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13 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Yep, clear the chute did not open. And that does not appear to be a C-130 nor a Airbus A400.

Looks like a C-17 to me.

801530-U-YNK82-011.jpg

https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2001143346/

 

EDIT:

Story from Reuters:

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. military will start carrying out airdrops of food and supplies into Gaza in the coming days, joining other countries like France, Jordan and Egypt that have done the same.


HOW WOULD AN AIRDROP OF AID WORK?
The United States will use military aircraft to drop supplies over Gaza. While it is unclear which type of aircraft will be used, the C-17 and C-130 are best suited for the job. According to the U.S. Air Force, a C-130 can hold 16 pallets while a C-17 can carry 40.

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4 hours ago, bolverk said:

Looks like a C-17 to me.

801530-U-YNK82-011.jpg

https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2001143346/

 

EDIT:

Story from Reuters:

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. military will start carrying out airdrops of food and supplies into Gaza in the coming days, joining other countries like France, Jordan and Egypt that have done the same.


HOW WOULD AN AIRDROP OF AID WORK?
The United States will use military aircraft to drop supplies over Gaza. While it is unclear which type of aircraft will be used, the C-17 and C-130 are best suited for the job. According to the U.S. Air Force, a C-130 can hold 16 pallets while a C-17 can carry 40.

Yep, sure does. I did not know we were using them for this. Have only seen video and reports saying C-130's. Thanks for enlarging this image.

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https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/04/europe/un-team-sexual-abuse-oct-7-hostages-intl/index.html
 
The UN says there are reasons to believe the hostages are still being raped, in captivity. 
 
I really believe the best outcome for Gazans and everyone comes from a quick and thorough defeat of Hamas. 

Edited by statsman
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2 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

Yep, sure does. I did not know we were using them for this. Have only seen video and reports saying C-130's. Thanks for enlarging this image.

I've seen reports that the US is only using 130s, that UAE and maybe Jordan are using the 17s

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Ahmed talking about the air drops

he quotes a gazan resident:

I’ve received dozens of videos & messages from Gazans in the north who collected airdropped food and expressed immense gratitude that someone is thinking about them and actually doing something to support their perseverance in their homes and besieged territories/lands. Here’s what my friend Reham, a 25-year-old young lady who is an electrical engineer stuck in northern Gaza, told me about her experience collecting airdropped food: “While I have to push my way through mostly men to get some boxes for my family, I have been able to bring more supplies for our family than my own able-bodied brothers have. There is something beautiful about airplanes over Gaza dropping items that help sustain us instead of bombs that seek to kill us; bombs fall quickly towards their targets, while airdropped food slowly descends to the ground with parachutes; it’s nice to know that some airplanes are capable of merciful objectives when we’re used to them being instruments of death. We are grateful to all countries helping us stay alive and urge you to keep going and never stop. Daytime food airdrops are a glimmer of hope amidst a sea of desperation, isolation, and destitution.”

 

 

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13 hours ago, statsman said:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/04/europe/un-team-sexual-abuse-oct-7-hostages-intl/index.html
 
The UN says there are reasons to believe the hostages are still being raped, in captivity. 
 
I really believe the best outcome for Gazans and everyone comes from a quick and thorough defeat of Hamas. 

There is one sentence, the opening one, that addresses the headline. The entire rest of the article is rehash.

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11 minutes ago, JohnnyRage said:

There is one sentence, the opening one, that addresses the headline. The entire rest of the article is rehash.

I don’t see your point. 
 
The UN, as a body, is neutral to Hamas, at best, for Hamas at worst. If their report says hostages are still being raped (remember- sexual assault by Hamas means violent rape; sexual assault by IDF means strip search), I take that to mean you can take it to the bank. 
 
Of all the victims in the war, the hostages may be in the most awful situation. Held by captors that hate them for who they are, subject to all kinds of assaults, in fear of dying at all times. (At least a few dozen have been killed). 
 
They’re terribly inconvenient for all sides. For Hamas, they are evidence of atrocities and may have to be “dispositioned”. For Israel, they are human shields they need to plan around. For the U.S., they represent a possible political drumbeat, similar to the one that brought down Carter’s administration. 
 
45 years ago, hostages were all we talked about. I don’t know why you don’t like an occasional reminder. 

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There were more sentences in that article about Palestinians captives being abused or disproving initial October 7th allegations than there were about the headline concerning Israeli hostages. It's just a poor article and an even worse source. Literally the opening sentence and then nothing else.

