I've seen several TV interviews with Hamas leaders over the past week, and I have to say I'm surprised they even do interviews. al-Qaeda never did interviews, and with good reason. Even a friendly reporter is likely to have some tough questions for outfits like al-Qaeda or Hamas.
In any case, I've now seen one where the guy walked out. I've seen another where a guy just blustered his way through, insisting that Hamas never intended to kill civilians. And then there's Ghazi Hamad, who eagerly volunteered that Hamas's only goal was to wipe Israel from the face of the earth:
“Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Hamad said in an interview with Lebanese TV channel LBC....“We must remove it because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation. We are not ashamed to say this.”
In the interview, Hamad said that Israel’s existence is “illogical”....When asked whether this meant the complete annihilation of Israel, Hamad replied: “Yes, of course.”
“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” Hamad continued.
....“We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October one-millionth, everything we do is justified,” Hamad said.
None of this is a surprise, but it certainly puts to rest the prospect of a ceasefire, whether or not Israel would agree to one.
Israel is badly in the wrong to have cut off supplies to Gaza. Regardless of how loathsome Hamas is, civilians should have access to food, water, power, and medicine at a bare minimum. I think we all understand that providing this stuff means that Hamas will have access to it as well, but that's hardly a conundrum unique to this war. Israel needs to act with basic human decency even if it's hard.
Ditto for their seemingly indiscriminate bombing. It's difficult to know exactly what Israel's goal is here, but they've certainly given every impression of, at the least, not caring much about civilian casualties. That's got to end.
This makes it harder to destroy Hamas, but not impossible. And destruction of Hamas is surely justified. So even though I wish them good luck with this, that doesn't mean they're absolved of acting civilized any more than 9/11 absolved us of torturing Iraqi prisoners. Evil doesn't stop being evil just because you're at war.
Out of semi-idle curiosity, what is your opinion of the United States having cut-off oil to Japan pre-WWII, and then the submarine campaign during the war which cut-off virtually everything?
Well, of course, that is different - the special rules for war only apply to Jews.
Please don't feed the troll.
Yes... can't have those annoying Jews pointing out the double standards.
Your position that 1) Israel should be equated with Jews and Jewishness, and 2) that demanding it not do grotesque and appalling crimes in service of imperialism is a "special rule" that "applies only to Jews" are both appalling.
1. Israel is mostly Jewish.
2. Israel is not committing any crimes. It is conducting war against those who attacked it just add to the Allies did against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. The Allies did not provide food aid to Japan or Germany during WWII.
Israel is absolutely committing war crimes. I see them on the news all the time.
The laws of war have changed significantly since then.
And I can't help but notice that this standard isn't applied by you to the Palestinians to justify their actions. Once again, you can't have it both ways.
Those involved in the many wars don't seem to have gotten the message about rules of war changing. Example: Russia in Ukraine, all of the war in Africa.
I agree the left is not applying the same standards to Hamas. The rest of us are.
No one on the right is complaining that Hamas is not providing fuel, food, and water to Israel.
Even during WWII the Western Allies did not attempt mass kidnappings of Axis civilians. (Everyone except the far left agreed that the Soviets committed massive war crimes).
If you want to claim that Dresden was targeting of civilians and therefore justifies Hamas targeting civilians then same rules apply to Israel. Do the Israelis get to fire bomb Gaza a la Dresden? That works certainly be one way to solve the problem...
My opinion is that those actions were tied to a strategy for bringing the war to an end. That is a requirement for a blockade to be legal, which is why Israel's economic blockade of Gaza is not legal.
Even so, the bombing campaign is of questionable. The main reason why it could be considered legal is that most of the international law that would make it otherwise wasn't codified until 1949 and 1977. (This does nothing to make the U.S. bombing in SE Asia legal.)
Morally, the Allied bombing campaigns are a tough question. It does make a difference that most of the Allies were fighting for the literal survival of their countries, which Israel is not. (There claims that this war is existential are not backed by how Israeli society is actually run.)
In the end, though, the biggest problem is Israel's comprehensive lack of ay strategy to actually end the conflict.
Israel's strategy for bringing the war to an end is unconditional victory, the same as the US strategy against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Seems equally justified.
Why do Jews have to fight by special rules?
Such trolling.
Yes. How dare those Jews argue that they should get to fight by the same rules as everyone else!
It's not trolling at all. It's a point many others have made.
Answer the question.
Because WW2 was the nadir of human conduct. When LeMay said if the allies lost they'd get strung up for war crimes, he was right and they'd deserve it.
And so we decided on rules we are supposed to follow now and those standards get applied to the US and Israel and Russia and so on. That's just it, you are whining the Jews are NOT getting special treatment.
Ah... then why does Hamas get a pass while holding civilian hostages and protecting the perpetrators of the October 7 Pogrom?
“ Israel's strategy for bringing the war to an end is unconditional victory,”
Creating a new generation of future militants from the children they fail to slaughter today is not an unconditional victory. Where do think today’s militants came from? Many of them are the survivors of Israel’s past actions. And Israel, tragically, hasn’t learned much from the past.
The Israelis certainly are justified in fighting back, but how they are going about it is fueled not just by anger at Hamas but by frustration and embarrassment about their stunning failures to prevent the initial attack. It never should have been allowed to happen.
I refuse to believe that so many innocent people have to die in order to kill one militant here and another there.
1. Total victory worked in Germany and Japan. What has not worked in Israel is half measures.
2. If you refuse to believe that so many innocents must die to kill the terrorists (terrorists, not militants - your bias is showing) then what is your proposed method to kill the terrorists without killing innocents?
1. What you are calling total victory will never be total.
2. So what you are saying is that you know of no other way to best hamas without killing every single civilian who has been killed.
If you can't get to the terrorists without doing terrible crimes, you don't get to the terrorists.
The open position of you and others seems to be "Israel's goals justify crimes in their execution." This is contemptible. It can also be turned on its head; the Palestinians can justify their actions with precisely the same logic you do.
What are these "crimes" you speak of?
Blowing the shit out of civilians while starving them in the manner they are is absolutely a war crime. It's precisely equivalent to anything Hamas has done, with a much higher body count.
No. Collateral damage to civilians when the target is of military value is not a war crime. And if you honestly equate what Israel is doing to what Hamas does, there's really no hope for you.
Throwing missiles into apartment blocks and hospitals where people are living and/or being treated on the thinnest of pretexts is absolutely a war crime.
And you're the one here claiming "if your civilians are killed, it's justified to stack the civilians of your enemy to the roof." I'm applying your own standard, which I find vile but you don't, to Israel as well as Hamas. If you don't like that I suggest you find a different one.
When you are aiming at the civilians, they are hardly collateral damage.
While I may have some opinions in common with MF, I do not agree with much.
Respectfully, to your point - how many innocent people have died per militant? Do you have that fact? If not, then perhaps you can reexamine your belief.
Similarly, if there is a depot with missiles that could kill hundreds of innocent Isrealis for no military benefit (i.e. no protection of Gazans), then is it justified to take out that depot if it is in an apartment building with hundreds of civilians?
I do not have an answer for that question. I just point it out for those who ignore it as a consideration when looking at Israeli actions.
Well when they bombed the refugee camp they said a Hamas big shot was there. Well I don't 1 Hamas guy no matter how high up is worth hundreds of dead refugees. And I do not know of any justification offered for rebombing it. If they think there was a bunch of missiles they should say so otherwise I think it was disproportionate.
Should we not have required unconditional surrender from Germany and Japan because of concern that future generations may be mad at us?
Situations don’t compare, but sure I’ll play along for now…. Did wwi lead to wwii? We did get future generations mad at us with disastrous results. It kinda made a difference that we helped rebuild them after the second chance at getting it right. Israelis have offered only more degradation after each “war”.
