Israel declares war on Hamas

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Pointman never supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine. You're either misremembering, or more likely, using your own extreme powers of mental gymnastics to twist what he said to fit your current narrative.

No mental gymnastics involved. Could have sworn he supported it early on as the propaganda war raged on. He definitely changed to being critical of Putin's strategy as more information came out about what was going on and the impact it was having on regular Russians. There was a definite change in tone and urgency when conscription became a thing though. Doesn't change that he fled his home country because of fear of being in a war and is now quite hawkish on the prospects of war and killing in a country where he's not even a citizen. Or would you like to try and do a triple backflip trying to explain/defend that?

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Hundreds of schools? Source please.

Hundreds of hospitals? Source please.

Hundreds of medical clinics? Source please.

I do recall a refugee camp hit, but I recall Hamas was hiding in the camp. I could be wrong though.

As for the entire neighbourhoods, I think it goes without saying that Israel has the firepower to do significantly more of this, if they wanted, the entire place would be flattened.

Do you agree that Hamas is attempting to do all the things you outlined above?

Hamas doesn't have the capacity to do what you're asking, but that is actually irrelevant (except when arguing measured response). Hamas needs to be eradicated, no argument. No one has said anything to the contrary. The problem is Israel is approaching very ham fisted. They're trying to trap a mouse and instead of taking pragmatic measures they are instead choosing to level the house. That's the problem. They know Hamas hides amongst the Palestinians so they choose to level entire neighborhoods in hopes of killing a couple targets. That's why people can't support Israel here, they are ignoring regular Palestinian civilians caught in the middle.

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

If Israel intended to do what you say, they would be indiscriminately launching bombs into Gaza. They would be smashing hospitals, they would be smashing schools, and hitting heavily populated areas. This is what Hamas is attempting to do to Israel. Hamas just isn’t having much success.

Ha ha ha, I honestly thought you were trying to be sarcastic when you started your response by listing out all the things that Israel has done since October lol.

[Language]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I find the whole “what’s your solution???” appeal to authority hilarious. Just because the IDF is taking one approach, every Israeli government bootlicker has decided that is the one and only true solution, and suddenly their imagination fails them in coming up with any military operation that isn’t dropping 2000 pound bombs on entire neighbourhoods and purposefully making Gaza and inhabitable wasteland.

The same people who keep bringing up the fact that they could “Hiroshima” the place are the same people who suddenly can’t recall a single other military operation that was less destructive than Israel’s, because they’re perfect and as long as people aren’t willing to repeatedly bring up examples of military operations that have incurred lower civilian costs (as they have throughout this thread, posts these same people have responded to and are now pretending don’t exist) then they can feel comfortable that the vast majority of dead babies they pretended to be upset about originally are all Palestinian now, and they’re just “animals” anyway.

If you actually cared about whether Israel’s approach was right, or whether all these dead kids were actually worth it, you wouldn’t need to demand someone else do the work for you, you’d have already done it.

I think their approach is fine and and is showing extreme levels of restraint, relative to what they could be doing.

So there’s no additional work required on my part, since I’m not the one criticizing their approach.

Usually, those offering criticism, whether in regular conversation, a professional or personal setting, should propose an alternative, at least for purposes of discussion. I have not seen one presented from you or anyone else in this thread who are condoning their military actions.


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[PepsiFree]

HOW MUCH DESTRUCTION IS THERE IN GAZA?

Israel’s offensive has destroyed over two-thirds of all structures in northern Gaza and a quarter of buildings in the southern area of Khan Younis, according to an analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of the CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, experts in mapping damage during wartime.

The percentage of damaged buildings in the Khan Younis area nearly doubled in just the first two weeks of Israel’s southern offensive, they said.

That includes tens of thousands of homes as well as schools, hospitals, mosques and stores. U.N. monitors have said that about 70% of school buildings across Gaza have been damaged. At least 56 damaged schools served as shelters for displaced civilians. Israeli strikes damaged 110 mosques and three churches, the monitors said.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian deaths by embedding militants in civilian infrastructure. Those sites also shelter multitudes of Palestinians who have fled under Israeli evacuation orders.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-ga...ea22458472a796

“I do recall a refugee camp hit, but…”

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces bombarded Palestinian refugee camps Tuesday in central Gaza and issued orders telling residents to evacuate, signs that the military plans to expand its ground offensive into another part of the besieged territory. Gaza’s main telecom provider announced another “complete interruption” of services.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-ha...3fe4f68690c98b

When I ask for a source, it’s because I can’t find any source that suggests anything close to what someone is claiming. It seems like some people are too lazy to type things as simple as “Israel gaza refugee camp” into Google and look at the first result.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Language

I think their approach is fine and and is showing extreme levels of restraint, relative to what they could be doing.

