Israel declares war on Hamas

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

SomeUN OCHA numbers to consider. Since 2000 Hamas has killed 2,746 Israelis. Tragic and heinous. No one is defending Hamas and everyone is in agreement that Hamas should be hunted out of existence.

On the other side of the engagement Israel has killed 14,293 Palestinians during that same time. A ratio of 5.2 to 1. Is this not equally as tragic and heinous? These numbers do not include the death and suffering caused from the apartheid state the Palestinians are living under. When is this going to enter the larger conversation?

Will the war in Ukraine end when Russians have suffered a sufficient number of casualties to call it even? Or will it end when Russia no longer poses a threat to the lives of the Ukrainian populace?

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

I understand your perspective but don't agree. Israel can do everything right, and Iran and the other usual suspects will continue their hatred and violence.

Israel has to try and do everything right first. It's no open secret that the settlers have IDF support, for example.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

It shows that the balance sheet is opposite to that being portrayed by the most vocal side of this discussion. Hamas is garbage for killing almost 3,000 people. The state of Israel is equal garbage to killing five times that in response.



Are you suggesting there is no intent on Israel's side, because they are responding? I would say just the opposite. There is very specific intent and with measured outcomes. Both sides are at fault here. The innocent civilians are the ones who pay the price and that's what we have top out a stop to.

You're too busy doing math, that you're missing the issue. Israel is equal garbage you say? Equal garbage would come into Gaza and actually kill, rape, and torture every person in it. For some reason I don't see Israel doing that. It's almost as though you need Israel to target civilians because then they would be just as bad. Conveniently enough the Palestinian authorities don't label people dead/injured as Hamas or Jihad operatives.

What assurance does Israel have that this sort of thing won't happen again? none. Should Israel just continue taking it? what's a couple of rockets? right? they're practically harmless. Oh wait, they're smaller rockets so they don't intend to kill Israeli civilians?

Why does the Hamas/Jihad shoot from populated areas? Because they know that people like you would cry foul when the return strike happens. That's the same reason they prefer to use underage militants, because a dead child in the newspaper brings much more outrage.

Is there a way to achieve peace with the Hamas in charge of Gaza? NO! Hamas itself taught Israel that exchanging 1 soldier for 1000 terrorists leads exactly to this, more hostages, and dead. That means that the Hamas must be eradicated. You can't do that without collateral damage. If Israel doesn't respond with overwhelming force, then this same thing will happen again in a couple of years.

I grant you that Israel could've went in without any air support. Which would've been extremely stupid, because you don't fight a war for your existence with one hand behind your back. Finally, you can question Israeli intelligence about the quality of the targets all you want, but using expansive munitions to level civilian infrastructure is not a cost effective way to send a message.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Israel isn’t dropping bombs on Gaza to punish Palestinian civilians for Oct 7. It’s dropping bombs to destroy Hamas, it’s organization, its weapons, and its infrastructure. Hamas poses an ongoing threat to Israel, and this operation won’t end until that threat is removed or dramatically diminished.

Yes, but limiting "collateral damage" is not just a moral position, but a strategic one. Taking out an apartment complex because some Hamas weaponry or tacticians are housed in it is super dumb because now every friend and family member of everyone who died or lost a home now has one reason to live - to get back at you. I say that because that's how I would be. If you bombed my family/neighbourhood/whatever, it would now be my new life's purpose to exact revenge. I think most people are wired that why.

I know Hamas poses an ongoing threat to Israel. It needs to be exterminated, starting with its leadership. I also know that's extremely difficult to do, but unfortunately it's the only way.

Israel shouldn't stop until the threat is removed or dramatically diminished - I agree. This current tactic will - I'd bet my life on it - have the opposite effect and will ultimately lead to a less safe, less stable Israel and the death of more Israelis. Oh, and Palestinians, but I get that we don't super care about that, so whatevs.

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

These types of comments are terrible. This type of stuff perpetuates hatred. Hamas is a vile terrorist group, Israel is a country with human rights.

Want to talk policy that you don't like? Sure, let's do it. They are not in any capacity comparable.

Why can't we dislike Israel? I don't like Australians either, they're the worst

[WCW Nitro]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Israel isn’t dropping bombs on Gaza to punish Palestinian civilians for Oct 7.

And the blocking of food, water, and aid to Gaza must be a thank you gift to them. Israel is most definitely targetting civilians, they have said it themselves several times.

[CliffFletcher]

Remember folks, nobody here is claiming that Israel is just as bad as Hamas.