"A United Nations team has found “clear and convincing” information that hostages in Gaza were sexually abused and there are “reasonable grounds” to believe the sexual violence is ongoing."

It also states that that the UN team has not been able to meet with one single victim of sexual violence. I'm not trying say to that it is more likely that there was no single instance of sexual violence, but right out of the gate this was used to justify a disproportionate response - systematic rape - cutting fetuses out of pregnant women, babies in ovens...

 

 

 

 

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20 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You’re right, the UN wasn’t able to interview the many dead women found undressed with their hands bound. 

But those dead women could have been examined by a coroner for physical signs of rape and could have been used to gather DNA evidence. The atrocities committed on October 7th were evil and cruel. There is no justification for them in a modern world nor in a guerrilla campaign. Those realities are enough. The whole world was on the side of Israel. A response was expected and necessary.

 

 

 

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55 minutes ago, JohnnyRage said:

But those dead women could have been examined by a coroner for physical signs of rape and could have been used to gather DNA evidence. The atrocities committed on October 7th were evil and cruel. There is no justification for them in a modern world nor in a guerrilla campaign. Those realities are enough. The whole world was on the side of Israel. A response was expected and necessary.

 

 

 

Jewish people, especially in Israel, have unique ideas about dead bodies and proper care of them. It’s my understanding that the religious folks had more say in handling the corpses, early on, than the forensic folks. 
 
You used to hear crazy stories during the Intifada, when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a bunch of people, of religious authorities coming to the scene to collect every body fragment they could, no matter how small. Then, there’s also the whole thing of Israel trading live prisoners for dead IDF captives. 
 
Don’t worry, though. Israel has a lot of photographic evidence and they have made some displays. Every time it’s shown to some one in the west, they leave crying and angry. 

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56 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

There is nothing you can say that will alter their perspective. They don't want their minds changed. Palestinians (all of them, not just Hamas) are animals to them. Statsman does nothing but play dumb and concern troll in the CR thread and 956 just openly advocates for genocide. You're wasting your time.

There is a lot to unravel here- military vs. police action (depends on citizenship claims of Gazans), old land claims, asymmetric warfare rules (or lack of). Fontana, your typical response to my questioning is something like, “you’re late to the discussion; this has all been worked out already in the CR thread”. 
 
Maybe it has been, or maybe you can’t explain it beyond “my side-your side”. I do know that the CR thread mainstays may feel they have it all figured out, but their position is a minority position in the U.S.  

Which doesn’t make them wrong; but it doesn’t give them authority either. 
 
“Shut up”, he explained- that’s not an argument. 
 
This is the DT thread, so discussion is limited here. I think it’s fine to discuss facets of the war here. It is a war, if you agree that Gaza and Israel are two different states (yes, I know that Israel declared war on “Hamas” and not “Gaza”; it is in Gaza where that war is waged). If you disagree, and believe Gaza and Israel are the same state; then this is an internal police action, and not a war, and different standards apply (one of the wonderful unique things about the U.S. is that our constitution forbids the military to be applied internally). In 2005, Israel said Gaza wasn’t theirs any more, so that’s their stance. 
 
That’s a discussion I haven’t seen held here. My take is that Israel has a stronger argument. 

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30 minutes ago, JesusSweatDuck said:

So how long until Hamas starts lobbing rockets at our temporary ports that are providing aid?

I hate that if not rockets this is going to be a high profile target. 
 

Here’s an idea. Instead of wasting time and resources to set up a port, how about we *checks map* drive it across the fucking border. 

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39 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Desperate people charging the trucks could lead to a security nightmare and some bad decisions by the soldiers?

 

A port could be easier to control/secure?

Correct. A bunch of people were killed and many, many more were injured when citizens tried to stop the trucks that were being commandeered by Hamas. The drivers panicked and then the people panicked and even more lives were lost. The airdrops and the ships were suppose to alleviate the Hamas' problem. More aid can come in and it can go directly from the ship to the people without Hamas intercepting the supplies. However, yes Hamas will try to attack the ships - Maybe, this will cause a backlash against Hamas, though.

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WRT reported Gazan casualty- we know that Hamas reports are not anything to put faith in. We also know that any loss of innocent civilian life is a tragedy. That said, Abraham Wyner, a stats prof at Wharton, took a look at the casualty numbers reported by Hamas and explains why they’re probably all made up. 
 
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

This is not to downplay the humanitarian tragedy, but to shed light on subjective assessments of Israel’s methods of urban warfare. 

