Israel - Hamas War 2

[Rippounet]

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Who gives a shit if they can't do it? Their intent is what matters.

No, it does not. In fact, it's the very opposite: the objectives of Hamas are now totally irrelevant to the current situation, i.e. the slaughter of thousands of trapped Palestinians.

You could go back and forth all day, but there is no moral justification for genocide.

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Then talk more about how Hamas wanted that to happen to their own people. They knew Israel would overreact after they committed the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

Then perhaps Israel should not be falling into the trap laid by Hamas.

If Hamas ends up showing that Israel does in fact disregard the lives of Palestinian civilians and children, then Israel does in fact disregard Palestinian lives. No one here will ever condone the method, but it was always up to Israel to show that it could in fact respect (or at least try to respect) basic human rights, even in the wake of tragedy. Because that's what a "democratic" State (broadly defined) does. The current definition of "democracy" entails some basic moral duties for States, while conversely, a State that ignores human rights can hardly be considered democratic.

I don't like where this is going any more than you do (in fact, I might like it even less), but the writing has been on the wall for some time. Israel has kept using anti-semitism as a shield for the worst actions, and now is a good time for all Israelis and Jews to realize that there are some actions that the world will not support, no matter the circumstances.

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And what would you like Israel to do? Get attacked and do nothing? 

Not leaving a population of several millions without water, food, electricity, or medical supplies, in the middle of a military operation, would have been a good start.

For sure, a measured answer to the terrorist attacks would have taken ages and required considerable resources. But it's not like the Hamas fighters were easily going to escape Gaza anyway. And international public support was absolutely worth it, given the alternative.

[Varysblackfyre321]

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Then talk more about how Hamas wanted that to happen to their own people.

I truly think(Hamas bad), Israel’s response(Hamas bad), has been(Hamas bad), recklessly uncaring(Hamas bad), of human life.

Did I mention Hamas bad? 
 

Apologies I understand I do genuinely condemn Hamas and recognize it as an abomination, I do irked when I see people try to frame them as freedom fighters, but on other hand there seems to be a constant need to redirect criticism of how Israel has reacted and their evil plans concerning Gaza to a reaffirmation of how Hamas is bad from a person after they’ve given it.

For example:

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

Sigh I thought we’d at least until the Far right to get back into power to see shit like this.

In addition to the crackdown in Europe on pro-Palestinian protest(England, France etc), dark days ahead.

im glad we’ve the first amendment in America some days. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Toth]

4 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Sigh I thought we’d at least until the Far right to get back into power to see shit like this.

In addition to the crackdown in Europe on pro-Palestinian protest(England, France etc), dark days ahead.

Huh?!?

As a teacher in Berlin I would assume I'd be in the know about that. But all I can find is a notification that the ban on headscarves for teachers had been lifted about a month ago.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Toth

[Rippounet]

9 minutes ago, Relic said:

 But this is not the right response. This will only lead to more blood. Already one terror attack in France today. 

No one will like this point, but yes, this could lead to a chain reaction.

Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is often seen as the symbol of Western colonialism and the disregard of developed countries for the lives of the non-white people(s). Democracy, broadly defined (human rights, equity, rule of law... etc), is the usual narrative to defend liberalism as a whole, including economic liberalism.
In the context of climate change illustrating the daily failures of the economic order, the narrative becomes all the more important. The image of Western Israelis living in kibbutzim where watering can keep lawns green while Palestinians trapped behind walls don't have enough water was never good, but if the West cannot at least acknowledge the validity and consequences of Palestinian resentment, then the West as a whole loses the moral high ground.

Or, to put it in simpler terms, Islamists throughout the world may feel this is a good moment to go on the offensive through terrorist attacks. Some will do it out of pure resentment and hatred, but others may do it out of calculation, hoping that other Western countries besides Israel might overreact, triggering islamophobic acts and policies, and taking the world one step closer toward their vision of holy war.
And yes, btw France is the perfect target, for reasons I need not explain I think.

The real problem, imho, is that so many people are perfectly fine with that, because somewhere in their hearts, they already see this as inevitable, or even desirable.

[Varysblackfyre321]

21 minutes ago, Toth said:

Huh?!?

As a teacher in Berlin I would assume I'd be in the know about that. But all I can find is a notification that the ban on headscarves for teachers had been lifted about a month ago.

Goddamnit I may have gotten fake newsed again.

Did I?

Edited October 13, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Bael's Bastard]

46 minutes ago, Relic said:

You can't just say that and hand-wave the atrocities being committed in Gaza. We COULD have focused on what you just said had Israel reacted differently, but its impossible to focus on that while a fucking MILLION PEOPLE are facing death. Sorry. 

This is exactly how the USA went wrong post 9/11. It squandered all of its goodwill with the dumbshit slaughter is enacted in the name of justice afterwards. 

