I am going to step back from this thread for a bit. I think I have said what I have to say in the best way I know how, and I’m not sure how much actual communication is going on, and I don’t except myself from that.
And, at the same time, sellers are brutalizing and murdering Palestinians in the West Bank, while the Israeli government does virtually nothing to stop them or protect those Palestinians.
This doesn’t mean that Israel isn’t justified in trying to take out Hamas, but it does mean that I have little faith that the Israeli government is doing everything they can to minimize harm towards and protect Gazans while achieving that goal.
There is certainly no clarity on what the post-war plan is yet. But what plan could possibly work while the Hamas regime is still in power in Gaza?
I am baffled and disheartened that Israel is still allowing this despicable behavior to continue. I know little about what’s going on in the Israeli government right now aside from what they’ve said about prosecuting the war in Gaza, but perhaps leaving Netanyahu in place even temporarily was a mistake. There is surely the political will to get rid of him.
Of course I’d feel bad for the civilians also killed. I’d also be open to hearing an argument that the bombing was still justified in the context of that war. That doesn’t mean I’d automatically agree it was justified, but if bombing one hospital put an end to a war on terms I find acceptable that would qualify as something I’d call a lesser bad compared to the war continuing for months or years longer.
One of the reasons war is hell is because of calculations like that. None of it is what I’d call good, it’s all evil to one degree or another. I’d prefer to see the least evil occur but hey, I’m not in charge of any of this.
It didn’t actually go quite as smoothly as that. The rebellious folks who didn’t want to stop fighting weren’t appearing live on TV back then but they did exist.
That, and their deliberate torture, both mental and physical, of civilians while they’re killing them adds an extra helping of evil to Hamas.
More like a sequel to ISIS where even other extremist Islamic groups can’t stand them and work together to eliminate them. The other Islamic types are willing to tolerate the Taliban in Afghanistan as long as they stay in Afghanistan. ISIS wasn’t willing to stay put in their little corner of the world, they had fantasies of taking it all. And so do Hamas. So I agree that Hamas needs to be put down like rabid dogs. However, there are a LOT of people in Gaza who aren’t Hamas. I’d prefer not to kill them.
Yes, I think an end point here is that Hamas, if not totally wiped out, would have to be completely and permanently disarmed.
How to do that? Hell, I’m not even an armchair general.
There won’t be a ceasefire until both sides can agree to lay down arms for at least a short period of time. I don’t see that happening this week.
The election of Hamas to run Gaza was problematic from day one. However, the mus-governing is on Hamas, not anyone else. Hamas could has stepped up to the plate and investigate in the people it was in charge of instead of building rockets and bombs, but it didn’t.
So… from my viewpoint case closed on Hamas. They had their chance. They’re evil and need to be eliminated.
^ This.
I’ve known quite a few Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians in my life here in the US. I’m not going to pretend we were all friends but we all manage to co-exist without trying to kill each other. It very much IS possible, there is nothing in the human beings living in Gaza that makes them inherently evil or inherently unable of changing. I do wish people would stop such characterizations as that is very much bigoted.
At the same time, we need to recognize that not everyone capable of change is going to change.
^ This is a big issue, and reason why people are asking if the Israeli government is planning genocide rather than dealing with a terrorist group named Hamas.
I’ll just point out that the global community has been sending food aid to North Korea since the late 1990’s to prevent epic starvation even though everyone sending such aid knows that the military gets fed first in that country. Yet still it is done, to avoid millions of deaths.
So doing such a thing is not unprecedented.
Is Gaza a situation where that makes sense? That’s up for debate. Discuss.
Well… if you define “war” very, very broadly…
Technically the US and North Korea are still at war. A ceasefire was signed decades ago and has held, but there was no declaration of peace. Yet the US has sent food to North Korea during times of famine. And the government of North Korea, when distributing such aid, has claimed it is “tribute” given by the US out of fear of Dear Leader but whatever. It kept people from starving to death.
Also, during the Cold War there was some limited trade between the USSR block and the US/NATO block.
But neither of those are actively shooting wars such as what is currently going on between Hamas and Israel.
Well… OK, you might have a point there. The Hamas leadership sitting in Doha might not have cared, or might have planned for atrocities while cackling and twirling their Evil Villain mustaches, but I question if that was the goal of the Hamas people actually living in the places most likely to be bombed. I’m not a mind reader, though, I’m just guessing. I’m guessing that Hamas thought having Israeli hostages might mitigate Israeli reactions. If so, they were wrong.
Well, OK - that IS arguing that the current situation is the least bad if I understand you correctly. You would find either ignoring the attacks or giving in the the demands of Hamas more objectionable. That’s two points on the side of “this is least bad”.
Other people are questioning if what the IDF is currently doing is the ONLY possible response or if there is yet another one that is neither of your worse alternatives and is also less bad than the current strategy.
We’re in agreement there.
No, I have not actually read anything along those lines in the news other than “The IDF has entered Gaza”. Nothing about aid, nothing about food, water, fuel, or medicine in areas controlled by Israel. If that is actually occurring they need much better publicity for it.
I have heard some foreign nationals have managed to evacuate through Eqypt, and some severely injured Palestinians have also been allowed to leave to get medical treatment. Bravo, that’s an improvement.
Wow. It would help if you DON’T read into what I write things I haven’t written.
