Israel - Hamas war VIII

[Varysblackfyre321]

11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The US has an influential Jewish population, and a big evangelical vote base. And US people look at Israel’s enemies, and other states in the region, and conclude (correctly) that they are worse.  

Who hopefully democrats stop trying to appeal to. 
 

And as to worse it depends on what we’re talking about and the American tide probably will shift(rightly) against Israel.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

• Israel has offered no proof so far that I have seen that Hamas was there (especially with regards to the ambulance convoys) - them saying someone 'might' be there doesn't cut it
• Even if Hamas were there, International Law requires Israel's response to be proportionate, which by all indications it is not, because the numbers of civilians dying
• So basically, people are saying Israel should be more careful/use a different methood, unless they are deliberately targeting innocent civilians, in which case they should stop immediately

Stuff like them blowing up water tanks and wells cannot be excused by even saying 'Hamas might be there'... It is obviously an action taken to put the civilian population under greater pressure, probably to force them to move.

But you do admit that Hamas regularly uses hospitals and civilian locations as cover from attack? So a large portion of blame should be aimed at Hamas for that you would also agree? 
 

If Hamas are routinely doing this, what is the proportionate response that would still lead to Hamas being defeated? It seems like it’s impossible to wipe them out without civilian loss while they continue to use human shields. 
 

So  where are the protests calling for Hamas to stop using civilians as shields? 

[Varysblackfyre321]

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

But you do admit that Hamas regularly uses hospitals and civilian locations as cover from attack?

So to be clear are we now at the point where Israel gets to destroy ambulances and refugee camps because maybe there might be a hamas there that’s not currently/actively threatening anyone with military action? 
 

Hell let’s say a a hamas fighter was in an ambulance being carried to a hospital. Does Israel get to bomb the ambulance or the hospital treating them even it’ll kill dozens or hundreds to get that one hamas?

 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Varysblackfyre321]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

So  where are the protests calling for Hamas to stop using civilians as shields? 

This is obsession with trying to frame the issue around others hypothetical’s hypocrisy would be humorous if it didn’t seem an attempt to divert attention away from war-crimes.

[Craving Peaches]

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

But you do admit that Hamas regularly uses hospitals and civilian locations as cover from attack?

I have seen claims that they do so in that past. But Israel must prove in these current specific instances of bombing that Hamas is indeed using these structures. It is not good enough for them to go 'Hamas used it in the past so they might be doing so again'. Also, even if they proved this, their responses are not proportionate to the harm inflicted on civilians.

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

So a large portion of blame should be aimed at Hamas for that you would also agree? 

Hamas should not use civilians as human shields. But again, this does not mean Israel can just kill however many civilians it wants in attacks because Hamas might be there.

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

f Hamas are routinely doing this, what is the proportionate response that would still lead to Hamas being defeated?

Send in special ops rather than just bombing the place, have Mossad assassinate Hamas leaders? The idea that Israel can only do what they are currently doing to defeat Hamas doesn't have much weight, as others have pointed out. Furthermore, the current strategy will never be able to defeat Hamas because many Hamas leaders are not in Gaza and it is making people more likely to support Hamas or Hamas 2.0 because their innocent family was blown up.

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

So  where are the protests calling for Hamas to stop using civilians as shields? 

Typically, when people protest, it is because they feel their government is not doing something right. In this case, most governments took action against Hamas so there is no need to protest on this basis. Protesting is also not likely to get Hamas to stop using Human shields, whereas protesting against the disproportionate treatment in Gaza could have some effect by compelling governments to put more pressure on the Israeli government to do something different.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[GrimTuesday]

4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

But you do admit that Hamas regularly uses hospitals and civilian locations as cover from attack? So a large portion of blame should be aimed at Hamas for that you would also agree? 
 

If Hamas are routinely doing this, what is the proportionate response that would still lead to Hamas being defeated? It seems like it’s impossible to wipe them out without civilian loss while they continue to use human shields. 
 

So  where are the protests calling for Hamas to stop using civilians as shields? 

I would blame the Israeli state for creating a situation where 2.4 million people are trapped in a concentration camp and perpetually starved and brutalized thereby creating the conditions for a terrorist group and then assassinated/discredited all the leaders of the secular/left wing groups because it was harder to paint them as the bad guys to the western world and then actively supported said terrorist group behind the scenes to ensure they were the only group seen by the people of Gaza as being a liberatory force and thus they never had to worry about actually entering into peace talks to end the conflict.