So there’s no additional work required on my part, since I’m not the one criticizing their approach.

Usually, those offering criticism, whether in regular conversation, a professional or personal setting, should propose an alternative, at least for purposes of discussion. I have not seen one presented from you or anyone else in this thread who are condoning their military actions.


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And usually those advocating and justifying for thousands of dead children can justify it better than “we could kill more if we wanted to.”

But here we are.

[Doctorfever]

I get it Lanny.

You are saying “Hamas needs to be eradicated” - everyone agrees on this.

You and others are saying Israel is too heavy handed in their response to Hamas Oct 7th attacks. I understand this sentiment. Everyone is also saying that it’s awful that innocent Palestinians are being used as human shields. Palestinians are paying the price for Hamas. I blame Hamas for this more than I blame Israel.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Language

I think their approach is fine and and is showing extreme levels of restraint, relative to what they could be doing.

So there’s no additional work required on my part, since I’m not the one criticizing their approach.

Usually, those offering criticism, whether in regular conversation, a professional or personal setting, should propose an alternative, at least for purposes of discussion. I have not seen one presented from you or anyone else in this thread who are condoning their military actions.


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A 500/20k casualty ratio between IDF and Palestinian civilians in my opinion is not fine.

The proposed alternatives would be to identify and kill targets without using air strikes which would significantly increase the number of IDF casualties at the benefit of savings cilvilians.

The Israel is making a political choice to value Israeli lives greater than Palestinian lives. Simply believing that an Israeli life and a Palestinian life have equal value would be the starting point.

This is independent on any actions of Hamas.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Language

So the solution, per that last article, is MORE aid into Gaza??

The amount of aid that Gaza has received, and continues to receive, and that it has squandered, is obscene. Billions and billions of dollars. All wasted on tunnels and weapons, and lining the pockets of their “leadership” in Qatar. The whole aid to Gaza is such a charade

Just because a bunch of aid has been subject to corruption doesn't mean all aid is bad. Let's not throw the bombed babies out with the bathwater here.

Israel providing schools and hospitals is great, and if they stopped there, a generation of kids would grow up starting to wonder "are the Israelis really as bad as everyone says? They seem fine to me..."

Instead, they grow up thinking "those guys booted us out of our houses and spat on us", or worse, "those guys bombed my apartment building and killed my parents and siblings".

Aid will never overcome wiping out someone's loved ones or displacing them from their homes.

While a complete solution is surely complex and difficult, this part isn't unguided Hamas rocket science.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

The Israel is making a political choice to value Israeli lives greater than Palestinian lives. Simply believing that an Israeli life and a Palestinian life have equal value would be the starting point.
.

Has any combatant in a war ever valued their enemies’ lives equal to their own?

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by GGG

A 500/20k casualty ratio between IDF and Palestinian civilians in my opinion is not fine.

The proposed alternatives would be to identify and kill targets without using air strikes which would significantly increase the number of IDF casualties at the benefit of savings cilvilians.

The Israel is making a political choice to value Israeli lives greater than Palestinian lives. Simply believing that an Israeli life and a Palestinian life have equal value would be the starting point.

This is independent on any actions of Hamas.

I’m not sure if it is independent of Hamas, since it is their choice to use civilians as human shields.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Has any combatant in a war ever valued their enemies’ lives equal to their own?

No but that should be the standard we hold an asymmetric power to. I think in hindsight we would hold that the US was wrong in Iraq. With roughly 5000 US dead to 200k civilians. It’s in the similar ball park and should be viewed as a humanitarian failure.

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Has any combatant in a war ever valued their enemies’ lives equal to their own?

All civilians = enemies?
What are you saying here?

