I’m fucking ashamed of my country for supporting Israel. They seem like evil bastards at this point, just committing wholesale genocide and for what?
Hamas killed 1200 with about 500 to 600 civilian deaths so Israel kills over 21000 with of 19000 civilian deaths with 8000 being children . I really hope america finds someone else to elect president other than Biden who wants to send more weapons to Israel or Trump who is facing 90 criminal charges. There has to be a better option right ? I wouldn't be able to bring myself to vote for either one of those people .
Trump would also send more weapons. Dont forget he supported the settlements and moved the embassy
It is a real shame as the USA has had opportunity after opportunity to be a global leader, yet they seem to a) ignore their own people’s wishes and b) favor the industrial military complex to the point that it is undermining everything including their own regime. The shortsightedness is so foolish. I say this as a Canadian who loves America but am seeing a serious decline which Canada seems to also be following. The people are not being represented yet we are constantly told we should be grateful that we have such a great democracy. I feel delusional and deeply concerned.
The US definitely do not have a great democracy, if you can even call it that
The political form of our economic system. Military industrial complex is what defines foreign policy based on the exploitation of other country's resources on behalf of private companies. This is where the money that funds politics comes from. Politics no longer determine this economic arrangement because both parties consent to it.
The people are being represented in some ways and it’s more complex than “don’t send weapons.” Most likely polling for Biden team is showing that swing states have voters who support the Israeli military and so throwing their support behind it benefits them. Plus it helps a geopolitical ally of ours. Whether it’s the right thing or not isn’t my point, simply that there’s more to this and that technically by some polls it is widely supported. Other polls have it not as supported, but I’d bank on the Biden team knowing where to throw weight and where to give in.
Suggesting there's a better option breaks American's brains.
Well except the part where we're on the brink of fascism and not voting will get Trump elected, which is completely idiotic to toy with
So, in that case, backing genocide was completely fucking idiotic to toy with.
Harm reduction arguments stop working when the harm reduction side STILL fucking backs genocide.
If that is the best we can do, and you expect me to be complicit with genocide by voting for someone who could stop it with one phone call but hasn't, then maybe the system needs to break.
If you want to preserve it this system through genocide and ethnic cleansing, then that says something about your moral code, or lack thereof.
Trump governed like a milquetoast Republican and Democrats haven't even tried to undo any of his legislative victories. They even committed more money to completing Trump's stupid wall.
The difference is that he didn't accept the peaceful transition of power at all. And they're at it again with their new Project 2025, they're aiming for fascism.
Project 2025 is a new iteration of something latent in your political system, Reagan was the first to explicitly reference unitary executive theory in signing statements which Bush Jr. also did.
Ultimately your founders didn't define what the office of the president really means, and presidents have explored and pushed this position to the limits it exists as today. Trump maybe will succeed in finally exposing the critical faults that lie in the country's founding notions.
My whole life since Reagan Democrats have been appealing to the idea that "this is the last chance" for democracy in the US in order to double-down on the consenting arrangement that has only spiraled further to the right, resulting in the current situation. Maybe it's been true this whole time, but this "just vote Dem so we can fix it later" thing is clearly just making it worse, else you wouldn't be in this situation.
Until Dems unite behind ranked choice voting and well-designed non-partisan redistricting, DESPITE the fact that they might lose seats to rando third party candidates, nothing will change. I wish the American populous of all political stripes knew about these necessary reforms and were willing to loudly fight for them. It would change the USA as we know it.
Electing Biden in 2020 didn’t stop them. We’re closer to fascist dictatorship than ever. What will electing Biden this time around do to stop them, so that we’re not on the precipice again in 2028, if not earlier?
It at least delays it. And the alternative is voting for Trump.
Similar to leaping out of the window of a burning building, I guess, a chance to figure out a way to survive on the way down instead of burning up?
Delayed fascism that requires voting for someone who could stop genocide and ethnic cleansing with one phone call but doesn't isn't delayed fascism.
I mean, it is. Democracies can do genocides without being fascist. It's not great, but it's true. The alternative is Trump, who probably wouldn't even be making lip service to a ceasefire or mentioning the West Bank settlements like Biden has.
Who do you want to elect then? A third party that can't mathematically get elected?
Here's the thing: We had to hold our noses and vote for Biden in 2020 to stop the fascists, yet they have advanced anyway. So we hold our noses and vote Biden again in 2024, and...
...what? The fascists decide it's taken too long, and give up? Or does their movement continue to fester, and make gains in statehouses. It feels like the choice is between an autocratic President in 2025, or an autocratic President in 2029 when democratic norms are weaker.
And no, I don't have a solution.
Democrats haven't even tried to undo any of his legislative victories.
Except they have, did and are doing.
They even committed more money to completing Trump's stupid wall.
Lie. They stopped completing the stupid wall. (But they didn't break contracts which were already done and paid for).
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/us/border-wall-biden.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67015137
Except they have, did and are doing.
I'm some cases they're even doubling down on Trump's policies. The Trump Tariffs, which the WTO ruled against in 2022, Biden condemned the WTO in response: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/09/wto-ruling-trump-tariffs-violate-rules-00073282
[Here's some of what Biden has reversed](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/05/14/executive-order-on-the-revocation-of-certain-presidential-actions-and-technical-amendment/#:~:text=The%20following%20Presidential%20actions%20are,3%2C%202020%20(Building%20and%20Rebuilding)
Have you read those executive orders? They're basically all cultural war pandering from Trump. Undoing legislation takes political action not just signing executive orders away. What do you think about Biden explicitly supporting Trump's legislation that does have a major impact like the Trump Tariffs?
Because that's not how it works.
It's too late for Dems to field an alternative that doesn't just play spoiler and get Trump elected. And barring some massive turn of events, the spell Trump has on the GOP isn't going to break. Americans need to game it out long term and think strategically about who will be more likely to lead to the kind of change you'd like to see. Even if you think Biden won't do any of the things you want to see happen, at least there will be room to talk about it under him. A second Trump presidency will again smother outside opinions under a cloud of chaos and cruelty and incompetence. If you like the abiity to protest - remember how it was dealt with under Trump. Which means for anyone with a shred of humanity - plug your nose if you have to and vote Biden.
It's only too late because Americans' brains are broken.
Good take--hate on Americans while ignoring the Americans correctly explaining to you how the American electoral system is broken. Spend more time telling Americans that want viable third parties that they need to also support ranked-choice voting, and less time casting shade. If there's any truth in your words, its simply that people need to know that having viable third parties REQUIRES ranked choice voting. I'm terrified that the US "No Labels" party will hand the election to Trump, because under the current system, ANY third party is an election spoiler.
There isn't only 2 options. It's insane that you keep voting for the same 2 corrupt useless parties when you have several others to choose from. And if everyone keeps saying "but they'll never make it" they actually won't. Only if you start voting for them the 2 party system can be abolished.
As a staunch Bernie supporter, I've accepted that America is currently too broken to consider alternatives. We are on the brink of full collapse of our entire democratic system and have already been through an insurrection that a large percentage of the population is perfectly okay with. We're heading toward full blow autocracy with another greedy Putin / Xi at the helm which will threaten the entire world so cut us some slack if we need to be pragmatic for the time being.
My only hope in the US right now as a socialist, is that the current neoliberal death spiral between the two consenting parties will eventually lead to people saying enough is enough in a meaningful political way, that combined with labor organizing. Every use of the word "realistic" to bolster the current arrangement of the parties is evidence they're still comfortable with it in some manner and believe in it, that they still consent to this "reality." The continued erosion of the social contract will change this over time, then they'll either turn their dissatisfaction towards an internalized "other," or they will choose the solidarity option and throw the bosses of their backs.
Accepting things are bad and displaying how this affects you to others is the bare minimum to even begin to organize against this system. Any time a Democrat supporter tries to do the "realistic" or "clearly better but not good" thing they're rationalizing and regulating what should be a display of revulsion.
It is insane, but again, we have to be realistic about how things work. The system is literally slanted to emphasize two parties. If we had something like ranked choice voting then at least we could start to support third options. But the way it works now, unfortunately, a vote for a third party is as good as a vote for the candidate you hate the most.
The problem is mathematical.
To win the presidential election, you need to win a majority of the vote in enough states to win a majority of electoral college votes.
If no-one gets 270 electoral votes, then the House of Representatives meets. Each state delegation gets 1 vote. Right now, that means that the Republican wins, due to e.g. Wyoming and Alaska getting just as much of a vote as NY and California, and Republican gerrymandering of swing states.
There's literally no way for third party candidates to be elected president. The best that a third party has ever done was in 1860, a 4 way race between a Democrat, Republican, Southern Democrat, and Constitutional Unionist.
Lincoln, the Republican, got 39.8% of the vote but won 18 states and 180 electoral votes. The Democrat, Douglass, got 29.5% of the vote but only won a single state. Breckenridge got only 18.1% of the vote but carried most of the southern states. And Bell got 12.6% of the vote and carried 3 states - Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
So Douglas ended up with more than twice as many actual votes as Bell, but got over 3x the electoral vote. And Breckenridge only got less than half as many electoral college votes that he'd need to win, and could realistically have only picked up Bell's.
The last time a third party candidate won a single electoral college vote was in 1968, when George Wallace won Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. He was the former governor of Alabama, and had left the Democratic party after the 1964 civil rights law and 1965 voting rights law were passed by Johnson.
The Democrats are also more of a big tent than most parties in counties using party list PR would be. In Italy, AOC and Manchin wouldn't be in the same party, while in the US they basically have to be to win.
