# Discussion for the Israel-Hamas War: A thread in the Pit **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** israel-hamas-war\ **Created:** [November 5, 2023, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653 "2023-11-05T21:57:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 67
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1321 "2024-08-09T12:55:27Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Also, consider this: if Abu Ghraib had happened today, what would Donald Trump and the other MAGATs have to say about it? The fact that Trump terrifies me and I’m afraid of where my country is heading does not make me feel any better about what Israel is doing. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1322 "2024-08-09T14:12:32Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Israel didn’t _put_ him on television - he went at his own initiative, and was immediately dishonorably discharged from his reserve unit as a result (which was probably his plan). > > Channel 14, incidentally, is Israel’s version of Fox News, only not as classy and restrained. Interesting pedantry. Is Channel 14 not Israeli? > [@Alessan](#): > > Also, consider this: if Abu Ghraib had happened today, what would Donald Trump and the other MAGATs have to say about it? Ah, so we’re finally disposing entirely with the fiction of “most moral army.” Goes along with Israeli ministers admitting they’d happily starve all of Gaza if it wasn’t for international pressure. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1323 "2024-08-09T14:46:02Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > How much of the IDF is guys like this, or people willing to tolerate guys like this? As a conscript army, the IDF’s politics tend to reflect that of the public as a whole - even more so in the case of reservists like these. As for what Israeli political opinions are, it’s hard to say. Nobody here, either right or left, likes the Palestinians all that much, at least not since October 7. But I think that a clear majority know that raping people is immoral and wrong, and condemn the violation of the law and the breakdown of military discipline that allowed this to happen. > [@Chisquirrel](#): > > Interesting pedantry. Is Channel 14 not Israeli? I’m not sure who you’re accusing here, and of what. Channel 14, for running the interview? Or the Israeli government, for allowing to air? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1324 "2024-08-09T15:25:26Z")
I presume this “clear majority” will act swiftly to remove from their positions the government leaders who are defending the soldiers and saying these atrocities are not only not atrocities but are legally permissible. > [@](#): > > Following the arrest of the reservists on July 29, far-right mobs, some of which included government ministers, stormed the facility at Sde Teiman in southern Israel later the same day. > > That unrest continued during a high court hearing, convened on Wednesday to hear the petitions of Sde Teiman prisoners who are alleged to have been tortured. The proceedings were interrupted by demonstrators, who included victims of the October 7 Hamas-led attack, who shouted “Disgrace” and “We are the sovereign”. > > Israeli pressure group Guarding the Soldiers – a new organisation formed in defence of the soldiers accused of rape – was quoted in Israeli media as saying: “The hearing in the high court this morning is absurd and a gift to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar and murderers.” > > Israeli politicians, including cabinet members, have also defended the accused. Ben-Gvir, who is responsible for the prison service, told Israeli media on the day of the reservists’ arrest that it was “shameful” for Israel to arrest “our best heroes”. The same day, Smotrich, who had been among the right-wing mob to storm the prison, published a video message, saying that “IDF soldiers deserve respect” and must not be treated as “criminals”. > > On being asked by Ahmad Tibi, one of the Arab MPs within the Israeli Knesset last week if it was legitimate “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum”, Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, responded: “If he is a Nukhba [Hamas militant], everything is legitimate to do! Everything!” > **[Israel-Palestine conflict | Israel leaders defend soldiers accused of rape |...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/9/everything-is-legitimate-israeli-leaders-defend-soldiers-accused-of-rape)** > > Israeli society is divided over arrest of 10 soldiers for brutal gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner caught on video. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1325 "2024-08-09T15:33:25Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > I presume this “clear majority” will act swiftly to remove from their positions the government leaders who are defending the soldiers and saying these atrocities are not only not atrocities but are legally permissible. We’re working on it, okay? I’d love for there to be elections now and not in three years, but I can’t just will them into existence. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1326 "2024-08-09T16:52:35Z")
At this rate, there will be literally no Palestinians left alive in Gaza in three years. Your only moral option is to call for the Netanyahyu government to be removed by violent revolution, if it can’t be legally removed otherwise in the immediate future. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1327 "2024-08-09T17:21:15Z")
Yeah… I’m out of this thread. I made a mistake in coming back. You guys have fun doing whatever it is you’re doing. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1328 "2024-08-09T17:27:31Z")
That would be thinking that a convenient discharge is the proper “punishment” for rape of a prisoner, or that inserting sharp sticks up the anus of prisoners should be openly supported by Israeli officials, just might not be the right way to go. Come to think of it, “fun” doesn’t seem to operative word here. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1329 "2024-08-09T17:30:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > That would be thinking that a convenient discharge is the proper “punishment” for rape of a prisoner, The person who came on the show is not one of the soldiers who are being charged with rape, at least at this time. The actual suspects are still in custody and are not doing interviews. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2024, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1330 "2024-08-10T13:59:54Z")
