Israel - Hamas War 2

[Conflicting Thought]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The main reason large amounts of people in Gaza would die is because of Hamas

jesus, we are in different worlds, in different realities, israel could kill every man, woman and child in gaza (and the west bank, cuz the west bank is always left out, for some reason, where hamas is not a problem,yes?) and you would say is hamas fault, we are just never going to get anywhere. 

and i think that the way you view this is how the majority of israeli people see it too (and majority of western world), wich is why this is going to end in the worst way possible.

[Tywin et al.]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Apparently both.

Show me where that's the explicit policy of the Israeli government. Again, not saying they don't do a lot of bad things, but where do they say they want every Palestinian to be removed and/or die? Because it's already been cited several times that's what Hamas wanted.

Here in the US there were numerous protests by Palestinian groups celebrating the attacks. Do you see Jews celebrating the counter strikes in a similar way?  

[Conflicting Thought]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

but where do they say they want every Palestinian to be removed and/or die?

in their actions

[Tywin et al.]

Just now, Conflicting Thought said:

jesus, we are in different worlds, in different realities, israel could kill every man, woman and child in gaza (and the west bank, cuz the west bank is always left out, for some reason, where hamas is not a problem,yes?) and you would say is hamas fault, we are just never going to get anywhere. 

Yes, we are living in different worlds, because Hamas says they want the death and destruction of Jews, then just carried out the worst single attack on Jews since the Holocaust and you want to make this about Jews wanting to kill every Palestinian. That's fucked up, full stop.  

[Altherion]

1 minute ago, Conflicting Thought said:

in their actions

This is the exact opposite of the case. Their actions -- both historically and current ones -- have been extremely cautious because of both the culture of the place and the fact that they know that they're dependent on the approval of other nations (at the very least the US, but also to a considerable extent the EU). If something like this happened to a less cautious nation (e.g. the US), the casualties would have been much higher by now.

Some people in this thread are acting like we're about to witness something like the siege of Leningrad in WWII, but this is just silly. Yes, the Israelis have temporarily tried to restrict the flow of goods and personnel, but they would never get away with doing it for long enough to cause widespread starvation -- even if they wanted to do it (and they almost certainly don't), they US would tell them to stop.

[Bironic]

1 minute ago, Conflicting Thought said:

in their actions

You know that Israel has the capabilities to do just that? If the really wanted all Palestinians dead they could pull it off. But apparently they don’t do it.

Not saying Israel isn’t doing bad stuff atm or hasn’t done in the past or that there are parts of the Israeli population that would go along with a „final solution“ for the Palestinian question. But it’s not the official policy of any Israeli government since 1948 to exterminate the Palestinians. OTOH Hamas policy is to exterminate the Jews in Israel. 

[Zorral]

Quote

.... When I filed this review (the original version of which appeared in the print edition of the Observer on 8 October 2023), I referred to Thrall’s book as appearing in a dark period in Israel’s history, with Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners seeking to strip the legal system of any semblance of independence, to neuter the press and silence critics. Now, after Hamas’s brutal attacks on Israeli civilians and the response from the Israeli government, life on both sides of the divide looks unimaginably bleaker. It feels hard to recommend reading material against such a backdrop, but a book such as A Day in the Life of Abed Salama brims over with just the sort of compassion and understanding that is needed at a time like this. Like Colum McCann’s extraordinary novel Apeirogon, Thrall looks at the Israel/Palestine conflict with unflinching clarity and quiet anger, but above all, with nuance. At a time when facts have become weapons in this seemingly endless conflict, this is a book that speaks with deep and authentic truth of ordinary lives trapped in the jaws of history. ....