Post-WWII could have gone very differently. Read the Wikipedia article on the Morgenthau Plan.
"Requiring unconditional surrender" = "do war crimes."
If that what's you think, you're off on your own planet and there's no point in engaging with you.
My apologies; I meant for that to be a not-equals sign, not an equals sign.
A demand for unconditional surrender doesn't justify war crimes or deliberate flattening of civilians and what they need to survive.
Israel hasn't committed war crimes. That was Hamas.
Israel's civilian body count is many, many times that of Hamas.
Yes. No question. Israel doesn't hide their military assets and personnel amongst civilians- to sue them as shields like Hamas does.
You say this like it justifies something.
It does. It justifies collateral damage.
I find the arguments about War Crimes kind of sterile to the degree that in real life, the only people who half care about them are Western Democracies. States that are not Western Democracies sometimes will obey them for specific purposes like POW exchanges but by and large they act as if they are optional.
Not saying that we (Western Democracies) should indiscriminately bomb and the like (and BTW, best as I can tell, the Israeli bombing is NOT indiscriminate). But we should just realize that complaints about war crimes from autocratic states are mostly exercises in propaganda.
"unconditional victory" isn't a strategy, it's a slogan.
They're not really comparable situations.
The oil embargo was imposed after Japan continued aggressively expanding as an oppressive, genocidal empire with a modern (although rickety) war machine. It was also in a time when oil's primary use, at least in Japan, was for the war machine. So was most of the materiel coming back on those ships the subs were sinking: rubber for tires for planes and military vehicles, metals for military vehicles, and so on. In fact, the entire reason Japan was expanding into Southeast Asia was to gain control of access to these resources - the embargoes wouldn't have happened if they hadn't tried to create one Asian empire under their rule.
Hamas's forces are estimated to be less than 10% of the entire Gazan population, at the most, and the supplies that Israel cut off are not mostly used for military purposes. It's an entirely flipped script.
Do you have sources for the comment about non-military purposes?
Because we know Hamas is using fuel to fire rockets at Israel. Should we demand that Israel provide that fuel, because Hamas may allow a small portion to go to hospitals?
Similarly, food is a military purpose when it goes to soldiers. And for decades, people complained that Gaza could not be rebuilt because Israel withheld concrete. If you don’t already know, you can look up what the concrete was actually used for.
Qassam rockets are solid-fuel, unguided artillery rockets. The Al-Quds rockets fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad are almost certainly solid-fuel also. The fuel needed for hospital emergency generators and power plants to power desalinization plants would be useless for these. Liquid-fuel rockets are almost certainly beyond the technical capabilities in Gaza. The Israeli halt in fuel deliveries is simply to hamper Hamas’ light and ventilation in tunnels, and movements by vehicle.
Thank you for the correction, I was misinformed. The fuel is made from sugar and fertilizer. Which Israel was criticized for withholding, along with concrete.
I concede, the fuel will not be used directly to fire rockets at Israel. It will be used to drive the rockets to where they are fired and then allow Hamas to return to the tunnels and hide there.
I think my point still stands, albeit not as sharply, but thanks for the factual correction.
Still awaiting sources to support the claim that the supplies are used for mostly not military purposes.
I don't know to what extent the rockets are transported, but certainly the tunnels need power, and personnel movements by vehicle are likely. There still are UN and other NGO personnel in Gaza; perhaps if the US-proposed pause is accepted, negotiations could provide for hospital generators to be fueled under international supervision. Perhaps some desalinization plants could also be fueled. If Hamas refused that, it would certainly erode sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
Even before Oct 7th Hamas fired rockets into Israel every single day. It's amazing Israel has shown such restraint.
It's interesting how rocket attacks justify violent response, but being ethnically cleansed and herded into a giant open-air prison and bantustans do not.
You can't have it both ways.
Every single day 700,000 Israeli squatters are living on indisputably stolen Palestinian land. It’s amazing Palestine has shown such restraint.
So, if we are to follow WWII standards to not-similar conflicts 80 years later , you would support Israel using its nukes on Gaza civilians, correct? If it was “ok” then, it’s ok now, right?
No, that is not what we are saying. We are saying that this is a war unlike anything seen by Western countries in 80 years, except Ukraine.
If we compare it to what we are used to, it looks excessive.
If we compare it to what it is most similar to, then it looks like war always looks. Criticism should take that into account.
This is not the worst war since wwii. And just because war was what it was then doesn’t mean we have to accept that now. Barbarism in response to barbarism does not make it a holy crusade. It just justifies the next round.
What are talking about? There is no barbarism on the part of the Israelis.
Worst seen by Western countries directly on their territory, including Israel as a Western country. Perhaps developed country is a better term.
Not similar to Ukraine, which is an invasion by a conventional military, defended by a conventional military. More like Iraq, pitting a conventional military against multiple insurgent groups. A significant difference is that some of the insurgents in Iraq (ISIS) were mostly foreigners; others were indigenous, as is Hamas. Asymmetric warfare, with which the US and European colonial powers have had considerable experience since WWII.
Talk about not-similar situations. An allied invasion of Japan would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of allied deaths. That is not the case with Israel taking out Hamas.
"War crimes are okay if your enemy makes achieving your ends by conventional means sufficiently difficult" is certainly... a position.
Replace “war crimes” with "military action for self-defense, without specifically targeting civilians” and “makes achieving your ends by conventional means” with “uses their population as human shields”, That is the reality. And yes, it is a more defensible position.
Cf. “Straw Man Fallacy"
What this has to do with the current situation, I don't know.
Out of semi-idle curiosity, what is your opinion of the United States having cut-off oil to Japan pre-WWII, and then the submarine campaign during the war which cut-off virtually everything?
The Japanese Empire represented a very real security to the US, China and other countries, and so its defeat justified a higher level of violence. Hamas are a bunch of thugs—and their atrocities merit a forceful response—but Gaza doesn't represent an existential threat to rich, nuclear-armed Israel.
The United States (nor China, nor Britain, nor Australia) wasn't illegally occupying Japanese lands in the 1930s. Israel has been occupying, colonizing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian lands for nearly fifty years.
In short, The US and its allies were unambiguously on the side of right against Japan during the Second World War. The same isn't the case with respect to Israel in 2023.
"The United States (nor China, nor Britain, nor Australia) wasn't illegally occupying Japanese lands in the 1930s.”
True. So Japan was that much more aggressive in attacking the US, which justifies more violence in opposing Japan.
But all Japan did was attack a military base, one which was 2000 miles from the US mainland. They wanted us to back off from interfering with what they were doing in Asia. They did not state that the destruction of the US was their goal.
On the other hand, Arab countries have attacked Israel en masse at least 3 times, with the stated intent of destroying the country and driving out all the Jews. You neglected to mention that in your discussion of occupying and colonizing and ethnic cleansing. The government of Gaza maintains that goal. The government of Gaza is cooperating with Iran, which is a serious threat to Israel.
While I disagree with many Israeli policies, and particularly the few racist members of the government, I do not think ethnic cleansing is an accurate term, given that the population of Palestinians has increased by 450% since 1950, and 15% in the last 5 years. You can make your point without inflammatory language.
That's not what ethnic cleansing means. You're conflating it with genocide. Ethnic cleansing is just that; the "cleansing" of an ethnicity from an area. It CAN be done via genocide, but doesn't HAVE to be.
Israel ethnically cleansed the Arabs from a great deal of land in the nakba, and it continues to slowly ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from a lot of the West Bank today. "There are more of them than there were before" doesn't make that not true, when they're herded around like cattle at the whim of Israel.
If ethnic cleansing means causing certain populations to move to adjacent areas, then I concede that some settlements have the effect ethnic cleansing. Certain gentrificaton events in urban areas qualify as well under that definition.