The two party system exists for structural reasons. Plurality only works well in two candidate elections; third parties only do well in districts where they functionally replace a major party. Getting rid of the two party system is possible by changing the structure - switching to e.g. STAR voting in the senate and presidency and using e.g. MMP or STV in the House. But burying your head in the sand to pretend the structural issues don't exist just doesn't work.
Thanks for taking the time to write this comment. It is a pleasure to read informed and educational comments.
There isn’t right now, unfortunately.
That's the consensus reality you've accepted yes, it's also what got you to this situation and what will keep you on this downward spiral, until the social contract erodes to the point enough people lose faith in this consensus reality.
So tell us, who's the better option that actually exists and is running and will have the dnc allow them to run?
You're not convincing the entire country to suddenly vote 3rd party in under a year...
Oh I wouldn't bet a dollar on being able to convince Americans they have other options, despite them having a system where basically anyone can run for office. They're completely enraptured with the consensus reality you express here and the political system is designed to keep them engaged in it. Only when you lose faith in this reality will anything change, the material conditions of your life will convince you.
I think a rather large portion of the population has lost faith in the system, the fact that we all feel like the only thing we're voting for is "not the handmaid's tale" as opposed to voting for something speaks volumes. A vote for Democrats today is simply a vote for "Not the Republicans." We have nothing to vote for and not an insignificant number of us realize that.
We don't have real options because even though there are other parties we have an entire society built to prevent that, everything from the political parties themselves to the media that keeps the population mislead/underinformed. Our entire society is built to protect the status quo for the wealthy.
I wish all it took was being jaded, we're well ahead on that one. I think it's why Trump even exists as a political entity at all, the Republican voters have also given up on the system. I think the problem shows the difference in how we choose to "solve" the issue. "Conservatives," completely going against their name, want to burn it all to the ground via Trump and start "new." Democrats seem to believe in some aspects of the system and want to rebuild from within the current structure. The political structures of RNC & DNC obviously want nothing but the status quo.
This all makes a lot of sense. I view the Republicans and Democrats as different aesthetics of the consenting neoliberal economic arrangement, and agree with a notion of post-politics to describe this situation, where politics becomes increasingly engaged in cultural issues since your arrangement in the political economy is no longer up for debate. The neoliberal system is what's in crisis and is basically running on fumes at this point, no longer sincerely believed in by determining actors within it. As the systemic stresses of degrading neoliberal capitalism turn inward it manifests in different ways politically. Trump doesn't happen from nothing, there are real systemic anxieties underlying that, the problem for Democrats is any serious acceptance and solution of those anxieties is in conflict with the forces that keep them legitimate. The Republicans accept the brutality of the system as necessary and the Democrats try and put a good brand on it.
To suggest options exist without laying them out suggests your ignorance of reality might be greater than the Americans. How would a people trapped in an externally imposed set of political constraints be able to recognize their alternatives without some more perspective being shared.
The alternatives have been explored from the American perspective. If there is a path we have missed, please enlighten us.
I told you the option, losing faith in this consensus reality, nobody is doing that for you because your faith in it is contingent on the conditions of your life.
Alternatives have been denied by this consensus reality. The Populists of the 19th century had another vision and were promptly dealt with through imposed segregation, a racial and economic order imposed to divide them. Eugene Debs' vision was dealt with by capital and military interests and internal divisions. Taft-Hartley act denied the power of labor. The red scare eroded class consciousness so you don't even organize or identify around your economic reality anymore. The neoliberal consensus of the last 50 years between the major parties, the military industrial complex driving your country's geopolitics, have brought you to the current moment of the social contract eroding.
The main candidates will sue your for running for president. People register for it every year and get sued out of a campaign.
Its not the existence of a better option, no, the possibility of third option freaks them out.
The thing is, we do typically have 4-7 choices on the presidential ballot. Unfortunately our voting system strongly discourages voting for other parties if you want to actually affect the results.
More like voting for a third party is currently pointless with the way our voting system works...
That's more accurate way to say it, because they use "better" as a justification for not entertaining a third option that is actually good.
That's what first past the post voting systems systematically offer, "bad" or "very bad" options. Change the system and you'll see a big difference
How? Ranked choice voting and well-designed non-partisan redistricting are necessary reforms that too few people know about. We need a duo of liberal and conservative billionaires that make this their pet issue, a handful of country music stars, pop stars, and hip-hop/rap/RnB artists behind it and we'd get it in a heartbeat. Fuck, Elon Musk could distract people from the media nightmare that is his mouth and become a big advocate of it and we'd have Chads burning down the internet for these reforms the next day.
I'm solid on identifying the systematic issues at play historically and how they could have have been avoided, but how best to proceed from here is way more dynamic and probably beyond my expertise. Billionaires benefit from status quo, and if they or their populist goons were involved in the reforms I'm pretty leery of how good the outcome could be. I lost the ability to imagine a good path forward for America, which is part of why I left.
Hamas killed 1200 with about 500 to 600 civilian deaths
Minus a few hundred Israel killed with "friendly fire".
Oh we're doing that? If so, take a couple thousand off the other side that Hamas killed with their rockets. 25% of those never make it out of the Gaza strip, landing on their own civilians instead of making it to Israeli population centers.
Your numbers are off by an order of magnitude.
Nah, even Hamas hasn't managed to kill hundreds of thousands with their rockets. They only wish they could.
Wrong direction, and when the country you're defending killed 8,000 children in two months, it's not even funny.
Well going in the other direction is wrong. Hamas has killed lots of Palestinians with their rockets.
I think the total number killed by Hamas rockets EVER is like 30 to 50. Might be a little off. It's more about draining Israel's money and putting up a show than anything else.
That's false. Once the iron dome went up, it decreased significantly for sure. Also, Hamas has always aimed for killing civilians. Israel has just gotten exceptionally good at stopping them.
Does that number of civilians exclude civilians killed by the IDF or in the crossfire? Because if not it's even lower.
When counting deaths in Gaza they don't exclude those killed by the 20% of Hamas/PIJ/etc... rockets that land withing Gaza.
moral high ground is not determined by the amount of casualties suffered by one side. there was a cease fire in place until October 6. It ended the next day. Israelis have lived in fear of terrorist attacks for too long. they have the right to defend their people and their land. and no, it's not the land of third generation Gazans, who are majority descendants of Jordans who immigrated in the 40s.
Israelis have lived in fear of terrorist attacks for too long
And Gaza lived in fear of being bombed to the ground and murdered by the Israeli government for too long, while at the same time having all of their land stolen.
And who's land is it then? Third generation Israelis whose grandfathers just decided to take already occupied land? That's a funny bit.
I love how Israel is supposedly the victim all throughout their short history, yet, for some strange reason, they always gain something out of every conflict they, supposedly, get dragged into.
Edit: plus, it's stupid to think that the israeli government didn't want this to happen. They knew that oppression would lead to a response, and that response would justify further attacks on Gaza until they gain full control. For countries like that, what's a few of their citizens' lives in exchange for power? The US taught them well in that regard.
They seem like evil bastards at this point,
They've been since at least 1948.
The world's least effective 70 year genocide! Those bastards. /s
Uh... Look at the Palestinian population living in Israeli controlled territory then vs now.
The 1931 census, carried out by the British, found a total population of a bit over a million people. Looking at other estimates doesn't have it increasing that much between 1931 and 1947.
Israel's population is currently about 9.7 million, which doesn't count the ~5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. So about 15x the population as in 1931.
In Israel, there's currently around 7 million Jews and 2 million Arabs. About 80% of Arab- Israelis are Sunni Muslim, 9% are Christian and 9% are Druze.
So, uh, it looks like the Muslim population of the land that is current Israel has more than doubled since 1947?
There were other groups that made the argument that that wasn't genocide because the population of the target group increased.
You really want to make the same exact arguments holocaust deniers make?
I mean, to make that argument about the holocaust you'd need to lie about the numbers.
There were 17 million Jews worldwide in 1939, but only 11 million in 1945. In Europe, the population went from 9 million Jews just before the holocaust to only 3 million Jews continent-wide after it - even counting those in allied and neutral countries.
Poland, before the holocaust, had over three million Jews; 90% of them were murdered by the Nazis. Those people didn't just evaporate.
Meanwhile - did I lie about the numbers? Keep in mind, 2 million is the current number of Israeli citizens of Palestinian heritage.
They're Holocaust deniers. No one said they were smart.
The point is, even if they were right with the numbers, it wouldn't matter because the logic of the argument is wrong. Both ethically, and factually.
High birthrates are the natural human reaction to trauma such as war and generational thinning. Hint: remember, the population of Palestine under 18 was 52%
Just because you did a shitty job, or weren't strong willed enough to follow through to completion, or did it slowly, doesn't mean you didn't try.
P.s. that word thinning? I didn't pock that randomly. That's what Israels political leaders call what they do.
'Thinning the population', and 'mowing the grass'.
I said look at the map, not the number, for a reason. These people (generally) aren't getting murdered. They're getting displaced.
What exactly is the map going to tell you?
There's almost two million Palestinian citizens of Israel. In 1952, Israel gave citizenship to the ~160k Palestinians living in Israeli territory who hadn't fled during the 1948 war; they lived under martial law until 1966.
No one is displacing Palestinians in Israel; Israeli settlers are displacing Palestinians in Palestine.
What exactly is the map going to tell you?
The displacement of Palestinians in and after the Nakba. The 160k Palestinians living in Israel in 1949 weren't the ones who hadn't fled, they were the ones who were allowed to stay. Most others ere either physically expelled from their homes or left fleeing IDF massacres. Look up Benny Morris's 4-stage analysis.