Except for the people who are.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Yes, but limiting "collateral damage" is not just a moral position, but a strategic one. Taking out an apartment complex because some Hamas weaponry or tacticians are housed in it is super dumb because now every friend and family member of everyone who died or lost a home now has one reason to live - to get back at you. I say that because that's how I would be. If you bombed my family/neighbourhood/whatever, it would now be my new life's purpose to exact revenge. I think most people are wired that why.

I know Hamas poses an ongoing threat to Israel. It needs to be exterminated, starting with its leadership. I also know that's extremely difficult to do, but unfortunately it's the only way.

Israel shouldn't stop until the threat is removed or dramatically diminished - I agree. This current tactic will - I'd bet my life on it - have the opposite effect and will ultimately lead to a less safe, less stable Israel and the death of more Israelis. Oh, and Palestinians, but I get that we don't super care about that, so whatevs.

I agree that the IDF should take greater efforts to minimize the civilian casualties in Gaza. If only because Hamas want thousands of Palestinian civilians to be killed, and it’s usually not smart to do what your enemy wants you to do.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Remember folks, nobody here is claiming that Israel is just as bad as Hamas.

Except for the people who are.

Cliff, I love you, bud. I don't understand the pushback you get. PMd you when you came back to let you know I was happy to see you. Love your posts. I do believe you're a sincere poster. When my favs on here don't get along with you it always causes inner conflict for me...

That said, can you show us what you mean by quoting an example or two? Even if it's me? I'm 100% giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but I'm just not seeing what you're seeing when you say this.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Cliff, I love you, bud. I don't understand the pushback you get. PMd you when you came back to let you know I was happy to see you. Love your posts. I do believe you're a sincere poster. When my favs on here don't get along with you it always causes inner conflict for me...

That said, can you show us what you mean by quoting an example or two? Even if it's me? I'm 100% giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but I'm just not seeing what you're seeing when you say this.

This comment, for starters:

It shows that the balance sheet is opposite to that being portrayed by the most vocal side of this discussion. Hamas is garbage for killing almost 3,000 people. The state of Israel is equal garbage to killing five times that in response.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

This comment, for starters:

Tough to argue with the word "equal". Thanks for the example, gotcha.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Yes, but limiting "collateral damage" is not just a moral position, but a strategic one. Taking out an apartment complex because some Hamas weaponry or tacticians are housed in it is super dumb because now every friend and family member of everyone who died or lost a home now has one reason to live - to get back at you. I say that because that's how I would be. If you bombed my family/neighbourhood/whatever, it would now be my new life's purpose to exact revenge. I think most people are wired that why.

I know Hamas poses an ongoing threat to Israel. It needs to be exterminated, starting with its leadership. I also know that's extremely difficult to do, but unfortunately it's the only way.

Israel shouldn't stop until the threat is removed or dramatically diminished - I agree. This current tactic will - I'd bet my life on it - have the opposite effect and will ultimately lead to a less safe, less stable Israel and the death of more Israelis. Oh, and Palestinians, but I get that we don't super care about that, so whatevs.

Abdallah, the accountant in Ramallah that is allowed to visit his relatives in Nablus without checkpoints and visit his friend Ari in Tel Aviv is never joining Hamas.

Mohammed, in Gaza that was born and will probably die in Gaza, the guy without a job, the guy that saw his brother get blown to bits at the age of 5 is joining Hamas.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Sliver

If you bombed my family/neighbourhood/whatever, it would now be my new life's purpose to exact revenge. I think most people are wired that why.

Exactly this, and that's exactly the same feeling most people on the Israeli side are feeling right now as well.

That's the main reason this conflict will keep escalating without a resolution in sight. Even those people that wanted peace and a resolution(about 40% of the people in Israel before Oct 7th), are now for unity in this time of sorrow.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

Exactly this, and that's exactly the same feeling most people on the Israeli side are feeling right now as well.

That's the main reason this conflict will keep escalating without a resolution in sight. Even those people that wanted peace and a resolution(about 40% of the people in Israel before Oct 7th), are now for unity in this time of sorrow.

That 40% pre-October 7 is pathetic, BTW. Way too low. Peace? Fk that! I can't imagine. I thank the stars everyday I wasn't raised in a religious home.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Bagor

I'm really struggling to pin down what you are saying now because you're contradicting yourself.

Are you saying now that they do want to kill Palestianians but just don't want to admit it so they can claim the moral high ground?

