Israel - Hamas War 2

[Zorral]

Nevertheless, within Israel itself, the support for bibi and his cronies is very low.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Surely that's an argument for attacking the support base of Hamas, not reckless action that will kill thousands of civilians and help their recruitment.

Again I'm entirely on board with trying to end Hamas, but mass deaths with apparent disregard for civilian casualties isn't the way to do that.

It's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Hamas are the ones who decided to use their own people as shields. 

[Conflicting Thought]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Hamas are the ones who decided to use their own people as shields

every time that israel attacks  civilians is hamas using them as shields? like whats the ratio, how do you know wich times they use human shieds and when they dont?

every time israeli kills civilans its hamas fault...so in that narrative, is hamas killing palestinians not the israeli bombs that are actually killing them.

it is a good way to justify atrocities i guess

[GrimTuesday]

14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Hamas are the ones who decided to use their own people as shields. 

Yeah, because it was Hamas that trapped 2.2 million people in a 140 square mile area that is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. If Hamas is going to carry out a liberatory struggle against a much more powerful enemy, where are they supposed to do it? Are they all supposed to line up in an empty field and fire their rockets?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Yeah, because it was Hamas that trapped 2.2 million people in a 140 square mile area that is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. If Hamas is going to carry out a liberatory struggle against a much more powerful enemy, where are they supposed to do it? Are they all supposed to line up in an empty field and fire their rockets?

Are you seriously trying to glorify a terrorist organization that just murdered a ton of people? And then justify their tactics of getting their own people killed because they think it benefits them? 

[karaddin]

29 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Hamas are the ones who decided to use their own people as shields. 

I did make a pretty long post yesterday with suggestions of things you could be doing alongside this though while repeatedly conceding that it is extremely hard to do that right, and conceding that Israel does need to be able to fight Hamas itself. Turning off electricity and water etc does (imo) far more damage to relations with the Palestinian people in Gaza than its gaining you in military value. Find ways to try and give medical assistance to the hurt civilians. Show that you do care about the civilian deaths and injuries and that Hamas sure as fuck doesn't. 

[GrimTuesday]

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Are you seriously trying to glorify a terrorist organization that just murdered a ton of people? And then justify their tactics of getting their own people killed because they think it benefits them? 

What about that was glorifying Hamas? Because I said it was a liberatory struggle? Fuck off with that bad faith bullshit. every post I have made in these threads have made it clear that I do not support what Hamas has done, killing civilians is unacceptable no matter who is doing it. You know that you are defending the indefensible and you know that in order to make your support for an ongoing crime against humanity seem justified, you have to tie my statement to another crime against humanity to create some equivalence, but the truth is that these things do not cancel each other out and international law is clear, the Palestinians have a right to defend itself, and they have to fight in the context they exist in.

Are you going to say that the Viet Cong were using the people of Vietnam as human shields because they hid in plain sight as villagers which we then bombed and burned?

You're so lost in the sauce that you can't see that you're supporting genocide, and before you hide behind the fact that you are Jewish, there are plenty of Jews who are calling for peace, including some of those who survived Hamas' massacres on Saturday.

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by GrimTuesday

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I did make a pretty long post yesterday with suggestions of things you could be doing alongside this though while repeatedly conceding that it is extremely hard to do that right, and conceding that Israel does need to be able to fight Hamas itself. Turning off electricity and water etc does (imo) far more damage to relations with the Palestinian people in Gaza than its gaining you in military value. Find ways to try and give medical assistance to the hurt civilians. Show that you do care about the civilian deaths and injuries and that Hamas sure as fuck doesn't. 

I think most people agree cutting the utilities is a horrible and inhumane idea. 

4 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

What about that was glorifying Hamas? Because I said it was a liberatory struggle? Fuck off with that bad faith bullshit.

 Nope. You said a terrorist group that openly says their main goal is to kill Jews while doing jack shit for Palestinians was engaged in a liberatory struggle. You have to own that. 

[karaddin]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think most people agree cutting the utilities is a horrible and inhumane idea. 

This is my primary objection yeah, but I'm also arguing that its counter productive. Its not just that its morally wrong, its also a strategic mistake.

[Kalbear]

To add, it is not an idea to cut off all food, water, electricity, fuel and aid  This isnt abstract. Israel has done this for 5 days now.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, karaddin said:

This is my primary objection yeah, but I'm also arguing that its counter productive. Its not just that its morally wrong, its also a strategic mistake.

Agreed. There are more thoughtful approaches to the situation that still allow Israel not to look weak (I know, this is dumb, but they kind of have to do it). However, like many feared, a right wing government in political turmoil was most likely going to be maximum awful and they're doing just that. 

[karaddin]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Agreed. There are more thoughtful approaches to the situation that still allow Israel not to look weak (I know, this is dumb, but they kind of have to do it). However, like many feared, a right wing government in political turmoil was most likely going to be maximum awful and they're doing just that. 