You definitely didn't say that.
Yeah you're actually right; I said it in my next reply down the chain, my bad.
Palestinian population increased by some 500% since the founding of Israel in 1948. The goal of the current Israeli operation is the destruction of the actually genocidal Hamas, not of Palestinians.
Look at the map of where Palestinians are living in 1948 (or hell, even 1966) vs now. Then you'll see why it's called a genocide.
That would be a map of the whole of Israel.
Have you seen the West Bank?
Like the previous comment said, not a very effective genocide. Land wise, Palestinians were offered their own state on 48, they rejected so that Jewish people will not have their own state.
Their rejection is understandable. The west/UN offered them land? Shouldn't the people who had lived there for generations be able to decide for themselves?
Jews have lived in this land for many generations as well and equally have the right for that land as well. That's not to say that they should drive whoever lived there out. They were offered full citizenship and their own full sovereign country which they didn't have before but they refused and instead declared war.
Jews have lived in this land for many generations as well and equally have the right for that land as well.
I don't know, man. Many Arab Jews lived in Palestine alongside everyone else just fine... but those you are talking about weren't in Palestine since what year? since like 600 BC? 🤔 No offense, buddy, but if you don't live in a place for that long, it's not really yours anymore... and if you have to ethnically cleanse the population (the Nakba) then that raises more eyebrows, sounds like the land isn't yours... sounds like colonialism to me.
They were offered full citizenship and their own full sovereign country which they didn’t have before but they refused and instead declared war.
LOOK AT ME! I'M ISRAEL! I TAKE TWO-THIRDS OF THE CAKE, YES? AND YOU GET 1 THIRD OF THE CAKE, YES? THAT IS FAIR. WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT FAIR??!?!? WE WILL BOMB YOU TO THE GROUND!!!!
Maybe we should all take over Africa, since we ALL have the right to live there and exploit its riches, being homo sapiens and all.
Jews have lived in this land. They were given part of that land again after ww2 by a UN decision. Arabs that were living there were also given part.
Jews were willing to share their part of the land with the Arabs, as equal citizens
Jews accepted the offer, Arabs didn't and declared war.
Everything since then just went downhill
Personally, I'm in favor of going back to the original resolution and have two countries. But if having sharing one country will end the conflict, then by all means...
Unfortunately both sides don't have enough interest of solving this conflict...
Palestinians were unaware, and never agreed...
Palestinians were unaware
Of the UN partition plan ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine#:~:text=Nations.%5B138%5D-,Arabs%20in%20Palestine,-Haj%20Amin%20al
never agreed
Correct
They were offered full citizenship and their own full sovereign country
Somebody doesn't even pretend to have ever read a book in their life or listened to somebody who actually lives there.
Do you just want to troll or have a meaningful discussion?
No meaningful conversation to be had with somebody who spouts such blatant obvious falsehoods.
Sorry I won't waste my time replying and compiling sources just so you can call them all fake. 🤷
Yes, a Jewish minority lived in Palestine with no problems as far as I know. But again, they where offered citizenship and a sovereign country. This is not something that should be offered by the rest of the world, or by a bunch of immigrants with a motive to create their own country specifically for themselves.
Yeah, how were the water resources in those lands? Were they capable of supporting the population being asked to depend on them.
I'll save you the trip to the library. No, they weren't.
Not agreeing to commit slow suicide doesn't give the other side the right to murder you.
If you are talking about the water situation in Gaza prior to October 7th, I want to remind you that Gaza also borders with Egypt and any humanitarian crisis that is present in Gaza could be easily aided by Egypt, opening its borders and providing them all the water they need. They are their "brothers" after all.
In my opinion, Israel has the right to refuse aid to a place that constantly fires rockets at them. But Egypt, What is their excuse? Why are you not pointing your criticism towards them as well?
The sad thing is that Israel has developed advanced technology to shoot rockets in the air. This paradoxically has been a mistake as it normalizes firing rockets as long as the casualty numbers are very low.
Please, if you can, tell me of any other example of a country that will allow constant barraging rockets towards its land and still provide aid to their enemy?
In my opinion, Israel has the right to refuse aid to a place that constantly fires rockets at them.
Ah yes, Israel has the right to collective punishment 😍 not like, "sanctions" or something of a political caliber, nope, just straight out no food or water or meds or fuel so that children can die in their hospital beds from 100% preventable diseases.
still provide aid to their enemy?
Funny how it's not Hamas that's starving, just the other 2.3 million Gazans, of which about 1 million are children.
Can you explain to me how your views fit with the fact that Israel steals natural water resources from Gazans?
In Gaza, the only source of surface water has been the Wadi Gaza. There are claims that Israel diverts part of its water for agricultural purposes within Israel prior to its arrival to Gaza.[40][41]
Same for the West Bank:
According to a World Bank report, Israel extracted 80% more water from the West Bank than agreed in the Oslo Accord, while Palestinian abstractions were within the agreed range.
Read all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_State_of_Palestine
Israel has no right to deny food or water to a place that they control the borders too. Thankfully, this isn't something that requires your opinion. Blockading another country is an act of war. Occupying forces are required to provide required food and water to populations they occupy. Something Israel has been doing for 17 years.
The Egypt thing is a BS racist side argument and you know it. It is used to justify illegal actions on the part of Israel, with the full knowledge that the Rafa crossing is controlled by both Egypt and Israel, and really it's controlled by the US. The second the Egyptian government at the time opened the Rafa border crossing, there would immediately be another Egyptian government taking its place.
Israel is an Apartheid state, exactly like Apartheid South Africa. It is as evil as Apartheid South Africa was. Desmond Tutu, and other black people that suffered under Apartheid South Africa rule that have visited Gaza have stated that the Palestinians have it worse in the Gaza strip then they had it under apartheid rule in South Africa.
Finally, to your question trying to justify ethnic cleansing: EVERY OCCUPYING POWER SINCE WW2. Israel is treated differently than every other county in that it doesn't have to abide by the same standards as anyone else. Stop trying to pretend that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. It isn't. I'm not criticizing Egypt right now because they didn't kill 8,000 children in two months. Come back with your "Why aren't you critizing them" bullshit when they go free fire insane like Israel has.
Your wonderful country little democracy killed 8,000 children in 2 months. Stop trying to pretend that it is a reasonable country.
Firing rockets at another country on a regular basis is also an act of war
It's an act of defense against an occupying power that slaughters them when they try unarmed peaceful resistance. Remember two years ago? I do.
I'm also done interacting with someone who continues to ignore the 8000 dead children in two months because they know that that is morally indefensible.
The situation with the Palestinians in Gaza is very tragic and sad. At no point did I ignore it. War is horrible and especially when Hamas embeds itself inside the civilian population, people get hurt and it's very sad.
I think that you, however, are completely oblivious to the suffering on the other side. There are still little children held hostage in the tunnels under Gaza. Call it resistance, freedom fighting as much as you want. It's no less tragic.
Even though Hamas started this round, the question of who started it is irrelevant. The relevant question is how does it end. No side is willing to make any compromise and I fear this will go on for years still.
War is horrible and especially when Hamas embeds itself inside the civilian population, people get hurt and it’s very sad.
War is horrible and especially when Israel embeds itself inside the civilian population, killing everyone and anyone, going into a hospital to shoot people or sniping doctors from outside, people get hurt and it’s very sad.
Israel makes mistakes and have very bad policies. I am the last one to defend it.
However, IDF is not a murderous organization as you think of it. There are clear rules on how to engage in combat and strict written moral rules that everyone should follow. I know because I served there and was taught these rules and had to memorize https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Code_of_Ethics
However, people are people. There are bad apples. People also just make mistakes and Israel has (too) many different opinions and fragments and ideologies that I have nothing in common with. So yeah it's complicated.
Your view of Israel as one murderous genocidal entity is not different from the view a lot of Israelis have of the Palestinians, especially after October 7th, that is sad and will not bring the conflict anywhere to an end
I would recommend you check out some testimonies from IDF soldiers from Breaking the Silence. You can see more of their rules of engagement like "Kill anyone who moves" or "break into people's homes, stay ok their roof for 16 hours, cut off the water, and assault them if they resist"
I know "Shovrim Shtika". They are doing important work.
Like I said, there are bad apples and bad things are being done.
But it's not everyone. And not even the majority.
When I was serving, I have never encountered a situation where any of my team members did anything like that. But I know these things exist. In most of the cases I heard of, these things were taken very seriously inside the IDF and people were kicked out and sentenced.
Unfortunately, occupation is corrupting the soul and in recent years the cases have grown in numbers. Add to that the horrible government Israel currently has and you get a shit show.
IDF does systemic abuse and torture of Palestinians
You: there are bad apples and bad things are being done.
LOL, bad apples. Nope. It's systemic, whether you like it or not. I'm glad you didn't see any of this "crap" while serving, but I highly doubt it's not "widespread".
There have been too many incidents of dead journalists where the IDF just denied and denied and denied until the truth came out, as usual.
I'm really sorry to know that young people are brought to join this death and apartheid machine. No one should serve in the army at 18 against their will.
That being said... don't let your personal experience cloud your judgment. Don't let it prevent you from seeing the systemic abuse happening, that many of your colleagues probably did, and continue to do, and are doing right now.
You have a very dichotomous view of this subject.
All I was trying to convince you is that Israel is not all evil. I can give you countless examples where Palestinians have been treated very well by Israel and by IDF soldiers.
I don't blame you for your haitred. It's a product of your experience. I wish you all the well and that you will find peace one day (all of us).