But given that ethnic cleansing can also include genocide, I think there are more accurate and less inflammatory terms that can be used.
Since 1950, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab countries, or left because they were being attacked. Have you complained about that ethnic cleansing?
No; it means the forcible expulsion of an ethnic group from the area. Where they end up isn't really part of the definition. They could end up dead. They could end up a long way away, not at all adjacent.
Gentrification isn't really ethnic cleansing. But it's hard to make a case that the nakba wasn't; both the observable actions on the ground, with Israeli militias murdering and burning with the declared intent of making the Arabs flee, and documented evidence (Ben-Gurion literally wrote in his diary that he viewed the removal of the Arabs and the development of pretexts to do so as necessary and desirable) pretty clearly establish it as an act of ethnic cleansing.
Sure, when it comes up.
I never understand why people try and make this point. "This other bad thing happened over here as well." It sure did. Your point?
My point is selective condemnation, and context.
If someone complains loudly about one situation, but is silent on a similar one, I note the inconsistency. I will not question your motives, but will simply point out the inconsistency.
If someone complains about one situation that has historical parallels that are unmentioned, I wonder if they have taken the full context of the situation into account.
I agree, pointing out that the Arab countries expelled Jews does not make expulsion of Arabs by Israel any better.
Yet you decline to characterize that as ethnic cleansing, even though I “brought it up"
This is a lie. You asked if I'd complained about that ethnic cleansing. I replied in the affirmative.
Hamas absolutely represents an existential threat to Israel. They launch rockets at them every single day. Given the opportunity they would slit the throats of every Jew in Israel. And, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about with your accusation that Israel has been ethnically cleansing Palestinians. Yet ethnic cleansing is the explicitly stated goal of Hamas.
The nakba and the ongoing settlement movement are both ethnic cleansing and both part of the historical record. Denying they are ethnic cleansing is contemptible.
Supporting Hamas over Israel is beyond contemptible. It's monstrous and barbaric.
Good thing I didn't do that, then.
As mentioned above, your definition of ethnic cleansing is broad enough to include many things which are far below the level of genocide, or even physical injury to a population, yet also include genocide.
Perhaps you could use a term like “displacement” which is more accurate and less inflammatory. “Forced migration” may be too strong, but is certainly an improvement.
Settler attacks on Palestinians are horrible, and Israeli army responses to Palestinian provocation may be horrible or tragically necessary, depending on specifics. But I don’t think they qualify as ethnic cleansing, even under your definition.
This is not "my" definition of ethnic cleansing. This is THE definition. It's literally what the words mean. If you want to get technical, the UN defines it as "a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas."
Most other definitions you will find are slight variation on this. It's what the words mean.
"Displacement" is a pretty shitty euphemism for "militias rolled in with guns, murdered and burned, and made it clear the murders and burnings would continue unless you all cleared out."
In many cases they do, though. If you attack Palestinians to drive them out of the area so you can build a settlement, that's ethnic cleansing. And you keep saying it's "my" definition. It's not. It's THE definition.
OK.
Please provide examples of your ethnic cleansing. I acknowledge that many of the settlements are not good for anyone, but I would like to see evidence of the actual ""militias rolled in with guns, murdered and burned, and made it clear the murders and burnings would continue unless you all cleared out.” Scale and timeline.
Of course, you are under no obligation to provide it. But I am under no obligation to believe your unsupported opinion. Nor am I obligated to do research on your behalf to support your claim.
It’s possible that in your mind this is obvious and needs no factual support. But I am not in your mind. So please provide support.
On a personal note, there were things I thought were self-evident that, when asked to provide sources, I found I could not. So I changed my mind. I hope you put in the effort to do the same.
The nakba.
This, again, is something that's findable in about five seconds of work with google.
But you maybe want something more modern than the nakba? Cool. How bout this:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/west-bank-palestinian-villages-israeli-army-settlers
Money grafs:
“We have had hard times in the village since the settlers started the Mitarim farm across the valley three years ago. It has been harder to take the sheep out, and the settler young men destroy things like crops, or steal sheep, or call the army to come and harass us. But now they are coming into our homes. My daughters are terrified,” said Amin Hamed al-Hudarat, 41, as he began to cry.
This isn't quite as violent as the nakba, in which the killing and demolishing was far more widespread, but its way more recent and it absolutely falls under the rubric of ethnic cleansing.
The US had every right not to trade its oil to Japan. Japan had no right to respond by launching a war. Once war had been launched, submarine warfare is entirely legitimate.
1. Japan is a much bigger place, and able to supply its own food, water and basic necessities domestically if need be. Gaza is none of these things.
2. Just because somebody did something in the past doesn't mean that standards can't change for future iterations of the same behavior. After all, back during WWII, it was also OK in most of America to beat and rape your wife as well as OK to discriminate against and/or lynch black people for being too uppity as well as OK to strip Asian people of all their property and put them in internment camps, but (thankfully) we have higher standards now. Things change, and pulling examples of acceptable behavior from the past that is unacceptable now isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is.
Japan was not able to supply what it needed domestically.
While the things you list were not as aggressively opposed as they are now, they were not OK. But your point is taken, something being acceptable in the past is not justification for current acceptance.
However, what is just as important as timeframe is context. In the context of an enemy sworn to destroy you by any means, things become acceptable that would otherwise not be. We are fortunate to be unfamiliar with such a context, which makes it easy to judge those who are in that context right now. And if you don’t think Israel is in that context now, please familiarize yourself with Hamas, their resources, their allies, their statements, and their actions.
Hamas does not now, nor ever will, possess the means and resources to destroy Israel. That is part of the context.
Can you prove that, solidly enough that you would put your child somewhere in Israel when Hamas is in power in Gaza?
Does it matter that Hamas can go repeat multiple 9/11s on Israeli civilians, or is the only time Israel can shut down Hamas is if it is in danger of being eliminated?
What about Iran?
And you are assuming that Japan was capable of destroying the US. Which was never really true, and was certainly not true towards the end of the war.
Many Israelis have been endangered for years by Hamas rockets. That does not equal a threat to the existence of the state of Israel. Israel has an air force, armor and artillery; Hamas has crude rockets. No military authority would give Hamas any chance against Israel.
WWII was never justified as an existential necessity for the US; there were American isolationists. I don't believe that the conventions require an existential threat as sole justification for a defensive war.
Would love to hear from Kevin how he expects Israel to attack fighters who are hidden among civilians without killing civilians.
Seems to me that if Israel was bombing indiscriminately they would have killed a lot more Palestinians.
Hamas can have a ceasefire tomorrow. All they need to do is release all hostages and surrender all those who committed crimes related to the Oct 7 pogrom. Until they do so, all pressure for a ceasefire should be on Hamas.
Why is Hamas blocking a ceasefire?
Your position seems to be "Israel's goals justify their methods; if they can't do it without killing enormous numbers of civilians, then that's justified."
If so, that's grotesque. It's also logic that can be easily turned on Israel; if the slaughter of civilians on 10/7 justifies visiting that back on Palestinians civilians tenfold, then logically Palestinians upping the ante again would be justified.
You can't have it both ways.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but by your reasoning, self-defense appears to be unjustifiable, because it will only up the ante.
Clearly the situation in Gaza is more complex than simple self-defense, but that is assuredly at the heart of it.
If Hamas had brutally killed Israeli soldiers who were attacking Gaza, I would not be complaining. But Hamas conducted an offensive campaign against civilians with no military objective. Israel’s response can only be seen as self-defense. We can argue the history, and the scope of the Israeli response, but no amount of oppression justifies what Hamas did.
No. My reasoning does not require this at all.
No. Absolutely not. I reject in its entirety that what Israel is doing can or should be seen as self-defense.
But somehow Hamas' actions justify what Israel does. Again, you cannot have it both ways.
