Arguably, you are correct. But, arguably, Hamas was the elected government just for one year, and has been a dictatorship since then. See:
Thank you for the link.
I’ve read it, and honestly, it’s very frustrating.
What may well be the most horrific massacre of our time, outdoing even the atrocities of ISIS, has resulted in the unprecedented popularity of the Palestinian cause.
When IDF has killed something like five or six times as many civilians as Hamas, there’s no moral clarity in talking about “the most horrific massacre of our time”: it’s unclear which massacre is being discussed.
But how to compare a deliberate assault on civilians with a war against a terrorist group embedded in a civilian population?
By looking at the effects, not the intent. Hamas’s attack was unmitigated evil. What IDF is doing is mitigated.
We are wasting our words: Much of the West has lost its capacity for moral distinctions.
On the contrary: many supporters of the IDF are drawing very different moral distinctions from those drawn by MSF, ICRC, UN, and others.
It is not enough to try to minimize civilian deaths, if thousands of children are dying. It is not enough to make phone calls to neighborhoods, if babies are dying from hypothermia. It is not enough to offer terrorists a cease-fire in exchange for release of hostages, if the obvious terrorist response (no) is going mean more kids falling to air strikes.
It is not enough.
Imagine this argument in WW-II, Germany was bombed into the stone age without a ceasefire. Nobody took a body count to see if civilians were dying disproportionately. They weren’t given fuel for hospitals or warned of bombings beforehand
If only effects matter, and not intent, then that makes you a Hamas ally. And I don’t converse with the enemy.
And quite frankly, it was true. Granted, under Bibi’s watch, there have been plenty of Arab attacks, but he certainly didn’t let them do it. Leftists like Peres, Barak and Olmert were basically begging the PLO to take a deal that would leave Israel territorially vulnerable on the good will and faith that those liars and terrorists would behave rather than incite, arm up and attack, and Sharon, who it’s hard to describe as a leftist but whose disengagement from Gaza was certainly fulfillment of a leftist policy wish, provided that proof of concept in real time. And Gantz, Bennett and Lieberman are no leftists, they’re just right wingers who hate Netanyahu.
What, you want a list? Top of the list would probably be Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ahmed Yassin, the Mullahs of Iran, the Qatari royal family, and Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Their enablers in the UNRWA, who run education in the Occupied Territories, which is basically indoctrinating the younger generation in the Hamas/PLO hatred of Jews and Israel. A little lower down because their role was more passive are Arafat and Abbas, whose corruption turned the Gaza Arabs off from the PA. You can certainly add Sharon to the list as well. Yes, Bibi was prime minister for three years in the 90’s, but then Barak ousted him, and by the time he was back in the office (i.e., 2009), Hamas had already been winning vote-getters in Gaza and had kicked out the PA by force. To blame him for Hamas’s entrenched power is just bizarre. I’ll agree, though, with blaming him for the misplaced security concerns that led to the 10/7 pogrom.
Sorry, I don’t believe that for a second, that’s some 9/11 truther-level conspiracy theory there. Certainly Netanyahu dealt with Hamas in order to keep relative peace and order in Gaza (during the ceasefire periods), but I am not buying that he was propping them up in order to use them as a bogeyman to keep Israelis fearful and therefore himself in power.
The problem is that it’s not “a single death of a mass murderer” going on, it’s the mass murderer along with a few dozen innocent bystanders. There is nothing clean, nothing surgical, about how Israel is going about this. The people currently running this war clearly do not give a single fuck about civilians.
Sorry if it got your panties in a twist when I pointed out the obvious, but sometimes it needs to be said.
Doha, Qatar. Because it’s easier to use other people as cannon fodder if you’re a safe distance away.
True.
And that is relevant today… how? Those actions weren’t OK back then and shouldn’t be used to justify atrocities today.
Apparently you can’t bomb a population into submission. That was one of the lessons of WWII. It requires going in on foot and fighting house to house. You can put a city or region under siege but while you will, eventually, cause the death of everyone you won’t necessarily get a surrender. You’d think that after 10,000 years of people trying to get the other party to submit by being more and more brutal we’d get a clue that that is not a good way, or even an effective way, to settle disputes. Some individuals might yield but other won’t and the cycle will just repeat.
