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30 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

A week ago we were 5-0, #3 and CR was mostly making fun of Boobert and MGT.  

The phone, the TV, and the news of the world got in the house like a pigeon from Hell.

Top 3 song reference anyway. Wretched life of a lonely heart eh

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12 hours ago, bolverk said:

Counterpoint:

Jews lived, albeit in small numbers, in the area we call Palestine for centuries alongside their Arab/Palestinian neighbors without being exterminated. Even during the early Zionism movement, starting in the 1880s when more Jews were arriving and their numbers began to swell, they were not exterminated by their Arab/Palestinian neighbors.

It's not a coincidence that the violence didn't really get started until about the time the UN carved out a bunch of land and the Palestinians were being kicked out of their ancestral homeland did major conflict arise. It wasn't because of any inherent hatred of the Jews (they were tolerated); it was because Palestinians being displaced (forcibly I might add) from the farms they'd been tilling and villages they'd been inhabiting for 1500 years.

This is categorically untrue.  The Jewish National Fund began buying land in Palestine in 1903 from absentee Turks to give to the Jewish people, and when they started showing up, well, we know the rest.    See for example the Jaffa riots of 1921, the Hebron massacre of 1929 and the Arab revolt of 1936-1939. 

https://www.jnf.org/our-history

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

What would be the best way for Israel to remove Hamas? Door to door? 

I don't know if it is possible for Israel's military to remove Hamas.  Military action is going to kill more civilians and breed more hate and extremists, which will further empower Hamas. It is going to further degrade the education and economic systems of Palestine, which is going to breed more extremists and further empower Hamas.  Maybe eventually all the Palestinians are dead or pushed out.  That might get rid of Hamas from Palestine - if there are no people left.  

I'm not sure Israel's Likud Party, Bibi, and other far-right elements in Israel want to get rid of Hamas.  Hamas provides a powerful boogeyman for the far-right and allows them to hold a lot of political power.  I don't think it is a coincidence that the primary policies of the Likud party are settlements, blockade, and military action - the things that breed Hamas.  I see this the same way I understand the GOP's refusal to help fix our immigration system - spooky brown sub-humans provide political power for both the GOP and Likud.

I think the best way to remove a far-right extremist political organization from any population is to create an environment that allows another political organization to take over and maintain control.  This is going to be hard because almost anyone educated or successful left Palestine a long time ago.  Hamas has been controlling the education system in Palestine for almost two decades.  The Palestinian economy has been in shambles for longer.

I think we remove Hamas from Palestine the same way we remove Trumpism from the US.  Increase the education and economic outlook of the population.  Give them something to believe in and live for that doesn't include extremism.  Give them a sanitized/regulated information space.  Provide them access to health care and birth control. I think this would require action by the UN and a significant investment by the international community.   

Maybe after Israel destroys much of Palestine and kills a ton of people, the UN can step in - implement a hard border with Israel, remove Israel's blockade, and rebuild and invest.  The UN can prop up a non-Hamas organization in the beginning and with enough time and investment - maybe a generation or two - Palestine can be self sufficient.  Obviously, Israel would need to reverse all their far-right policies.

I think any non-Hamas organization would constantly be undermined by far-right elements in Israel and other countries in the region.  The UN and US would need to be serious for it to work.  The US would probably need to pull support for Israel if Likud or other far-right Israeli parties aren't removed or gain power again.  

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Palestinians Speak the Language of Violence Israel Taught Them

The indiscriminate shootings of Israelis by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations, the kidnapping of civilians, the barrage of rockets into Israel, drone attacks on a variety of targets from tanks to automated machine gun nests, are the familiar language of the Israeli occupier. Israel has spoken this blood-soaked language of violence to the Palestinians since Zionist militias seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, destroyed some 530 Palestinian villages and cities and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in more than 70 massacres. Some 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed between 1947 and 1949 to create the state of Israel in 1948.

Israel’s response to these armed incursions will be a genocidal assault on Gaza. Israel will kill dozens of Palestinians for every Israeli killed. Hundreds of Palestinians have already died in Israel air assaults since the launch of “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” on Saturday morning, which left 700 Israelis dead. 

Prime Minister Netanyahu warned Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday to “leave now,” because Israel is going to “turn all Hamas hiding places into rubble.”