 

Edit - Israel had an opportunity to work with regional nations that it was normalizing relations with to figure out a different way to try and end Hamas. Instead those countries are now looking at Israel and Gaza and are probably going to distance themselves once again.

How? Nobody ever actually has a doable answer for how Israel could have reacted to the Hamas attack differently. Not this time or any previous time. It is always some impossible "target Hamas only" or don't respond at all fantasy. Hamas fires from and sets up in heavily populated areas. Not responding to Hamas was not a realistic option after this extremely personal massacre. "Hamas-seeking weapons" don't exist. Neither regional nations nor further off nations can do or have done anything to stop Hamas. Egypt has blockaded Gaza the entire time Israel has, and Hamas doesn't launch attacks on Egypt nor does Egypt get any share of the blame for its blockade. It could have been doing much more this last decade and a half, but it also only really cares about Egypt, despite joining Palestinians in trying to prevent the establishment of Israel and launching several subsequent wars to destroy it "for Palestine."

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Nobody ever actually has a doable answer for how Israel could have reacted to the Hamas attack differently

Don’t starve and plunge millions of civilians of people into darkness and only give a day to vacate their homes before their bombed.

6 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

It is always some impossible "target Hamas only"

That would be the objective yes.

[Craving Peaches]

Make no mistake, Netanyahu is person most responsible after Hamas. His own words:

Quote

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

He also says he would 'make sure' the money was going to be used for 'humanitarian purposes', which it clearly wasn't being used for, since Gaza has awful infrastructure, and he supposedly ignored warnings from Egypt about a coming attack.

Sources: For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it's blown up in our faces | The Times of Israel, Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com), Netanyahu, if you always knew who Hamas was, why did you invest in its funding? | Ben Caspian - voila! news - The Limited Times (newsrnd.com), Why Israel Lets Qatar Give Millions To Hamas : Parallels : NPR, Hamas Israel's own creation | Shlomo Alegra | The Blogs (timesofisrael.com), Egypt warned Israel days before Hamas struck, US committee chairman says - BBC News, Another Concept Implodes: Israel Can’t Be Managed by a Criminal Defendant - Israel News - Haaretz.com (archive.ph)

He knew full well what the intentions of Hamas were, and he still chose to support and legitimise them, all to undermine the peaceful, non-terrorist Palestinian Authority and PLO. He was so desperate to oppress the Palestinians that he supported a genocidal group who want to kill all Jews and destroy Israel. He has failed all the innocent Israelis and Palestinians, as has Hamas (no surprise there).

5 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Goddamnit I may have gotten fake newsed again.

Thankfully, the EU are trying to crack down on that sort of thing with regards to Twitter (I cannot seriously call it 'X'...)

[Heartofice]

I was also shocked and appalled by Israel turning the power and water off, clearly targeting civilians, but yes, I don't really see how it would be possible to root out Hamas militarily otherwise, and it doesn't appear that there is any sort of diplomatic solution, how can there be when such an appalling atrocity has been created by Hamas. 

Clearing the area of civilians so that all that remains is Hamas makes sense, however unappealling it is. Maybe there were better ways to do it other than switching off supplies so early, but I don't see how it would be possible to go into the area and fight directly without causing even more civilian casualties. 

However it is certain that were the situations reversed Hamas would have no issue with murdering civilians, because they are Jewish, and seemingly Hamas has no issue with Palestinians dying either if it's telling them to remain in place. Lord knows they need their human shields. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Thankfully, the EU are trying to crack down on that sort of thing with regards to Twitter (I cannot seriously call it 'X'...)

I actually thought to make x the topic on an essay for a business course. 
I dropped it when I couldn’t decipher if basic information, policies concerning Twitter still applied generally. 

[kissdbyfire]

23 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

How? Nobody ever actually has a doable answer for how Israel could have reacted to the Hamas attack differently. Not this time or any previous time. It is always some impossible "target Hamas only" or don't respond at all fantasy.

No one can realistically suggest that though, can they? There’s always going to be collateral damage in any war, and innocent civilians always suffer the most on either side of any conflict. But there is a big difference between “target Hamas only”, which is undoable, and “kill civilians indiscriminately b/c you’re bound to get a few bad people here and there and then it’s all justified”. 
 

All the ways in which this already horrific situation can and likely will get much worse very quickly is scary. Here we are, in the 21st century, still unable to coexist while also killing the planet to boot. 
 

Humanity has to make a choice: do we want a Star Trek future or a Mad Max future? 

Edited October 13, 2023 by kissdbyfire

[Toth]

6 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Goddamnit I may have gotten fake newsed again.