At some point people have to get off the merry-go-round. They don’t have to like each other, but finding a different way to settle disputes makes life better, makes it possible, for everyone.
Netanyahu is a scumbag. The idea that these multiple news reports from Israeli media are mere “conspiracy theories” sounds like the kind of lies that Netanyahu himself routinely repeats, again because he’s pure scum.
Apparently you can. That was one of the lessons of WWII, what with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Well that is definitely a take.
Intent definitely matters, but the effects do too - and right now the effects are also atrocious on Gazans (as they were and continue to be from the attacks on Israelis). I think the article you cited is great, and explains the real and reasonable feelings of trauma that the disgusting attacks of Oct 7 caused. But we shouldn’t stop scrutinizing actions that have such catastrophic effects in human lives because Jews (and I’m a Jew, if it matters) and especially Israeli Jews have suffered such an atrocious and traumatic event. I understand that after such a trauma, criticism and scrutiny can be triggering, but that doesn’t mean that some of that criticism and scrutiny isn’t reasonable and appropriate.
That being said, much of the criticism (as always) is driven by ignorance and anti-semitism. And everyone needs to be aware of that as well.
I welcome scrutiny, and I’m willing to entertain any course of action so long as its end results includes the destruction of Hamas. You want to convince me to do something? Prove how it helps Israel destroy Hamas. Otherwise, I’m not interested.
This is a war for my country’s life, and it will be won by the side whose focus is stronger, whose will to win is greater. Hamas’s focus is very, very strong. Ours must be stronger.
Alessan I see what you’re saying about how it’s impossible for either side to compromise anything. If I lived there I would probably share your sentiment about how there’s nowhere to back off.
This would just be a sort of rhetorical exercise, but sure. IMO Israel needs to find a way that destroys Hamas but not that hospital (and especially not the babies inside). Not just out of some moral need, but because international support, and crucially, American support, will start to dry up, greatly reducing Israel’s likelihood of success in defeating Hamas, should those inside the hospital die due to Israeli bombing (or even due to medical needs that can’t be met because of lack of power, supplies, or the like). I’m not sure if that means ground forces taking that hospital, and arranging the logistical train needed to evacuate everyone inside to medical safety elsewhere in Gaza (or Israel or Egypt or wherever), and then once it’s empty either storming or bombing the Hamas base underneath, but IMO if Israel destroys that hospital and most of those babies (and other patients and staff) die, Hamas is more likely to survive than if Israel finds a way to evacuate the hospital and save the patients before eliminating the Hamas fighters sheltering underneath.
I understand this must be immensely frustrating and is, in a sense, acquiescing to Hamas’s evil tactic of deliberately locating themselves under civilian infrastructure. But that doesn’t change the facts (as I understand them). And it doesn’t change the impact this would have on international support.
My two cents.
Moderating:
This is not the pit thread. And this is attacking the poster. If you don’t want to converse with someone, don’t. But please don’t call other posters “the enemy” outside the pit.
I’m sorry - it turns out that I’ve been repressing a lot of rage this past month or so. I should probably step out of this thread, and others like it, for at least a while.
Best wishes, @Alessan . Speaking as a poster, not a mod, i have to think threads like this must be stressful to people in the midst of the war they are about.
I can understand, but only on an intellectual level, the rage. I’ve never been in a situation nearly as horrific as what Israelis have gone through over the past six weeks.
At the same time, I don’t think any poster here has been in a situation nearly as horrific as what Gaza residents have gone through over the past six weeks.
My loyalty is not to IDF, and it’s goddammit not to Hamas. It’s to civilians.
War is war. Honestly I do understand it. Israel will take the steps it chooses to safe guard its citizens safety during this war.
However, I’ll now focus to when the war is over. Is there any long term plan being discussed? I have no idea what will happen once the dust settles.
Support or the lack thereof from the US has absolutely no bearing on whether the IDF can defeat Hamas. They are quite capable of the task, even if you don’t like their methods.