But where are Palestinians in Gaza supposed to go? Israel and Egypt blockade the land borders. There is no exit by air or sea, which are controlled by Israel. 

The collective retribution against innocents is a familiar tactic employed by colonial rulers. We used it against Native Americans and later in the Philippines and Vietnam. The Germans used it against the Herero and Namaqua in Namibia. The British in Kenya and Malaya. The Nazis used it in the areas they occupied in the Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe. Israel follows the same playbook. Death for death. Atrocity for atrocity. But it is always the occupier who initiates this macabre dance and trades piles of corpses for higher piles of corpses.

This is not to defend the war crimes by either side. It is not to rejoice in the attacks. I have seen enough violence in the Israeli occupied territories, where I covered the conflict for seven years, to loathe violence. But this is the familiar denouement to all settler-colonial  projects. Regimes implanted and maintained by violence engender violence. The Haitian war of liberation. The Mau Mau in Kenya. The African National Congress in South Africa. These uprisings do not always succeed, but they follow familiar patterns. The Palestinians, like all colonized people, have a right to armed resistance under international law.   

Israel never had any interest in an equitable settlement with the Palestinians. It built an apartheid state and has steadily absorbed larger and larger tracts of Palestinian land in a slow motion campaign of ethnic cleansing. It turned Gaza in 2007 into the world’s largest open air prison.

What does Israel, or the world community, expect? How can you trap 2.3 million people in Gaza, half of whom are unemployed, in one of the most densely populated spots on the planet for 16 years, reduce the lives of its residents, half of whom are children, to a subsistencelevel, deprive them of basic medical supplies, food, water and electricity, use attack aircraft, artillery, mechanized units, missiles, naval guns and infantry units to randomly slaughter unarmed civilians and not expect a violent response? Israel is currently carrying out waves of aerial assaults on Gaza, preparing a ground invasion and has cut the power to Gaza, which usually only operates two to four hours per day.

Many of the resistance fighters who infiltrated into Israel undoubtedly knew they would be killed. But like resistance fighters in other wars of liberation they decided that if they could not choose how they would live, they would choose how they would die.

I was a close friend of Alina Margolis-Edelmanwho was part of the armed resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in World War II. Her husband, Marek Edelman, was the deputy commander of the uprising and the only leader to survive the war. The Nazis had sealed 400,000 Polish Jews inside the Warsaw Ghetto. The trapped Jews died in the thousands, from starvation, disease and indiscriminate violence. When the Nazis began to transport the remaining Jews to the extermination camps the resistance fighters fought back. None expected to survive.

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Edelman, after the war, condemned Zionism as a racist ideology used to justify the theft of Palestinian land. He sided with the Palestinians, supported their armed resistance and met frequently with Palestinians leaders. He thundered against Israel’s appropriation of the Holocaust to justify its repression of the Palestinian people. While Israel dined out on the mythology of the ghetto uprising, it treated the only surviving leader of the uprising, who refused to leave Poland, as a pariah. Edelman understood that the lesson of the Holocaust and the ghetto uprising was not that Jews are morally superior or eternal victims. History, Edelman said, belongs to everyone. The oppressed, including the Palestinians, had a right to fight for equality, dignity and liberty.

“To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed and never the oppressors,” Edelmansaid.

The Warsaw uprising has long inspired the Palestinians. Representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used to lay a wreath at the annual commemoration of the uprising in Poland at the Warsaw Ghetto monument.

The more violence the colonizer expends to subdue the occupied, the more it transforms itself into a monster. The current government of Israel is populated by Jewish extremists, fanatic Zionists and religious bigots who are dismantling Israeli democracy and calling for the wholesale expulsion or murder of Palestinians, including those who live inside Israel.

The Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, whom Isiah Berlin called “the conscience of Israel,” warned that if Israel did not separate church and state it would give rise to a corrupt rabbinate that would warp Judaism into a fascistic cult.

“Religious nationalism is to religion what National Socialism was to socialism,” said Leibowitz, who died in 1994.

He understood that the blind veneration of the military, especially after the 1967 war that captured Egypt's Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Syria's Golan Heights, was dangerous and would lead to the ultimate destruction of Israel, along with any hope of democracy.

“Our situation will deteriorate to that of a second Vietnam, to a war in constant escalation without prospect of ultimate resolution,” he warned.