[FlamesAddiction]

The talk about "innocent" civilians should probably be a case study on it's own. Some civilians are innocent, but civilians aren't innocent simply because they are civilians. In many wars, civilians are a willing piece of the war machine.

Hamas has something like 30,000 trained terrorist fighters, but they rely on the civilian population to support them with resources, money, intelligence, scouting, and hiding/shielding them. The number of civilians actively and enthusiastically giving material aid to Hamas is likely 10x what the actual number of Hamas fighters are as a conservative estimate. And these are men, women, and children doing it.

You could see it when the corpses and hostages of Israelis were brought into Gaza, and civilians, including children ran out to spit on them, beat them sticks, before being taken away to be distributed among the civilian population where their hostage takers are "civilians".

I won't post them, because things like Tik Tok and Facebook aren't news, but there are numerous videos out there showing Gazan "civilians" celebrating in the streets in support of the attack and saying no matter what happens, it was worth it. Only to have those some people post videos a week later saying they don't understand why they are all being targets and crying in grief.

The University of Birzeit, a Palestinian organization recently posted a poll showing that 70% of their people support the October 7th attacks and that there were barely any war crimes committed by them.

I get the argument that some people are saying that if you bomb the hell out of them, then you just create more extremists and terrorist, but we are also talking about people being led by a cult that wants to install a caliphate in Israel, and eventually the whole world. They are extreme because of their ideology. No matter what Israel does, Hamas will continue to get aid from Iran and indoctrinate their youth to carry on the terrorism. It doesn't matter if Israel holds out a carrot instead.

Just before Israel left Gaza, they built a new wing on the hospital as a parting gift and offered a joint venture to develop oil off the coast. Prior to the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel issued 20,000 work visa to Gazans so that they could make money in Israel and being it back to Gaza. What ended up happening is that the Gazan workers spent their time gathering intelligence for Hamas and gave them information about the military facilities, bomb shelters, and safe room in the villages so that Hamas could be as efficient as possible when it came to raping , putting babies in ovens, burning people alive, pulling fetuses out from pregnant mothers, and so on. How do you win the hearts and minds of people that when you offer them an olive branch, they turnaround and betray the little trust they had? Maybe bombing them into oblivion won't help, but I doubt tickling their balls will change their ideas that Jews all need to die.

You can see, there is a lot of grey area in Gaza when it comes to "innocent " civilians. And to be fair, this happens in a lot of wars. When the Ukrainian was in over, I hope some of the "innocent" Ukrainian civilians who help facilitate Russian occupation face a swift and cruel justice.

One of the more tragic things for me is that there are legitimately innocent civilians there who are getting absolutely ####ed by both Hamas and Israel. Egypt could easily vet these refugees and let them in to Egypt. Heck, many of them even have Egyptian heritage if you go back a couple of generations. Israel isn't going to give up and will bomb those southern cities, but it would be nice if Egypt let them through, but they also know the deal with Hamas. They are a terrorist organization there too.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The talk about "innocent" civilians should probably be a case study on it's own. Some civilians are innocent, but civilians aren't innocent simply because they are civilians. In many wars, civilians are a willing piece of the war machine.

Hamas has something like 30,000 trained terrorist fighters, but they rely on the civilian population to support them with resources, money, intelligence, scouting, and hiding/shielding them. The number of civilians actively and enthusiastically giving material aid to Hamas is likely 10x what the actual number of Hamas fighters are as a conservative estimate. And these are men, women, and children doing it.

You could see it when the corpses and hostages of Israelis were brought into Gaza, and civilians, including children ran out to spit on them, beat them sticks, before being taken away to be distributed among the civilian population where their hostage takers are "civilians".

I won't post them, because things like Tik Tok and Facebook aren't news, but there are numerous videos out there showing Gazan "civilians" celebrating in the streets in support of the attack and saying no matter what happens, it was worth it. Only to have those some people post videos a week later saying they don't understand why they are all being targets and crying in grief.

The University of Birzeit, a Palestinian organization recently posted a poll showing that 70% of their people support the October 7th attacks and that there were barely any war crimes committed by them.

I get the argument that some people are saying that if you bomb the hell out of them, then you just create more extremists and terrorist, but we are also talking about people being led by a cult that wants to install a caliphate in Israel, and eventually the whole world. They are extreme because of their ideology. No matter what Israel does, Hamas will continue to get aid from Iran and indoctrinate their youth to carry on the terrorism. It doesn't matter if Israel holds out a carrot instead.