No, I am not blaming antisemitism on Israel. What Israel does, however, can “feed the troll”. Just as when the US does something eff’ed up feeds anti-Americanism elsewhere, or when the UK does something eff’ed up people still pissed off about the old Empire get upset.
That’s why in the US we have people yelling “Free Palestine” while threatening to cut the throats of Jewish students at a university. (Fortunately, they caught that guy before he actually carried any of that out) It gives the bigots ideas and incentives they might not otherwise have, and decreases sympathy among the non-bigots and fence-sitters.
When the government and military of Israel do things they are perceived as despicable, or criminal, they don’t create antisemitism but they do feed it. Minorities are judged as a group based on the actions of just their worst individuals. It ain’t fair but it is often reality.
To start - I was answering a different poster @WalterBishop . Why not go back to the post I was responding to? Nothing I stated in any way contradicts that the US worked with Israel to achieve some of the goals. The US military works with a lot of different nations and entities. Again, you are reading things into my post that just aren’t there.
The problem with that approach - assuming Hamas would make rational and logical decisions - is that apparently they are not drive by reason and logic but rather by religious fervor, which does not respond readily to reason and often does things that appear completely illogical to outsiders. Unfortunately, there was no way to know which category Hamas fell into without giving them the time to show by their actions which category they were in.
I just hope that no one tries to use a potentially extended emergency to avoid elections and keep Israel under the control of a non-elected group for a long term. A risk in any democracy going back to Rome.
Did you manage to find a cite to support your comment, or was the content of your post just grossly-misinformed opinion?
It’s ironic that you made a post that criticized Hamas for propaganda and then you made another post that consisted of grievous disinformation or, indeed, outright propaganda yourself. The spreading of blatant falsehoods and mistruths do not help anyone in this long-standing conflict.
Hamas have made clear that their struggle is political, not religious in nature, including in this op-ed by the group’s leader shortly after Hamas’ 2006 election victory:
Could you clarify, are you trying to defend Hamas as an organization? Are you arguing that the words in a 2006 op-ed are a more appropriate way to judge their intentions than the terroristic murder of 1400 people, deliberately designed to destabilize the evolution of peaceful accords in the Middle East?
Hamas is nothing if not politically and PR savvy They may have “revised” their charter in 2017 , but nothing of their actions has indicated that they no longer adhere to their original charter which explicitly states:
The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian
movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is
Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of
Palestine.Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will
obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession]
consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one
can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and
kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the
rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind
me, come and kill him.The HAMAS regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the
circle of struggle against World Zionism… Islamic groups all over
the Arab world should also do the same, since they are best equipped
for their future role in the fight against the warmongering Jews.
THAT was and remains the true goal of Hamas as demonstrated not only by their actions but their rhetoric, educational indoctrination of Palestinian children, etc.
Where’d you source your quote from? I don’t doubt it’s genuine, I’m just curious whether this Hamasnik is the same as this other Hamasnik who said something a bit different, or if they’re two different guys.
FWIW, I think both statements are equally full of shit.
Exactly.
Here’s what Palestinian children are taught in UN-run schools in Gaza:
The Hamas leader that wrote that op-ed, Khaled Mashal, ceased being overall leader of the group in 2017. The same year saw a hardliner, Yahya Sinwar, become leader of the Hamas movement within the Gaza Strip (which is not the same position as overall Hamas leader). He is not so open to compromise with Israel.
Absolutely I see the October 7th attacks as a Crossing of the Rubicon moment for the group, a point of no return. All those within Hamas that supported or participated in the massacres of civilians must face justice, in this world or the next.
As pointed out earlier in the thread, though, Hamas’ mission statement does not call for the extermination of Jews worldwide. That is disinformation.
If Hamas would like to come out of their tunnels and discuss this defamation, I’m sure that the IDF will stipulate they will only face consequences for the Jews that they actually murdered.
One caveat worth making is that while Hamas’s ambitions may be limited to the elimination of Israel that Hamas is just one small piece of the Muslim Brotherhood, which includes organizations of similar ideology around the world, including in non-Muslim-majority countries; and the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals are quite a bit grander. But not all MB chapters are as… intense… as Hamas.
The quote is from Khaled Mashal’s Wikipedia page.
The person in the article you cited is an individual who does not represent the ideology of the Hamas group as a whole, just as I could find a similar quote from a far-right Israeli official that you would not characterize as the ideology of Israel as a whole.
Here’s another Hamas official calling for the slaughter of Jews worldwide from 2019, after which Hamas released a statement saying his views did not represent their official positions:
Really, before continuing this, can you explain why on earth it is important at this point whether the official Hamas policy is to kill all Jews worldwide, just the Jews in Israel, or just the 1400 people that they recently murdered? What difference does it make to you?
You don’t believe in the truth? Even on a subject such as worldwide genocide?
The only “truth” you’re talking about here is what ideology was inside the head of Hamas political leadership. I don’t care about that because it is inconsequential. Whatever ideology led Hamas to murder 1400 people on October 7th, they are done.
The ideology of political entities that will still exist in 2024 is worth discussing.
So you are saying unequivocally and conclusively that Hamas will not exist in 2024?
(It’s a shame betting is against forum rules)
As a governing regime - yes, unequivocally it will be gone. Will there still be underground terrorist cells identifying as Hamas, certainly.