He foresaw that “the Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police — mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 million to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would have to suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.”

He saw that prolonged occupation of the Palestinians would inevitably spawn “concentration camps.”

“Israel,” he said, “would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it.”

The next stage of this struggle will be a massive campaign of industrial slaughter in Gaza by Israel, which has already begun. Israel is convinced greater levels of violence will finally crush Palestinian aspirations. Israel is mistaken. The terror Israel inflicts is the terror it will get.

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https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/palestinians-speak-the-language-of

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‘A second Nakba’: Echoes of 1948, as Israel orders Palestinians to leave
Thousands of people have moved to southern Gaza after the order, but others say there is no place safe from Israel’s bombings and that they would rather die at home.

Gaza City, Gaza – Ahmed al-Saadi and his family have so far escaped the Israeli bombing campaign that has levelled entire neighbourhoods and killed more than 1,900 people in the Gaza Strip since last Saturday.

But after they sought refuge in a United Nations school, that too was attacked from the air – multiple times, said al-Saadi.

“Some people were killed. If schools are not safe, then where do we go? Where can an entire population seek safety?” he asked.

Al-Saadi’s question is at the centre of a growing mix of desperation and defiance in the blockaded coastal enclave, as Israel prepares for a ground assault on Gaza.

Israel has issued a military order for northern and central Gaza residents to evacuate their homes, as such areas are now classified by Israel as a “war zone”. On Thursday night, the order gave the people of Gaza, and even UN personnel stationed there, just 24 hours to vacate.

The Israeli military distributed pamphlets from the sky and made pre-recorded phone calls to inform residents of their intention to target “terror sites” associated with Hamas and other armed groups.

“You will be able to return to Gaza City only when another announcement permitting it is made,” the military said. “Do not approach the area of the security fence with the State of Israel”.

The United Nations has called the move “impossible” and warned of “catastrophic consequences”, while the government media office in Gaza commented that this Israeli decision unveils the true “criminal face” of Israel.

That order led thousands of people in Gaza to move towards the Strip’s south on Friday.

But Israeli warplanes targeted two trucks and a car at three different points on the Salah al-Din and al-Rashid streets. The vehicles had families who were on their way to the southern Gaza Strip.

At least 70 Palestinians were killed in the attacks, mostly women and children, Gaza’s government media office said, and more than 200 were wounded.

To many Palestinians, the moment echoes the experiences of their ancestors in 1948, when militias and then the army of the newly formed Israel destroyed more than 500 Palestinian villages and towns. Thousands were killed, and more than 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted from their land and forced to flee. Palestinians refer to that period as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

Then too, no one was spared – not women nor children; not the elderly, nor those fleeing Israeli attacks. Those displaced in 1948 have never managed to return. To those who are fleeing under Israeli orders, the possibility of a repeat seems real – if there is anyone left to return in the first place.

One man from the Gharbawi family told a press conference that he was travelling south with more than 20 relatives and members of the Abu Ali family.

“It was mostly women and children,” he said. “I fell unconscious after the first Israeli strike targeted us. I woke up, looked around and saw my own family killed or injured. One girl’s brain was spilling out of her head.”

When the ambulances came to the site, another Israeli air attack struck again.

“I took cover behind a wall,” the man said. “I swear to you, there was a third air strike. It’s as if they want to kill all the women and children.”

Yet, while thousands of people are evacuating, many others refuse to do so – and overall support for armed resistance to Israel’s attacks appears intact. Crowds thronged the streets in different parts of Gaza on Friday, chanting slogans and insisting that they will not leave their homes.

The bombings of the convoys of people leaving for the south have reinforced those sentiments.

“If they are bombing us anyway everywhere, then why should we leave? We are staying home and we want to die at home,” Karam Abu Quta, a resident of Gaza City who refused to evacuate, told Al Jazeera.

Israel has maintained its full blockade on Gaza for a seventh day now, pushing the humanitarian landscape into further de-development and preventing entry of urgent medical equipment and daily life supplies into the enclave.

“They are cutting us off from water, food and electricity, and now they are pushing us to leave our homes. Why are they doing this to us? Is it only because we are Palestinians living in Gaza?” a Gaza City resident told Al Jazeera, expressing feelings of frustration and a widespread sense of injustice among the people.