Israel is the greatest recruiter Hamas has ever had.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Also, even if they proved this, their responses are not proportionate to the harm inflicted on civilians.

This misunderstands what proportionality means. Without knowing everything the Israelis know when executing a strike, we cannot actually judge proportionality.

 

3 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

current strategy will never be able to defeat Hamas

The goal is destroying Hamas IN Gaza. If the leaders outside of Gaza have no functional organization to give orders to IN Gaza, then it doesn't matter that they're alive outside of it.

[Craving Peaches]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

This misunderstands what proportionality means.

I disagree. Academics say the response is not proportional. Israel has provided no proof that Hamas was there. Also, isn't proportionality usually objective not subjective? Israel may think it is proportional to kill 100 people if it takes out 5 Hamas members, but I don't think the average independent and neutral observer would.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Varysblackfyre321]

He just feels so comfortable in arguing for ethnic cleansening.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Varysblackfyre321]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

This misunderstands what proportionality means. Without knowing everything the Israelis know when executing a strike, we cannot actually judge proportionality.

Did the ambulance Carry blue prints to a nuke or something?

[Craving Peaches]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

The goal is destroying Hamas IN Gaza. If the leaders outside of Gaza have no functional organization to give orders to IN Gaza, then it doesn't matter that they're alive outside of it.

That won't happen either because killing so many civilians is going to make it more likely people are radicalised.

[Varysblackfyre321]

11 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I have seen claims that they do so in that past. B

They have and yes.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

I disagree. Academics say the response is not proportional. Israel has provided no proof that Hamas was there.

The laws of war make no requirements for transparency, and some experts say some things and other experts say other things.

You are perhaps too young to have gone through this before, but we saw all the same talk and back and forth twenty years ago. This is nothing new.

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

You are perhaps too young to have gone through this before, but we saw all the same talk and back and forth twenty years ago. This is nothing new.

Twenty years ago America got high off 9-11 invaded Iraq toppled saddam Hussein’s government and let in a power vacuum that IS would in large part fill.

Not to mention all the systematically accepted bigotry MENA people and Muslims as well as the loss of many privacies. 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Heartofice]

12 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I have seen claims that they do so in that past

Just claims? Sounds like you don’t actually believe it happens?

 

12 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Send in special ops rather than just bombing the place, have Mossad assassinate Hamas leaders?

You really believe this is a good way to take out Hamas bases and infrastructure? Or that it’s even possible in most situations? 

 

14 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Typically, when people protest, it is because they feel their government is not doing something right.

There are huge protests in the UK but the UK government will have little say in the matter.  If people genuinely were upset at Hamas then you’d think they would come out and protest against them, I’ve never seen it.  I’ve seen the opposite however.

[Varysblackfyre321]

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Just claims? Sounds like you don’t actually believe it happens?

It happens. Not every time though, and even the time it does doesn’t necessarily Israel gets to bomb ambulances and refugee camps I’m sorry.

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

There are huge protests in the UK but the UK government will have little say in the matter

Some surely, you fellas are still Allies with Israel presumably.

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If people genuinely were upset at Hamas then you’d think they would come out and protest against them, I’ve never seen it

Hmm yet I’ve seen such.

do you think maybe your lack of wherewithal of such protests may be due to some confirmation bias on your part and wanting to express indignation at supposed double standards and hypocrisy?

Edited November 5, 2023 by Varysblackfyre321

[Ran]

The most recent proof I've seen the IDF provide regarding use of ambulances today is that they shared a bunch of surveillance photos of identified Hamas outposts and bases in Gaza with ambulances parked in them.

This specific case -- and I am still mighty confused, because everyone seems sure it was the accident with the ambulance running over a horse, where I've yet to see any signs of anything like a rocket or bomb remnants -- I don't think the IDF has shared footage from, though IIRC they said they were sharing information with the US and others.

[House Balstroko]

4 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

It may not be your moral responsibility specifically but for anyone in general best to clamp down on that shit when you see it.

Tolerance to these types is active encouragement.

By the end of the day, I had come across 3 different instances of the same slogan. 

