I’m not trying to convince people that I have some easy solution to stop the violence, I’m trying to convince people that the US and the West should not be aiding and abetting Israeli atrocities, as our leaders have been doing for years.
Actually, that has more to do with Iran and Qatar settling millions of dollars of debt for the South African ANC.
They brutally put down anti Hamas resistance just a couple weeks ago; anti Hamas Palestinians, as usual, are almost completely ignored by the international press.
Maybe Israel and the IDF should be protecting these folks, instead of aiding Hamas as they have been for years?
Only after some in the CPJ leadership quit because they believe that checking whether a name they list was actually a terrorist jeopardizes their work. Which is true, when you realize that “their work” is laundering the reputation of terrorists and not protecting journalists. If their goal was to protect journalists, no one would be more horrified than them by Hamas’ use of “journalists” as combatants, because this puts legitimate journalists at severe risk. Yet never once have I seen them denounce this practice or do anything whatsoever to oppose it.
Nobody can answer a straight question around here.
“Israel shouldn’t do XYZ!”
“Alright, what SHOULD Israel do?”
(crickets)
You can’t answer the question of how Israel should respond to a child soldier shooting at them because then you wouldn’t be able to accuse them of “murdering children”. It’s all about holding Israel to an impossible standard so you can complain about them.
Here’s what UN peacekeepers do in such situations elsewhere in the world:
When people talk about how we should get rid of the IDF and rely on UN Peacekeepers to protect Israelis from groups like Hamas, it is incredibly clear what they want to happen to Israelis, even if they don’t say so opyrenly.
They would have to either admit that their ceasefire was a total sham or strike Hamas, with all the same exact civilian casualty issues that Israel has to contend with. Almost certainly they’d go with the first option, if we are talking about Carney and Canada.
How is that “breaking the ceasefire”? If Hamas is shooting into Israel, either Canada enforces the ceasefire kinetically, or there is no ceasefire, the war is back on, and Canada should GTFO.
Are you using the term “proportionate” in the layman conception of “roughly similar” or tbe actual military concept of proportionality?
The latter.
Then you should kill him through whatever method is available that will minimize civilian casualties. If you can kill him without killing anyone else, great, but if you can’t, that doesn’t just give him a free pass to take potshots at your troops.
I apologize for my imprecision. I was actually suggesting two possible scenarios: the first, they directly responded to a treaty violation, with a violation of their own. I do not personally accept tit-for-tat violations of a ceasefire as valid.
So I created a secondary scenario (for those who agree with me about such responses) where instead of a response to (1), it’s a pre-emptive attack based on good, or at least, less partial intelligence.
An either-or situation.
But it illustrates the complications of any scenario. If peace is entrusted to a third party, you have to trust (that word again) said third party to respond with good faith, rather than take it all into your own hands.
Same as my concerns about how to determine what is proportionate. I see no certainty in finding a perfect, or even good response in many of these situations, especially in the immediate aftermath of such attacks.
So you’re saying that allowing rape is a very bad thing?
IMO it’s very bad, whether it’s Hamas, the IDF, or anyone else.
And for the record, one could use you exact same argument to suggest that those who want to maintain the status quo with the IDF are secretly in favor of raping Palestinians.
Right - but the moralizers won’t say that because it defangs the claim that Israel is “murdering children”.
This presumes the IDF is actually trying to minimize civilian casualties. That they allow rape to go unpunished, prevent adequate aid from reaching hungry people, gun down those same hungry people, and much more suggests to me that they don’t.
Just to hone in on this for a moment, what do you mean by bot accepting tit-for-tat violations of a ceasefire as valid? How is the ceasefire itself valid if one side is violating it?
If that happens, once of two things can happen next. One, the side that violated the ceasefire declares the members who violated the ceasefire to have been acting illegitimately and then actually punishes them for having done so, or there simply is no ceasefire anymore, at which point the other side should hit them back until they’re ready to negotiate again.
My question in that scenario would be, if there was solid intelligence showing that Hamas was about to violate the ceasefire despite the presence of Canadian peacekeepers, what are those peacekeepers going to do about it?
Ideally what I would want and expect Israel to do in such a situation is tell Canada “this is about to go down, either you stop it or we do”. And then either Canadian peacekeepers act on said information and prevent the attack, or once again their peacekeeping mission and the ceasefire itself are both shams, and Israel should defend itself.
I certainly do not think it is reasonable to demand that Israel just take the first hit on the chin as a show of good faith or some such BS.
Sure, but trust is earned, not given. If this hypothetical Canadian peacekeeper force is going to expect me to take them seriously, then I expect to see them take serious actions against Hamas or PIJ militants.
If they’re going to act the way that UN peacekeepers in South Sudan or in Lebanon act, then they are worse than useless.
We can disagree. A ceasefire can be maintained even in the event of individual, untimely attacks, if appropriate responses happen after the fact. Or at least, it would in a cease-fire with teeth as I specified in my hypothetical.