“This is a second Nakba. But the occupation should understand that we will continue to remain rooted in our land and stand for our just rights of freedom, peace and safety.”

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/14/a-second-nakba-echoes-of-1948-as-israel-orders-palestinians-to-leave

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As Israel engages in a massive air campaign ahead of an anticipated full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Friday that all citizens of Gaza are responsible for the attack Hamas perpetrated in Israel last weekend that left over 1,200 people dead.

“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Herzog said at a press conference on Friday. “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”

 

Ironic.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65295ee8e4b03ea0c004e2a8

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7 minutes ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

They're going to kill lots and lots of civilians...elderly, women, and children. We won't see long lists of those children's names on here though.

As others have said, I don't think this is going to play out in Israel's favor over time.

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10 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:


It is strange to me that you seem more troubled with the potential of some imaginary future incident fueled by radicalized terrorists than the one that actually just occurred.

Well yeah, I worry more about what happens in the US than I do about what happens abroad. Every life is valuable, of course. That's why I condemn indiscriminate killing of hundreds of children on both sides.

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An Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian convoy fleeing northern Gaza on a route reportedly approved by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) killed as many as 70 people, the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry has said.

The BBC identified at least 12 bodies in the footage, mostly women and children - some of whom appear to be as young as two to five.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12630635/Israeli-airstrike-Gaza-convoy-fleeing-south-route-approved-IDF-kills-70-including-women-children-young-two.html
 

 

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The Jewish people have known three things their entire existence - displacement, violence and mass murder against them where ever they live, and blame for the violence perpetrated against them.  The Jewish people are known to have suffered the most shocking crimes the world has ever seen against a people. 
 

this time the violence is the Jewish people’s fault despite Hamas - the military of Palestinian people - being one of the world’s most violent and evil terrorist organizations, despite an Arab wide religious system that has scripture directing Muslims  to kill Jews, despite educational system that teaches those kids who have the privilege to learn that the Jews should be eradicated from the Earth. 
 

if we lived near a people who wanted us dead - no exceptions - and you could not tell the militant from the peaceful I doubt we would show the restraint of the Jewish people. Fuck man, our state legislatures are actively outlawing some of us from existing and what violence have we perpetrated? 
 

the blame on the Jewish people for Hamas is gross, it’s soft anti-semitism to be perfectly frank about it because it’s a failure to see that there is NOTHING - NOT ONE GODDAMNED THING - they can do to keep themselves safe and free from violence perpetrated against them simply because they are Jews.

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10 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

No one's asking for them to stop killing Hamas/apologize for killing Hamas.  The issue is that Israel appears to have jumped straight to "fuck it, if we commit genocide/borderline genocide to eliminate Hamas, tough shit for the rest of Palestine."

Dropping leaflets and giving people one day to try and get out (nevermind the fact that there's nowhere really for them to go) is laughably disingenuous.  Just forgo the faux warning and shoot everything that moves at that point.

Israel has every right to defend itself from Hamas.  Telling us that the only viable defense is the immediate leveling of Gaza and borderline genocide is pure bullshit.

And Hamas won’t open their border to the south either. Hamas won’t help their people get out, Hamas and all the support they have around the Arab world and not a single call to the Arab world for help to move innocent people. No instead the Arab world through silence and omission welcome the use of Palestinians as human shields. Either Israel does nothing and suffers more violence or Israel kills civilians in their war against Hamas. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAMAS AND THE ARAB WORLD WANTS just so they can further blame and demonize the Jews. How the world fails to see it is appalling. 

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2 minutes ago, troph said:

the blame on the Jewish people for Hamas is gross, it’s soft anti-semitism to be perfectly frank about it

With all due respect: fuck you. 

I’m sick of the knee jerk antisemitism accusations being lobbed around. It’s horseshit designed to silence legitimate discussion. No one is blaming “the Jewish people” for anything. At most, some question the actions of the state of Israel and its hard right leadership. 

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2 minutes ago, troph said:

No instead the Arab world through silence and omission welcome the use of Palestinians as human shields. Either Israel does nothing and suffers more violence or Israel kills civilians in their war against Hamas. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAMAS AND THE ARAB WORLD WANTS just so they can further blame and demonize the Jews. How the world fails to see it is appalling. 

This is mental gymnastics.

