Bael's Bastard

It's not the own you think it is to acknowledge your obligations to your citizens being held by an enemy state are different than your obligations to citizens of an enemy state that are being hid behind to continue to shoot rockets at you and hold your citizens hostage. Under international law you must do your best to minimize civilian casualties, but it becomes more difficult when an enemy state cynically turns its own civilians into military infrastructure and usage. The denial of this reality is widespread. The Allies did much worse to a German population that the Nazi military was not hiding behind to such an extent. Hamas have the same goals as the Nazis re: Jews, nevermind the world. They may not have the means to accomplish it now, which is why it is important to stop them before their allies help them acquire more of the means to do so.

(((them)))

That's a lie not a fact.

Not true. Israel's greatest military successes all came as a young socialist country that the US gov was quite hostile towards. The US didn't jump on the bandwagon until after the Six Day War completely changed everything and especially after the peace deal with Egypt, as even during the YK War the US used its new position of "support" to delay weapons shipments to Israel. The US spent decades pressuring Israel any time invasions/wars against them turned in their favor.

For fuck's sake, I've been very careful not to call all the unhinged bullshit people have posted in these threads antisemitic. Nor have I attempted to shut anyone up. Everyone has been posting whatever crazy bullshit pops out of their unfiltered fingertips. But some things ARE antisemitic and I sure as fuck am not going to refrain from calling it out when it is being spread. The baseless accusations against Israel of genocide are absolutely antisemitic, whether spread by supposed human rights orgs or by some asshole on the internet.

The genocide accusations are baseless antisemitic Holocaust inversion. Not that victims of genocide are inherently incapable of committing genocide, but Jews are factually not doing so. When the Nazis were committing actual genocide they were relentlessly killing 10-15,000 Jews per day with the capabilities they had. Israel has dropped more bombs than people have been killed (militants or otherwise), an absurdity if they were trying to commit genocide against Gazans.

Nah, I got the point, but unlike Black Americans, Palestinians have had their own national governments and elected leaders for decades who make or break any drive for self-determination and peace.

Yeah, this is painting a bullseye around an arrow.

It is disingenuous to claim or pretend that Palestinian political leadership has ever been anything except Arafat, Abbas, and Hamas, none of whom have seriously pursued a two state solution and peace with Israel (Arafat and Abbas both played chicken with peace, but ultimately bailed whether they didn't believe in it or didn't believe their people could accept it).

The greatest threat to Netanyahu and his most right wing coalition partners is a Palestinian leader who actually intends to make peace demanding final status negotiations for a two state solution. Support for a two state solution has fluctuated among Israelis and Palestinians, mostly because of cynicism that there is a real partner on the other side. The second intifada, election of Hamas, Hamas capture of Gaza from Fatah, Fatah pay for slay program and frequent denial of Jewish history in the land and the Holocaust killed any faith Israelis had in a partner for peace or any urgent drive they had to make the peace process central to elections. The desire is there, just not the willingness to put life on hold waiting for Palestinians to get serious. Most Israelis do not want to annex the WB (outside the consensus communties near Jerusalem) or absorb millions of Palestinians, but the aftermath of the Gaza disengagement has made a unilateral withdrawal from the WB a non-starter. Terror, BDS, international pressure, etc. will not change that. Palestinian leaders who want two states and are capable of delivering support on their side absolutely can.

How about the fact that Jews never got recompense for the land, property, and wealth stolen when they were kicked out of their homes by Arab and/or Muslim countries, including from Jerusalem, the WB, and Gaza by Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, etc?

Really tired of trying to reason with people who can't acknowledge that every Arab Muslim state (including Palestinian Gaza ruled by Egypt and Palestinian WB ruled by Jordan between 1948-1967) ethnically cleansed their entire Jewish communities (nearly 1 million Jews), while more than 25% of Israeli citizens are non-Jews with full civil and religious rights, including about 2 million Arabs. There are literally more Arab citizens of Israel than in the entire MENA and Europe combined.

The majority of Jews in the WB are in settlements near Jerusalem on a very small percentage of land, and Israel's negotiation position has long been that there would be swaps from inside Israel for those settlements. The deeper settlements where a minority of Jews are would have to be evacuated or absorbed by Palestine depending on negotiations. It is absolutely doable, even if it would be painful. It would be less painful than trying to dismantle Israel for one state that would quickly become hostile to Jews.