Given recent cease-fires in the Middle East, or the cease-fires in the Ukraine theater, I understand your point of view though.
So in the scenario I laid out first (and remember, this is asking what an appropriate response would be by the enforcing third party) , Israel/IDF would take no action. The Peacekeeping force (Canadian in my personal scenario but I offered all to use their own preference) would have to take an appropriate response: whether that be requiring Hamas to turn over their officer and his supporters to international courts or even Israel, demolishing the building in question after an evacuation, or other scenarios as the point was to try to figure out what constituted an “appropriate” degree of reprisal from a less biased POV.
Again, we apparently disagree, nil perspiration.
And you answered my second scenario well, despite perhaps not seeing my point clearly:
The point of my hypothetical was helping to resolve HOW violations of terms by either side should be handled. I tried to take out the partiality of both Hamas and Israel by putting such responses in the hands of a reputable third party. There isn’t (IMHO) a right or wrong answer, but it avoids the ruts of those saying “Hamas/Israel never acts in good faith”.
So you’re asking more or less the same sort of questions I am:
Your concerns about UN peacekeepers are noted, but I did address that repeatedly in my earlier scenario, with the requirement that a good-faith, reputable leader that both sides could reasonably expect to be more-or-less neutral. I very carefully didn’t use UN forces after their failed peacekeeping/assistance efforts or refusal to accept accountability after Haiti, to use just one example in addition to your own concerns.
The victim was in custody. If it’s actually true that the prosecutors tried everything possible to build a case against the rapists but simply weren’t able to it means that countless people at the prison deliberately did not cooperate with them. Either way they weren’t able to prosecute because a lot of people chose to prevent justice from being pursued.
I agree, as I said:
If the Peacekeeping Force forces Hamas to essentially do what I stated above - declare the offending actors to have been acting illegitimately and then actually punishes them for their actions- then the ceasefire can continue beyond and individual violation.
If two countries or non state entities are not going to be at war, then an attack on one from within the territory of the other would be stopped by any level of force necessary. For example, if a radical Cascadian sepratist cell started shooting rockets at Seattle from Vancouver, I would expect Canada to send police and, if needed, military forces into the area to stop the attacks. If Canada failed to do so, then the US would be justified in violating Canadian sovereignty in order to stop the attacks. If you want to be recognized as independent and sovereign, there are responsibilities that go along with that.
So when it comes to a peacekeeping mission, that’s great in principal, but what is required for such a mission to actually work is that the peacekeepers must take over the responsibility of stopping any attacks through force if needed.
But if that armed person is brought down by return fire- is that “Killing Children”?
Please.
And I ask again- what is a Child? Many source I read who claimed the IDF was “killing children” counted “21 and younger”, but in nearly every country 18 is the age of adulthood (a couple African nations say 21, but more have a lower age.). So- is it legit to quote a cite that claims the IDF is killing children, when they include 18, 19 & 20 yo? or is that bogus? I say it is bogus.
Not very recent as to the atrocities-
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/amnesty-says-hamas-attacks-gaza-hostage-treatment-amount-crimes-against-humanity-2025-12-11/
JERUSALEM, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A new report by Amnesty International has found that Palestinian militant group Hamas committed crimes against humanity during its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 and against hostages it took to Gaza.
The London-based human rights group said that its report, published on Wednesday, analysed patterns of the attack, communications between fighters during the assault and statements by Hamas and the leaders of other armed groups.
Not much recently.
Apparently. But a symbolic move.
The move was largely symbolic as Hamas prepares to transfer authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, with no clear mention of plans for disarmament…Hamas’ announcement is seen as being largely symbolic, observers say, and makes no mention of the group’s disarmament — a key requirement by Israel in order for a lasting peace deal to proceed.
I have mentioned two- one easier than the other, neither very easy.
How have they been doing so? The Military aid to Israel- on a cost level- is mostly stuff to stop Iran from hitting Israel with missiles. The IDF doesnt rely on US aid for doing what they have been doing in Gaza.
Hamas has dissolved their governmental body- my ass.
Yes, on a very low level- it worked in Ireland- The IRA declared a cessation of military operations in 1997, allowing their political wing to enter multi-party peace talks. Later, the IRA destroyed all their weapons. There were a few, minor incidents after the Cease fire in 1997. And the Brits refrained from retaliation.
There have been calls to Hamas to disarm, but their reaction to the anti-Hama protests show they will not disarm and will not give up power. Obviously Hamas can not be trusted.
The cites I read said that the Victim had returned to Gaza- from wiki-
-On 10 March 2026, the Israeli military court announced that the charges against the five soldiers accused of the incident has dropped, with Itay Offir, a military advocate general, stated that the prosecutors “lacked key evidence” after the victim returned to Gaza
The military advocate general, Itay Offir, said prosecutors lacked key evidence after the victim was sent back to Gaza,
The detainee, later released
That is not impossible.