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Just now, BrickHorn said:

With all due respect: fuck you. 

I’m sick of the knee jerk antisemitism accusations being lobbed around. It’s horseshit designed to silence legitimate discussion. No one is blaming “the Jewish people” for anything. At most, some question the actions of the state of Israel and its hard right leadership. 

Many Jews both here and in Israel are disgusted by and denounce what the government is currently doing. Jews are not a monolith. I want to make sure they are recognized and appreciated.

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10 hours ago, troph said:

 There is no peace offering that will cause Hamas to abandon their terrorism. 


There are three major stakeholders here - Israel, Palestinians and Hamas. War is never the solution for peace but it’s absurd to ask Israel to do nothing when the military apparatus of your neighbor is Hamas. Their tactics are next level heinous. It’s pretty hard not to say get every last one of them, whatever it takes.

one state or two state solution, real peace, it all needs to come soon but Hamas needs to be eliminated from the equation. And yes Israel must account for its actions in suppressing people and promoting apartheid. But eradicating Hamas just isn’t something they should apologize for.

 

I know you're not advocating this. You illustrate the problem of giving into immediate emotion. It is hard not to say get rid of every last one of them because it sounds like a simple sweeping solution to the problem. Blood calls for blood. The problem is that it never works. 

Will the Israelis lament their decision in time as they realize just what kind of slaughter they're responsible for? Will they wish they'd made their decisions in a more sober mood?

Again, I know I'm not arguing with any point that you advocate.

10 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

No one's asking for them to stop killing Hamas/apologize for killing Hamas.  The issue is that Israel appears to have jumped straight to "fuck it, if we commit genocide/borderline genocide to eliminate Hamas, tough shit for the rest of Palestine."

Dropping leaflets and giving people one day to try and get out (nevermind the fact that there's nowhere really for them to go) is laughably disingenuous.  Just forgo the faux warning and shoot everything that moves at that point.

Israel has every right to defend itself from Hamas.  Telling us that the only viable defense is the immediate leveling of Gaza and borderline genocide is pure bullshit.

Yes. My lack of imagination about how to respond to the Hamas attacks is not justification for consigning half of Gaza to the sword. 

3 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

What would be the best way for Israel to remove Hamas? Door to door? 

Same as above. Our lack of a solution doesn't justify Israel not exploring solutions other than running a heavy conventional armed force through a dense civilian population.

2 hours ago, GW Hayduke said:

I think we remove Hamas from Palestine the same way we remove Trumpism from the US.  Increase the education and economic outlook of the population.  Give them something to believe in and live for that doesn't include extremism. 

All that is in place here and not working, my friend.

1 hour ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

They're going to kill lots and lots of civilians...elderly, women, and children. We won't see long lists of those children's names on here though.

As others have said, I don't think this is going to play out in Israel's favor over time.

Excellent point, IMHO. Palestinian LIves Matter. We've grown as callous to the value of their lives as we have been of those Blacks killed and brutalized by police here.

The Mytilenean Debate where the Athenians decide the fate of an island that continually revolts is instructive here, I think. Furious, the Athenians vote terrible punishment for Mytilene. They think it will deter others from revolting.

Quote

It was within the context of this reactionary anger that the Assembly that same day voted to sentence all of the male Mytilenean citizens to death, while the women and children would be sold into slavery. A trireme was dispatched to Mytilene so that Paches could receive and carry out the decree.

The next day, the Athenians reflected upon the brutality of their actions and questioned the merit of a decree which executed the whole population for the crimes of the few. The Mytilenean ambassadors at Athens pushed for a second vote, and an assembly was called in order to reassess the course of action to be taken. 

The Athenians were still angry. Cleon made a speech supporting the carrying out of the punishment as a matter of law and the expedience of deterring further aggressions. (I love the pragmatism of the ancients.) Diodotus responds:

 

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Instead of challenging Cleon's assertion of the guilt of the Mytileneans, however, Diodotus argued that it was not their guilt which was the matter of importance, but instead the interest of Athens.[32] Even if the Mytileneans were guilty, according to Diodotus, they should only have been put to death if the penalty was expedient for the future of Athens.[33] He urged the Athenians to remember that they were "not in a court of justice" and therefore Cleon's argument, while it may have seemed more just, was not appropriate for the setting.[34]

What are the long-term interests of the state? Diodotus makes his finishing point with the same pragmatism:

Quote

Diodotus then proceeded to consider how sparing the people of Mytilene would be most expedient for the future of Athens. He argued that, by imposing the same punishment upon all Mytileneans, rebels would be shown there was no point in repenting or surrendering. This was concerning to the future of Athens, according to Diodotus, because subjected states were an important source of revenue. If they knew there was no mercy shown, no matter when they surrendered, they would fight until the city was in ruins. 