I can give you countless examples where Palestinians have been treated very well by Israel and by IDF soldiers.
some odd good treatment does not mean that systemic abuse is not present.
I would recommend BTselem and the tens of other organizations documenting the systemic abuse of Israel.
I don’t blame you for your haitred. It’s a product of your experience.
I don't blame you for your ignorance. It's a product of your experience.
Hamas doesn't embed itself. It IS the government. Everyone says Hamas and people think of the Hamas soldiers.
The health organizations that counted the dead while there still were hospitals? Hamas. However, that Hamas pencil pusher that has never picked up a gun will still have his apartment blown up because he is 'Hamas'. It's like complaining the DMV clerk is a marine because they're both part of the American government.
And yes, war is terrible. It's why after ww2 most of the nations agreed certain things were wrong and not allowed in war. You know, the things Israel is doing. The things that we've been blasting Russia for doing in Ukraine with words like 'genocide' and 'war crimes'. Things like collective punishment, intentional targeting of civilian populations, using white phosphorus against civilians, intentionally starving civilians, intentionally depriving civilians under your control of water. These are all war crimes.
I'm not oblivious to the suffering. I have as much sympathy for them as I do for visitors to a slave plantation caught up in a slave uprising. Which is to say, some, but not too much. The blame should lay on the family that took their children to a plantation, knowing it was a plantation.
There is no moral standard that allows you to denounce Hamas, and yet praise the ANC during apartheid south Africa, or Nat Turners uprising, or John Brown at Harpers Ferry.
This is simple. It isn't complex. You would have been on the side of apartheid south Africa because of the necklacing that the ANC did. You would have denounced the ickiness of John Browns attempts to stop slavery because he was just too violent. You would have denounced the Easter uprising, because it was too uncivil and the British were just there to civilize the Irish. I have no respect for people that justify apartheid or colonial oppression because the person struggling with a boot on their throat is too unseemly.
There is no compromise with someone standing on your throat. They need to remove their fucking foot before a discussion can even start.
This will go on for awhile, but Oct. 7th killed the myth of Israeli invincibility forever. The subsequent slaughter of civilians by the IDF, and all of the despicable lies about decapitated babies had killed Israels international reputation. Some things like Ethnic Cleansing are a bit too much to cover up.
P.S. the ADL spied on black anti apartheid activists in America for Israel on behalf of apartheid South Africa. It almost got the ADL banned in America. Israel was extremely friendly with Apartheid South Africa, even as most of the world was boycotting them, because Israel even then recognized that it was also an apartheid country. Oh, and South Africa let them test their nukes of the coastline.
It IS the government
Then according to your same logic, it is a genocidal government as well, as they murdered 1200 people in few hours.
Hamas doesn't embed itself
Thier fighters are fighting from within the population. It's by design, and there's evidence that they prevent the innocent population from fleeing the war zone even by shooting people who try to flee.
I have as much sympathy for them as I do for visitors to a slave plantation caught up in a slave uprising. Which is to say, some, but not too much. The blame should lay on the family that took their children to a plantation, knowing it was a plantation.
This analogy makes me understand that you see no legitimacy what so ever for the existence of the state of Israel, or Jews in that land, no matter on which borders.
I won't go into the history of Jews in the land of Israel as I don't think it will convince you with anything. You think of Jews as a colonial (white) power occupying a foreign land. Let's agree to disagree.
That is not the same logic at all. Attempted genocide or ethnic cleansing is based on the actions, not the speed of casualties.
900-1000 dead in a couple of hours just speaks to the utter incompetence (and sexism since the female signals analysis divisions were ignored while screaming something was going on) of the IOF. I also won't count the Israelis that died due to the IOF's invocation of the Hannibal directive. Israeli's killed by Apache hellfire were not killed by Hamas.
Things like destroying good, water and power for the entire population indicate genocide. Being successful against an incompetent enemy, does not.
There are indications that Hamas fighters where not aware of the festival, and clear video evidence that Israeli soldiers (or security guards who were reservists, who count as military in my mind, since the IOF is willing to count every pencil pusher as a Hamas militant) engaged with the Al-Quds brigades from the crowds. I.e using the crowd as human shields in a far more literal sense then Israelis always apply to the Palestinians.
There is also video evidence of the stripped Palestinian men being led before IOF units in Gaza as human shields. Just like in Operation Cast Lead. And there are reports, though no video evidence, yet, of stripped Palestinian men being forced into the tunnel systems as human shields.
You know what isn't using human shields? Existing as a militant force in the most densely populated place on earth.
You don't get to force people into a bantustan then accuse the people fighting back as using human shields.
Finally, stop putting words in my mouth. Palestinian Jewish people exist, (and were treated as Palestinians, rather than Jewish people, but that is neither here nor there) as do children of the original Western European Jewish colonists. And yes, Zionists were colonists. That is literally what they called themselves when selling the idea of Zionism to antisemitic Europeans in search of financial backing. And yes, the Zionists were racist as well, even against other Jewish people. Tell me again, and don't ignore this part, how are/were the Beta Israeli's treated?
I shouldn't have compared Israel to a plantation, you're right. I should have compared it to a bantustan, because it is an apartheid society. Israel doesn't use Palestinians as chattel slaves, it uses them (or did before importing people from other countries) as cheap, second class labor.
As such, the children born of Zionist parents belong there as much as white South Africans born in South Africa belonged in South Africa. The solution, since Israel intentionally made a two state solution impossible with the west bank settlements, is a single state with a massive truth and reconciliation process with war crimes trials for all that committed them, Palestinian and Israeli alike, with citizenship and equal rights for all.
Anything else is simply trying to justify maintaining apartheid.
Never Again meant Never Again. No qualifications or exceptions. Do you agree with that? Can we agree with that, or do you think never again only applied to Zionists?
What do you think genocide means? 🤔 Can you define it?
ANYTHING LESS THAN HOLOCAUST LEVEL MURDER ISN'T GENOCIDE!
-Israel bots
Then Israel is failing miserably because they're intentionally killing a whole lot of innocent Palestinians.
Yeah, just killed tens upon tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians since 1948. No big deal.
Certainly Israel could have been more optimal in its handling of the Palestinian psuedo-states since 1967. And there are plenty of instances of actual evil activity by Israel and her citizens (see Settler violence in the West Bank as a perfect example of that). However the idea that Israel is committing a genocide is just hyperbole and it cheapens and discredits those who make that claim.
They're literally targeting all infrastructure that makes life possible in the strip. Not for Hamas, but for Palestinians.
They're PUBLICLY talking about moving all Palestinians from the Gaza strip in the Sinai desert, or forcing other countries to take them in. That is LITERALLY the definition of ethnic cleansing. In those situations, especially the desert one, children die first. That's the fucking point.
You're being a smug asshole defending ethnic cleansing while literally pulling nothing but shit out of your ass.
That would be the goal of the only genocidal apartheid ethnostate in the Middle East. Working as intended.
The only?
Where the fuck do you think Turkey is?
Is Turkey an apartheid state?
Ask an Armenian
Ask the Kurds.
Many Arab Jews moved to israel out of free will they weren't forced off the land.
Anti Semitism was very low in the Arab world until israel started doing their ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Now there are some Arabs that fell into the Zionism == Judaism trap.
This israeli guy that went to Morocco failed to find Jew haters
The arab and Ethiopian jew got scammed. Their babies got stolen and maybe killed, the women went through sterilizing without knowing, and many don't get the same right as English Jew...
It is literally a Zionist organization that behave like the Nazis
And many more Arab Palestinian Israelis are treated like second class citizens. Your point flops.
Jewish Arabs aren't mistreated nearly as much as Muslim Arabs in israel.
The IDF literally asks for people's religion at checkpoints.
They'll say "you must be very smart please pass along in a wide arc so the edge doesn't cut us"
No but in all seriousness anyone who isn't Jewish gets discriminated against even Christians, so atheist Jews just say they're agnostic or secular or just "not practicing their religion". Found this article talking about it.
Though it they already have an israeli ID from for example their parents, they are of course less likely to be held up.
https://jpost.com/Israel-News/Why-are-there-so-few-atheists-in-Israel-436070
You two are saying the same thing.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/YF6Fi-ur_RU?t=4m36s
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The rest of the Arab world has less than 15,000 Jews lol. Israel is just the only country that hasn't finished their ethnostate.
Most Arab countries aren't ethnostates AFAIK. What happened to Arab Jews is absolutely despicable, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't constitute an ethnostate.
An ethnostate is a state for one ethnicity, not a state against one ethnicity, so to speak. Israel is, by their own admission, a Jewish state, so it's an ethnostate. Arab states are very antisemitic, but they're not hostile to non-Arabs as a whole.
Do you even see what you type? Arab states. Israel isn't hostile to other ethnicities either by that same definition. In fact your entire statement applies to Israel the same way it applies to every single one of the Arab nations.
No? Israel has done a lot of shit to Ethiopian and Yemeni Jews, for example. They also discriminate against Holocaust survivors. Israel has allowed ethnicities (most, but not all, varieties of Jews). All other sizeable minorities get the ethnostate treatment.
Straight up baseless misinform.
I was taking liberties to sound clever.
The ethnic cleansing has been successful then.
Clearly this is Hamas' doing /s
As intended
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He added: “In my 35 years of working in complex emergencies, I have never written such a letter – predicting the killing of my staff and the collapse of the mandate I am expected to fulfil.”
Thomas White, director of UNRWA affairs, tweeted on Friday: “Civil order is breaking down in Gaza – the streets feel wild, particularly after dark – some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned.