Visegrad certainly did. It also seems odd they would be able to push such a controversial law through the Berlin senate within 5 work days. Our bureaucracy doesn't work like that.^^

It may be a rumor related to how heated the atmosphere here is in general. Several pro-Palestine rallies had been banned by the police for fear of antisemitic slogans or actions and a video had caused some outcry where a teacher confronting a student carrying a Palestine flag to school on Monday, clearly celebrating the terror attack, got headbutted by another student while confronting him and then kicked while on the ground...

Admittedly, I myself have been quite astonished by the neutral and mature discussion I had on Wednesday with my politics class when I did the lesson where I unfortunately only had to file off the 2021 date, since the background information is still pretty much exactly the same. And that despite, like, 95 % Muslim students. Granted, I started the lesson with heavy monologue about how neat groups are and how we are seeking them since our monkey brains in the savannas of Africa figured out being part of a group equaled survival... and then went on about feeling to belong more closely by disparaging the strange new tenant downstairs with our old neighbor or hating the fans of the biggest rival of our favourite football club... and then end up hating people we had never anything to do with, just because we identify them as in that group or that other group that aren't our group. Left them quite startled how serious I was about it... too serious for anyone to say anything when I ultimately went to the event of the weekend and asked what they heard about it. So I just said let's find out what all of this is even about, handed out a recap I put together that goes back to the burning of the temple of Solomon until the current day and had them fill out a questionnaire about terms and groups and their aims and motivation. After exchanging what they wrote, we had an open discussion about what the option for Israel are now, what to expect for the next weeks and what we think where this goes (a second part about the suggested solutions and the reading of some sources debating them would be next week). Again, I braced myelf for 30 very heated students, but I was really proud of them.

(so of course I just now had to deal with another class where two students hijacked a lesson to talk about the Ukraine war, expressing horrifically myopic opinions culminating on how they'd be fine with the NATO disbanding because it means being free from US enslavement to seek the best trade partners (meaning cheap gas from Russia) for ourselves and if that ends up destabilizing Europe so much that war breaks out on our doorstep or even eventually with an attack on us, then that's okay, because there's war everywhere all the time anyway, so it wouldn't make a difference if it came to us one day -.- I guess my luck must balance itself out...)

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

the power and water off, clearly targeting civilians, but yes

Everything before the ‘but’ is nullified by the ‘but’ war crime bad generally especially when war crime means way more civilian death. Like we don’t need a lot more dead babies for jihadists to plaster for propaganda.

Edited October 13, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[kissdbyfire]

7 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Thankfully, the EU are trying to crack down on that sort of thing with regards to Twitter (I cannot seriously call it 'X'...)

Oh of course fElon will always make things worse whenever possible. 
(Same here. Best I can do is call it Ex-Twitter)

[Darryk]

As I said I hate what Israel does to Gaza but why does no one ever talk about the equal role that Egypt plays in it?

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Darryk said:

As I said I hate what Israel does to Gaza but why does no one ever talk about the equal role that Egypt plays in it?

Because it isn't remotel5 an equal role.

[Darryk]

1 minute ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Because it isn't remotel5 an equal role.

They prevent Gaza civilians from escaping to the South, and surely the onus is more on them to help their fellow Arabs then on Israel?

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Do they?

Most people dislike Israel and their government. Let's not argue this. 

 

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

How many people do you think can realistically evaluate Gaza in 24 hours? Keep in mind near half of Gaza are children and we’re talking millions of people.

They can't realistically. However, Israel did try to give them a chance to get to the shelters and I doubt they'll go into them and massacre people who are hiding there, unlike Hamas, who attacked people and slaughtered them with joy.

See the difference?

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Civilians dying.

Civilians died in Israel too. People seem to forget that. In these two treads I'd venture to guess most of the time the term "civilians" has been used has been to describe Palestinians. The Jews who were murdered by terrorists is already an afterthought for some. 

Quote

Smarter people than I can maybe give you an answer to your question. Wack-a-hamas with rockets in a dense urban environment surely isn't the answer, and just makes Israel look bad to everyone but staunch supporters and Neocons.

Then there is no answer in your view. 
 

Quote

Again, I have to ask. Why give Hamas what it wants?

Why let them attack people in your country without responding?

Quote

Look, I get it. I've never been shot at, but I watched the towers come down from my roof in Brooklyn. I was traumatized for months. Maybe still am. But this is not the right response. This will only lead to more blood. Already one terror attack in France today. 

That's the sad part. You can't be a pacifist in these situations, but the results of reacting only cause more pain. And then the cycle just continues. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

48 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Democracy, broadly defined (human rights, equity, rule of law... etc),

Yeah or what could be referred to by many as woke nonesense. I do wonder what the western far right will offer as an ideological replacement for their imperialist exploits. Like perhaps there will be a resurgence in fundamentalist Christianity in Europe.