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3 hours ago, statsman said:

WRT reported Gazan casualty- we know that Hamas reports are not anything to put faith in. We also know that any loss of innocent civilian life is a tragedy. That said, Abraham Wyner, a stats prof at Wharton, took a look at the casualty numbers reported by Hamas and explains why they’re probably all made up. 
 
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

This is not to downplay the humanitarian tragedy, but to shed light on subjective assessments of Israel’s methods of urban warfare. 

I saw that yesterday. It is humorous to see how poorly they faked the data. Looks like something one of my undergrads would do.

If you are going to make up numbers you have to understand 2 major things. 1. the dynamic relationships of the system components and the concept of variation.

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WRT reported Gazan casualty- we know that Hamas reports are not anything to put faith in. We also know that any loss of innocent civilian life is a tragedy. That said, Abraham Wyner, a stats prof at Wharton, took a look at the casualty numbers reported by Hamas and explains why they’re probably all made up. 
 
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
This is not to downplay the humanitarian tragedy, but to shed light on subjective assessments of Israel’s methods of urban warfare. 

Did anyone really put any stock into those reports?
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3 minutes ago, Nivek said:


Did anyone really put any stock into those reports?

They were quoted by the POTUS and Sec. of Defense. 
 
Everyone understands that the death of even one innocent is a tragedy. Bogus numbers allow the sympathetic world to aim its animus at Israel. A correct understanding of the numbers reveals how evil Hamas is. 
 
Hamas has fortified tunnels under Gaza, built at UN expense. When Israel attacks, Hamas retreats to the tunnels, leaving Gazan civilians outside. Hamas desires Gazan civilian casualties; that’s a strategy for survival. 
 
This is a horrible, awful math, but the calculation can’t be correct without the right data. 

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12 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

In all fairness, the average palestinian counts for approximately 1/100th a good israeli. Once you take that statistical adjustment into account, the whole ethnic cleansing thing isn't actually that terrible. 

I’m sure you know that is Hamas/Fatah math. When prisoners are exchanged, they insist on a 100:1 ratio. Fatah pays a lifetime pension to the families of a Palestinian that kills a Jew. 

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There is an old trope- “He killed his parents and then asked the court for leniency, because he is an orphan”. 
 
That’s what Hamas is doing, pleeding for intervention against Israel due to the humanitarian disaster that they created and continue to support. 

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37 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Anyone who refuses to acknowledge Israeli agency is no true friend of the Israeli people. 

Sure. But let’s not pretend there is any kind of moral equivalency, just because it may make you feel better about political allies. 
 
Let’s try a counterfactual thought experiment. Suppose a high ranking IDF general were to propose, “We’ll get several thousand IDF troops together, and we will storm into Gaza. We will rampage through neighborhoods, killing as many Gazans as we can, man woman and child. With our hands and knives, where possible. Oh! And there will be a lot of raping and sexual mutilation. Babies will be burned and then we’ll grab a couple hundred living hostages and drag them back”.

Do you think such an idea, in Israel, would be met with anything other than a suggestion to seek mental health care? In Hamas, it was actuated. 

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2 minutes ago, statsman said:

Sure. But let’s not pretend there is any kind of moral equivalency, just because it may make you feel better about political allies. 
 
Let’s try a counterfactual thought experiment. Suppose a high ranking IDF general were to propose, “We’ll get several thousand IDF troops together, and we will storm into Gaza. We will rampage through neighborhoods, killing as many Gazans as we can, man woman and child. With our hands and knives, where possible. Oh! And there will be a lot of raping and sexual mutilation. Babies will be burned and then we’ll grab a couple hundred living hostages and drag them back”.

Do you think such an idea, in Israel, would be met with anything other than a suggestion to seek mental health care? In Hamas, it was actuated. 

Umm...there are rabbis in Israel right now calling for the extermination of every Palestinian in Gaza.  Like, one literally saying "kill everyone in Gaza, including babies."  So....I wouldn't go buying that white hat for Israel just yet.

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4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Umm...there are rabbis in Israel right now calling for the extermination of every Palestinian in Gaza.  Like, one literally saying "kill everyone in Gaza, including babies."  So....I wouldn't go buying that white hat for Israel just yet.

And how far does that idea go? Thats my point. 
 
Is it not mind boggling that October 7 happened (is still happening for hundreds of Israelis)? The Hamas militants that went in there knowing they would be raping and mutating- do they not have wives, sisters, mothers, daughters? How does that even get planned, let alone acted out on a large scale? They must really, really hate the Jews. 

