And luckily for Hamas and other endless war proponents, Netanyahu and allies have purposefully disempowered less extreme Palestinian alternatives over the last decade plus.
I’m a Zionist, which means to me that there needs to be a place on Earth specifically determined to be a safe place for Jews. With this Israeli government in power, Israel is very clearly not such a place right now. And it won’t ever be without leadership that actually makes efforts to move towards peace.
Again: what less extreme Palestinian alternatives? Surely you’re not talking about Mahmoud “the Hollocaust didn’t happen and if it did it wasn’t that bad and if it was the Jews deserved it” Abbas?
Who is the mythical Palestinian voice that supports a two state solution without a right of return poison pill?
It takes two sides to make peace.
Ah, so they’re only less extremist than Hamas, and only a potential partner for peace, if they give up their demands in advance, prior to actual negotiation.
That certainly makes it easier to justify not even trying to find a partner to negotiate.
…no, that’s not what I am saying at all.
If their demands are that all Jews leave, I don’t see much point in negotiating. We can keep fighting until you decide that tolerating my existence is on the table, at least.
There are plenty of prominent Palestinians, including Abbas, who have not demanded all Jews leave Israel.
Then why didn’t he accept Olmert’s peace offer or even make a reasonable counter? Why does he run a “pay for slay” program, even transferring funds to Hamas terrorists in Gaza, not just West Bank terrorists?
Pretty much every group that ever negotiated peace and human rights could have used rationalization like that to avoid even trying to achieve it; thank God that UK, Ireland, South Africa, and many, many more were able to move past it for the greater good of achieving real peace.
There will always be grievances. There’s no doubt that a Palestinian could similarly cite brutality in the West Bank and much more from their perspective, but in order to have a chance at peace both sides will have to try to move forward despite all those real grievances anyway.
I agree, that’s why despite having our face spat in repeatedly every time we offered peace since 1947, we should continue to do so.
I’m simply explaining to you why the Israeli electorate has become more and more disillusioned with the idea that they will ever say yes over time, leading to Netanyahu’s success over the more recent past.
Undoubtedly many or most Palestinians feel the same way. None of that makes Netanyahu and his allies anything but enemies of peace who are just further damaging Israel’s long term future.
Insane. The Israeli Government is absolutely unhinged.
…Because they killed Nasrallah?
Far from it, Netanyahu is a competent and successful politician, evidenced by the fact he is still in power after all these years.
For a lot of reasons. If criticizing the current Israeli government at this point is “Anti-Sematic”, well… I guess it’s that or Islamophobia. Or we could just see them all as humans, some good, some bad, some indifferent… Whatever. Excuse me if I need to express my anger after (unwittingly) seeing more dead kids. That kind of thing tends to impassion people, and since I feel helpless about the situation, I expressed anger. I’m sure I did something similar on October 7. I didn’t turn into a murderous monster… but, yeah. If anyone’s asking me to get use to seeing ANY TYPE of people die and suffer, go fuck yourself.
(Last part wasn’t directed at any one person in here)
Ok, so this was just a spur of the moment rant, nothing to do with the high profile assassination of Nasrallah? I’ve been seeing a lot of useful idiots bemoaning the death of the terrorist, and thoughts that’s where you were coming from
It’s good Nasrallah is dead. I hope they kill Sinwar too, at least if they can do so without significant civilian casualties.
But that doesn’t necessarily make everything that’s going on wise or good for Israel in the long run. I haven’t been able to find good numbers for recent civilian deaths in Lebanon. Israel may be creating more terrorists than they’re killing. And they’re still very obviously not working towards peace - not as long as they continue to brutalize Palestinians in the West Bank (among other things). Killing all the terrorists in the world won’t really do anything for Israeli security in the long run if they’re not pairing that with actual progress towards peace and human rights for Palestinians and Gazans.
I’d also like to add to the above that thousands upon thousands of Lebanese civilians (and Gazans, if course), the vast majority of whom have done absolutely nothing wrong, are experiencing terror and violence beyond imagination, as IDF bombs explode around them. Thousands of Israeli civilians also experienced this sort of unimaginable terror on Oct 7th, and some much smaller number have since then.
Neither necessarily justifies the other. We should all keep this in mind, that because of decisions by Sinwar, Netanyahu, and many others, to kill and maim hundreds and thousands with little risk to themselves, babies are screaming in terror and much worse.
No one disputes that Hamas is bad, evil, brutal, and terrible.
Does Israel have a right to defend themselves. Absolutely YES.