The UN officials’ comments came as Israel intensified its strikes on Gaza, hitting more than 450 targets across the territory from land, sea and air in the 24 hours up to Friday morning.
His statement was an indication of growing dismay and frustration among western diplomats over the scale of civilian deaths in Gaza in the two-month war between Israel and Hamas.
Residents and the Israeli military reported intensified fighting in northern areas, where Israel had previously said its troops had largely completed their tasks last month, and in the south where a new assault was launched this week.
In a statement on Telegram, Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades said its fighters had discovered a special forces unit mounting a rescue attempt and attacked it, killing and wounding several soldiers.
The original article contains 1,089 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Hear me out...it might be time to release the hostages and for Hamas to surrender.
Surrender and what? Go back to living in an open-air concentration camp, only this time with the addition of ethnic cleansing?
Surrender and nothing. Surrender and live in 1/6th of the land you used to have with far fewer resources.
Unfortunately, I think that keeping up resistance against Israel and forcing them to do what they’re doing as loudly as possible is the best option they’ve got.
Surrender and live 10 more years, dying to malnutrition and plague instead of bullets
Yeah exactly.
Gaza is only an “open air prison” because it’s controlled by a jihadist organization fixated on a religious genocidal fantasy and willing to commit funds, resources and civilians’ lives towards it. Its’ crucial to remember that Gaza borders Egypt as well. The Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza is a legal, defensive measure taken as a result of Hamas’ intentions, threats and violence, not the other way around. Israel left Gaza in 2005 withdrawing all civilians and military, and is met with hostility and violence from the territory ever since. Leaving Gaza unchecked while Hamas operates it as a terror-state would only bring about exacerbated violence and death.
Life in the prison looks tough https://nitter.net/imshin/status/1733819052659740965?s=20
Now tell me how many of those people are dependent on international aid to survive, and how many are malnourished. And while you're at it how many of them need medicine that they can't get because of the blockade and have to use the tunnels, if they can get it at all.
Edit: And oh I forgot: How many of them lost family members or their homes to Israeli airstrikes.
Bet you're gonna just ignore all that and still call it an open air concentration camp 🤦
What did Hamas do to help these people with all the humanitarian Qatari money it received? What does Hamas do now with the fuel and humanitarian aid it receives ?
It built tunnels, rockets to massacre and kill in it's one goal, to completely drive the last of the Jews from the land. It lives underground while people above ground live in hell.
It's sad what happened and continues to happen to the people of Gaza. I wish they will overthrow the terrible organization that rules them and start using the aid money for good
What are they supposed to do? Gaza is only allowed to buy things Israel allows them to buy, only allowed to sell things Israel allows them to sell (or does it just not allow them to export their products? I'm not sure). No government can function under these conditions. Hence the international aid, that surprise surprise Israel also limits. We can blame Hamas's domestic policy all we want, but under these conditions they never had a chance. Gaza just doesn't have the resources to survive without contact with the outside world.
I spent a year living in Israel during the Second Intifada, studying the conflict and talking to everyone I could, Jew, Arab, etc. I do a pretty good impression of a constipated Ariel Sharon giving a speech, "Anaaacchnu tzrichim [labored grunting] bitachon b'Israel v'hakol olam!"
You have a well-informed and factual view of the situation. Must be because you are an Israeli ex-pat and (let me guess) are secular. It's disheartening to see propaganda-fueled idiots who have zero idea what they are talking about arguing with you--who wants reform in Israel--all because they have a black-and-white view of right and wrong, see Islam as "the underdog" that is therefore allowed to commit atrocities, and had hiphop artists telling them to "free Palestine" since 1995.
Give up the weapons, stop bombing and killing people and Israel might get rid of the fence. Worth a try...
They should've just asked the guards nicely and maybe they would've opened up the gates of Auschwitz but these darned resistances just didn't want to stop.
Again, Gaza is no prison. It has a border with Israel and also with Egypt. Before the Oct 7th massacre Gazans were crossing to Israel for work every day.
Here's how life in "Auschwitz" looked like https://nitter.net/imshin/status/1733819052659740965?s=20
You keep repeating Gaza is not a prison. I agree, it’s a concentration camp.
Okay. Seems like you're under the delusion that if Israel had an open free border with Gaza, like in the EU, peace would break in the region
They'd probably need to give them equal rights and not be an apartheid state, too, and stop kicking people out of their homes. But once all that happened, the violence would probably be greatly reduced. The same thing happened with the Ira in the UK, their attacks stopped once they negotiated.
so, all Hamas needs to do is surrender and give up all their weapons and Israel will go back to the relationship before Hamas?
the relationship defined by occupation, fences, and a systematic annexation of Palestinian land.
you make the mistake of not knowing history, they tried it for over 45 years with negotiation, the ONLY time Israel backed out of any region was due to military force, so, why should they assume it to be any different this time?
You are right. I'm don't know the history of this conflict enough to have an informed discussion about it. My comment was more wishful thinking than any founded opinion. It's just that all alternative scenarios are much more terrible than this one.
I think you are conflating between Gaza and the West Bank. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. No occupation, no fences (other than a border) and no annexation of land
Due to the massive amounts of undue power the blockade gives Israel over Gazans' lives, many organizations (including the UN) consider Gaza still under Israeli occupation.
Gazans used to cross to Israel on a daily basis for work (since October 7th, I don't see that happening anymore)
What about Egypt ? What is their role in this "open air prison" ?
Speaking as an Egyptian, Egypt is mostly doing it for American aid. That said, the Egyptian government (Arab leaders generally are, but Egypt even more so) is a traitor to the Arab and Muslim people, and an accomplice to Israel's crime against humanity. Ayone involved in the blockade on Egypt's end (and Israel's, but doubly so for Egypt's) out of their own will should be hanged.
You sound like a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Take your Coptic Christian harassing, LGBTQ-hating, tourist attacking butt out of here. Egypt is doing it because they don't want Palestinians waging war inside Egypt's sovereign territory. The Egyptian government is so brutal because the people you support want a freaking Caliphate. Egypt is for Egyptians, not just Arabs and Muslims. Go fly a kite.
I think I know who Egypt is for more than you. And no, I'm not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, thanks for asking.
I think looking solely at the American aid angle is too narrow of a view. Hamas are Muslim brotherhood, not exactly friends of the regime. Probably hate Hamas more than they hate the Israelis
I mean, some did. With special visas and stuff. That still means they're occupied.
by UN definition, what Israel is doing in Gaza is still an occupation, the IDF has cut every single route out, even going as far as to patrol a 1km wide strip on the border of Egypt and Gaza for years, why do you think the Gaza-Egypte supplies (like the WMD that is KFC or an old car) are all transported via kilometers long tunnels?
At which point do you believe that Hamas will disarm its arsenal of rockets firing regularly at Israel ? What would need to happen for Hamas to do that you think ?
we could start with not shooting anyone the snipers on the border can see, maybe lift the blockade, stop trying to starve them out (most Gazans don't even reach 40 due to malnutrition and IDF "grass cutting"), maybe don't limit them to 4 days of water a week, let them rebuild and operate their own power plant again, stopping IDF supported Pogroms in the west bank (yes the very same the occupied the IDF as Hamas attacked), stopping the illegal settlements, actually allow for a 2-state solution where Israel doesn't control all the water etc...
The list is long, it won't happen overnight, but such is the bed that the Israeli government has made.
But don't worry, they are going with the genocide route, because the Zionists in Israel are mainly not the survivors of the holocaust, but fervent nationalists so far removed from the horrors of the Nazi regime, that they openly mock holocaust survivors, and completely disregard those who got shipped off to gulags by the Russians and/or couldn't move to Israel before 1953 (because any of them that came after 1953 aren't real Jews to begin with)
A lot of what you said is just factually incorrect. Putting the west bank aside and focusing on Gaza, there was no humanitarian crisis before October 7 and there are no settlements in Gaza. The "snipers at the border" were not so effective on the day of October 7th when Hamas broke into Israel and massacred women and children. Hamas did not go into settlements in the west bank. It went into regular villages and cities and did what it did.
And that last part about the mocking of Holocaust survivors, not sure where you get that from
you are the definition of if you don't see it, it doesn't exist.
"there was no humanitarian crisis in Ba Sing Ee"
As for Hamas not being in settlements in the west bank, you know how geography works? tho I guess we ignore the Pogroms that happen there, Ironically with the weapons that were pulled from the Gaza border security forces, that couldn't have anything to do with anything, entirely separate incident of Israeli killing Palestinians, in a 70+year long thing that involves the ethnic tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis.
and the Holocaust mocking? ya, that's the current Israeli government, they hate the holocaust survivors and try to screw them over as much as they can
I like how you quote critical articles from Israeli media, that is a testimony that freedom of speech is very much a real thing there.
The first article from Haaretz which is very known as anti settlements leftist newspaper. All it says is that instead of giving weapons for the population in the villages and kibbutz and cities around Gaza to defend themselves in case of intrusion, it was given for settlements in the west bank and when the shit hit the fan they were completely unprepared.