I don't think I am. Israelis don't want to kill Palestinians but push them to the brink and won't hesitate to so to get at Hamas when attacked. So yeah, right up to the line.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Sliver

That 40% pre-October 7 is pathetic, BTW. Way too low. Peace? Fk that! I can't imagine. I thank the stars everyday I wasn't raised in a religious home.

It would've been a much higher number, but the previous peace talk attempts left a sour taste in many people's mouths. They lead to the 2nd Intifada, the first time. They lead to the one sided disengagement after the last failure. Each time things only seem to be getting worse.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Sliver

That 40% pre-October 7 is pathetic, BTW. Way too low. Peace? Fk that! I can't imagine. I thank the stars everyday I wasn't raised in a religious home.

That's the problem, even during periods with little violence, both sides have significant amounts of their population and leadership who are basically intractable.

So you end up having the Israeli Prime Minister offering to cede about 95% of the West Bank for the creation of a Palestinian State in 2008, but the Palestinian Authority rejected that proposal, even though it's likely the best they'll ever get.

On the other hand, you have the West Bank having periods of general calm where the Palestinian Authority was pretty reasonable in its dealings with Israel. But the only result was Israel building more and more settlements and taking more and more land, while simultaneously degrading Palestinian infrastructure.

And then 10-11 years ago (which was a somewhat calm period) you also had significant portions of Jewish Israelis supporting systematic discrimination against Arab Israelis, including:

-1/3rd wanting the voting rights of Arabic Israeli citizens to be taken away

-59% wanting preference given to non-Arabs in government jobs

-49% wanting the state to give preference to Jews over Arabs in basically all matters

-42% not wanting their kids to be in the same class as an Arabic child

And in that same poll, 58% of Israelis agreed that Israel practised apartheid against Palestinians. So in light of that, it's not hard to see why little to no progress has been made on this.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Sliver

That's one way to look at it. The other is Hamas didn't like to see an improvement in relations between the people living in Gaza and the Israelis, so they sabotaged it.

Hardline religious people - be they Muslim, Jewish or Christians - do not care about the lives of people not in their religion or those who they perceive as enemies of their faith. Regular religious people often - and unintentionally, I believe - support the hardliners by aligning against whatever group their hardliners are currently hating. It bolsters the hardliners resolve.

So we have Israel - and Jews around the world - largely supporting this psycho Israeli response to the terrorist attack. You get hardline Christians supporting the Israeli response because they - also psychotically - need Armageddon in Israel so their sky daddy will come down and, I guess, kill us all except the special ones? Awesome. I, for one, love that our world is destabilized and getting worse because a bunch of indoctrinated fools want prophecies in a dumb evil book from a couple thousand years ago to come true.

I'm so annoyed at Israel's response. Hamas are terrorists and did terrorist things. Terrorism is pretty neat in that it works so well. Who among us didn't expect Israel to fly off the handle and go totally ballistic after this? When I woke up to the news a couple weeks ago about what Hamas did I was equal parts horrified by their actions and pre-emptively horrified in anticipation of predictable Israel's predictable response.

They really could have turned that terrorist attack into a strategic advantage. Goodwill and hearts and minds are what you need. You don't get that with bombs. Hardliners will never learn, apparently. Jokers.

If Israel doesn't respond, Hamas would have treated this like a victory and them and every similar organization in the region would have repeated this. As others have stated in this thread, Hamas is supposedly keeping the settlers out of Gaza, which is why they have support. A "victory" like this would have only strengthened support behind them.

You're proposition that only religious fanatics and Jews support Israel is flat out wrong. Many people, of all walks of life, see what Israel is doing as, unfortunate, but necessary.

[FlameOn]

All right, basically everyone agrees Hamas is bad. So the best solution is to send Mossad into Qatar and assassinate all the rich Hamas leaders and then SOF kick down doors in a ground operation to get rid of the mid/low level Hamas grunts? That would still be a blood bath for Israeli troops, most of which are mobilized conscripts, without some sort of shaping operation to take out a lot of the heavy weapons. Which is what airstrikes are supposed to be. It's either massive Israeli troops/conscripts or Gazan civilians casualties to wipe out Hamas. Probably a combination of both.

At least we've gotten past carpet bombing these days...

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I don't think I am. Israelis don't want to kill Palestinians but push them to the brink and won't hesitate to so to get at Hamas when attacked. So yeah, right up to the line.

As mentioned before.
No Hamas in the west bank.