I agree, but do you think they'll listen?
More journalists are writing about what they saw in that presentation of what happened on 10/7, and it is disgusting. One scene included the beheading of a dying man. Others show Hamas dancing and laughing around dead civilians. One Hamas member called his parents after killing some civilians, proud of what he'd done.
If Al Qaeda had done exactly this to Americans on American soil, one can only imagine how grotesque our response would have been. IDK if anyone can convince Israel to pause, let alone stop the blockage of food, water, electricity, and fuel.
They've already reached the sea and have effectively cut off the northern third of the Gaza Strip (on the surface, that is).
Just because Americans would have done (and actually did) something stupid, immoral, and counterproductive doesn't mean I have to support Israel doing something stupid, immoral, and counterproductive.
I could reluctantly support Israel's actions if they were connected to an actual strategy for ending the conflict, but they don't have one. Without it, they are just killing people for the sake of killing them, much like Hamas.
No. Israel is killing Hamas members so Hamas can no longer attack Israel and as part of its efforts to rescue Israeli hostages.
The onus is on Hamas, not Israel, to create conditions under which a ceasefire is possible.
1. Release all hostages
2. Surrender all those who committed crimes related to the Oct 7 pogroms for trial.
Once that is done, Israel would probably agree to a ceasefire.
+1
1: 1967 borders
2: No interference with internal affairs
3: Compensation for all land acquisition and damage dating back to WWI, less counterclaims
Then, perhaps, we’d have justice and peace
I'm not asking anyone to support Israel's actions. I'm asking people to think about why Israel is doing what they're doing, because it's at the very least what we would have done, and like them, we wouldn't stop despite what our allies told us. It's the same for China, Russia, France, or Britain -- we (nations) would all react the same way, despite what we (nations) tell ourselves.
Everything that's happening is in a grey zone.
“… it's at the very least what we would have done,…”
Of course, you’re right. That doesn’t mean that what we would have done and what Israel is doing is right.
It was just four weeks ago. Why would you expect them to have a strategy to end the conflict at this point? Did the US have a strategy to "end the conflict" four weeks after Pearl Harbor?
Then they shouldn't be firing fairly indiscriminately into Gaza. "We're gonna bomb stuff just to bomb it" is indefensible and a waste of materiel. If you're gonna blow stuff up you'd better have a plan and a reason.
What makes you think they are firing indiscriminately?
The apartment buildings and hospitals and vital civilian infrastructure blowing up?
That means they're either firing indiscriminately in the sense of "just lob it in, see where it lands" OR in the sense of "we don't care to make proper distinctions between what should eat a bomb and what shouldn't."
Frankly, them being discriminant would make this so much worse. You get how "no, actually, the missile slammed into that residential block on purpose" is worse, right?
I think every missile they fire is directed at Hamas targets. However, Hamas has chosen to place it's assets and personnel amongst civilians -- in apartments, hospitals, refugee camps, etc. Israel has decided that the value of destroying the target outweighs the collateral damage. I don't take any joy in that and it is a tough decision but I support it after what Hamas did.
Those people are terrible and so are you.
I’m sure your Hamas friends agree with you.
Israel hasn't had a strategy for the last 56 years.
Ditto for their seemingly indiscriminate bombing. It's difficult to know exactly what Israel's goal is here . . .
The reason why it's difficult to know exactly what Israel's goal is here is because Israel has no idea what its goal is here, at least not one that it's willing to say out loud. (A part of the government is saying it out loud: they intend to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank of their Palestinian population and simply annex them. Bibi has the same goal, but would prefer that they stop admitting it in public.)
The Israelis have no plan for what will happen with Gaza in the wake of this invasion.
A) Will they stay and occupy it explicitly, unlike the last 18 years of implicit occupation? They don't want to fight the perpetual guerilla war that would entail, and don't want to be stuck in what is guaranteed to be anarchic and disease ridden cities after the destruction of housing and infrastructure.
B) Will they endeavor to kick the Palestinian population out of Gaza, and shoot them when no other country is willing to accept 2 million refugees? They don't want the PR blowback from that.
C) Will they withdraw back to the borders of Gaza? That would mean either Hamas reconstituting itself or some other, equally hostile group filling the vacuum, and they'd have killed tens of thousands of civilians in order to restore the status quo of September.
D) Will they try to install the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and then withdraw back to the borders? This one is pure fantasy. The PA won't accept that poisoned chalice, and the population of Gaza wouldn't go along with it, since the PA is about the only organization, other than the Israelis, less popular there than is Hamas.
They have no plan. My guess is that they'll end up doing C, with a fig leaf of D. In other words, they'll try kicking the can down the road. Again. And, again, they will find that they are even farther from achieving peace than they were before.
Whether Israel likes it or not, there is no path to peace that does not involve actually engaging the Palestinian population, allowing them to choose legitimate representation, and negotiating with them. They'll have to acknowledge that spending 56 years doing everything possible to avoid this has only served to dig the hole deeper, and make the Palestinians more hostile.
But, that's the only way. They spend decades pretending that they could simply dictate terms to the Palestinians. Eventually, they decided that they needed a corrupt and authoritarian Palestinian organization that they could pretend was the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people no matter how many elections they canceled.
Until Israel figures out a strategy, all of this is killing civilians in order to accomplish nothing.
"A part of the government is saying it out loud: they intend to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank of their Palestinian population and simply annex them. "
You are lying.
No, that is the stated policy preference of both the current Finance Minister and the current Security Minister.
Bullshit.
Link please.
Itamar Ben-Gvir has in fact repeatedly called for the annexation of the West Bank. We shouldn't need to provide you with a link for something you can find in three seconds on Google.
At bare minimum, doing this requires one of three things:
1) The inhabitants of the West Bank being granted full political rights in the country that just annexed them.
2) The maintenance of an apartheid state
3) Ethnic cleansing.
It is theoretically possible he's in favor of the first. Somehow I doubt this.
When you make a claim, in typical discussions it is your responsibility to provide sources when asked.
Otherwise I can claim that Santa Claus is real, and demand that you find the sources to prove me wrong. That would be a waste of your time.
No. I reject this. Readily available information is not subject to this.
"Joe Biden is the President of the United States" or even "Joe Biden said X in a press conference today" should not require a cite. That's information that can be confirmed in three seconds via a google search. If someone asks "who is this 'Joe Biden' guy, prove he is President with a source" the proper response is "go to hell."
There are times when it is appropriate to ask for a source and one is obligated to provide it. "Hey, you said Joe Biden said this today, but I searched on it and can't find anything. Do you have a link?" would be reasonable. I reject that as a general rule, though.
In this specific case, the position of Itamar Ben-Gvir regarding annexation of the West Bank is well-known and well-document, again, available in three seconds via a google search. This isn't something that a demand for "source plz" is reasonable on.
Fine, be obtuse. Here are a few links:
https://www.jpost.com/influencers/50jews-23/article-758788
https://www.timesofisrael.com/well-reassert-ownership-of-this-state-ben-gvir-vows-as-exit-polls-show-big-gains/
You can find plenty of coverage of the views of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in the JPost, Haaretz, Times of Israel.
Please don't feed the troll.
Grin... in short, it's annoying when someone calls out your lies and demands evidence.
Yes, he is lying.
The strategy is clear; tell civilians to evacuate south of Wadi Gaza, clear the north, tell civilians to evacuate north, clear the south, and leave. It’s obvious to see unless you don’t want to see it and would instead prefer to complain that Israel doesn’t have a strategy because it supports your ideas in the war.
That's not a strategy. People keep confusing operations with strategy.
"(A part of the government is saying it out loud: they intend to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank of their Palestinian population and simply annex them.”
Could you please provide a source?
BTW, even if you think someone is a troll, when they do ask a reasonable question, the question should be answered.