4 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Alright, I'm sick of this bullshit, "From the River to the Sea" is not hate speech and it is not inherently a Hamas slogan. It was created as a slogan by the PLO to express a yearning for freedom that the Palestinians might live between the river and the sea, which they did prior to the creation of the state of Israel. It is also a call for a single state, and it has genocidal implications if you assume that the only way that a Palestinian state can exist is through the genocide of the Jews, which despite how people paint Hamas as being the singular representation of the Palestinian struggle (As Bibi and the Israeli government sought to do), is not the aim expressed by most Palestinians.

Of course, this assumption of genocide is the same justification that was used in South Africa, where no such thing happened, and in the American south, where southerners were convinced that in the event the slaves were freed, they would enact vengeance upon them. In both cases, what happened was people were freed, and they moved on and tried to live their lives the best they could. That said, there will need to be some some level of reconciliation where leaders on both sides are made to answer for their crimes.

 

That may have been its original meaning, but it has clearly been distorted over the years. A singular state  puts the Jewish population at a severe disadvantage. 

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I get the sense that a lot of pro Palestinian  protesters genuinely do not believe in the existence of a Jewish state. 

Listening a podcast with Palestinian campaigner Yousef Munayyer the other day, his position was that the only solution is a single state, one that will inevitably have a Muslim majority and a Jewish minority.

When the point was raised that this would likely lead to discrimination and potential genocide of the Jewish he became outraged, stating the only reason there is anti Jewish sentiment is to do with conditions in Gaza.

Personally I found him incredibly naive, offensively so. There is this idea that Jews and Muslims lived together peacefully under the Ottomans so it’s possible, ignoring the idea of course that Jews and Christians were second class citizens and were tolerated mainly due to them paying the special protection tax, the Jizya, rather than any sort of ethical fairness. Also ignoring the enormous expulsion of Jews from the Middle East post-1948, how many Jews live there now?

If someone is singing ‘river to the sea’ it’s implicit that they don’t believe in a Jewish state, and while many might have this naive view of living in harmony, there are many who genuinely want the Jews expelled from the region ( maybe due to anti semitism , maybe due to some western framing that Jews are white colonisers, ignoring all the Middle Eastern non whilte Jews) 
 

 

 

As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, it’s getting harder to reconcile with the more extreme elements at play. Almost all posters of the missing hostages have been torn down, even though they were apolitical in nature. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

The historical recriminations might be interesting academically but they are useless and pointless in terms of resolving conflict or achieving any kind of lasting peace between the Palestinian and Israeli people.  Whether something is technically a violation of laws of war or whether something from the 40s was really a disproportionate response or an over reaction or an equal tit-for-tat bit of balancing violence is irrelevant to resolving this conflict.

Whether an ambulance was hit intentionally or not doesn't really matter.  

Israel's response to the cowardly and disgusting Oct 7 attack has been atrocious and grossly unjust.  There's no justice there.  There's no increased chance for peace.  When you have thousands of dead civilians you have effectively created more people who want to kill you.  This military response is not going to achieve Israel's goals or make them more secure, it's creating a more dangerous future for Israelis and Jews everywhere.  

Just like the Oct 7th Hamas attack put innocent Palestinian lives in jeopardy.

The only cause and effect relationship that has any relevance is that killing civilians creates more violence in the future.  Living in an apartheid state breeds violence.  Gaza could be vacated tomorrow but the West Bank will still be there.

Israel has the power to stop this.  @Liffguard's post about restraint contains the only possible road map forward that doesn't just perpetuate the violence. 

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, Ran said:

The laws of war make no requirements for transparency

That's fine, but the burden of proof is also on Israel to show that the strikes were proportionate, and if they don't we are under no obligation to accept them as such.

21 minutes ago, Ran said:

You are perhaps too young to have gone through this before, but we saw all the same talk and back and forth twenty years ago.

Yes.

16 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Just claims? Sounds like you don’t actually believe it happens?

I have not specifically looked at the evidence of such, but I have seen people saying it. It doesn't make a difference anyway, because Israel still has to show that Hamas was using the bases in these current instances.

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If people genuinely were upset at Hamas then you’d think they would come out and protest against them

Did you not read the explanation of why people wouldn't protest against this? UK government has taken and is taking action against Hamas and has no control over whether they use human shields or not, so protesting against Hamas would not do anything or lead to actions being taken that aren't already being taken. What people have done is vigils and such to honour the victims of the Hamas attack, and protested in support of Israel.