Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
Did I or anyone else say that Hamas was in anyway justified in taking hostages?
The point is, what Israel is doing does not on any way look like it's actually connected to the hostage situation, nor does it look like they are doing things with the intention of ending the crisis through the use of force, which is what I would expect a country to do.
If they want to occupy Gaza to snuff out Hamas, I'm for it. But they don't look like they want to try to snuff out Hamas. They are also doing nothing that looks like an action taken to get the hostages back. It's extremely hard to even argue that their actions overall are even likely to damage Hamas more than the average Palestinian.
Israel is mostly just attacking Gaza overall. They do this shuffle where Hamas is on one hand the government of Gaza so they represent all of Gaza so all of Gaza is a legitimate target, but simultaneously Hamas is an illegitimate completely irrational terrorist organization taking advantage of the people of Gaza, which means their grievances don't represent represent real grievances of millions of people, that they aren't a party you should talk with, you can claim that destroying anything Hamas is good for the people of Gaza actually sorry about the collateral damage...
And people on this forum are eating up this rhetoric all they way. Hamas to some people in this discussion is always whatever justifies whatever Israel is doing. The only justification people need to defend anything Israel does is that Hamas is bad, and even if Israel is also bad, Hamas is more bad so Israel is again justified to do whatever it wants to do.
Even when there is no apparent connection between what Israel is doing and what Israel says is the goal of what they are doing.
Btw, what's the number of Palestinian civilians need to die before what Israel is doing is 1) an overreaction 2) indefensible?
About 1200 civilians died in the Hamas attacks. We are currently sitting at about 1900 dead Palestinian Civilians. This is close enough to a 1:1 ratio that I would think many would say this is acceptable, assuming some goals were achieved while doing this. And I would think most would agree that some goals have been achieved, at least in the short term, even if it was nothing more than a retaliation. Retaliation is a goal in itself, after all. (Even if not everyone agrees it's an acceptable goal, we can probably just accept that it's commonly accepted enough that there's not muxh point in debating it.)
What's an unacceptable exchange ratio, and what are things that affect that number for you?
Is actually getting hostages back successfully a factor? How many civilian casualties are justified per hostage returned? 100? 1000? What if Israel gets no hostages back and the security situation afterwards is the same as it was after the 2021 crisis, only with the population of Gaza in an even worse situation than before?
What would be a scenario where you would either say that what Israel did was wrong, or the way they tried to do things was misguided and made things worse?
I would assume that most here would agree that genociding 2 million Palestinians would be too much, and clearly people are okay for some to die.
So where's the line for you, and what are factors that move that line for you, one way or the other? How much would be too much for you?
I'm asking seriously for people to lay out their thinking here. Something more than "Hamas is bad and Israel must do something".
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Ultimately I'm a utilitarian, I view this as a war of sorts, declared by Hamas, as in any war while civilian casualties are regrettable and a civilised country has an obligation not to cause them gratuitously at the same time no one in the allies ever cared how many German or Japanese civilians died in the second world war, I really can't see it is reasonable to ask Israel to 'take it dry' as my kids would say just because Hamas hides amongst its most vunerable
I view the whole conflict as hopeless, the Palestinians wish for a homeland based around the pre 1967 border is never going to happen, at best they will get Gaza and what they have now in the West Bank and there not a dam thing that will change that, right wrong or otherwise that's just reality, I also think the endless war is poisoning Israel, turning it into an extremist society as well.
Do more Palestinians die in the long run if things stay the way they are? an endless low level war with a permanent blockade or does a one time horrific conflict that finally ends Palestinian dreams for any kind of reasonable homeland allow them to move on and find an alternative to endlessly dashed hopes, poverty and refugee camps.
Gaza has no economy, it's only source of income, water, food and power is from Israel and they are never opening that border after this, there will be no more work permits, maybe a trickle of water is allowed but I cannot see any future for Gaza after this unless it comes from Egypt, it is utterly unreasonable to expect Israel to cooperate with Gaza economically after this for decades possibly forever.
To be clear none of this is about right or wrong or history, it's just about power, one side has all of it, the other none