Will Israel's own interests be served by yielding to understandable blood lust? I doubt it.

What should Israel do? Maybe take a beat and try pragmatism. 

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12 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Maybe they should have acted on the intelligence before allowing the massacre to happen.

Speaking of information sanitation, here’s some conspiracy bullshit right out in the open and a bit of “if the Jews didn’t want to get murdered, maybe they should have fought back better” thrown in to boot. 

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15 minutes ago, 6th Street said:

An Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian convoy fleeing northern Gaza on a route reportedly approved by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) killed as many as 70 people, the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry has said.

The BBC identified at least 12 bodies in the footage, mostly women and children - some of whom appear to be as young as two to five.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12630635/Israeli-airstrike-Gaza-convoy-fleeing-south-route-approved-IDF-kills-70-including-women-children-young-two.html
 

 

Alleged doing a lot of work there. doesn’t look like an air strike. Reported by Hamas controlled media. Because these guys don’t have a history of killing their own people to further their cause. 
 

 

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12 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

With all due respect: fuck you. 

I’m sick of the knee jerk antisemitism accusations being lobbed around. It’s horseshit designed to silence legitimate discussion. No one is blaming “the Jewish people” for anything. At most, some question the actions of the state of Israel and its hard right leadership. 

I don’t mind discussion - I welcome it - but there is no discussion on this thread from those criticizing Israel’s reaction recognizing the intervening and superseding causes here. 
 

What government on the planet besides Hamas would close their borders to prevent their people from finding safety? What government on the planet besides Hamas would encourage their people to stay knowing bombs and a ground invasion is coming? Plenty use humans as shields but none do it quite as well as Hamas. 
 

put more clearly, I think Hamas wants dead Palestinians, I think Hamas welcomes it, I think they actively do and don’t do things for it to happen so they have more hate to fuel the fire. It’s a fucked up egregious situation that I would not wish on my worst enemy. 
 

I want no war, I want peace, I have no idea how to get there, I honestly think it’s impossible. But I also believe the first line of advocacy and action for the well being of the Palestinian people is Hamas and those governing the Palestinian people. Until they take action, it is my firm belief that the blame first belongs with them, not Israel. And failure to see that is a blind spot. You can call it whatever you want but it’s a blind spot.
 

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7 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Alleged doing a lot of work there. doesn’t look like an air strike. Reported by Hamas controlled media. Because these guys don’t have a history of killing their own people to further their cause. 
 

 

Shocking. They have no regard for human life. They only hate. They only murder. 

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18 minutes ago, troph said:

The Jewish people have known three things their entire existence - displacement, violence and mass murder against them where ever they live, and blame for the violence perpetrated against them.  The Jewish people are known to have suffered the most shocking crimes the world has ever seen against a people. 
 

this time the violence is the Jewish people’s fault despite Hamas - the military of Palestinian people - being one of the world’s most violent and evil terrorist organizations, despite an Arab wide religious system that has scripture directing Muslims  to kill Jews, despite educational system that teaches those kids who have the privilege to learn that the Jews should be eradicated from the Earth. 
 

if we lived near a people who wanted us dead - no exceptions - and you could not tell the militant from the peaceful I doubt we would show the restraint of the Jewish people. Fuck man, our state legislatures are actively outlawing some of us from existing and what violence have we perpetrated? 
 

the blame on the Jewish people for Hamas is gross, it’s soft anti-semitism to be perfectly frank about it because it’s a failure to see that there is NOTHING - NOT ONE GODDAMNED THING - they can do to keep themselves safe and free from violence perpetrated against them simply because they are Jews.

Troph, I have a whole lot of respect for you, but this blatant conflation of Israel with the Jewish people is the same shit that Hamas and neo-nazis do. The Israeli state is not the Jewish people and some of its harshest critics, even now, are Jews.