If it’s reflective of the whole populace that’s not terribly comforting. I accept that it’s likely that a big majority strongly disapproves of abusing prisoners (and other human rights violations), but if even 10—20% of the IDF is made up of abusers or those who tolerate abuse, that would be enough for rampant abuse and cover ups, ISTM. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1331 "2024-08-13T23:51:22Z")
Here’s a very long essay from Omer Bartov, who formerly served in the IDF and now teaches at Brown. I hope people will take the time to read it. It helped me better understand some of the mindset in this thread. I’ll include one passage below, but the entire essay is worth the time. > Today, across vast swaths of the Israeli public, including those who oppose the government, two sentiments reign supreme. > > The first is a combination of rage and fear, a desire to re-establish security at any cost and a complete distrust of political solutions, negotiations and reconciliation. The military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that war was the extension of politics by other means, and warned that without a defined political objective it would lead to limitless destruction. The sentiment that now prevails in Israel similarly threatens to make war into its own end. In this view, politics is an obstacle to achieving goals rather than a means to limit destruction. This is a view that can only ultimately lead to self-annihilation. > > The second reigning sentiment – or rather lack of sentiment – is the flipside of the first. It is the utter inability of Israeli society today to feel any empathy for the population of Gaza. The majority, it seems, do not even want to know what is happening in Gaza, and this desire is reflected in TV coverage. Israeli television news these days usually begins with reports on the funerals of soldiers, invariably described as heroes, fallen in the fighting in Gaza, followed by estimates of how many Hamas fighters were “liquidated”. References to Palestinian civilian deaths are rare and normally presented as part of enemy propaganda or as a cause for unwelcome international pressure. In the face of so much death, this deafening silence now seems like its own form of vengefulness. > > Of course, the Israeli public long ago became inured to the brutal occupation that has characterised the country for 57 out of the 76 years of its existence. But the scale of what is being perpetrated in Gaza right now by the IDF is as unprecedented as the complete indifference of most Israelis to what is being done in their name. In 1982, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested against the massacre of the Palestinian population in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila in western Beirut by Maronite Christian militias, facilitated by the IDF. Today, this kind of response is inconceivable. The way people’s eyes glaze over whenever one mentions the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and the deaths of thousands of children and women and elderly people, is deeply unsettling. > **[As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov)** > > The long read: This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2024, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1332 "2024-08-13T23:54:18Z")
OK, one more: > Meeting my friends in Israel this time, I frequently felt that they were afraid that I might disrupt their grief, and that living out of the country I could not grasp their pain, anxiety, bewilderment and helplessness. Any suggestion that living in the country had numbed them to the pain of others – the pain that, after all, was being inflicted in their name – only produced a wall of silence, a retreat into themselves, or a quick change of subject. The impression that I got was consistent: we have no room in our hearts, we have no room in our thoughts, we do not want to speak about or to be shown what our own soldiers, our children or grandchildren, our brothers and sisters, are doing right now in Gaza. We must focus on ourselves, on our trauma, fear and anger. Sounds familiar. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1333 "2024-08-14T00:18:50Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > The way people’s eyes glaze over whenever one mentions the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and the deaths of thousands of children and women and elderly people, is deeply unsettling. Why, it’s almost as if you can only spend so many decades calling for the death of all Israelis before Israelis stop caring about what happens to you. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1334 "2024-08-14T00:28:44Z")
You (and some Israelis) have created a singular enemy that is easy to describe and even easier still to destroy. Congratulations. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1335 "2024-08-14T00:42:19Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Why, it’s almost as if you can only spend so many decades calling for the death of all Israelis before Israelis stop caring about what happens to you. Oof, that’s disturbing if you think that’s a good response to the article. I’m guessing you didn’t read the whole thing. Keep your head in the sand, much easier to sleep at night. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1336 "2024-08-14T00:48:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You (and some Israelis) have created a singular enemy that is easy to describe and even easier still to destroy. But harder to shoot . . . ya know, since children are small. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1337 "2024-08-14T00:58:44Z")
It’s hard to read articles like that for me; at least one reason is that regardless of its individual message and truths, it’s SO self evidently easy for discussion about its content to segue into blaming and condemning THE JEWS. I guess I feel sensitive because I almost (basically?) expect it to happen (not here, but in more general public spaces). ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1338 "2024-08-14T01:36:03Z")
Hamas are free to surrender any time they want. This war was their choice and they’re the ones choosing to continue it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1339 "2024-08-14T01:52:45Z")
It is so much easier to kill the children before they learn who to hate, isn’t it? Just tell yourself that God’ll sort 'em out. Over and over and over and over again until you con yourself into believing it. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2024, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653/1340 "2024-08-14T02:32:06Z")
It wasn’t the Gazans choice, and they’re the ones suffering for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653.md?page=66) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discussion-for-the-israel-hamas-war-a-thread-in-the-pit/992653.md?page=68)