Having a plan in place for what to do the day after 10/7 is impossible. If they foresaw the attack they would have stopped it. You're calling for a delayed response to an attack which is similar in effect to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. Add to that there are 100's of hostages and you can see there is no time for sober reflection. There had to be a response. Add to that the years of being targeted by rockets and the constant threats of annihilation by Iran. I think the goal is to make Gaza a wasteland and force Egypt and other countries to accept the refugees. There are no good solutions at this point. Personally, I'd like to see Israel pull back to the 1967 borders and forcibly evict 100% of the settlers from the West Bank. But only if the new State of Palestine is monitored by the UN so that it doesn't turn into another Gaza.
This isn't a question of creating a strategy in a day. Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank in 1967. At no point since then have they had a strategy for how to produce peace.
In the weeks after the 6 Day War, Israel offered to return the land for peace.
The Arab countries responded with the Khartoum Resolution "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it”
As part of the discussion, Jordan offered to take the West Bank with a promise to demilitarize it, but it was rejected by other members.
So they did have a strategy. Trade land for:
-Recognition of Israel
-End of aggression
-Defendable borders for Israel
They did that with Egypt. They did that with Jordan. They are in the process of doing that with other Arab countries.
They are trying to do that with the PA, although I admit Likud is not really trying. I hope that a new government comes out of this that will take it more seriously, but at the same time it is clear that the PA is not a very good partner, for lots of reasons, some beyond their control.
This could work with Gaza as well.
What is Hamas’s strategy?
It takes two parties to agree on a strategy to produce peace. Will Hamas ever agree on such a strategy? Or the Palestinian Authority?
Religion poisons everything.
Many of the anti-Semites we see on US college campuses are almost certainly atheist.
Anti-semitism does not require a religion.
I’ve been debating this topic for three weeks in a variety of forums:
Calls to harm so much as one hair on one Jewish head: Zero
Calls for genocide of the Palestinian people: Hundreds
Not all Arabs think the Palestinians are so terrific, here's a view from a, it seems to me, very conservative Saudi,
https://twitter.com/jess_ih_ka/status/1713608571739353570
Nutpicking
To us, but to Arabs in the Middle East it's the normative state so this kind of argument can be seriously meaningful.
Not at all. Israel's goal is what it's always been: to seize more land and drive off/kill any Palestinians who don't get with the program.
Anyone care to make any bets? No? Thought not.So much for those Israel apologists putting their money where their mouth is.
Which is why Israel withdrew from Gaza?
It was a dastardly plot by those sneaky Jews to give the Palestinians their own state so they would use it as a platform to conduct a pogrom against Jews in Israel so Israel could kick them out and steal their land, right?
Get lost, troll.
Laugh. In short, you have no response because your position is intellectually and morally indefensible.
Yawn. Your rather stinky reputation precedes you, MF.
What is the bet? What are the parameters, time frame, and stakes?
What are you willing to bet on? You've already established yourself as a disreputable, ahistorical, and dishonest partisan who claimed not to know anything about the Zionist movement (that's the problem with people who think others can't remember what was said from thread to thread.) For example, I'm completely willing to bet that when the dust settles _at least_ four times as many Palestininians will have been killed as Israeli's. But I'm going to guess that you won't take me up on it 😉
I am sure that more than four times as many Palestinians will have been killed as Israelis.
In WWII there were over 1 million civilian deaths of Germans due to military activity and crimes against humanity. There were over 500,000 similar deaths in Japan.
There were 12,100 deaths of Americans. What conclusion should we draw about who is right and wrong?
Any other bets you propose?
So, no bet, am I right? Tell me, I'm curious: Why do you think so little of other's good opinion of you? Please please please don't tell me it's because we're not the 'Chosen People' of whatever neolithic 'god' you happen to believe in.
On Edit: I guess you're earlier claim -- based on _your_ definition of genocide -- is also nonoperative, as they say.
I am also confident that will be the case. That is to be expected when Hamas uses civilians as human shields. It is unfortunate but it is Hamas' responsibility, not Israel's.
Israel has accepted a prosed separate Palestinian state five times in the past. Each time the offer was rejected by Arabs. Presumably because it would mean Israel would exist.
None of those offers were just, and few gave them anything that can reasonably be called a "state." Most included things like "we have a veto over your foreign policy" and "we reserve the right to intervene in your internal affairs whenever we like."
Talk to me when Israel accepts "a fully independent and sovereign state along the 1967 borders, and right of return for all those ethnically cleansed during the nakba or their descendants."
None of them included a right of return, which is literally the bare minimum anything remotely resembling justice requires.
As mentioned above, a right of return means the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Is there a right of return for the 800,000 Jews who were expelled or left Arab countries after 1948?
"We wish to maintain an ethnostate, and that requires the maintenance of ethnic cleansing" is not a justifiable stance.
There ought to be. It seems unlikely that most of those states will allow it, but they should absolutely be pressured to do so. Open borders and freedom of movement in general should be the standard, not an exception.
That said, the lack of one doesn't really justify what Israel does or doesn't do, and in general as an American I care somewhat more about Israel because they're a nominal ally who we funnel vast amounts of resources into. I would prefer they either behave better, or that we stop doing that. I have similar feelings regarding Saudi Arabia, with whom we have an absolutely appalling relationship as a nation.
Working to maximize their own civilian casualties has always been a Hamas tactic.
Without that being addressed how do you talk about it? Until this war is finished and the reports about it written we won't really know that they aren't doing the best in the circumstance aside from doing nothing.
If it ending with Hamas still in place is not an option, what then is the option? What's the better plan?
1. Allow all women and children 14 and under to leave Gaza for camps in Egypt.
2. Israel takes custody of all men and boys 15 and over, DNA tests them, tests for explosive residue, matches against pictures and intelligence on Hamas.
3. All Hamas members guilty of crimes are prosecuted.
4. All other Hamas members are imprisoned as POWs until the Israeli-Palestinian War ends with a comprehensive peace treaty accepted by Palestinians as well as Israelis.
5. The women, children, and men who are not affiliated with Hamas are allowed to return to Gaza under Israeli occupation.
Well, ok. For that you need control of Gaza.
Obviously. That is a necessary result of Oct 7.
“ Working to maximize their own civilian casualties has always been a Hamas tactic.”
This Hamas official agrees with your assessment:
‘The blood of the women, children, and elderly...we are the ones who need this blood so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit...So it pushes us to move forward."
Ismail Haniyeh
To play your own cutesy little games against you, where in that quote does it say anything about maximizing Palestinian casualties?
“We are the ones who need this blood”
In general, one seeks to maximize what one needs, at least until the needs are met.
IOW, a) There is nothing in the quote that speaks to this, b) You have no problems with making up facts out of whole cloth, and c) You'll be damned if you ever admit to making a mistake.
Not a good look for you, son. And in any event, why people here who actually, you know, look stuff up before shooting their mouths off think of you as an intellectual and moral lightweight.
Interesting ad hominem attack.
Kindly supply the list of people who think of me as an "intellectual and moral lightweight”
Once that list is provided, demonstrate that they agree with that assessment.
Until then, I will not pretend to know how other people will judge you. They can read your posts, and my response, and decide for themselves.
👍👍👍
Interesting way of refuting my points a), b), and c). I mean, your approach was ineffectual. But it was interesting. Care to address those please?
I will happily address your points a), b) and c), while pointing out to any interested reader that you completely failed to support anything you said about me.
a) I think it is clear that when someone says they need something, they will try to maximize it. If you don’t understand that, I can’t really make it any simpler.
b)Provide facts I made up out of whole cloth. See above for details.
c)I admitted I made a mistake just recently.
I had said that regular fuel was used to fuel rockets that Hamas was firing. Someone corrected me, and I acknowledged my error. I had made that statement several times, and have not gone back to correct them all, but let this serve as a blanket retraction.