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story by Nathan Thrall 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/12/a-day-in-the-life-of-abed-salama-a-palestine-story-by-nathan-thrall-review

~~~~~~~~~~

Frankfurt Book Fair Cancels Award Ceremony for Palestinian Author
Organizers cited the Israel-Hamas war as the reason for stepping back from honoring a novel about the 1949 murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers.

Quote

 

.... The Israel-Hamas war has inflamed longstanding divisions among Germany’s cultural institutions over support for Israel. In 2020, dozens of the country’s foremost cultural groups raised concerns that they could face charges of antisemitism over links — real or perceived — to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, known as B.D.S. Germany’s Parliament has designated B.D.S. as antisemitic, and called on Germany’s states, which provide the majority of arts funding in the country, to deny subsidies to groups or individuals that “actively support” the campaign.

Juergen Boos, the Frankfurt Book Fair’s director, said in a statement that the organization strongly condemned “Hamas’s barbaric terror against Israel,” adding, “Our thoughts are with the victims, their relatives and all the people suffering from this war.”

Politics have sometimes loomed large over the Frankfurt Book Fair, which became a stage for European leaders to campaign against rising far-right parties in 2017, and faced a boycott from Iran in 2015, when Salman Rushdie attended the event. (Mr. Rushdie is set to return to the fair this year.)

In the statement, Mr. Boos said that organizers had “spontaneously decided to create additional stage moments for Israeli voices” at the fair.

The event will be held from Oct. 18 to 22. Litprom said it is searching for a “suitable format and setting” to hold the award ceremony after the fair concludes.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/books/frankfurt-book-fair-cancels-award-adania-shibli.html

[Zorral]

29 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Do you see Jews celebrating the counter strikes in a similar way?  

Yes.  Some of them.  Not our friends though.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Yes.  Some of them.  Not our friends though.

I highly doubt it. I doubt there were many Jewish  people holding up photos with pictures of dead people and celebrating ,pulling down posters of missing people or doing the equivalent of chanting ‘gas the Jews’ as been seen in the past few days. 
 

 

[Rippounet]

19 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Yes, the Israelis have temporarily tried to restrict the flow of goods and personnel, but they would never get away with doing it for long enough to cause widespread starvation -- even if they wanted to do it (and they almost certainly don't), they US would tell them to stop.

"It's pointless to be outraged at x, because outrage will eventually force people to stop x."
I'm not sure what the name of this fallacy is, but I've been seeing a lot of it in the past few years.

Quote

Some people in this thread are acting like we're about to witness something like the siege of Leningrad in WWII, but this is just silly.

And this is pretty much trolling.

[Zorral]

Poll Shows Catastrophic Drop Off in Support for Netanyahu

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/poll-shows-catastrophic-drop-off-in-support-for-netanyahu

Quote

 

One issue we’ve discussed since Saturday’s attacks is what effect the Hamas attacks and subsequent Israel-Hamas war would have on public opinion in Israel. Specifically, would there be a rally round the flag boost for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu? As I’ve tried to argue, it was not at all clear this would be the case. There’s been a great deal of anecdotal and reported evidence to the contrary. If you watch Israeli media there’s clearly been a vast upsurge of social solidarity and support for retaliation against Hamas (that civilians in Gaza will pay a heavy price for). But there’s been very, very little evidence of any surge in support for Netanyahu or his government. Indeed, we see signs of a volcanic anger against his government over its responsibility for the events of last weekend. There have been a number of viral videos of members of the coalition heckled in public or shouted down or forced to leave events in response to public anger.

Now we have one of the first polls and it appears to confirm all of that, a vast sea of public anger and catastrophic loss of support for Netanyahu’s government.

Polls are always just snapshots in time, even more so in such chaotic circumstances. But this poll from the Israeli daily Maariv paints a clear and devastating picture of initial public reactions. The results show drops for almost every party in the government and a dramatic drop for Likud, from 32 to 19 seats. In total it’s well below a majority. There is meanwhile a huge gain for the party of Benny Gantz, the former chief of staff who just joined the national unity government. That party, somewhat confusingly also called National Unity, goes from 12 seats to 41. There are a bunch of other changes but those are the key ones.

I want to stress again that more than your average poll you can’t by any means draw a line from this to some hypothetical future election. You’re taking a poll in the midst of a vast shock to the political system and a non-trivial physical dislocation of the population. More than half a million reservists have been called to active duty; people are spending time in shelters; whole communities in the south have been evacuated, etc.

But what this shows pretty clear is that the current government has not benefited at all from the current crisis. On the contrary there’s a major backlash against the current government and a big surge of support for the opposition, especially Benny Gantz’s centrist/ex-general-heavy party.

 

 

[Conflicting Thought]

33 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yes, we are living in different worlds, because Hamas says they want the death and destruction of Jews, then just carried out the worst single attack on Jews since the Holocaust and you want to make this about Jews wanting to kill every Palestinian. That's fucked up, full stop.  

ok, the attack on israel is the worst one  since the holocaust. israel has attacked gaza in the past that has been ten times worse than the attack hamas did, like what the fuck is the point of this competition?

and are you trying to make an antisemitism point? cuz that is fucked up. and im saying israeli people and not jewish people for a reason, because i also fear the antisemitism this attacks will provoke.

people are sayin about the palestinians "dont they know that this attack will hurt the palestinians cause?( even though hamas is not representative of all palestinians as we all know) and i think the same of israel...dont they know that the things they are doing to palestinian people will hurt us, the jews?(even though i make the separation between israel and jewish identity)