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9 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Alleged doing a lot of work there. doesn’t look like an air strike. Reported by Hamas controlled media. Because these guys don’t have a history of killing their own people to further their cause. 
 

 

That video does not at all look like high explosives like you see from a missile strike. As you can see from a bunch of Ukraine videos floating around.

Honestly it could easily have been an accidental detonation, fuel is in short supply and people are probably taking it with them.  

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By the way, our track record killing civilians is appalling. 

432,000 civilians killed in US led wars since 9/11.

we have no room to take high road of criticism here. 

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human#:~:text=Far more of the people,in the fighting since 2001.

fuck war, fuck it straight to hell. People die. But there is a hotter and more evil place in hell for the leaders of a people who refuse to do everything they can to make them as safe as possible and instead actively put them on the front lines. 

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5 minutes ago, troph said:

I don’t mind discussion - I welcome it - but there is no discussion on this thread from those criticizing Israel’s reaction recognizing the intervening and superseding causes here. 
 

What government on the planet besides Hamas would close their borders to prevent their people from finding safety? What government on the planet besides Hamas would encourage their people to stay knowing bombs and a ground invasion is coming? Plenty use humans as shields but none do it quite as well as Hamas. 
 

let me be clear I want no war, I want peace, I have no idea how to get there, I honestly think it’s impossible. But I also believe the first line of advocacy and action for the well being of the Palestinian people is Hamas and those governing the Palestinian people. Until they take action, it is my firm belief that the blame first belongs with them, not Israel. And failure to see that is a blind spot. You can call it whatever you want but it’s a blind spot.
 

Are you familiar with the concept of comparative responsibility? This reminds me of a bar fight where many opportunities to de-escalate were deliberately or naively declined. Both participants bear responsibility for the fight, and the reasons how it started are long forgotten and almost don't matter anymore.

One side might be more drunk than the other, but in this fight, one side is clearly stronger, clearly has more allies, and clearly is in a position to end it peacefully. To me, that has moral implications beyond the practical implications. I believe it is blameworthy to escalate a fight. At some point, it crosses from self-defense to revenge. I'm very troubled by the revelations that the massacre could have been stopped but was not.

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3 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

One side might be more drunk than the other, but in this fight, one side is clearly stronger, clearly has more allies, and clearly is in a position to end it peacefully.

You sure?  I would expect Hamas to attack again were Israel to not retaliate.  Maybe I'm missing your point.

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5 minutes ago, troph said:

we have no room to take high road of criticism here.

What the fuck? Because our government took actions that most of us criticize and call out as reckless, we can’t criticize another government when they act similarly? That makes zero sense. 

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1 minute ago, chainsaw said:

Are you familiar with the concept of comparative responsibility? This reminds me of a bar fight where many opportunities to de-escalate were deliberately or naively declined. Both participants bear responsibility for the fight, and the reasons how it started are long forgotten and almost don't matter anymore.

One side might be more drunk than the other, but in this fight, one side is clearly stronger, clearly has more allies, and clearly is in a position to end it peacefully. To me, that has moral implications beyond the practical implications. I believe it is blameworthy to escalate a fight. At some point, it crosses from self-defense to revenge. I'm very troubled by the revelations that the massacre could have been stopped but was not.

Peace is impossible here. You and the critics like you assume the side opposite Israel is rational. While certainly some are those with power are not. 
 

I simply think we cannot fathom our neighbors actively wanting us dead and having arms to do it. Imagine jim spencer weather report giving a daily rocket count. 

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34 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Maybe they should have acted on the intelligence before allowing the massacre to happen.

“I’m no defender of Hamas, It’s the Jews fault they died because they didn’t prepare enough for the horde of terrorists that flooded their homes and murdered them.”

 

its always their fault when that people go out of their way to massacre them. 

8 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Am I missing something here?  Gaza is blockaded by Israel and Egypt.

I assume she meant Hamas was blocking civilians inside Gaza from evacuating south, not the borders aspect, and misspoke. 

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2 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

What the fuck? Because our government took actions that most of us criticize and call out as reckless, we can’t criticize another government when they act similarly? That makes zero sense. 