Still waiting for the data to back up your claims.
So if I needhe paperclips, I will buy 1,000,000 of them. Or more. Because maximizing them. So, there goes your refutation of a), b), and c) and I didn't even have to address the last two explicitly.
This is getting ridicuculous, even worse than your idiosyncratic definition of 'ethnic cleansing'. Which, looking up above you still haven't copped to either.
I notice a pattern here: You like to distract by arguing over definitions of words, declaring various things are 'obvious' by fiat, etc. Why, it's almost as if you know you're wrong but don't give a damn 😉
This is a very difficult situation to comment on. No one will be completely satisfied with any statement that anyone puts out there. But, on the whole, Kevin seems to do about as fair a job as anyone.
The progressive Left, on the other hand, has lost me after the Hamas attack on 10/7/23. I agree with the Philly Enquirer ("What Hamas did cannot be excused") when it states that what we've seen from campus leftists, BLM activists, and others of their ilk is an ongoing and "methodical endorsement of murder." Count me out.
Please do not paint the entire progressive left with the same brush.
There were some groups on campuses, and for the most part they were shamed into retractions or at least silence.
There was one, maybe two BLM branches that posted in favor of Hamas, but then retracted. The closest thing there is to a national BLM disavowed the branches that supported Hamas.
Fine. If everyone agrees to not paint all republicans with same brush as Donald Trump.
I certainly do not paint all Republicans with the same brush. Any Republican who denounces Trump is fine with me. Republicans who stay silent, yet continue to be in a party led exclusively by Trump apologists are not OK.
Thanks. And, even though I replied to your comment, the message wasn't directed at you personally. Based on your thoughtful comments, I fully believe you do not paint everyone with such broad strokes.
@Steve C:
If you’re arguing for nuance, you are more or less by definition no longer a progressive (assuming you ever were). Congratulations, and welcome (back) to the world of sanity.
You may not have left the progressives, but they have certainly left you. All of this was increasingly clear in recent years, but after 10/7 it’s time to stop making excuses or ignoring facts.
The lunatics posting images of paragliders (in support of Hamas) and/or tearing down posters of victims kidnapped on 10/7 may very well be entitled to their free speech;
But, they most certainly are no longer entitled to any benefit of the doubt.
Am I speaking in the same black and white terms I argue against. No, the world is indeed full of ambiguity. All I’m saying is that none of that ambiguity is embraced by so-called progressives. That’s the only explanation for how they can look at a complex topic like Israel and reduce it to “racist oppressor.”
We do indeed need to keep thinking critically. And I’m doing so we will no longer belong to the “progressive “movement.
Nonsense.
@KenSchulz:
In the past I would’ve let your comment go as a simple difference of opinions; but, sorry, not anymore, not on this issue.
Because there comes a time when a movement discredits itself so thoroughly that it needs to be loudly and consistently called out for the dangerous cult it has become. And that is the way we now need to treat the progressive Left.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, as best as I am aware, still hasn’t corrected her earlier claims that Israel was guilty of murdering hundreds of patients and civilians at a hospital that was in fact hit by Palestinians. That incorrect claim had world-wide repercussions. International meetings were canceled. Israeli embassies were attacked. Riots were inflamed. And she’s just one example of the reckless mindset motivating progressives from campuses to city streets to openly mock, revile, and threaten Jews.
Modern Progressivism, as I understand it, ideally advocates for major if not revolutionary change in order to bring about what it considers to be a fairer society. But there’s always a risk in that kind of hastiness and certainty. It can breed tribalism and narrow-mindedness.
And that is exactly what has happened. With the Hamas slaughter and capture of thousands of innocents on 10/7, the mask slipped off modern progressivism revealing it to be a fanatical movement. I will no longer put up with any defenses of the progressive Left. They are even more dangerous, impulsive, and misguided than I ever anticipated.
I am in complete agreement that progressives need to be condemned in the same manner that the white nationalists were condemned after they marched on Charlottesville chanting that “Jews will not replace us.” Progressives cannot hide behind a mask of anti-zionism any longer. Not while they’re ripping down posters of missing Jewish children. They are free to spout the bile in this country, but they should face consequences and scorn and rebuke.
Rashida Taliban is one person. The Congressional Progressive caucus has over 100 members. Seven percent of registered voters — about 12 million Americans — identify as Progressive Left: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/progressive-left/
We don’t all have exactly the same views on every possible issue.
You gonna need a really big brush to tar us all with.
@KenSchulz:
Sorry, but you’re in denial. And I for one will not put up with it anymore. Fortunately, I’m not alone. Check out the LA Times, “A divide over the Israel-Hamas war flares at UC Berkeley Law.” From that article:
“Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar who is Jewish, published an op-ed of his own in the Los Angeles Times. He described antisemitic remarks directed at him since the war started, as well as statements from students and academics around the country that he said “celebrated the Hamas terrorist attack.”
“There has been enough silence and enough tolerance of antisemitism on college campuses,” he wrote. “I call on my fellow university administrators to speak out and denounce the celebrations of Hamas and the blatant antisemitism that is being voiced.””
We continue to tolerate the fanatic hatred of progressives at our own grave risk. It is time to call them out for the fundamentalists that they are. No more equivocations. No more excuses.
You're right, I'm in denial. I deny that more than a tiny minority of progressives minimize the crimes of Hamas. Your anecdotes are not data. And you are a damned hypocrite, claiming to be 'nuanced' when you are stereotyping millions of people on the basis of handfuls of misguided fools, not all of which may even claim the progressive label.
@KenSchulz:
You can hurl ad hominem responses at me if you want, that is after all a very “progressive” thing to do.
But ad hominem falls especially flat against someone who is insisting on a recognition of the blindingly obvious reality that only hardcore partisans could possibly ignore.
And I ask you to please stop shielding hate speech, bigotry, and violence simply because it’s originating from your own tribe.
If we hold everyone to the same standards regardless of their immutable traits or political affiliations (as we must do if our democratic republic is to survive), then the post 10/7 behavior of progressives must be swiftly, repeatedly, unhesitatingly, and unreservedly condemned.
Your deliberate misstatements of my positions are not worthy of a response.
But I must correct you on a different point: calling you a ‘damned hypocrite’ is not an ad hominem, because it was not offered as an argument. (Fallacies are substitutes for proper argument) It was an insult, pure and simple.
*We do indeed need to keep thinking critically. And IN SO DOING we will no longer belong to the “progressive” movement.*
That’s what it was supposed to say. Sorry, it can be difficult to spot all these device-induced typos when the phone you’re typing on keeps “helping” you by changing your own words against your will 😐
I don't know why we should trust your opinion when you can't even spell "left" correctly.
Serious question - do you judge the value of informational sources purely on their spelling?
I would say that if someone can't consistently spell something right, or uses a deliberate misspelling, that's absolutely a black mark against their taken seriously. It is of course not the only measure; sometimes people screw up spelling by mistake or make a typo. But demonstrating that you know what something is called properly tends to be a precursor for having other accurate knowledge about it.
I similarly don't take people who spell it "Democrat Party" very seriously. Or spell left "Left" or antifa as "Antifa." Those misspellings are usually deliberate and often betray either ignorance or malice.
FYI, OED spells it Antifa, and Collins dictionary has an example of the word used in a sentence, and it is capitalized, even though it is not the first word. I can provide links upon request.
Oh? So can I, and it doesn't capitalize it, quite properly too, because it isn't a proper noun.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/antifa
I missed the part where Hamad is part of the Gaza government. Oh, right, because he isn't.
Galit Distel-Atbaryan is, and she called for "Gaza to be wiped off the face of the earth."
