Discussion thread for the Hamas Attacks Israel thread, October 2023

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
593

Many years ago I read something that made a lot of sense to me: it was a “circles” theory of combatting terrorism.

In the innermost circle are the active terrorists, people who are in the movement and firmly, clearly committed to inflicting violence on civilians. There’s no real answer to these people other than police or military action.

In the next-most circle are the fence-sitters. These are people who are prime targets for recruitment by terrorists: they believe that someone (Israel, America, The Jews, The Blacks) have done them wrong, and they’re trying to decide what to do about it. For these folk, a clear carrot-and-stick approach might be best. Convince them that moving into the terrorist circle will be bad for them and their goals, and that moving out of the circle will leave them with options for fulfilling their goals.

In the next-most circle are potential recruits. These are people who are suffering, but haven’t yet decided that there’s an enemy responsible for their suffering. These people need support. Outreach to them in terms of community, food, medicine, jobs, etc. can be extremely effective at turning them away from recruitment. Conversely, terrorist groups love to offer these things as a recruitment tool: if you don’t get there first, the terrorists will.

Outside of the potential recruits is the general public. This group needs propaganda, in its most benign form: this group need constant, persuasive evidence that the terrorists aren’t accomplishing anything for the people, whereas non-terrorists are.

Too often, people focus only on the active terrorists. But a focus only on them, without also paying attention to the concentric rings, means there’ll constantly be new recruits, replacing any terrorists who are captured or killed.

594

You are wrong. Gaza exists completely as an open air prison for the Palestinians therein who the state of Israel is oppressing and violating their human rights. The state of Israel strictly circumscribes the rights of the goyim, who are by and large Palestinian Arabs, throughout Palestine within which the state of Israel is situated.

595

Oh, goody, the “open air prison” talking point.

Tell me, is every border a prison? Is South Korea a giant open-air prison because they can’t freely cross their only land border into North Korea?

And remind me, isn’t there an Egyptian border as well? What kind of prison has an opening on one side that is not controlled by the jailer?

596

A pretty piss poor one it sounds like.

597

I think it is a mistake to frame this conflict through an oppressor/oppressed narrative. The secular left tends to believe that all such conflicts can be resolved through various economic incentives or a border solution. This is looking at the issue through the lens of western secular thought. This was the flaw of the ‘Iran Deal’ - the belief that if we just brought Iran into the ‘community of nations’ and rewarded them enough for being peaceful, the problem could be solved.

In truth, what is going on here is a religious war instigated and fueled by Iran. Think about Iran’s motivations here. They aren’t financial, and they aren’t about being oppressed. Instead, the Iranian leadership sees as its purpose the eradication of Israel and the domination of the Middle East by its brand of Shiite Islam. They have to know they would be more prosperous if they dropped the “Death to Israel, Death to America” stuff, but they won’t. Because they really believe it.

The Palestinians are pawns here. If Iran withdrew support, Hamas would be completely boned. Same with Hezbollah. And as long as Iran is willing to keep trying anything to destroy Israel, this problem isn’t going away even if Gaza gets bombed to the stone age. Israel could wipe out every Palestinian, and the field of battle will just move to Jordan or Syria or Egypt. Hezbollah will grow even stronger.

This problem doesn’t go away until all the Iranian Mullahs are out of power - either overthrown in a revolution or killed in war. But no one wants to go there because of the risks of major escalation.

American Christians have had a better handle on Iran’s motivations than the secular State Department, because devout Christians know what it means to really believe, and they take Iran’s threats very seriously.

When someone keeps telling you their goal in life is to kill you, and they keep trying to kill you no matter what you do, at some point you should probably believe them.

598

Iran has a foothold in those regions not because they’re all powerful or all wealthy, but because there are millions of disenfranchised, stateless people with legitimate economic and political grievances against Israeli policies from the last several decades. If those legitimate grievances went away, then those organizations wouldn’t be able to survive as powerful and sheltered paramilitary and almost state-like entities, because the communities around them wouldn’t trade their prosperity, security, and political rights away for these Iranian proxies. As it is right now, Gazans and Palestinians have pretty much no power - no power to alter their circumstances, and no power to eject the violent militants among them.