Just before Israel left Gaza, they built a new wing on the hospital as a parting gift and offered a joint venture to develop oil off the coast. Prior to the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel issued 20,000 work visa to Gazans so that they could make money in Israel and being it back to Gaza. What ended up happening is that the Gazan workers spent their time gathering intelligence for Hamas and gave them information about the military facilities, bomb shelters, and safe room in the villages so that Hamas could be as efficient as possible when it came to raping , putting babies in ovens, burning people alive, pulling fetuses out from pregnant mothers, and so on. How do you win the hearts and minds of people that when you offer them an olive branch, they turnaround and betray the little trust they had? Maybe bombing them into oblivion won't help, but I doubt tickling their balls will change their ideas that Jews all need to die.

You can see, there is a lot of grey area in Gaza when it comes to "innocent " civilians. And to be fair, this happens in a lot of wars. When the Ukrainian was in over, I hope some of the "innocent" Ukrainian civilians who help facilitate Russian occupation face a swift and cruel justice.

One of the more tragic things for me is that there are legitimately innocent civilians there who are getting absolutely ####ed by both Hamas and Israel. Egypt could easily vet these refugees and let them in to Egypt. Heck, many of them even have Egyptian heritage if you go back a couple of generations. Israel isn't going to give up and will bomb those southern cities, but it would be nice if Egypt let them through, but they also know the deal with Hamas. They are a terrorist organization there too.

Para 1: No source
Para 2: No source
Para 3/4: Yes, and that was pretty disgusting.
Para 5: Leaving aside the scientific logistics and controls of such a poll if even real. If some or all of the following happened to me, my responses to such a poll may be somewhat skewed by the events of the time:

My home blown up
Watching as my family and friends are killed, maimed or disappeared
Forced to leave my home for safety
Forced to leave my place of safety
Attacked when seeking safety
Hardly any access to food or drinking water

If all the above were happening to me, I’d be fairly critical of those doing it to me.

Para 6: Anyone in their right minds wants Hamas destroyed. Leaving aside the enabling of Hamas that contributed to their brutal regime - boning the hell out of them, presumably means bombing the hell out of civilians - that is a war crime and that is a moral equivalence with Hamas.

Para 7: Nobody - absolutely no one you are presumably arguing with has come close to advocating what you conclude there.

Para 8: There is no grey are when if comes to innocent civilians.

Para 9: There sure is a lot that the Arab world should be and should have been doing over the past decades.

Separately from that point in para 9, you speak of one of the more tragic things in your view over this. Given the rest of your post, that sentiment rings hollow.

[Bagor]

It's just a big long winded read to atempt to justify the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of innocents.

[Harry Lime]

What I got out of that post is that the government has had control over education, and that government has been in power for long enough that the kids that started in grade school are now indoctrinated young adults. Hamas created a machine of hate that is going to be hard to break.

[Bagor]

^You could reverse your post substituting Hamas for Israel.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Pointman

So you agree that the way to peace is an occupation, forced government change, massive re-education of population and forcing democracy at gunpoint (except that, though democracy, new far-right government is not allowed to be voted for). That's good. The only difference that we have is which side should go through the process. Which is beyond the point, although I will address it in my next response.The point of this post is that the only way to peace is a total submission of one side. The premise that violence only leads to more violence is just wrong. Decisive blowouts lead to peace, fair or not.

"The aim of war is not to reach definite lines but to annihilate the enemy physically," he ranted. "It is by this means that we shall obtain the vital living space that we need. Who today still speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?"

https://www.bugeyedandshameless.com/...ore-a-genocide


When you sound a lot like Hitler, it may be time to step back about a billion paces and re-evaluate your humanity.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Bagor

^You could reverse your post substituting Hamas for Israel.

I don't want to post the link, because there is a right wing movement in Israel that that is posting the most recent stats results, as a way to rail against the 'progressive agenda', and I don't want to even obliquely support that kind of publication. About 56% of enrollment is in public secular schools. There are also government run religious schools (equivalent to the Catholic system here) and a church run orthodox system. The orthodox system look like nutbars.

So about 10-20% seem to be in a repressive education system.