However, if Israel is, in turn, just as evil, brutal and terrible as Hamas then the world isn’t going to say “oh, they had to do that in self-defense”, they’re going to look at Israel and say it’s just as bad as Hamas. If they adopt the tactics of evil people they’re going to be regarded as equally evil.
So far, the IDF has not impressed me as being nice people. Netanyahu and his cronies even less so.
Good - when’s the next election so we can see him booted out of office?
But is choice A actually a choice when high level ministers like Smotrich and Ben Gvir continue to hold power in Israel? Because both those guys have said some things that sound an awful lot like bigotry, racism, and potential for genocide.
Sure, you have a right to protect yourself. But how Israel goes about protecting itself will be judged by other nations, rightly or wrongly. I don’t really have a great answer for the problems of the Middle East. The Iron Dome is really impressive, that’s a truly amazing attempt to defend against rockets and missiles. The recent “page attack” was unsettling but also highly targeted. On the other hand, bombing entire cities into rubble and leaving infants to die in a hospital are both really scummy acts. I get the feeling that some people - such as Netanyahu - want unconditional backing of Israel’s actions and no, he’s not going to get it because other nations don’t stop thinking or judging. Netanyahu might (or might not) be winning the shooting war but he is very much losing the propaganda war.
Unfortunately I have to agree with your assessment. And it probably wouldn’t be great for anyone else in the neighborhood who isn’t Iran’s version of Muslim.
I don’t think the Arab states would be happy with yet another war in their region waged by either Europe or the US. And if even if they did, that still leaves the problem of non-Arab Iran which is a major shit-stirrer in the region.
If you could get a co-coalition of Arab states that would kick out Iran, deal with the Iran-backed idiots, run security, and set up a Palestinian state while somehow guaranteeing safety to both Israelis and other Jews in the region that might work… but Iran doesn’t want anyone getting along with Israel and I do think they prompted Oct 7 in order to scuttle Saudi Arabia and Israel normalizing relations. Because Arab/Muslim states in an alliance with Israel means Iran gets it’s ass kicked.
Do I give a shit a terrorist is dead? No. Do I worry this will further entrench us into something that’s ultimately not worth it? YES!
@Babale, I appreciate you keeping us all honest by giving us another way at looking at these things, but at some point… You’ve just gotta be ok with people letting off steam without wondering what their supposed angel is. My angel is to get pissed when innocent people die. I’m seriously not going to come close to apologizing for that.
I disagree.
Not with the name-calling - someone would claim it was a “terrorist attack” - but this was a much more targeted attack than normally seen that was very clearly directed at actual Hamas operatives. It took hundreds of men out of the fight. I’d call this a military attack, one military against irregular but still organized forces.
That doesn’t mean it was nice, but war never is. Given that the main harm seems to be maiming and blinding people it might be declared an unethical weapon like poison gas or biological warfare, but in actual practice a nation is usually give a pass for first use of such a thing because you don’t really know what the effect will be until you actually do it. There were a few deaths and “collateral damage”, but much less so than many of the bombing raids and other recent activities of the Israeli military.
It was horrific and impressive at the same time.
But no, I don’t think I’ll call it “terror”.
They weren’t grenades. For the most part it was the person holding/wearing the pages that was injured (in a few cases killed). I have no doubt it was terrifying for bystanders, but terror was not the objective here, taking Hezbollah members out of commission and disrupting communications seems to have been the goal(s) and it was effective in doing that.
The dumb-bombs dropping on Lebanese neighborhoods? Lots more innocents maimed and killed.
^ This.
If Israel had been able to target/take out Hamas with exploding pages I do think the entire situation with Gaza would be less… horrific. Certainly less rubble and fewer dead civilians.
Having one or both hands blown off and one or both of your eyes destroyed doesn’t qualify as “significant”? Because those were the most common injuries in this attack, destroyed hands and destroyed eyes. Even for Hezbollah men who “only” lost one limb or one eye they’ll be out of commission for weeks or more likely a few months. The ones who lost both hands and/or both eyes will be out of the fighting permanently.
Also, Hezbollah now has to find a communication system that doesn’t use cell phones (trackable) or pagers (explodable) which will impair their operations.
I wouldn’t call it “surgical” but it’s less damaging overall than dropping conventional bombs on buildings and leaving a city nothing but rubble. Terrifying? Yes, war is that overall. So… war is terrorism?
Possible
Also possible. In fact, I think that likely.
Do you find it easier to answer questions when you are the one asking them?