The second article is also an internal criticism of the progroms that went in Huwara. I am happy that criticism of Israel is still possible
The last one about Itzik Zarka, who should really not get a headline as he's the lowest form of scum, yeah these people exist but are very much on the fringe of society and do not deserve any attention. Unfortunately Bibi likes to use these people when convenient for him
your entire argument here is that, it's not so bad because a newspaper reports on it?
as if modern propaganda campaigns don't work mainly by information flooding instead of censorship (this is true even in China)
also that "lowest form of scum" was voted in, and is to this day part of the government, and while he was the only one who got called out (because he was the first to say it openly) the rest of them are all still there, in positions of power, why? because those in power in Israel are not the victims of WW2, but fans of theocrat-ethno-state who didn't feel the pain of genocide
The life expectancy in Gaza is over 70 years, according to WHO data. Go spread misinformation elsewhere.
the WHO can't collect data in Gaza, nor does is report on Gaza, but only the "Palestinian occupied territories" meaning you are getting the life expectancy of the more wealthy parts of the west bank
but no, please don't just quote some figures you see anywhere read the document and its conclusions about the region even before this latest conflict phase started
Bruh, you are really going to stand behind the assertion that most folks in Gaza don't live past 40? You are just rediculously, stupidly wrong. There are NUMEROUS well-regarded sources of information that say otherwise. I only went with WHO because it was the first of MANY MANY NGOs that establish you are incorrect. "In 2022, the life expectancy in the occupied Palestinian territory was 75.4 years for females and 73.2 for males, and was slightly higher in the West Bank (75.7 years for females; 73.5 years for males) than in the Gaza Strip (75.0 years for females; 72.5 years for males)." Page 2. WHO - the very source you provided, in fact, coincidentally
I actually do know the history of the region which is why arguing with someone like you who seems to live in a fantasy world where Hamas, the peace seekers (and all round good guys) tried to get Israel out of their (?) land by negotiation.
The constant bombings, missile attacks and three all out invasions of Israel (for genocide) never happened and Hamas and their precursors were just trying logic and reason the whole time 😂
Wtf are you talking about? The straw manning is crazy. They never said Hamas was the good guys in that comment or that they tried to get land through negotiation. They were talking about the relationship with Palestine before Hamas. Hamas was a result of the failures of those negotiations.
If you oppress people and take their land without a peaceful resolution, of course a violent, terrorist group will result. We've seen it in other countries, too, from the IRA in the UK to the ANC in South Africa and the BLA in the United States. If Hamas were to disappear an equivalent is just going to appear again without the underlying conditions that caused them to be created being solved, or without full ethnic cleansing, which is obviously the route Israel would prefer.
So, you have an issue with time, ok there is this concept of "before" and the concept of "after", now before Hamas even existed, Israel was literally straight up occupying Gaza, afterward Israel only blockaded them.
And yes, it is their land, the same way that India isn't British land, Ukraine isn't Russian, Brazil isn't Portuguese, etc., etc., etc...
Now no one said that Hamas was the "good guys", but the assertion that Israel is, is comical, at best Also, the Genocide thing is a bit far stretched, and requires an interpretation that would make Israel just as, if not more, genocidal.
And yes, if the only way you have ever been able to gain anything was through violence, why wouldn't you choose violence? because it hurts your feefees that a white person had to die? meanwhile, the not-violent west bank gets to watch as soldiers who bravely kill children are awarded with medals.
so much for "knowing the history of the region"
Lol you gave me a good laugh with this and I lost it when you said 'the genocide thing is a bit stretched'.
I think most Iranian officials start their morning by saying 'What a nice day to kill all Jews!'
Hamas was even crazy enough to put 'kill the Jews' in their original manifesto.
The difference here is that as hard as you Hamas ball fondlers try to spin it otherwise, if Hamas surrenders and let's the hostages go, Israel will in turn end the war and the killing stopped. The other choice is that Israel stops fighting in which case the Palestinians and pals will do exactly what they've said they want to do - commit genocide.
ok, you have officially gone into the territory of "my enemy is literally worse than Satan".
also, so what? The AFU put kill the Boer in their manifesto.
And lastly, you show how fucking little you actually know about any of this, or how little you care, because the one thing that sentence was right on is committing genocide, because to the Netanyahu government it was never about the hostages, and they have already declared that this war will continue until they are sure that every last member of Hamas is dead. Now, how do you do that to an insurgency without genocide is anybody's guess.
So what is your answer to clear, stated intent of genocide?
Dude take a moment and think what you're supporting. 😞
The answer? not doing genocide.
Now I have, seemingly unlike you, actually considered the stances I take.
Because for you to have considered this stance, you must have come to the conclusion that all the out group are the same and thus deserving of death for the crime of being similar to someone who did something bad.
So please, tell me how the 16 year old child in Gaza is guilty and should be put to the sword, for the crime of existing in a nation controlled by Hamas. Before you bring the "human shields" sob story, the IDF very much has the ability to not indiscriminately kill, but the very real figures as to the makeup of the casualties is an almost perfect statistical representation of the civilian population, meaning that any Hamas actually killed is incidental as an overlap of the population.
I love that you speak with such certainty, from such ignorance.
There is one irrefutable rule of combat that is that the aggressor sets the rules.
In this case Hamas is the aggressor and is choosing to fight in heavily populated urban areas. They know this will cause maximum casualties to the Palestinians....they're counting on it.
Your belief that the IDF can magically stop civilian casualties is inexplicable. Hamas could though - push the battle into the hills etc. It's just as effective militarily but they really just want Palestinians dead for propaganda - influencing rubes is their aim.
I know you're a propagandist and I can't convince you but it's important others realise that you are not just wrong but willfully so.
If you really cared even slightly for the Palestinians you'd be calling for the end of this war through the surrender of Hamas and the release of the hostages. You won't and don't.
Would've worked for the West Bank.
And you truly believe that Israel will stop with destruction, oppression, etc?
Israel withdrew from Gaza long time ago and was not occupying Gaza before Oct 7 when Hamas decided to declare war on it by massacring and kidnapping Israeli civilians.
Ah yes, the same talking point repeated over and over again. Next time try to use your brain instead of repeating the same line:
Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza,[15] the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel, supported by additional restrictions placed on Gaza by Egypt.[100] Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, as well as six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.[15] The extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gaza's inhabitants.[101] The system of control imposed by Israel was described in the fall 2012 edition of International Security as an "indirect occupation". Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip
Or are you trying to convince me that Gaza is a paradise on earth? Why do you think those tunnels exists at the first place? Have you heard of freedom of movement? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement.How would you feel if you are not allowed to leave 41sq. km, don't have a single functioning airport, you can't even use the territorial waters, because they are also controlled by Israel, and your whole economy is heavily restricted. But yes, continue repeating yourself that Israel is a spotless angel who don't have anything to do with the events from the 7th of October.
Don't forget filled with the constant sound of drones to the point people can't sleep or study, a majority of their water isn't drinkable, they don't control their own trash, and they restricted the amount of calories into their to be the bare minimum at one point.
Not a paradise but not too bad of a prison either https://nitter.net/imshin/status/1733819052659740965?s=20
The tunnels are built to provide strategic advantage over Israeli military superiority. Also to smuggle equipment for rockets which Hamas has plenty of and uses them regularly. Ordinary Gazans do not get to use the tunnels to hide and stay alive. They are needed as human shields instead.
Israel is far from being a spotless angel. Nothing in life is black and white like that. But Hamas started this one. And Israel cannot live with an organization that kidnaps, rapes and beheads people on its border
Yes, then why don't you go and live there for half a year to see how much you are going to like it. These tunnels were first built to smuggle normal goods in and out of Gaza, and they were the reaction of the restrictions imposed by Israel of their freedom of movement.
For this conflict to really end both sides need to do some concessions and most importantly Israel should grant some basic human rights and freedom and ensure that perpetrators of the new order would be equally persecuted by law enforcement. What I see right now is that Israel is building even more checkpoints in the West bank, approving the building of new neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and granting impunity to violent settlers. arresting Palestinians and keeping them in prisons without effective sentence and even when they are put into court, they are tried in a military court and not civil. Relatives of Palestinian prisoners can't even visit them and there are a lot of reports of prisoner officers exerting physical and psychological harassment of those prisoners.
So tell me honestly, if you were on the other side of the barricade, how would you feel? Would you tolerate being treated like cattle and still be happy?
And honestly speaking I don't see any political will in Israel to change the current status quo? They don't want to make any concessions or start treating those people decently. How many times in interviews did Israeli politicians show any will for a two-states solution? And mind you the overwhelming opinion of the international community is that the only viable solution leading to a long lasting peace is a two state solution base on equal treatment of people and mutual respect. And Netanyahu's reply is what exactly? Arming settlers, building even more checkpoints to restrict their freedom of movement in the West bank, arresting even more Palestinians and talking of another military occupation of Gaza and building of another buffer zone from inside Gaza.
So explain to me how is this fair and do you think it would improve the prospects of long lasting peace in the region? It is almost like Likud and the far right parties are using the current conflict for even more polarising of the Israeli society and land grab.
I agree with your analysis of Israel. I don't see much hope for change there, unfortunately and looks like this sentiment will only grow stronger from now on. However the discussion was around Hamas specifically. They don't want to live in peace alongside Israel. They completely deny the concept of Israel and will not stop until the last Jew is driven out. Can't justify that either
You can't kill an idea, you can replace it with a better alternative, and Hamas is an idea, like an ideological movement that is summarising the general discontent of Palestinian population with the current status quo. Every human being wants to live in peace and prosperity. Politics and religion is usually dividing people.
My point is that this war even if it manages to kill a big chunk of the military wing of Hamas and destroy their weapons, won't kill the idea and will do quite the opposite by strengthening the resolve of people to continue opposing Israel and support Hamas.
Funnily enough Hamas needs Likud and the other far right factions in the Israelian government to flourish and vice versa. They have formed a symbiotic relationship even though officially they are mortal enemies. But if Israel and Palestine manage to find a recipe for a long standing peace based on equal terms, then Likud and the other far right factions and the terrorist organisations in Palestine will lose a big chunk of their support.