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I've got two big problems with that article on causality counts:

1) Of course, we can't expect a precise death toll count during an active, ongoing, "hot" conflict. The difficulties in obtaining an accurate count have been widely discussed since the very beginning. According to every report I've read, hospitals take the tally as the dead/injured come through the door and supplement those with reports from the field. At best, it should be treated as a messy estimate, given the lack of transparency in reporting by both Hamas and the IDF.

A very good, recent piece can be read here, outlining many of the issues (e.g., hospital closures, missing persons, inaccessibility to large parts of the Gaza Strip, communications blackouts, and general fucking chaos). One sad thing to note is that it may well be an undercount, as there are undoubtedly thousands of dead under the rubble. Moreover, it also does not take into account any war-adjacent deaths, such as those who die of illnesses and hunger.

All of that said, in previous engagements, death toll estimates provided by the Ministry of Health have been shown to be reasonably accurate -- even when compared to Israeli figures.

In past wars with Israel, the Gaza health ministry's death tolls were mostly in line with counts by the United Nations and Israel, though there have been discrepancies in the past with Israel on the numbers of civilians vs. militants killed.

An analysis published in the Lancet medical journal in December found that Gaza's health ministry has "historically reported accurate mortality data," with discrepancies between 1% and roughly 3% when compared with U.N. analysis of deaths in previous conflicts. The study found "no evidence of inflated rates" in the current war and noted that difficulties in obtaining accurate death counts "should not be interpreted as intentionally misreported data."

From an earlier article during the conflict:

Throughout four wars and numerous bloody skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, U.N. agencies have cited the Health Ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.

In the aftermath of war, the U.N. humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records.

In all cases the U.N.'s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza Health Ministry’s, with small discrepancies.

— 2008 war: The ministry reported 1,440 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 1,385.

— 2014 war: The ministry reported 2,310 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 2,251.

— 2021 war: The ministry reported 260 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 256.

While Israel and the Palestinians disagree over the numbers of militants versus civilians killed in past wars, Israel’s accounts of Palestinian casualties have come close to the Gaza ministry’s. For instance, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the 2014 war killed 2,125 Palestinians — just a bit lower than the ministry’s toll.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has killed “thousands” of militants in the current war, without offering evidence or precise numbers.

I'm not saying we should take the MofH's numbers as gospel, but they do have a generally reliable track record in these situations. And, given the unprecedented destruction we see on the ground within the very densely populated Gaza Strip, the numbers do not seem unreasonable. 

2) On to my next beef. If we are expected to be skeptical of numbers provided by the health ministry, we should also be equally suspicious of this piece, written by a statistician who does have a questionable history of misusing data in areas outside his expertise when it ideologically suits him for a politically conservative magazine targeted toward a presumably like-minded audience and has recently caused controversy within the American Jewish community. I'd say more about that, but we'd be crossing the line into CR, which the presentation of the piece already tiptoes in the Daily Texan. Personally, I try not to post articles from publications with a strong ideological bias over here. 

More specific to the actual article, I'll critique its author's cherry-picking of data from only a two-week period near the beginning of the incursion into Gaza, presenting that short timespan as if it were representative of the entire war. Given that his statistical analysis was published less than a week ago, it's disingenuous at best on his part to have restricted his efforts to that small window when we have data from throughout the conflict to show that there is indeed daily variation in the estimated death toll figures provided by the Ministry of Health. It would also appear to show a specific intent on this author's part to mislead his readers when he surely had a fuck ton of more data to work with.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the raw numbers and can only eyeball from a couple of small charts in an infographic on the UN's website. Even so, the bumps in the columns are easily perceptible by my aging eyes, and it most certainly is not the straight line with which the author intends to mislead his readers. I wish they would portray the data differently so the count for each individual day could be seen more clearly. But I'm absolutely certain the statistician knew exactly what he was doing when using the same type of graph to "prove" there was no variability in Gazan reporting. 

image.thumb.png.c1c682e787e09e24052c461a890b6ef5.png

https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-humanitarian-impact-12-march-2024-1500

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19 minutes ago, statsman said:

Sure. But let’s not pretend there is any kind of moral equivalency, just because it may make you feel better about political allies. 
 
Let’s try a counterfactual thought experiment. Suppose a high ranking IDF general were to propose, “We’ll get several thousand IDF troops together, and we will storm into Gaza. We will rampage through neighborhoods, killing as many Gazans as we can, man woman and child. With our hands and knives, where possible. Oh! And there will be a lot of raping and sexual mutilation. Babies will be burned and then we’ll grab a couple hundred living hostages and drag them back”.