Yeah. Not much more to say than yeah, and fuck.

[GrimTuesday]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think most people agree cutting the utilities is a horrible and inhumane idea. 

 Nope. You said a terrorist group that openly says their main goal is to kill Jews while doing jack shit for Palestinians was engaged in a liberatory struggle. You have to own that. 

I think you find I do not have have to own that because as I have made it very clear, that is not necessarily my position. I do not like or support Hamas, but I do support the struggle for Palestinian liberation and accept that like basically every liberation movement in history, there will be some level of violence because they are meeting a system of apartheid, which by its very nature necessitates violence by the state to maintain that system, with violence of their own.

Of course if you want to talk about someone who actually does support Hamas, I think we only need to look to Haaretz for that

 

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Yeah, because it was Hamas that trapped 2.2 million people in a 140 square mile area that is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. If Hamas is going to carry out a liberatory struggle against a much more powerful enemy, where are they supposed to do it? Are they all supposed to line up in an empty field and fire their rockets?

Just curious - where are you getting your 2.2 M number from? Wikipedia says the estimate in 2022 was 1,997,328, basically 2M people, with an annual population growth rate of 2.02%, or about 40,000. I can’t find a 2007 number, but in 2010 the population was 1.6 M. If Israel has been practicing genocide in Gaza for decades, as some people have said in this thread, shouldn’t the population be going down? You’re increasing it by another 200,000.

As for where they are firing their rockets from, I don’t think it’s from empty fields. It’s from rooftops of buildings, isn’t it? Including from schools? I remember that accusation. Isn’t that why the Israelis target certain buildings? I remember a few years ago the Israelis bombed the building the Associated Press had their offices in, saying Hamas intelligence had offices in that building. They warned everyone first to get out, and everyone did get out, but without equipment and important records. AP officials said they had no knowledge of any Hamas operations in the building, and accusations were made that Israel targeted the AP for their reporting.

[Many-Faced Votary]

13 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Just curious - where are you getting your 2.2 M number from?

2.17 million was the estimate from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in July of last year.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Many-Faced Votary

[Fragile Bird]

6 minutes ago, Many-Faced Votary said:

2.17 million was the estimate from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in November of last year.

That’s interesting, I searched for a population link and found that link but I was blocked from it, a message saying I had no authority to look at the site came up.

Frankly, it looks like no one has an accurate figure on the population. That 1.9 figure I quoted was also a 2022 population estimate, and now I just found a Wikipedia page called The Gaza Strip that states in it’s opening paragraph the population is 2 M and in it’s list of statistics that the population is 2,375,259, quoting arabic.news.cn.

Whatever the number is, the population density is very high.

[GrimTuesday]

42 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Just curious - where are you getting your 2.2 M number from? Wikipedia says the estimate in 2022 was 1,997,328, basically 2M people, with an annual population growth rate of 2.02%, or about 40,000. I can’t find a 2007 number, but in 2010 the population was 1.6 M. If Israel has been practicing genocide in Gaza for decades, as some people have said in this thread, shouldn’t the population be going down? You’re increasing it by another 200,000.

As for where they are firing their rockets from, I don’t think it’s from empty fields. It’s from rooftops of buildings, isn’t it? Including from schools? I remember that accusation. Isn’t that why the Israelis target certain buildings? I remember a few years ago the Israelis bombed the building the Associated Press had their offices in, saying Hamas intelligence had offices in that building. They warned everyone first to get out, and everyone did get out, but without equipment and important records. AP officials said they had no knowledge of any Hamas operations in the building, and accusations were made that Israel targeted the AP for their reporting.

2.2 million has been the generally cited number by the press in the coverage in the last week. When I look up the population of the Gaza Strip, I see google says in 2020 it was 2.048, and the estimate on Wikipedia for 2023 is 2.375 million, though the article they cite is all in Arabic so I can't double check it, but contrary to what some people like to claim, Wikipedia is generally pretty reliable for stuff like this.

As for where Hamas fires its rockets from, it absolutely is from rooftops and such, and that is kind of the point. Where else are they supposed to do it from. Gaza is massively populated, and they have an interest in not being immediately blasted off the face of the earth by Israeli missiles, so of course they are going to do it in areas that might give the Israelis pause before bombing, because let's be honest, that is what a military that actually valued the lives of the civilians on a human level would do.  That is also the point of them taking hostages. They didn't take hostages just be barbaric and kill them on tv or some shit, hostages are leverage to get what you want, in this case Israel to not immediately bomb them and probably to free prisoners that Israel is holding or something like that.

These aren't animals, contrary to what Israel says, these decisions are made by relatively intelligent people and they do things for a purpose, for better or for worse.

And Israeli "warning people" is what they call door knocking which is dropping a smaller explosive and then a minute or two later the big boy comes along.