I guess I didn’t think of doing nothing as really a possible option. Or nuking the strip.
OTOH futilely attempting to destroy Hamas with huge civilian costs is a very poor one.
Accepting that Hamas will not be destroyed under any actual choice option is just accepting reality.
Doing some critical analysis of how security failed is not satisfying as a response but is most likely to prevent future attacks and will have to be done in any case. A limited degrading if Hamas and then that would have been the least poor choice. Stopping now is less poor than proceeding further. IMHO.
Of course a sustainable two state solution would be the best option… but neither side has leadership able to work on that.
We can argue about this until the cows come home here, that doesn’t matter. It’s what many people believe. And there is plenty of evidence to support that belief.
This is a talking point. And at this stage in the conflict, where we are seeing destruction at this scale?
Its a tired talking point. The IDF didn’t even pretend there were tunnels under this complex. Why was it targeted? Why was it destroyed? What was the strategic goal here? Where do the thousands of people, many who had escaped from the north, go now?
Israel are the “bad guy” because they have shut down all of the hospitals in the north. Because they had a strategy of depopulating the north to the south where “it was safe” but now the south isn’t safe any more. Israel are the “bad guys” because of the siege that has effectively cut off food, water, fuel and electricity to millions of people. Israel is the “bad guy” because they are continuing the practice of administrative detention, where thousands of Palestinians, including minors, (before October 7th) were being detained without legal proceedings, based on classified information, indefinitely. Israel are the “bad guys” because of the Gospel, using AI to designate targets.
There is nothing that required the IDF to kill over 6000 children so far in this campaign.
It isn’t being “thrown around.” Its being used by people like historian Raz Segal.
And he was describing just the siege, that continues today, 58 days later.
This is a horrific thing to say. They do care about Israelis that have been tortured and murdered. But they also care about the many Palestinians that have been tortured and murdered for decades. This didn’t start on October the 7th. Muslim Americans have almost uniformly expressed horror at what happened on October the 7th, and have almost uniformly condemned the actions of Hamas.
You don’t give people that are “safe and comfortable posting on a message board” a pass for calling for a ceasefire? Thats harsh.
Almost uniformly, people calling for a ceasefire do give a shit about Jewish victims. But unrestrained vengeance isn’t the answer here.
So they will continue their Apartheid regime, allowing settler expansion, maintain the open-air-prison status of Gaza, the formalised legal abduction, detention and torture of Palestinians AKA Administrative Detention during the ceasefire.
None of this should be allowed to continue. These are not things that a “recognized democratic country” should be doing.
…the pause was always going to end. Because it was a pause. Both sides were playing games. Both sides didn’t stick to their promises.
Negotiations could have continued. If the goal is what you said it was back when the war started, then why wouldn’t they continue to negotiate?
Instead: the war has moved south. 700 people were killed by the IDF yesterday.
Only if you ignore the cites that you have been presented with in the past that show that Hamas were willing to come to the table. It didn’t have to cost the lives of 6000 children to get to this point.
If we accept that information as substantially correct, namely, that Israel has been using “AI” to designate targets of no military value, whose value is to to rack up the body count, American-style, rather than to hurt Hamas (killing a few tens of thousands of associates and junior members of whom is not really a problem, plenty more where they came from) while accepting 5 or more civilians killed as collateral damage for each potential target eliminated, that sounds like a damning criticism primarily of the IDF itself, and of course of the higher-ups who condone and enable such actions in lieu of real results.
Tunnels are not the only target. Hamas leadership is also targeted. Wherever they may be. That is the explanation given.
That article is very clearly throwing the term around. The meaning of “genocide” includes intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The intent here is to destroy Hamas. I can accept that there is too callous a disregard for how much damage that attempt to destroy Hamas causes but that is far from intent to kill civilians let alone an intent to destroy any national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Mind you the lack of that intent doesn’t matter much to the civilians killed or to those who care about them.
You believe there is that intent. Not much more to discuss after that.
…if Israel unilaterally agreed to a ceasefire they were willing to think about negotiating. That’s not willingness to come to the table. If you’re willing to come to the table, you come to the table. You don’t demand what you’re trying to get as a precondition of even agreeing to meet.
…that was the explanation? That there was Hamas leadership at Hamad City? Can you point to a cite? How many leadership were at the complex? How many evacuated when they got an hours notice that the building had been targeted? How many got taken out?
What was the strategic goal here? And where do the thousands of people who no longer have a home go now?
They’ve destroyed hospitals and schools and universities and libraries and Mosques and churches and government buildings and wiped entire families of bloodlines from the face of the earth. Grandparents, parents, children. Gone.
It isn’t being “thrown around lightly.”
Taking out all of the hospitals in the north wasn’t done with the intent of “taking out Hamas.” It was part of a strategy to force people to the south.
How many Hamas leadership have been taken out so far in this campaign? How many Hamas soldiers? How many Hamas “command and control” bunkers?
What are the metrics here? How are we measuring this. How will we know “who is winning?” How will all of this end?
This is just another meaningless talking point.