Do you think such an idea, in Israel, would be met with anything other than a suggestion to seek mental health care? In Hamas, it was actuated. 

Are you aware of the things they're saying and broadcasting on Israeli television about their operations in Gaza right now?

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14 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I've got two big problems with that article on causality counts:

1) Of course, we can't expect a precise death toll count during an active, ongoing, "hot" conflict. The difficulties in obtaining an accurate count have been widely discussed since the very beginning. According to every report I've read, hospitals take the tally as the dead/injured come through the door and supplement those with reports from the field. At best, it should be treated as a messy estimate, given the lack of transparency in reporting by both Hamas and the IDF.

A very good, recent piece can be read here, outlining many of the issues (e.g., hospital closures, missing persons, inaccessibility to large parts of the Gaza Strip, communications blackouts, and general fucking chaos). One sad thing to note is that it may well be an undercount, as there are undoubtedly thousands of dead under the rubble. Moreover, it also does not take into account any war-adjacent deaths, such as those who die of illnesses and hunger.

All of that said, in previous engagements, death toll estimates provided by the Ministry of Health have been shown to be reasonably accurate -- even when compared to Israeli figures.

In past wars with Israel, the Gaza health ministry's death tolls were mostly in line with counts by the United Nations and Israel, though there have been discrepancies in the past with Israel on the numbers of civilians vs. militants killed.

An analysis published in the Lancet medical journal in December found that Gaza's health ministry has "historically reported accurate mortality data," with discrepancies between 1% and roughly 3% when compared with U.N. analysis of deaths in previous conflicts. The study found "no evidence of inflated rates" in the current war and noted that difficulties in obtaining accurate death counts "should not be interpreted as intentionally misreported data."

From an earlier article during the conflict:

Throughout four wars and numerous bloody skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, U.N. agencies have cited the Health Ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.

In the aftermath of war, the U.N. humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records.

In all cases the U.N.'s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza Health Ministry’s, with small discrepancies.

— 2008 war: The ministry reported 1,440 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 1,385.

— 2014 war: The ministry reported 2,310 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 2,251.

— 2021 war: The ministry reported 260 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 256.

While Israel and the Palestinians disagree over the numbers of militants versus civilians killed in past wars, Israel’s accounts of Palestinian casualties have come close to the Gaza ministry’s. For instance, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the 2014 war killed 2,125 Palestinians — just a bit lower than the ministry’s toll.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has killed “thousands” of militants in the current war, without offering evidence or precise numbers.

I'm not saying we should take the MofH's numbers as gospel, but they do have a generally reliable track record in these situations. And, given the unprecedented destruction we see on the ground within the very densely populated Gaza Strip, the numbers do not seem unreasonable. 

2) On to my next beef. If we are expected to be skeptical of numbers provided by the health ministry, we should also be equally suspicious of this piece, written by a statistician who does have a questionable history of misusing data in areas outside his expertise when it ideologically suits him for a politically conservative magazine targeted toward a presumably like-minded audience and has recently caused controversy within the American Jewish community. I'd say more about that, but we'd be crossing the line into CR, which the presentation of the piece already tiptoes in the Daily Texan. Personally, I try not to post articles from publications with a strong ideological bias over here. 

More specific to the actual article, I'll critique its author's cherry-picking of data from only a two-week period near the beginning of the incursion into Gaza, presenting that short timespan as if it were representative of the entire war. Given that his statistical analysis was published less than a week ago, it's disingenuous at best on his part to have restricted his efforts to that small window when we have data from throughout the conflict to show that there is indeed daily variation in the estimated death toll figures provided by the Ministry of Health. It would also appear to show a specific intent on this author's part to mislead his readers when he surely had a fuck ton of more data to work with.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the raw numbers and can only eyeball from a couple of small charts in an infographic on the UN's website. Even so, the bumps in the columns are easily perceptible by my aging eyes, and it most certainly is not the straight line with which the author intends to mislead his readers. I wish they would portray the data differently so each individual could be seen more clearly. But I'm absolutely certain the statistician knew exactly what he was doing when using the same type of graph to "prove" there was no variability in Gazan reporting. 

image.thumb.png.c1c682e787e09e24052c461a890b6ef5.png

https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-humanitarian-impact-12-march-2024-1500

You have an enduring patience. 

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Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, statsman said:

And how far does that idea go? Thats my point. 