Moshe Feiglin, a former right-wing MP, told Al Jazeera the only solution is the “complete destruction of Gaza … destruction like in Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon”.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called for denying Palestinian people electricity, food, water and fuel as Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza; calls them "human animals."
In the Hamas official pronouncement of October 7, they are clear: ""Security, stability and peace in our region can be attained by ending the Israeli occupation of the land of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the 1967 lines, and recognizing the people's right to independence and sovereignty.""
Everyone else's pronouncement on October 7 is equally clear.
"Security, stability and peace in our region can be attained by killing the Hamas leadership and most of its fighters, imprisoning all other members, and destroying Hamas's military capabilities."
It seems we are at an impasse.
That statement is, of course, wrong.
Hamad is part of Hamas leadership, and Hamas is the government of Gaza.
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-ghazi-hamad-israel-gaza-hezbollah-iran-ee10f09cf1ffe34ab68cff7987b49f53
Galit Distel-Atbaryan is repulsive. She is a single member of the Israeli Parliament.
Moshe Feiglin is a *former* MP, also repulsive.
You are misquoting Gallant, as most do. He called the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attack animals.
As far as electricity, food, water and fuel - Hamas uses those first. The fuel will be put in rockets to kill Israelis. I am not saying withholding those is clearly right. I am saying don’t ignore those factors when you make a claim.
Oh, and this.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/hamas-hoarding-vast-amounts-fuel-gaza-hospitals-run-low-us-officials-s-rcna122977
https://archive.ph/ET3Pd
Finally, do you have a source for the Hamas quote? Do you believe it is sincere?
The question is, do we believe that _you_ are sincere? Since you can't admit to what are, after all, historical facts, I'd say no. You have, unfortunately for your credibility, gained something of a reputation as a zealot. I'm sorry you're going to leave this world thinking that sometimes, truth is a necessary casualty for your side to succeed, but then again, there's nothing I can say or do that would say true believers of your particular stripe.
Please list the historical facts I can’t admit to, and we can discuss them. Please verify they are really facts, supported by sources.
If you do not list specifics, with links to exactly what I said, then I think all reasonable readers will agree that my credibility and reputation are just fine.
ScentOfViolets never argues in good faith, so you shouldn't bother replying to him/her.
Who knows, maybe I did deny something somewhere. If that is pointed out with supporting facts, I am happy to update my views.
But if there are no specifics, no links, then everyone here knows what the reality is, and who is credible.
From previous posts:
and
And so on and so forth.
Your turn to provide a link for your assertion that (diesel) fuel for generators can be used in solid-fuel Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets.
I responded to that in another sub-thread. I acknowledge that the rockets do not use regular fuel, and thanked you (was it you?) for the correction.
However, lots of other Hamas equipment uses fuel, for example driving the rockets to their firing locations in hospitals and apartment buildings. So not a direct use in rockets, but the general point stands.
OK, just saw your earlier retraction. Was in a thread that included ScentofViolets, which I had skipped because SoV is so frequently irrational and abusive. Didn't mean to browbeat you.
(Rolls eyes.) Or maybe thirty-odd years of teaching has left me a lot more sensititve to bad-faith bullshit and a lot less tolerant of abuse. Do deny there are commentors here who habitually argue in bad faith? In fact you said of Steve C:
Do you have any doubt at all that this individual is arguing in bad faith?
I disagree in part with Steve C., but he does not deliberately misread responses to his comments, does not deflect, and has not used fallacious arguments. He accepted correction in the matter of rocket propellants. I think that is sufficient evidence that he comments in good faith. I think he was being obtuse for insisting on being provided links, which he had never himself done before that exchange. I said precisely what I meant.
Leo1008 deliberately misreads comments and pretends to be things he is not. That is bad faith. Though Leo may be a chatbot, for all I know.
I believe you, dear SoV, comment generally in good faith, and I’ve agreed with your views on a number of occasions. I’ve also had disagreements, and I find you rather thin-skinned and prone to occasional name-calling. Stick around, but more discussion, less dyspepsia, please.
Since mutual assured destruction seems to be on the table as a strategy, I'm content to stand by and watch it happen. It's not like they care what Mr. Drum thinks anyway. This conflict is no different than any other. When they get tired of fighting they will stop. They will never get tired of hating each other.
From what I've read Hamas has vast stockpiles of supplies built up over years in preparation for this, so it's really only or at least mainly the civilians that are hurt by it.
So the government of Gaza has humanitarian supplies that it is withholding from their own population. Yet some blame Israel for not providing those same supplies to the country that invaded them.
When Hamas is out of supplies because they gave them all to civilians, then Israel has an obligation to start providing them to Palestinians, but only to the exent that they are sure it will not go to Hamas. You can not ask Israel to provide fuel that will be put in rockets that will be fired at their civilian population.
Strictly speaking, Gaza is not a country.
I support the Biden Administration's proposal for humanitarian pauses to provide relief to civilians. That would put Hamas on the spot, at the least.
"It's difficult to know exactly what Israel's goal is here"
Kevin....this should be obvious, if you take any time to dig beneath western media's front pages.
Israel's goal is simple and has existed for decades (Zionism). To create a singular ethno-state centered on Jews (specifically white) and no others. To that end, indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians is an acceptable action. Everything else is noise or a distraction.
Of course. This is obvious. Why would anyone think any differently?
Huh. white Jews and “no others" So the Arab members of the Israeli parliament, and the Arab head of the largest Israeli bank -how do they fit in with your claim?
How about the 61% of Jews in Israel who are from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, i.e. not white?
Read up on how they initially kept Ethiopian Jews who migrated to Israel infertile by administering birth control without their knowledge. Or I think it was Yemeni children taken from their parents to be raised by others.
Source?
Does that make the entire country for its entire history only for white Jews, despite 61% not being white?
I’m not saying there are no racist Israelis. I am pushing back on your claim that the country is racist.
haaretz.com/israel-news/2013-01-27/ty-article/.premium/ethiopians-fooled-into-birth-control/0000017f-f512-d044-adff-f7fb92c30000
nytimes.com/2019/02/20/world/middleeast/israel-yemenite-children-affair.html
Links blocked. Add the www.
It wasn't really that hard to look up. And of course not everyone thinks that way. Anyways, this is a sidetrack from the ethnic cleansing run by the state.
There should be just as much (if not more) pressure on Hamas to unconditionally surrender as there is on Israel to implement a cease fire.
"Israel is badly in the wrong to have cut off supplies to Gaza. Regardless of how loathsome Hamas is, civilians should have access to food, water, power, and medicine at a bare minimum. I think we all understand that providing this stuff means that Hamas will have access to it as well, but that's hardly a conundrum unique to this war.”
As mentioned above, Gaza has supplies.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/hamas-hoarding-vast-amounts-fuel-gaza-hospitals-run-low-us-officials-s-rcna122977
https://archive.ph/ET3Pd
Hamas is hoarding them. If Israel supplies fuel, Hamas will put it in rockets and launch them at Israeli civilians. Do you still require Israel to provide fuel?
"Ditto for their seemingly indiscriminate bombing. It's difficult to know exactly what Israel's goal is here, but they've certainly given every impression of, at the least, not caring much about civilian casualties. That's got to end.”
If anyone can provide objective evidence that the bombing is indiscriminate, please provide it. However, if Hamas leadership and weapons is centered in a refugee camp, it is not indiscriminate to bomb the portions of the camp where those military targets are located. We can agree that the loss of life is horrific, and debate the exact parameters of how much damage is too much, and who bears responsibility, but it is not indiscriminate bombing.
The enormous number of civilian deaths is proof enough of this.
As mentioned, if the enormous number of civilian deaths is due to Israel taking out a military target that is intentionally imbedded in a refugee camp, then the bombing is not indiscriminate.
Also, the deaths tolls, and the description of how many are civilians, are to the best of my knowledge provided by Hamas. If someone has recent numbers from more reliable sources, I would believe them.