Also, as much as the Hamas attack makes clear Jews can still be killed in Israel, most Jews I've talked to still feel a hell of a lot safer in Israel than among the unhinged vitriol and hatred in the diaspora. Antizionists who don't want Jews in Israel/Palestine need to consider how unsafe they are making life for Jews in the diaspora.

No longer surprised at how people can deny the atrocities of the Holocaust considering how supposedly "normal" people have defaulted to skepticism and denial of Hamas' atrocities since the week they were committed.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-one-potential-hostage-deal-would-see-hamas-israel-release-women-and-minors/

Israel's most right wing leader was responsible for handing control of the WB to Arafat and accepted 67 borders as the framework for peace negotiations, while Palestine's most moderate leader continues to engage in denial of the Holocaust and Jewish history in the land of Israel/Palestine and pays Palestinians and the families of Palestinians who commit terror attacks. Antizionists will blame all of this on Jews, on the blockade, on 67, on 48, on anything except a century of Arab rejection of Jews having self-determination in part of their indigenous homeland.

The Jews who have been defending Israel's right and obligation to uproot Hamas in these threads are all left, anti-Netanyahu, anti-occupation, pro-Palestinian state, so the idea that the issue is mere criticism of Israel is a load of shit. Those who frame an antizionist fringe that has made themselves odious to the majority of Jewish communities by apologizing for terror and demonizing any IDF action to deal with Hamas as "the good Jews" are stigmatizing the overwhelming majority of Jews who are left, Zionist, anti-Netanyahu, pro-two states as "the bad Jews," and have helped mainstream among the left threatening and being violent against Jews. We fucking hate Netanyahu and want him gone for many reasons, including unwillingness to negotiate with the PA after 2014 (granted, even Kerry acknowledged he was willing to go far to make a deal), but no Israel leader left, center, or right would have neglected to go hard after Hamas in Gaza. There are aspects that would be different, perhaps more non-fuel aid would have continued, more clamping down on the violent among Jews in the WB, perhaps an attempt at a bit more precision in targeting buildings Hamas is using or operating near, but the left and center could not do much more to protect civilians while fighting a terror group that steals from its people and uses them as shields. That is a total fantasy many here have.

It is absofuckinglutely true. I don't give a shit how many Israeli friends some random guy on the internet claims to have. If you are asking why you are skeptical of Hamas atrocities that have been attested to by ZAKA first responders among other witnesses to the bodies but knee-jerk believe and perpetuate every depiction of Israel being some evil force, you are showing your whole ass.

A consistently anti-Jewish bias.

Hamas' numbers do not distinguish between Hamas fighters and civilians, let alone between Hamas fighters who are men and Hamas fighters who are under 18, or how many deaths under 18 are civilians and how many are Hamas fighters.

Aside from the fact that killing Hamas' leaders abroad wouldn't dismantle Hamas' terror infrastructure in Gaza while creating an even greater diplomatic shitstorm than this war is, if Israel could/would kill Hamas' leaders abroad, the Hamas apologists masquerading as "just pro-Palestine" would just demonize Israel for assassination. In fact, when Israel tried to assassinate Meshaal in 1997, no less than the US and Jordan forced Israel to provide the anecdote to save his life and enable him to continue murdering Jews for another quarter of a century thus far. It is yet another example in a long line that has informed Israel and Jews that the world is mostly disingenuous and full of shit on this conflict.

That's what I'm saying, I don't think there is going to be popular support for releasing terrorists with blood on their hands. Freeing captives is generally of utmost importance, and I understand some families support releasing any/all prisoners to get their loved ones back, but it is an impossible situation no matter what decision is made.

There is no indication how many are alive or what condition they are in as neither the Red Cross nor any other org has been permitted to see them. Perhaps most or all of them are still alive, but we don't really know, and we know that Hamas is historically just as likely to demand live Palestinian prisoners for dead Jewish bodies.

The current head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was released along with over 1000 others for Gilad Shalit in 2011. The terribleness of the precedent is already set to most Israelis.