It goes plenty far.  It is indisputable that Israel is purposefully targeting civilians and civilian resources/structures.  Numerous high-ranking Israeli officials have said so, plainly.  The problem is that idea goes a lot fucking farther than any sane person would want it to.

What you say about Hamas is functionally entirely correct.  The worst elements of Palestinian society and government have been allowed to control major actions and the fate of a region.  That is bad.  But you need to open your eyes to the fact that the worst elements of Israeli society and government are in control in Israel right now as well, and are acting accordingly.  

Israel was wronged on October 7th.  It had the right, and even the obligation, to act in self-defense.  That does not give Israel carte blanche to level fucking cities and kill civilians indiscriminately.  In the fight against evil, it is very tempting to become that which you claim to hate.  Israel is giving in to that temptation.  It is a bad, bad look.

And if you don't trust where I'm coming from, read my other posts in this thread: I remain fucking sick and tired of the blanket pro-Palestinian posters and messaging around here.  There is a sizable plurality of Palestinians who have longed for a war of extermination against Israel.  Well, they've gotten what they wanted.  The fucking idiots.

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5 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

Every death in Gaza is the sole responsibility of Hamas.

Similar logic would dictate that every Israeli death is the sole responsibility of haganah, Irgun, and the IDF as heirs. 
 

Stop making excuses for ethnic cleansing. 

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2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

It is indisputable that Israel is purposefully targeting civilians and civilian resources/structures.

Lmao watch them, brother. That's like half the narrative of what all the weird OSINT nerds post in this thread.

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

It goes plenty far.  It is indisputable that Israel is purposefully targeting civilians and civilian resources/structures.  Numerous high-ranking Israeli officials have said so, plainly.  The problem is that idea goes a lot fucking farther than any sane person would want it to.

What you say about Hamas is functionally entirely correct.  The worst elements of Palestinian society and government have been allowed to control major actions and the fate of a region.  That is bad.  But you need to open your eyes to the fact that the worst elements of Israeli society and government are in control in Israel right now as well, and are acting accordingly.  

Israel was wronged on October 7th.  It had the right, and even the obligation, to act in self-defense.  That does not give Israel carte blanche to level fucking cities and kill civilians indiscriminately.  In the fight against evil, it is very tempting to become that which you claim to hate.  Israel is giving in to that temptation.  It is a bad, bad look.

And if you don't trust where I'm coming from, read my other posts in this thread: I remain fucking sick and tired of the blanket pro-Palestinian posters and messaging around here.  There is a sizable plurality of Palestinians who have longed for a war of extermination against Israel.  Well, they've gotten what they wanted.  The fucking idiots.

This lines up with basically everything I've been saying here (and in the CR thread) since Oct. 7th. The most extreme elements of both "sides" are in control and that is what has led us here. It sucks that we will continue loading Israel up with bombs and money until they successfully exterminate millions, and it sucks that we have to listen to Christian nationalist pastors post about how it's simply justice served in this thread.

I don't want them all the die or get ejected from their home, I don't want them to have to live under the boot of Hamas, and I certainly don't want Israelis to die or feel unsafe because some % of Palestinians want them dead (even though that hatred is completely justifiable, it's still a very bad thing) or because their government is literally run by corrupt (both morally and literally) extremists that are little better than the Hamas terrorists they oppose.

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I should add that my goal isn't to just blindly cape for Palestinians. I just want the death and destruction to stop.

Both Palestinians and Israelis deserve better, from the world and from each other. We're way past quibbling about death total counts. The real damage is that Gaza's infrastructure and culture is basically completely destroyed and the area is effectively unlivable now. The real damage is Israel is on the verge of losing every ounce of support it has left because the world sees what is going on and largely rejects it. The only reason we have intervened to the extent we have so far is that we're on the knife's edge of a catastrophic famine here.

NOTHING that is happening right now is creating a better future for Palestinians OR Israelis. All of them are fucked and getting more fucked by the day.

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4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

That does not give Israel carte blanche to level fucking cities and kill civilians indiscriminately

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

 

Quote

I remain fucking sick and tired of the blanket pro-Palestinian posters and messaging around here.  There is a sizable plurality of Palestinians who have longed for a war of extermination against Israel.  Well, they've gotten what they wanted.  The fucking idiots.

From the river to the sea. Where does that leave Israel? That isn't peace talk. That is extermination, like what has happened to every jew in every country in the middle east.

And what started this chant, this time? The audacity that jews and arabs could have peace.

 

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