And any death of civilians is a tragedy. But when you start a war, that is what happens. As I mentioned above, 1 million German and 500,000 Japanese civilians died from military activity, and only 12,100 American civilians died. Does that mean America was wrong?
It's due to a hell of a lot more than that. And no, you are, again, wrong. "Indiscriminate" does not just mean "we're lobbing bombs every which way." It also means "not discriminating properly."
A lot of what America did during WWII would in fact be classified as a war crime under both modern laws of war and modern morality.
"It's due to a hell of a lot more than that. “
Can you be more specific than a general ambiguous opinion?
Facts, sources, reasoning?
Can you point to specific illegality that you have evidence Israel has committed?
I’m not trying to be obnoxious here. I am trying to determine facts.
Not indiscriminate, but arguably disproportionate. Proportionality is a principle in the laws and conventions of warfare.
Well, I am an American who believes that WWII was necessary, but the fire-bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were unjustified. I hope for a peaceful future, but it's going to be a long haul.
No, it is not. Not when Hamas purposely puts it's people, supplies and weapons amongst Palestinian civilians.
This is a monstrous and ghoulish position.
Destroying the defensive leadership of Gazans requires destroying the genocidal leadership of Israel. Likud's ethnic nationalist ideology has created a society of terror for the Palestinians. The response was Hamas. The response to the terror of the Nazi camps was the kapo. The kapos now lead Israel and have released the demons they brought with them from Europe.
If history tells us anything, it is that humans are by nature barely accepting of one another, and it takes an amazing amount of work to achieve peace. War and violence are the starting point.
As a thought experiment, it occurred to me that what is going on in Israel is what would have happened from, say, 1875 onward if the US Native American population had been funded by Britain, France, Canada and Mexico with weapons to continue their struggle against the US government. US treatment of Native Americans was bad enough as it was.
As Kevin pointed out yesterday, Isralies are currently on a four war or so winning streak. Unlike the Native Americans, who eventually agreed that they have lost, certain factions of the Palestinians have treated this as a war since 1948.
It will continue until either Israel manages to lose from its current winning position, which I do not see happening, or Hamas, Hezbollah, and whatever other factions of Palestinians who are continuing the war against Israel decide to accept defeat.
Since Hamas, Hezgollah, and these other factions have zero intention of that the war, tragically, will continue.
I find discussions like this very depressing. There is one intellectual answer to the middle east, and one actual answer. The intellectual answer is enacting a two state solution next week. Which is not happening on either side. The practical answer is Palestinians accept an unconditional surrender akin to Germany's in 1945. Which is also not happening.
So we get to just observe a war. I didn't even get to the point that ethnic and religious conflict in the Middle East is measured in thousands of years. Its only been shy of 80 years since 1948. This one is just getting started by Middle East conflict measurment.
Native Americans have full political rights and freedom of movement within the United States of America. Call me when Israel puts a similar deal on the table for the Palestinians.
I would imagine, and I admit I am not looking up a source, that for a good many years Native Americans absolutely did not have full political rights or freedom of movement. Since African Americans barely have those rights now I think its a good speculation.
As long as I am speculating, I would speculate that given human nature, nothing more, especially after this latest attack. So here is some sort of a ten year list:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/major-palestinian-terror-attacks-since-oslo
I don't have time to find them since 2005, but I don't think there was a gap with zero violence from 2005 until October of 2023.
Actually here is another list:
https://www.gov.il/en/departments/general/wave-of-terror-october-2015
If you think the first list is depressing, note that this list is in the HUNDREDS PER MONTH.
Maybe these lists are wrong, I am sure there is another list of violent actions by Israel against Palestinians.
Anyway, there is already pressure on Israel to give Palestinians all of these rights. If the Palestinians could manage, oh, let's say 20 years with zero violence the pressure on Israel would be overwhelming.
Might only take ten years. Ten years if there are no spokesman of any kinds who talk about "eliminating Israel."
But its depressing because this is not an argument. Its not happening. For too many the creation of Israel itself is still an open question.
If thugs from another neighborhood commit heinous crimes in mine, here's hoping my neighboorhood, to "get at them", will not kill thousands of kids in theirs. What's happening in Gaza is beyond the disproportionate response we are used to from Israel.
What's more, Israel - or rather Netanyahu - is responsible for creating a situation wherein Palestinians themselves cannot rein in Hamas. His strategy as formulated before the Likud by himself, was to ensure, through Hamas' strength, that Gaza and the West Bank would be split apart. But Hamas came to power through violence, against fellow Palestinians, against PLO members they blindfolded and shot in public. Already then in 2007 we knew who they were, at least the military branch which runs the show.
To the question "how else to destroy Hamas" I thus answer "why, Bibi, did you do everything to prevent Palestinians themselves from doing so?" What Israel must do is show Netanyahu and his policies the door and allow Palestinians to establish law and order for a change, and yes, that requires West Bank-Gaza unified government.
Evil doesn't stop being evil just because you're at war.
Granted but I'm also reminded of the line Denzel Washington said in the movie Crimson Tide "The true enemy in war is war itself."
If we're talking about the "rules of war" then what do you do when one side refuses to play by them, Hmmm? Hamas uses hospitals, public buildings and apartment blocks as stations for their soldiers, so Israel can't attack them without incurring civilian casualties with all the smart bombs in the world, especially when Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth! That the point. What Hamas wants is an Israeli attack so severe that public opinion either forces them to stop or the Arab word (in particular Egypt) causes a revolts which forces their governments to act against Israel. So Hamas launches a vicious attack, not just a few rockets here and there but coordinated military complete with brutal civilian casualties on the Israeli side but here we are talking about Israel being the "aggressor". Talk about jujitsu. Let's face it Hamas is playing by its own rules.
This does not excuse the Israeli government for their own failures in policy which helped to create this situation in the first place (which is why Netanyahu needs to go) but for the present, what can they do hmm? I would hope this bombing is part of a coordinated plan to destroy Hamas and not just a wild retaliation that solves nothing. Unfortunately we're going to have to wait and see and unfortunately people are going to die in the process. The U.S government, the EU, Arab governments others can urge restraint, but come on, is that even realistic? If you had family, or knew someone in those towns Hamas attacked how would you react?
The bottom line is is you really want to stop evil, don't go to war or better yet, don't have war forced upon you.
You keep abiding by them. This is not a hard question. A lot of people really want the answer to be "if they do war crimes WE get to do war crimes." Those people are moral degenerates.
"What Hamas wants is an Israeli attack so severe that..." Agreed, but why is Israel giving it what it wants?
As for Hamas creating stations in civilians areas, duh. There is no other place in Gaza except if you want to create a base on the beach with a big sign on it and be bombed to death within five minutes.
Israel is not giving Hamas what it wants.
8000 dead (as reported by Hamas) is a terrible tragedy. If Israel gave Hamas what it wants, it could have been 80,000 in one day.
Again, not condoning any civilian death, but in the scheme of things, this is relatively controlled.
See Battle of Jenin (2002).
I doubt Hamas had a numeric target. What it wants is to turn international attention to the actions of Israel, rather than its own atrocities. In this it has had some success.
I am taking a break, so any lack of response to the dozens of conversations I was in does not mean I don't have an adequate reply. It means I am taking a break.
As mentioned above, I acknowledge my error in saying that regular fuel is used in Hamas rockets. it is not. Fuel is merely used to drive the rockets and their launchers around, and help keep Hamas safe in their tunnels.
Thanks to those who argued in good faith, even though they disagree. And for the others, knock yourself out with the ad hominem attacks on me in my absence.
I commend your evenness of temper during an often-heated discussion (to understate). Also, kudos to all who have argued responsibly, and listened to arguments from opponents.
Hear, hear.