If you recognize the US kills civilians with the best of them and have constantly criticized US led wars and you recognize that much of the problem here is Hamas then you are being consistent. But be honestly, very few are. And in the criticism of Israeli military action there is a vacuum of criticism over the utter failure of the Arab world to truly help Palestinians and the vast majority of the blame here is with them. 

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Why is Egypt blockading Gaza? Because they don’t give a shit about Palestinians. Wrong brand of Islam, terrorists occupy Gaza. Fear they will have to absorb them permanently, and the list goes on. But that’s Israel’s fault.

hamas diverts humanitarian aid to their leadership and war machine. Whose fault is that? 
 

the list goes on and on and on and on.

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1 minute ago, chainsaw said:

They are "retaliating" against innocent children. Over 98% of Gazans are not members of Hamas.

You keep repeating that stat, after admitting it’s a number you pulled out of thin air, even though it’s contrary to your own polling data you’ve used, and contrary to other polling showing popular sentiment towards Hamas, and the fact that these were the people they willfully elected. 

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2 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

That's a frequent talking point, but tends to be little more than a racist canard about Arabs. If that were true, why do so many Israelis disapprove of the genocide?

If Hamas and the Palestinians who elected them wanted peace, why haven’t they tried to negotiate it with dozens or opportunities, and their charter mandates genocide? 
 

Genocide is fucking horrible. No even half sane person fucking approves of it. Yes, peace is impossible when only one side wants peace. 

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4 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

That's a frequent talking point, but tends to be little more than a racist canard about Arabs. If that were true, why do so many Israelis disapprove of the genocide?

Israel isn’t interested in it either. To be clear though I don’t give a shit about skin color or religion, until Hamas and Hezbollah are gone peace is impossible. You can’t have peace with someone that wants you eradicated from the Earth. 

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6 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

“I’m no defender of Hamas, It’s the Jews fault they died because they didn’t prepare enough for the horde of terrorists that flooded their homes and murdered them.”

 

its always their fault when that people go out of their way to massacre them. 

I assume she meant Hamas was blocking civilians inside Gaza from evacuating south, not the borders aspect, and misspoke. 

“The Jews should have been better at fighting back if they didn’t want to get pogromed,”’ is literal, uncut neo-Nazi shit but people get mad when you point it out because it’s Different when Israel exists. 

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5 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

You keep repeating that stat, after admitting it’s a number you pulled out of thin air, even though it’s contrary to your own polling data you’ve used, and contrary to other polling showing popular sentiment towards Hamas, and the fact that these were the people they willfully elected. 

I don't know how much clearer I can be. 40,000 / 2.2M = 1.8 percent. That means over 98% of Gazans aren't in Hamas. No polling required. Do we need to consult AP voters to calculate Ewers' completion percentage?

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

That doesn't mean a "peaceful" approach on Israel's part would end the conflict.

That possibility isn't a license to commit crimes against humanity.

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5 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

If Hamas and the Palestinians who elected them wanted peace, why haven’t they tried to negotiate it with dozens or opportunities, and their charter mandates genocide? 
 

Genocide is fucking horrible. No even half sane person fucking approves of it. Yes, peace is impossible when only one side wants peace. 

Palestinians who elected them? You realize the majority of them are 17 years old and under, right?

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1 minute ago, chainsaw said:

I don't know how much clearer I can be. 40,000 / 2.2M = 1.8 percent. That means over 98% of Gazans aren't in Hamas. No polling required. Do we need to consult AP voters to calculate Ewers' completion percentage?

That possibility isn't a license to commit crimes against humanity.

57% have a positive view of Hamas. They also shelter and protect them. How’re you getting to the 40,000, a head count? Their official online registration? Oh, it’s just the estimates guys carrying guns. Estimated. 
 

I guess all those members of the nazi party that showed up at rallies weren’t Nazis either because they weren’t in the theater. 

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50 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Palestinians who elected them? You realize the majority of them are 17 years old and under, right?

It’s actually 40%. That’s not a majority. What we’re you saying about simple math?

You do bring up a point. Almost everyone who has elected them has died under their leadership, and they don’t hold new elections. 
 

and yet their still viewed favorably. Weird. 

45 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Yeah no fucking shit, maybe cheering on a very 9/11-like response from Israel ain't it, pal?

I haven’t seen anyone cheering what’s going to happen. That’s disingenuous and you know it. Everyone thinks it’s horrific. 

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