599

It’s expressly an Israeli kind of prison where the population is barred from entering the rest of Palestine.

600

That is not a prison, that is a closed border. Words have meaning.

601

Yes, words have meaning. It is a closed border within a territory which the state of Israel controls.

602

The crux of the matter is specifically Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. That is Hamas’ grievance. Iran also cites its support of the Palestinian cause in their animosity towards Israel, among others, e.g. Mosad’s assistance of Shah Mohammad Reza.

603

They are barred from entering Israel, because they cannot be trusted to not attempt to kill Israelis.

Israel has (until the current round of hostilities) relinquished any measure of control over the internal of Gaza. Israel does control its own border between territory which is theirs and territory which is not theirs.

No, the crux of the matter is Arab animosity toward Jews and refusal to countenance the existence of a Jewish state, a situation which existed before Israel ever came into being. Until Hamas surrenders and accepts upon itself to not attempt to kill Jews and to not encourage the killing of Jews, Israel understandably cannot allow an open border with a territory controlled by Hamas.

604

That’s collective punishment on top of the fact that Israel violates the Palestinians’ Right of Return.

Israel controls Gaza with the degree of control determined by Israel as they see fit in regard to their ends. The prisoner self-administration is regulated by Israel who are now looking to impose their regulation, i.e. prisoner self-administration change, after the militant attacks in order to maintain their oppression of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The existence of a Jewish state necessarily oppresses the Palestinian people in that to exist it must deny the Palestinian people their rights in Palestine. A state whose existence is predicated on the perpetual oppression of a people should not exist. Instead, a state that benefits all of the people in Palestine must be implemented therein.

605

Fuck that noise, if Hamas didn’t keep the flames of hate going the Gazans would be in far better conditions. Hamas is the big evil here.

They brutally slaughtered civilians starting this horrible round of war.

Hamas is evil.

606

Had evil Hamas not started this horrible round of war, the Gazans would still be oppressed by Israel.

607

Compare and contrast, how much worse are conditions for Gazans compared to the Palestinians of the West Bank.

Simple logic shows how awful Hamas is for Gazans.

Hamas actions show how evil they are.

608

I agree that this is the crux of the matter (that is, the discriminatory and oppressive policies towards Gazans and Palestinians in the last few decades of Israeli government), or at least one of the cruxes (the other being Hamas and other terrorists’ targeting of civilians in Israel), but that’s not Hamas’s grievance. Hamas’s grievance is the existence of Israel.

609

The two statements aren’t mutually exclusive or contradictory. It can be (and AFAICT is) simultaneously true that Hamas is a destructive terror organization that is very detrimental to the Gazans it governs, and that Gazans and other Palestinians are unjustly oppressed by Israel, and would be even if Hamas didn’t exist.

No actions on Israel’s part can in any way justify the heinous terror attacks by Hamas, but it’s no use pretending that terror attacks are the only reason that Israel persistently denies Palestinians rights and sovereignty.

610

Well, many of them would still be alive if Hamas had not decided to murder Israeli civilians and kidnap women and children.

Hamas does not give two tiny shits about the civilian population of Gaza. In fact, their overarching strategy is to try to get as many of them killed as possible, in order to develop sympathy among the gullible, which will then lead to more money flowing into their coffers.

Hamas may have as their principle goal: The eradication and extermination of every Jew on the planet, but their secondary goal is to enrich themselves.

611

Not arguing that. But answer my question, aren’t the other Palestinians not under Hamas much better off.

Hamas must be ended. Their rule broken and the Gazans freed from these terrorists.

612

People have been saying something to the effect of “Hamas must be destroyed” here (obviously echoing what Israel’s stated goals are in this conflict) and I still have never seen an adequate explanation for how that is supposed to happen.