There has been more than enough rhetoric from people in the Israeli government and their supporters that demonstrate intent. But the actions speak loudly enough on their own.
Well, Hamas was brought to the table and forced to negotiate, securing the release of almost all of the children being held by Hamas, as well as many elderly women and the moms of most of the kids. That’s an excellent start.
…do you know what “the end of hostilities” means? Ceasefire.
End the hostilities and they will come back to the table. They claim they have released “all the women and children it was holding as well as all the foreigners.” They can’t release the women and children that they say they don’t have.
So it was on the table. Gotcha.
“Stop killing hundreds of innocent civilians a day, and we will come to the table” is a willingness to come to the table whether you like it or not.
There are always preconditions in situations like this. Israel also had preconditions, which is why they also chose not to meet.
Right, they also said that there could be no negotiation without a ceasefire in the first place. They changed their mind once they took enough damage, and they will do so again.
Yeah I’m not gonna take Hamas’ word on this one. This is the same shitty “offer” again - “give us what we want and we will consider negotiating”. Fuck that.
All the Jews jumping in the sea so Palestine can be free is also on the table, if that is how you want to look at it. Yes, if Israel bent over and spread its cheeks for Hamas then Hamas said they would think about negotiating; but if my country’s government accepted an offer like that I’d consider it illegitimate and support its replacement by someone whose idea of “leadership” isn’t “being the first sheep off the truck at the slaughterhouse”.
…happy to concede that this is my opinion, one that is supported by what the IDF have done and the results.
[Citation needed]
And by citation: I’m talking about How many Hamas leadership have been taken out so far in this campaign? How many Hamas soldiers? How many Hamas “command and control” bunkers?
Because I don’t see how “Hamas was bought to the table” at all. They wanted a halt to hostilities. Thats what the pause allowed. They released all of the hostages they always said they had no interest in holding.
An excellent start that has resulted in 1.7 million people displaced. And now that they are bombing apartment complexes in the south, that number will be going up. And they will be forced to move again. Where are they going to go?
An excellent start that includes 14,800 dead, of that number at least 6000 of them were children. All of this of course is almost certainly an undercount. We don’t know how many bodies are trapped in the rubble. Yes: such an excellent start.
So if this is, as you characterize it, only the beginning, then the numbers by the end of it are going to be horrifying.
I don’t want this to be the start. I want it to end. And that starts with ending the siege, which is a war crime.
Its a map. What is the source of the map? What is the date of the map? What is it, do you think the map shows? Does it answer any of the questions I gave you?
…this is erasure of crimes of the worst magnitude. What the fuck is this lie peddled by Hamas? If they had no interest in the hostages they simply didn’t need to take hostages, did they? On Oct 7 they could have struck Israeli military targets. But they didn’t; they went after women and children. I have no idea why you would believe them when they say this.
To be clear, I am not accusing you of any kind of dishonesty. But I am baffled by why you would believe Hamas when they say they had no interest in women and children.
This ends when Hamas cannot repeat Oct 7. Period, end of story.
…I’m literally just quoting the words that they said.
This won’t end then. You can get rid of Hamas. But it won’t end until the Apartheid ends. Until it stops cruelly abducting and detaining and torturing Palestinians under the pretence of “administrative detention.”
Until Israel starts owning up to the decades of crimes against humanity that it is responsible for, resistance, in some way or form, will continue. It won’t be Hamas. But you can’t treat people the way the Palestinian people have been treated and just expect them to live with it forever. You can’t chase them off their lands, you can’t shut down their airports and access to food and water and supplies forever.
Proof of leadership having been there? Of course warning of the bomb coming allows leadership to escape along with civilians to get out of the way. “Best” may be just to keep leadership scrambling.
Like heck it isn’t. Again that word means a very specific intent. Stating that families, even bloodlines, were killed is stating a very tragic outcome. It does not support a hateful smear that the intent is to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
OTOH the intent behind “from the river to the sea” as one of the destruction of a national group is very clear. There is little doubt that Hamas would happily commit genocide if it had the capacity to do so, and their attack was in that spirit.
That’s no smear.
The issue is not whether or not Hamas wants to commit genocide against the state of Israel, or even whether or not they encourage such against Jews over the world. Those are things that actually are … simple.
The issue is how best to respond to and defend against that intent, especially in the face of what Hamas did, after Netanyahu’s failure of competent leadership allowed an action of that intent on his administration’s watch.
Best in this case includes most effective as a defense and best in terms of ethically defensible.
I do not believe that the massive military response in progress is best by either metric.
This was a war crime. You need to do much better than a generic statement from an anon IDF spox to show that Hamas leadership were somewhere in this complex. Because if they were, a targeted strike (which we know Israel is perfectly capable of) would be much more proportionate than blowing up the homes of thousands of people.
It isn’t a hateful smear. This isn’t the thread to litigate this, but there have been thousands of words written on this by experts in international law, from historians who specialise in this, who agree with this characterization. They consider this genocide, and they lay out the case for it, laying out the evidence.
And there is little doubt in the minds of many legal experts hand historical scholars of the intent of the siege, and of the bombing campaign.