[Conflicting Thought]

13 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I highly doubt it. I doubt there were many Jewish  people holding up photos with pictures of dead people and celebrating ,pulling down posters of missing people or doing the equivalent of chanting ‘gas the Jews’ as been seen in the past few days. 

you would be wrong then

[Kalbear]

Let's get into it a bit more specifically:

What is the military value of denying electricity to the entire Gaza strip? Specifically, what is the value of cutting off electricity to hospitals?

What is the military value of cutting off water supplies? 

What is the military value of cutting off food supplies? 

What is the value of blowing up the largest building in Gaza that was housing the Associated Press?

The argument keeps going on and on about how if you oppose widespread bombing of Gaza you oppose ANY action against Hamas - but that's just obviously false on every level. To be clear, I think most folks are opposing the very specific actions that Israel has actually taken in Gaza. Especially things like the denying of all food, water and electricity. To me those are things that serve only one real purpose - to politically show something is being done but not do anything of consequence. It is just security theater. 

The non-emotional course of action should first and foremost to be to end the capabilities of Hamas fighters in Israel directly (which Israel has been doing), ensure that Hamas forces are unable to retreat, stop any active attacks in Gaza and then plan the next course of action. Only the first part - the active Hamas fighters in Israel - need to be stopped quickly.

To put this in perspective the US took 15 days to insert a CIA force into Afghanistan and then another 13 days to do any kind of air strikes.

[dbergkvist]

47 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Some people in this thread are acting like we're about to witness something like the siege of Leningrad in WWII, but this is just silly. Yes, the Israelis have temporarily tried to restrict the flow of goods and personnel, but they would never get away with doing it for long enough to cause widespread starvation -- even if they wanted to do it (and they almost certainly don't), they US would tell them to stop.

So is it your theory then that, due to pressure from the US, Netanyahu will order IDF to stop what they are doing, at some point, and restore food and electricity? And then what? Will Hamas be gone and the problem thus be resolved?

Edited October 13, 2023 by dbergkvist

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Poll Shows Catastrophic Drop Off in Support for Netanyahu

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/poll-shows-catastrophic-drop-off-in-support-for-netanyahu

This would be another way that Hamas would be considered successful in their goals, I suspect. Depending quite a lot on who actually replaces Netanyahu. 

Reading back on the previous wars one thing did stand out to me - that when Israel had any setbacks they were VERY keen on finding fault and getting better, and were absolutely fine with getting rid of prior leaders who were shown to have been incompetent. This is in very stark contrast to the US response to attacks. It's still certainly possible that Netanyahu will gain some amount of help or support depending on what he does, but I'm a lot more optimistic that he is going to be hurt by this and more sane heads may prevail. 

[Altherion]

15 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

"It's pointless to be outraged at x, because outrage will eventually force people to stop x."
I'm not sure what the name of this fallacy is, but I've been seeing a lot of it in the past few years.

Your outrage has nothing to do with this. The US has well established lines that it will not cross and if Israel starts approaching these, it will be warned and will back off. Thus far, Biden et al have told the Israelis to go ahead. If the civilian casualties pile up, this will change.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

Your outrage has nothing to do with this. The US has well established lines that it will not cross and if Israel starts approaching these, it will be warned and will back off. Thus far, Biden et al have told the Israelis to go ahead. If the civilian casualties pile up, this will change.

That isn't accurate on several levels. Both Biden and Blinken have stated that Israel has the US's full support, but also stated that part of what makes democratic states strong is that they do care about human life and are not going to be indiscriminate. To me that's clearly stating that the US will have limits and given that these were public statements I suspect those limits are already being reached. 

It's also not pointless (or at least shouldn't be) to express outrage at civilian deaths - it definitely does have something to do with it. The US holds those positions because they align with most of the populace - and as we've seen in recent history in the US, sometimes those limits will change based on who is running things. 

Mostly I don't get why people can't express outrage at Palestinian deaths and put some of the blame on Israel's policies. The only Palestinian hospital (which happens to be in the north of Gaza which has been just told to evacuate everyone) is at the point where they cannot treat any more people and they are 24 hours away from running out of power. That is a choice that Israel is making. I can have room in my heart to care about that and be absolutely pissed at the hundreds of people from around the world who were killed by Hamas terrorists. This isn't a zero-sum game, nor is it some sort of outrage olympics.

[Gorn]

12 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

What is the military value of denying electricity to the entire Gaza strip? Specifically, what is the value of cutting off electricity to hospitals?

I won't try to justify anything else, but power grids are a valid military target in warfare (see NATO bombing of Serbia, both Iraq wars, WWII, etc). Electricity is a dual-use resource. And the same power grid supplies the hospital and the tunnels with munitions, there is no way to strike one without affecting the other.

[Rippounet]

11 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Your outrage has nothing to do with this. The US has well established lines that it will not cross and if Israel starts approaching these, it will be warned and will back off. Thus far, Biden et al have told the Israelis to go ahead. If the civilian casualties pile up, this will change.

Right. No big deal then, nothing to discuss here.
I mean, once enough people will have died, we can totally count on Israel to obey the US's warning instantly.

Dude, if you don't give a fuck, why even bother posting?