I got to work this afternoon and my partner who is first generation Lebanese American (Christian) with lots of family there asked me what I thought of it. I had seen nothing of it on my usual news feed or the NYT site.
I was similarly baffled by that fact.
Seems like a moderately big deal to me. Posted here expecting someone to explain to me why it isn’t!
Yeah, even if no more details are forthcoming, it seems like it represents an alarming possibility of escalation, and I would expect governments to at least be issuing statements urging caution/denouncing Zionism/whatever.
None that are perfect. The choices are between least poor choices.
My least poor includes minimizing the atrocities against the victims of circumstance. It won’t be zero. And it doesn’t even aim at eliminating Hamas. It would require the EU to insist that humanitarian funds no longer go through Hamas and that there is verification that funds provided are indeed not go through or to Hamas. UN forces may need to be involved and it is accepted that they are flawed at that role.
The need to do something does not require doing the worst possible something.
This is just the pitcher (Israel) throwing to first base to let the runner (Hezbollah) know they are still being watched while their main effort is against the batter (Hamas).
“But Dresden” may not be the strong counterargument you think it is. #notafan
Israel has been attacking targets in Syria on a regular basis for about a decade now. Mainly Iranian assets, but sometimes Syrian military, too. The Syrians even managed to shoot down an Israeli F-16 a few years ago. You just haven’t been paying attention.
I dont see the IDF committing atrocities. Atrocities, to me, do not including bombing a military target that the Hamas have added a human shield element.
I think if you’re proposing a course of action which will lead to massive human death and suffering, the burden is on you to explain why that’s a good idea. If you think it’s plausible that a ground invasion might lead to positive outcomes, such as the safe return of the hostages or permanently destroying Hamas, you need to make that case, because right now it’s not obvious to me that either of those are remotely likely.
The problem here, of course, is that @DrDeth doesn’t view them as humans.
What they did is demonstrably inhuman. That was my point.
No. Literally no. Everything humans do is something humans do.
They are terrible monstrous humans, but they are humans.
We don’t get to make ourselves feel better by saying they aren’t people.
This is what “inhuman” means- lacking human qualities of compassion and mercy; cruel and barbaric.
“the inhuman treatment meted out to political prisoners”
which is exactly my meaning. What Hamas did was inhuman.
Then your meaning has changed.
And here I thought you’d quibble about how you only said Hamas no longer qualifies as human, not all Palestinians. Impressive of you to avoid the quibble and openly admit your views.
My heart’s been breaking a thousand times a day, and I’d be lying if I said part of me wouldn’t love to fall right in line with DrDeth and all the other hawks calling for the bombing of human shields and whatnot. It would be comforting, for a while, but I don’t know how I’d be able to live with myself afterwards.
Hate keeps you warm, but only because it burns you up from the inside.
Do they include cutting off food and water to hundreds of thousands of children?
If not, you’re phenomenally out of step with the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and the United Nations.
First - there is nothing that would lead to the safe return of the hostages. Nothing. Daring military raids to spirit them out of Gaza are unrealistic and Hamas is not going to release them.
Second - Hamas has to be destroyed. As they have proven, so long as Hamas remains in power in the Gaza strip, there will be no peace with Israel.
Third - Hamas cannot be destroyed from the air alone. In the past, when Hamas has attacked Israel, Israel responded with airstrikes. The thought was that if Israel isolated Gaza, stopped Hamas from striking Israel as much as possible, and struck back at Hamas this would eventually lead Hamas to lose support and strength. But this doesn’t take into account the radicalization of Gazans caused by damage from the airstrikes and the blockade, it doesn’t take into account how entranched in Gazan society Hamas has become by controlling institutions like education, and it drags on the conflict which will always cost more lives in the long run. This disastrous policy, by the way, was mostly carried out under Netanyahu’s watch.
Fourth - destroying Hamas assets will not destroy Hamas. This is why a ground invasion is necessary, but it also means that a ground invasion alone is not sufficient. Israel will need to go into Gaza and stay there long enough for Hamas to be eliminated.
Fifth - it doesn’t matter if Hamas is destroyed if a new bunch shows up the next day with the same exact ideology. Groups like Hamas will always be attractive to people who are desperate enough. So the lives of Palestinians have to be genuinely improved to the point where they have too much to lose to join up with Hamas. And to prevent further radicalization, this process needs to start as Hamas is being destroyed.
I totally agree. It seems to me that IDF oughtta be going in with military tanks and water tanks, with infantry and mobile hospitals and food supplies. They need to eradicate Hamas, but more importantly, they need to displace Hamas.
I’ve already said it in this thread but sure I can repeat. There is a moral and ethical difference between the targeting of civilians, including children, and killing the same people as a price of hitting your target. But the deaths of thousands of victims of circumstance at your hands is still an atrocity. Burning a village in Viet Nam because there were enemies contained in it was an atrocity.
Sometimes atrocities are prices that have to paid. I’m not completely naive. But in this case I see very little chance that there will be any good resultant of it. Maybe destroying Hamas is theoretically possible but even ignoring the cost to the non Hamas residents of Gaza, Israel will not sustain the cost to their people. Urban warfare is lots of lives lost by the IDF too.
This is the logic that was used since 07. Hamas made it untenable to continue this way.
If they’d limited themselves to rocket barrages every few years then yeah, I doubt Israel would ever go in. But now that Hamas has done this, it cannot continue to exist.