Sadly, I don't see this happening anytime soon as both parts are already too invested in the current bloodshed. And considering that Israel is a "democratic" country with a far superior military power one is logically expecting that they should be the initiator of a peace process that will try to mend the wounds from the current war. What I am currently seeing is zero interest from Israel to do something like this.
Unfortunately everything you said about israel is true, as an (expat) Israeli I see the current conflict only drives us further from any solution and more bloodshed in the future is almost certain.
Regarding Hamas, it's a fundamentalist jihadistic group that will not stop until the complete annihilation of all the Jews, with that I'm certain as they are saying exactly that. However they can be overthrown, that is what this war is about. Who will replace them ? No idea. Might be even worse...
There are many good people on both ends that want to live in peace. Unfortunately the leadership is bad, driven by extremists and the politics are horrible (at least on Israel's side, don't know much about PA)
It might be time for Israel to agree with the hostage exchange Hamas put forward a bunch of times and stop genociding the civilian population of Gaza.
Which one ?
The one they put forward less than a week after the attack. Releasing hostages in exchange for concessions from Israel has been the plan all along.
Each side blames the other on why the agreement blew up. Honestly you can choose to believe any side but we won't know.
1000 convicted terrorists per hostage. Now you see why Israel didn't agree to it?
"convicted terrorist" doesn't mean shit when the "convicted terrorists" are literal children.
Children means anyone up to age 19. The US has plenty examples of "children" in that age group committing school shootings. It just happens that in the PA, they're taught to "go stab a jew" in schools instead.
ah, yes, America, the shining example of how to respect human rights.
In Israel, children are abducted for something as small as throwing a rock at a hmmwv and detained without trial for decades. but tell me more about how israel is actually right.
Those same children are taught in school that Jews should be hated and killed. Tell me how the PA is right?
ah yes, the old "palestinians want to kill all the jews" line, just so killing all the palestinians can be justified. do you have any sources for your claims that doesn't come directly from the propaganda machine that is the zionist state?
Do you have sources for your claims that don't come directly from your propaganda overlords?
https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/27/18511367/palestinian-children-arrested-throwing-rocks-israeli-militaryhttps://www.snopes.com/fact-check/israeli-soldiers-5-year-old-video/ (video is from 2013, but it's still showing idf arresting a 5 year old) https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-detains-5-year-old-in-hebron-for-allegedly-throwing-rocks/
do you need any more proof of them arresting children?
When they reached the house, the officer informed Wadi's mother that he intended to hand him over to the Palestinian Police.
The two [the boy and his father] were detained at the checkpoint for about an half an hour, after which they were handed over to the Palestinian police. In total, the boy was detained for some two hours.
Out of your own link. I can probably find worse proof than this in the US news.
this is just what i found after a 30 second duck duck go search, the tippy top of the iceberg. you want to see how fucked the idf is, it's all right there at your fingertips. hell, you can read this article you're posting on and find evidence of them targeting UN Aid workers.
There is tons of information there all about these "atrocities" Israel has committed. Too bad when you actually look closer at them you find out every time that the sources are extremely biased, often times leaving out key details or outright twisting the truth. Just like you fell for this one, you fell for more headlines you didn't bother reading.
It blows my mind we're in a time and place where you get downvoted for wanting terrorism to end.
Also, even if wanting Hamas to surrender is just "wanting terrorism to end", Hamas surrendering would be the biggest catastrophe to befall the Palestinian people since the Nakba. Israel will, at the very least, make Gaza like the West Bank, likely worse. They've already stated they want security control over Gaza, and we all know what that means.
how about wanting State Terrorism to end?
do you know how many people Israel abducts? https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention
I'm happy we're in a time and place where you get downvoted for wanting Gazans to go back to the pre-war status quo without even freeing their people behind Israeli bars, let alone surrender to Israel and get the West Bank treatment.
You can be both against terrorism and against imperialism.
October 7th wasn't terrorism. It was military action against a foreign occupier.
But what about all the sweet leverage Hamas gets by keeping the hostages!?! Surely that's more important than the Palestinians!
🤮
Why? They are winning if they don't lose. If they surrender the israeli terrorists won't stop their genocide
Yeah. It isn’t that hard. Fuck Hamas
to be fair, the west bank doesn't have Hamas, and the entire reason Hamas was so successful is that the army had to go guard the Pogrom against the Arabs in the west bank, so how's that non-Hamas stuff working out?
I mean, fuck Israel too
The only people protecting Gazans now are Hamas in the absence of the secritiy council and whatever power it has. Ironic, sad, but true.
October 7th was wrong, but what would be even more wrong now is to abandon all those Gazans and stop fighting all those Israeli tanks shelling everyone's home.
Hmmm i don't support Hamas.
If you actually gave two shits about the Palestinians you'd be calling for Hamas to surrender, release the hostages so this war can end.
Israel won't abandon their hostages which is obviously why Hamas took them to force this war.
No point arguing with a propagandist like yourself though...have you noticed that public opinion is shifting against Hamas? Better get even more hysterical mate! 😂
Israel doesn't care about their citizens, they're carpet bombing Gaza and flooding tunnels they know the hostages are in. They had the option to just do a hostage exchange since day one. This is some mixture of annexation and Netanyahu trying to hold on to power.
In what universe do you live? Hamas pulled out of the continuing the hostage exchange. Israel wanted women returned but Hamas wouldn't agree....let's be honest it's because all the rape and torture would make their propaganda war tricky
Hamas's cited reason was that Israel was demanding female soldiers, while the terms of the "pause" dictated the exchange of civilians. It seemed like Israel simply wanted an excuse to continue bombing.
let’s be honest it’s because all the rape and torture would make their propaganda war tricky
Let's be honest about this having no substantiation at present and being based on Israeli and U.S. State Dept propaganda. Honestly it's disgusting how quickly people will resort to insinuations like this.
I know! All those raped (verified by Hamas body cam footage) on Oct 7 and people start to think Hamas are going to keep raping the hostages when they get them back to gaza. What a crazy leap right?!
At what point will you rejoin reality bud?
Is it verified by that? Can you provide the footage? Pretty sure this is incorrect.
Hamas cares even less for the lives of Gaza civilians. They cowardly hide in their tunnels, take humanitarian supplies by force from the population and shoot at Gazans when they try to escape from their human shield purpose.
All of these crimes have been documented and you can find them online. Hamas is a dictatorship jihadistic organization who controls the population by fear
What about Gazans? Do you believe they deserve to have 20 Oct 7th done to them every single night?
No, they don't deserve it. If you were Israel, and 1200 of your people would have been murdered, raped and 400 were taken hostages, what would you do differently?
- Not carpet bomb
- Not detaining Palestinians in undisclosed locations
- Not starving the population
- Not bombing hospitals, mosques, and the few fucking churches there.
- Negotiate peace with Palestinians and restore their full rights
- A one state solution where everyone gets to vote, as they always should have been allowed to
What would you do "differently" since those Gazans don't deserve to die in a crowded hospital after a failing amputation attempt because there are no meds and Israel is shelling outside?
Btw I just want to say that 17 thousand of my "people" have already been killed by Israel since I'm Palestinian.
As a Palestinian, you don't have any criticism of Hamas ? Oct 7th was just an "act of resistance" according to your view?
Do you agree with Hamas ? Why one state solution and not two states?
Hmmm seems like you pull this shit out of your ass, I'm very critical of Hamas.
A one state solution because it was always a single land, where all Palestinans and Jews can be equal. What part of that bothers you?
PS: notice how you just brushed aside the suffering of all Palestinians to come and talk about Hamas. Using Hamas as an excuse for genocide is no better than an excuse for the holocaust or for apartheid. It's quite disgusting how easily you can just forget the deaths of many innocent people or think that October 7th somehow justifies a second Nakba and a second holocaust.
This seems to be a typical Hasbara account (the Israeli equivalent to Putin trolls).
They keep saying Gaza is not an open air prison. But would they agree to live there for a year like an average civilian?
Would they support the right of Palestine to exist? Would they support the Palestinian right to self determination as people? Do they think Palestinians should have the right to live in their homes?
The answer to all of these questions would be a lot of Blabla leading to an eventual no for an answer. Therefore it makes little sense to interact with these accounts, except for the purpose of calling out their BS
Personally, I definitely support the right of Palestinians to exist. They should have their own state and live peacefully side by side to Israel. Unfortunately both Israelis and Palestinians are plagued by horrible leadership that prevent any of this from happening
How can you live side by side with a state that tortures kids in prison? I mean how do you live peacefully and with dignity in a state that - - through its different leaderships since it's founding days - - has been detaining people illegally? That doesn't believe in Palestinians' right to return or right to a decent life? How do you live side by side your murderers and jailers and torturers when they make no attempt to punish the wrongdoers or the settlers or all those assholes in the IDF who humiliate Palestinians at every chance? I'm seriously asking.
I condemn all such behavior. Extremists on both sides are setting the tone unfortunately. I can assure you that Israelis are asking the same questions as they keep seeing the videos of rape and murder in a loop since October 7.
I sometimes wonder if Israelis are exposed to Palestinian suffering as much as Israeli suffering, but a woman raped and killed on October 7th can never be more important than thousands of children with their bones crushed under the rubble.
No, each side is in a propaganda echo chamber.
No death or suffering is more or less important than others.
No one ( well, almost no one) in Israel wants to see innocent civilians getting killed.
I don't know, but every time I look at the Times of Israel, they clearly hide Gazan casualties or casually claim 7k of them were terrorists
You say all these things but I can't get myself to believe you. 😅
I'm saying exactly that, there's a propaganda echo chamber and information on the other side is very little so not sure where we disagree on that
We don't disagree on that. I just can't get myself to respect your views that's all. 😊
You say in one place that death and suffering of all are equal yet your other arguments speak of the opposite. Sounds like lip service to me.
