Discussion thread for the Hamas Attacks Israel thread, October 2023

No - even after the US napalmed the crap out of Japan, including Tokyo, and then dropped two atomic bombs on them, there were still Japanese wanting and willing to resist. There was an attempted coup to try to prevent the Emperor from announcing surrender. There were actions by resistance groups opposed to the US being in Japan all during the US occupation of Japan. The US conquering, invading, and occupying Japan was NOT met with universal cheers and welcome. Plenty of Japanese were unhappy about the situation and expressed how they felt about it.

I’m not entirely convinced that the outcome of the next election will result in anything different than the current situation. Again, I’m OK with being proven wrong on that but I simply do not have your confidence.

Yes, that seems a reasonable statement. Too bad that over the past couple years the Israeli government has done a fine job of completely destroying Gaza’s economy as collateral damage in its efforts to destroy Hamas.

I don’t know what news sources you frequent, but for a wide variety of mine I’ve been hearing about starvation in Gaza for months.

This one detail makes him very much not a nobody.

Right. And “Trump is never going to be elected president”. I realize that the Israeli election system is different than that of the US, but still, these people were elected by someone in Israel and could be elected again.

From your lips to God’s ears on the forecast, I can only hope. Unfortunately, considerable damage has already been done.

Also ↓

Although the good news is that as of May 9 MTG says she won’t run again. So we just have to worry about her hijinks for the rest of her current term.

Nonsense - that’s not what I said.

The US reconstruction of Japan and Germany stands as a model Israel could use with the Palestinians.

So this is what Israeli politicians are saying:

Yair Golan, the leader of the opposition Democrats who served as deputy chief of staff for Israel’s military before entering politics, said that after an unjustifiably brutal campaign, much of the damage had already been done.

Netanyahu’s government was making the country as isolated as apartheid-era South Africa, he told Reshet Bet radio.

“A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set the expulsion of a population as a goal,” he said.

Yair Golan spoke a truth that is uncomfortable to the Israeli ear,” the liberal newspaper Haaretz said in an editorial.

I had exactly the same reaction to that post.

Also, MTG is a backbench Representative, not a member of the Cabinet. Matt Goetz couldn’t get confirmed even by this Senate.

I’ve said this before, and I see no reason to change my position:

As someone with no skin directly in the game, and who travels (well, used to) to Israel on a regular basis, neither Israel nor the Palestinians have the will to do what would be needed to get to peace. Every outrage justifies the next, and it’s difficult to get emotionally invested in a war where both sides seem perfectly happy to continue on with the status quo.

Now, someone is going to come along and tell me that of course there are Israelis and Palestinians who care and want to make something work. I don’t doubt that at all. There just aren’t enough of them.

Are Hamas rocket or terrorist attacks aimed at only military?

Yep.

Yes, Hamas lies, steals food from their own people and commits horrible atrocities. And they hide in or under hospitals, etc- Hamas likes it when israel hits one of those targets and kills a dozen innocents and a few Hamas terrorist- Hamas reports only women and children died, and there is another propaganda win.

Many people are unaware of this- and note several similar coups had succeeded.

Completely irrelevant to my point. The fact that Hamas is a murderous death cult doesn’t mean that Israel’s present strategy, which is resulting in tens of thousands of civilians dead, is going to result in a better future for Israelis and Palestinians.

Some things Netanyahu has said recently about his plans in Gaza:

On May 13:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers during closed-door testimony before the the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday that Israel is “destroying more and more houses [in Gaza and Palestinians accordingly] have nowhere to return,” according to quotes from the session leaked to the media.

“The only obvious result will be Gazans choosing to emigrate outside of the Strip,” Netanyahu continued. “But our main problem is finding countries to take them in.”

And yesterday:

Responding to those who are pushing for an end to war in Gaza, Netanyahu says he “is ready to end the war, under clear conditions that will ensure the safety of Israel – all the hostages come home, Hamas lays down its arms, steps down from power, its leadership is exiled from the Strip… Gaza is totally disarmed, and we carry out the Trump plan. A plan that is so correct and so revolutionary.”

Sure, but who is Netanyahu? Just some random Israeli extremist. Like MTG.

Anyone who says “The Trump plan is so correct” is the enemy.

This might belong in its own thread but I see on MSNBC that an Israeli diplomat has just been killed near the Jewish Museum in Washington DC. CNN article here:

Yeah, i suggest you start a breaking news thread.

That, and none of those folks are in a position of power to do something to end these endless cycles of violence and retribution.

Two people murdered and the killer chanted “Free Palestine” as he was arrested.

Neither of them is a diplomat, these were just young staffers. Apparently a young couple, the man was planning to propose and had bought a ring.

And the reaction, of course, is already as unhinged as you might expect, with online communities celebrating this and calling for more… Disgusting.

The UN clarified their idiotic statement:

I do have to wonder how you’d even ask if it is true or not. People don’t starve to death within 48 hours; it takes a couple of days. And people don’t all starve at once, so it’s not like you can say “they ran out of food exactly three days ago, so in two days they’ll hit 5 days and drop dead”. So, how on Earth would anyone possibly make a claim like “14,000 kids will starve to death 48 hours from now”? Unless like, an average rate of 7,000 starvation deaths is already happening, in which case you could say that 14,000 people will starve but that seems like a weird thing to focus on when you could talk about ongoing deaths instead.

Doesn’t the claim itself seem ridiculous on the face of it? Shouldn’t your immediate response be “Wow, this doesn’t make any sense” rather than “Wow, is Israel really this bad?”.

This is a fractal microcosm of the greater conversation we are having, and precisely why I don’t feel like it has been productive.

And you’ll note that the UN is making the exact same bullshit claims it made a year ago, and when stravation fails to materialize in exactly the same way, they’ll say nothing. Or they’ll point to projections and claim they are proof they were right, even though no actual starvation deaths are shown.

Yeah, i heard that and had the same thought. People for fast enough of dehydration that you could plausibly predict deaths in a few days. But starvation? In a two day window?

And a lot of famine deaths aren’t from “starvation”. They are from infections and stuff that the weakened body can’t fight off.

Kinda like it’s not the fall that kills you it’s the sudden stop. They are related.

I have read that there are many people in Gaza suffering from conditions that have prevailed for months, causing many to be on the brink of starvation and it’s related ailments. While I believe the statement was hyperbolic, it’s the quality of stuff you expect on morning TV and there is a food crisis in southern Gaza.