all.
Indiscriminate rocket attacks are more of a Palestinian thing. According to Israel they are hitting valid military targets that are often placed by Hamas among civilians with relatively high accuracy. I’d like a citation if you have credible evidence from an unbiased source that their attacks are indiscriminate, please.
It’s almost like there are consequences to constant guerilla attacks then provoking a war one cannot win against a nation one is entirely dependent upon for necessities, which possesses a superior military force. I guess the inevitable and predictable consequences of the war they provoked are Israel’s fault.
Yeah it’s just like that, remember when the Jews instigated guerilla attacks against Germans for over a century, refused to negotiate for peace, declared multiple failed wars on them aided by Germany’s neighboring states, then slaughtered thousands of German civilians in a guerilla attack? Wait, actually, none of that happened.
The only similarity is that there are people in walled enclaves. Jews were peaceful members of German society and were put in concentration camps because of conspiracy theories, racism, and scapegoating. Usually the only way out was death. Gazans are behind a wall because of belligerence, they are literally killing Israeli civilians and refuse to stop. They can leave through the Raffah gate when it’s open and no one is systemically eradicating them, (were that Israel’s goal they certainly have the means but have chosen not to because they are not fucking Nazis.) I find your comparison distasteful and reductionist, an attempt to make Jews as bad as the most reviled of historical villains, when they are simply trying everything they can to achieve safety from a neighbor who, like the Nazis, openly wants to genocide them.
I don’t know about your server, but my karma is quite high on mine, not that it matters. I’m not going to pick up a pitchfork and simp for Hamas simply because that’s popular with the online mob. Shame on you for tacitly defending them and suggesting I should do the same.
Prior to 7th of October there were 165K injured Palestinians vs 6K Israelian, and that’s only since 2008. Casualties are also 20 times higher on the Palestinian side and a lot of those are women and children. Source: https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties
So please tell me again about the restraint of the IDF, because these numbers seem to contradict your words! And just to make things even clearer, the military wing of Hamas is 30K.
And I will leave this here as you kind of make Israel the only victim here, https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/other-mass-displacement-while-eyes-are-gaza-settlers-advance-west-bank-herders-enhe
Israel’s casualties are lower for a number of reasons that I probably don’t have to list, pointing this out is not exactly compelling evidence that their attacks are indiscriminate (i.e., done at random or without careful judgment.) You’re making a claim about intent regarding targeting. Are they firing these rockets randomly at populated areas like Hamas does, or does the IDF carefully choose targets and tell the media specifically what the intended military target was? 🤔
You’re ignoring the military capability and tactics they aren’t using. Israel has nukes, they could level every building in Gaza without warning people at all, they could just roll in and shoot everybody, they could use biological weapons, they could have forcibly closed the Rafah gate and kept food and water out until people starved to death, they could start a big fire, you know, actual genocide stuff, actual war crimes. They don’t. They get accused of it anyway though.
Israel really needs to keep its people in check and prosecute their civilians and soldiers who are breaking the law in the west bank. They need security there, that is some bullshit, I agree.
Good job referring to Palestinian civilians as “potential enemy soldiers”. It’s not technically dehumanizing but it really does show how you objectify them to justify killing them.
Pardon me for acknowledging reality.
The majority of Palestinians support terrorism/guerilla resistance against Israel, and are unwilling to accept either a 2-state solution or a 1-state solution where Jews have equal rights. Not just potential, likely enemy soldiers.
(most of whom want to deny Israel a right to exist, oppress and/or drive the Jews into the sea.)
Removed by mod
Not murder children
Vague. Does that mean, let them keep launching attacks against your civilians from behind human shields, or send in ground forces expecting wildly massive casualties?
At its root it’s actually pretty simple. If it involves killing children, do not do it. If you’d like we can get into the more in depth discussion of slowly forcing more and more people into a terrible situation and how that drives them into the arms of Hamas, but at its root, don’t shoot kids.
Given that one cannot see the future, there’s always a chance of collateral damage with any military action, and a decent chance it will be a child in Gaza where the inhabitants decided to have a lot of them, it sounds like you’ve ruled out any sort of reprisal. Let them slaughter your civilians with impunity, then? Great plan.
Listen man, I get you’re not arguing in good faith here but here goes. The Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens are inexcusable, but they did not and do not excuse the indiscriminate bombing of one of if not the most densely populated areas on the planet. One that I might add has a population that is on average 14.
Is this an easy or quick thing to resolve? No, absolutely not. Is doing nothing a good option? No. Is killing thousands and forcing the rest into the fucking sea the correct response? Fuck no.
I resent that characterization, just because you don’t like what I have to say doesn’t mean I’m not arguing in good faith.
According to Israel the bombings are not indiscriminate, they target valid military objectives.
No one is being driven into the sea. It seems like you’re implying that the consequences of Gazans having lots of children then provoking war against a superior force should be to bind Israel’s hands regarding how they can respond, denying them access to common military tactics that minimize their own losses. You’ve ruled out doing nothing and airstrikes. The only viable option I can see that remains: the IDF should now have to sacrifice lots of soldiers and hand Hamas a victory by going in without air support, because Gazan forces are hiding among Gazan children. That’s a tremendously bad move in terms of military strategy.