Anyway also please answer my question, what would you have done differently to committing a genocide and ethnic cleansing? 😊😊😊😊
Given the chance, I would immediately start negotiations for two states solution but that will never happen in the current climate.
But you would still continue killing and starving the population?
Palestinians should agree to get their own country and rule it themselves. Why would they be starved and killed ? Not sure I follow. No one should be starved or killed.
And regarding Hamas - Israel cannot coexist next to it. Since Palestinians will not remove Hamas, who else will do it ? Egypt ? The rest of the Arab world ? Israel is left to do it unfortunately. I would like to see any other country in the middle east handle a situation like that... Think they would eliminate Hamas with 0 civilian casualties?
Since Palestinians won't remove Hamas
LOL hold of you to say about a group of people where half are refugees or diaspora and rest are in an open air prison or in the West Bank being arrested and killed every night. How do you expect them to hold elections or have a say in anything? This is the absolute worst excuse I've heard for genocide in my life. Shame.
I think you're giving too much discount for the Palestinians for their current state or affairs and make it sound like everything that happened to them was done to them by Israel only. Both you and I know that is not true. A lot of things could and should have been handled differently, the same of course can be said for Israel. So try to get out of the position for a moment and see that there are a lot of things Palestinians can do to try and change their situation, regardless of any shitty behavior by Israel.
Hmmm, when you ethnically cleanse a group of people and show full intent and action to genocide them, I don't see a wya out of it for Israel. Israel will go down in the books of history as a genocidal Nazi state and so the genocide deniers will not be looked kindly upon.
I think you underestimate the suffering of Palestinians and to what degree Israel has controlled their lives. Yes, things are complicated, but not this part.
So many Palestinians did everything they could to ensure peace, but Israel stops them every time. It attacks activists, kills journalists, etc. If you pretend otherwise, we both know you'd be lying.
I can see you are washed with hatred, I don't blame you.
I can tell you many stories about Israeli peace activists that were affected by all this as well, like this guy for example: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/israeli-exec-who-hired-palestinians-in-tech-boom-still-hopes-for-peace-while-mourning-slain-daughter-c8af06c8
He hired engineers from Gaza and the west bank to try and foster peace through work and his daughter was murdered on Oct 7th. He still hasn't given up on hope.
If you only choose to hate, you continue to cycle
When you asked me what I would do if 1200 of my people were killed, and I mentioned that 17 thousand of my people were killed, you immediately switched to Hamas. It's as if you are incapable of empathy. If I was Israeli I could shove my tragedy in the face of everyone and force them to see me as a victim, but not Palestinians. My grandmother left during the Nakba, her whole hometown is now a dirty stinky Israeli settlement. And yet I cannot go to every UN resolution and demand that Israel be condemned. In fact, if I do that, I'll probably be called antisemetic.
I think Palestinians are very much conceived as the victims today world wide. And I think they are playing that card well and I don't blame them for that.
I didn't want to go to "who started it" because it's a useless debate. The cycle has been going for decades with casualties on both ends.
I'm very much capable of empathy. This whole thread is about the Israel Hamas war so I steered the discussion back to that topic.
I am very sad about the current state of affairs, there's immense suffering on both ends and it's not going to stop anytime soon. I don't hate Palestinians. As an expat Israeli, every time I see a Palestinian abroad we usually become friends and naturally have more in common.
I think Palestinians are the victims of systemic Israeli oppression and I think people who deny that are either genocide deniers or uninformed.
I do not brush aside the suffering of Palestinians. Both populations are screwed over by bad leadership.
However, Hamas started this one by murdering and kidnapping women and children and doing horrendous things. Israel has the right to retaliate. They should do so with the least amount of casualties.
Unfortunately, in the long run, this gets no one closer to nowhere.
Yeah, they have the right to retaliate... But this isn't retaliation, and civilians are not respected.
Says you under a headline that read s "Gazan society On brick of full blow collapse".
It's collapsing because of Israeli indiscriminate bombing yet you make no demands on the genocidal freaks pulling the trigger.
Shame on you
Hamas already did release the hostages, the ones the IDF haven't killed in airstrikes at least
Airstrikes don't affect underground tunnels where Hamas hides with all the humanitarian supplies and fuel along with the precious hostages while the less privileged Gazans suffer above
damn, you really believe that, don't you?like the massive supply bunkers below the hospital?, the hospital that they had laid siege to for days before storming it, meaning that Hamas should have not been able to get anything out, and the greatest horror was a few guns, a diaper, and a bomb shelter that Israel put in when they built the building, full of jack shit.
Every Palestinian in Gaza knows they are using hospitals, mosques, schools to conduct their military operation from there. Have you seen them wearing uniforms in their videos?
This is no secret, it's playbook assymetric warfare tactic I honestly don't understand the denial about it. Do you expect them to have some military base with a helicopter landing so Israel can bomb it in a second?
Damn, imagine wounded combatants being treated at hospitals, of course you happen to forget that Hamas doesn't even have a uniform, nor that it's still a war crime to attack hospitals.
The justification of Israel to bomb hospitals always shows the building its self full of tunnels and storing red exploding barrels. because anything less than that is a war crime...
the only person in denial about anything here is you and the Geneva convention.
They most definitely have uniforms, they just don't use them when fighting Israel as they are embedded inside civilians. And they most definitely hide and attack from schools, mosques and hospitals.
-
"But how will we justify all this killing and murder?"
-
"Ahhh, we'll just invent "proximity bombing" and say that people in their homes and on the street are "human shields", even though they are just living their lives normally, and every time we bomb a hospital, we can just say "KHAMAS was embedded within the population... that way whenever 100 Palestinian civilians die by "accident", we can fall back on that excuse".
the closest thing Hamas has to a uniform is something black and MAYBE a headband that sometimes is green.
turns out the Goth club in town is actually a uniformed Hamas HQ.
but in all reality, there hasn't been a single insurgency in history that has had a uniform, and there never will be.
a picture does not a uniform make
Especially when a Google pictures search shows that Hamas wears all kinds of different outfits
There are no hostages in Ba Sing Se.
Got it.
It's sad seeing you make such a reference because clearly you didn't even understand anything from that show.
October 7th was wrong
Correction: Some individual actions taken on October 7th (with no evidence they were Hamas policy) were wrong. October 7th as a whole was resistance against a foreign occupier, which is allowed under international law.
Wow this is a very delusional take. Hamas didn't rampage into the "Settlements" of land that has been taken, they went deep into Israel. And I don't think international law allows you to kill or capture civilians or children and hold them for ransom.
They didn't hold them for ransom. They demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, which Israel is detaining in a way that conflicts with international law (unlawful detainment, torture, withllding food, already several prioners have died in Israeli prisons since October 7th, but the correct word is that they were murdered/assassinated by Israel.
International law generally makes exceptions for actions that have military purpose. Israel created a status quo where one of the few things Hamas can do that actually make the lives of Palestinians better is take hostages, so from my understanding it'd be allowed by international law.
Your understanding of international law is absolutely frightening. Go ask ChatGPT that question before you say it out loud again.
Israel was not occupying Gaza, in fact it withdrew its settlements and all army forces in 2005. On October 7th, not a single Israeli soldier was in Gaza.
Thanks. That's a good explanation of it.
But where does one draw the line between "Individual action" and "battalion action"?
When the atrocity in question was ordered or encouraged by the leadership. The point the blame passes from the individual to the institution is when the institution gets involved in the atrocity. So if Hamas had said "kill civilians" or "rape women" we'd have to blame Hamas for that, but as long as it's a decision an individual made on their own only the individual bears responsibility.
so, if, for example, the head of government goes and awards medals to people shooting children you would assume that the government supports that, right?
Uh... Yes? Is that going on in Hamas?
It's funny because literally the IDF gets pizza coupons for killing Palestinians. That's how trivial Palestinian life is to the IDF.
What's the standard for this in the U.S.? It reaches only as far up the ladder as anyone can definitively prove. Abu Gharib saw like, what, a lieutenant fired or something. But when it's "the enemy", all of a sudden we assume by default the decision came from the highest levels, and it's carte blanche to wipe out 2.5 million people living in a giant concentration camp, in a supposed attempt to do regime change.
I mean, let's be honest, this looks like a serious genocide attempt, and Bibi has been saying genocidal things every few days.
The "enemy" in their comment is Hamas. You're agreeing with them.
Hmmm. Are you replying to the right comment?
What I'm saying is that Bibi and his cabinet made lots of genocidal claims to fully support intent of genocide, and tery are the ones pushing their army to do this.
It's because they said that we have to assume it comes from above... Well with Bibi we don't have to assume, he already told us he's Hitler.
No no. They're talking about Hamas in the "comes from above" thing. When it's the US crimes go only as high up the ladder as provable, but when it's "the enemy" (aka Hamas) individual crimes are used as excuses to wipe out 2.5 million people, is what dx1 is saying. They're pointing out the hypocrisy.
Yeah buddy I get it, I have eyes, I read their comment. My response to them meant "lol well isn't that funny since Bibi is the genocidal one here, saying the quiet part out loud on television".
Oh I see. Their comment could be taken both ways, so I assumed that was what's going on. Nevermind.
I'm so confused now.
Basically ignore everything I said. I misunderstood you.
Whatever your opinion on whose fault all of this is, Hamas, like Saddam in the 90s, initiated the perfect FAFO...