Assuming you’re being genuine:
Hamas has to go. There is no stable situation leaving them in power.
We have a couple different approaches to resolving this:
A. providing a transportation corridor from fatah controlled territory to Gaza, providing military aid to Fatah, and let them clear out hamas.
B. Open up a large refugee camp just outside of Gaza, allow all the Gaza civilians to migrate to this new camp, screen for weapons. Once everyone who wants to leave is left, then you do the ground operations inside of old Gaza…
C. Invite UN peacekeepers to occupy Gaza, and then run new elections under UN observation
Though I take small issue with your comment, the implication is, we can’t do anything except kill more people. We’ve tried killing them before, that didn’t work, we should try killing them harder this time. That’s not a stable situation either - unless you kill all of them. And if that’s the goal, they’re doing a bad job of it. They’re doing it too slowly
Under no circumstance will Hamas “go”. Hamas and its allies in the Palestinian resistance represent the will of the entire Palestinian people. The Palestinian authority that Israel and the west has imposed on us will crumble if it ever has to face Hamas. Palestinians will resist violently until all of Palestine is liberated. That is that.
Fire Netanyahu and the entire mossad for this shit tier intelligence and then fix the Gaza infrastructure.
I like the fire Netanyahu part.
So keep the status quo, allow Hamas to stay in power, and improve the infrastructure of an actively belligerent enemy? Wow what a reward you’d give them for slaughtering your people, maybe they should do it again next time they need infrastructure.
Maybe if Israel actually allowed Gaza to hold elections, Hamas wouldn’t be in power 🤔 instead Bibi needed a bad guy on his doorstep to keep in power, and he was too busy engaging in ethnic cleansing in the west bank to actually secure the “border” (i.e, the walls of the open air prison Palestinians are kept in) with Gaza.
Israel is never going to have true security keeping a group of people trapped, without political rights, with strict controls on their access to basic goods. Fuck Hamas, but violence is the predictable result of depriving people of political rights and basic freedoms. Today it’s Hamas, tomorrow it’s some other group, it will keep happening. Building a better cage will only do so much good, desperate people are dangerous. Until that is resolved, Israel will have no real security.
They did hold elections, Gaza elected Hamas and then Hamas did a coup and ensured an election has not been held there since.
I think they recognize this, given their recent statements. Hamas has made it clear they will not surrender or negotiate for a viable peace no matter how much worse Israel can and will make things. I suspect for this reason we’re probably going to see a forcible regime change and/or some annexation in Gaza very soon.
I was specifically referring to the 2021 elections and Israel’s refusal to allow East Jerusalem to vote after Israel annexed the territory. But you probably knew that. Palestinians dislike Hamas, an election likely would have removed them from power, but Israel gave Hamas the bullshit excuse it needed to stay in power. Great job!
I don’t know if you have reading comprehension problems or were specifically ignoring the point, but I was explicitly talking about what comes after Hamas. You have 2.1 million people in a cage for decades. You cut off their food and water for weeks, kill 10,000 people, over half children, and you think even after you kill every Hamas leader and solider that the citizens that left are just going to go back to living in their cage without human rights? This is something the US learned in Afghanistan, you kill one civilian, you create two new terrorists. The same will happen here. Unless, of course, your intention was to lump all Palestinians under the label of “Hamas”, in which case consider your true colors seen!
I also agree that Israel intends to engage in illegal ethnic cleansing. Glad we’re on the same page about that at least.
Actually I am unaware of this, time for some reading, thanks for mentioning it. Any sources besides Wikipedia you’d recommend?
Rage doesn’t change their realpolitik situation. At this rate they if don’t make viable peace their remaining land will ebb away. If they are left in charge, I wonder if PA might be more amenable to real concessions now that they see how bad massive civilian attacks combined with a refusal to negotiate or surrender has made things for Hamas. If nothing else this has shown things can always get worse for them if they choose not to pacify. Gaza is experiencing the stick, next Israel will probably offer Palestinian leaders willing to be reasonable a carrot.
That’s presuming Israel doesn’t annex the entirety of Gaza, they reportedly tried negotiating for Egypt to take in all 2 million Gazans.
Calling it ethnic cleansing doesn’t make much sense given that 20% of Israel’s citizenry is Arab. Israel is not ethnically homogeneous, but perhaps moving people who are actively trying to kill them and unwilling to surrender farther away from them violates some other international law their opponents can clutch pearls over:
Don’t forget that Netanyahu is responsible for said status quo. He’s the reason Hamas has as much power as it does. There’s ways to dismantle them peacefully. He’s done the opposite because he wants this dangerous group to give him pretext. Firing him and his radicals would go a long way toward a more peaceful solution.
Are you people being paid? I’ve seen this “question” like 15 times.
He’s the one who posted it 15 times
No one has been able to satisfactorily answer it every time I’ve seen it asked. I thought I’d pose the same question I’ve seen elsewhere to see if 'yall have any better ideas. It’s easy to be a critic, it’s harder to offer viable solutions.
Oh word? Because every time I see literally “not murder children”
Not doing something isn’t a solution. How, specifically, would you respond?
If I was Israeli I would dismantle my god forsaken cursed country and end the scourge that it has been in the region.