Israel declares war on Hamas

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

What's with this insulting fkn lunacy? Could you stop attributing anti-Semitism to people who are in no way anti-Semitic? It's ridiculous.

There are a bunch of us who don't want more bloodshed. I don't want Jews dying and I don't want Muslims dying. My short form for that is just calling them people, though. I don't want more people dying. I think both of their belief systems are stupid, tbh, but neither side deserves to die because they believe in hocus pocus.

Maybe you don't mind the Israeli army murdering Palestinian civilians because they're Muslims? Is that how your mind works? I wouldn't have ascribed that thought process to you, but now I'm starting to wonder.

If you don't want Israel to stop killing Palestinians then I truly believe you're a madman. Nobody should want more death and destruction right now. WTF man. It's insanity. Give your head a shake.

Israel was attacked, in 1949, in 1967 (there is some revisionist history that suggests Israel could have prevented '67 but it was still attacked) in 1972 and again 4 weeks ago, they didnt start any of these wars they just won them, apparently the only country in the world we expect to not fight back when they are attacked, the only country in the world we expect to give back land they have captured in wars they didn't start but won just happens to be Jewish, we dont expect this of any other country, just Israel.

Is this anti Semitism? I suspect it is even if most of the people that believe it aren't aware of it

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

No, I'm not playing the game of going back in history forever and ever. Like, really, we all came from Africa. We spread out and that guy took land from that guy and then that guy took land from that guy and on and on it goes until we get to recorded history.

I'm living in 2023, so I'm operating as though I can't change the past. Because I can't. I would like to think those of us alive can change the present and future, though. So, IDK, STFU about the past and let's focus on the now. A thoughtful person would think that includes atoning for the past, but making the future better. A better future doesn't involve bombing civilians in Gaza, obviously. Unless you're a psycho.

well peace in the region requires Palestinians to forget the past and put up with what they have now and the war there right now is due to them not accepting the past, if Gazans were happy with just Gaza we wouldn't have a problem

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Israel was attacked, in 1949, in 1967 (there is some revisionist history that suggests Israel could have prevented '67 but it was still attacked) in 1972 and again 4 weeks ago, they didnt start any of these wars they just won them, apparently the only country in the world we expect to not fight back when they are attacked, the only country in the world we expect to give back land they have captured in wars they didn't start but won just happens to be Jewish, we dont expect this of any other country, just Israel.

Is this anti Semitism? I suspect it is even if most of the people that believe it aren't aware of it

I often wonder, if it isn't a specific hate for Jews, why you don't see the massive support in the Muslim world for Uyghurs in China, who have been occupied, segregated and are facing concerns of genocide. No Jihad, no rockets, no Iranian support, no burning of the Chinese flag, nothing.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Israel was attacked, in 1949, in 1967 (there is some revisionist history that suggests Israel could have prevented '67 but it was still attacked) in 1972 and again 4 weeks ago, they didnt start any of these wars they just won them, apparently the only country in the world we expect to not fight back when they are attacked, the only country in the world we expect to give back land they have captured in wars they didn't start but won just happens to be Jewish, we dont expect this of any other country, just Israel.

Is this anti Semitism? I suspect it is even if most of the people that believe it aren't aware of it

It's not anti-Semitism; quit being simple.

We do expect them to fight back. They're fighting the wrong people, though. They need to find Hamas and stop killing civilians. Sorry that's a tough job, but it's the job.

I felt the same way when the USA attacked Iraq. First of all, I didn't believe in the WMD tale since that was literally the conclusion of the weapon's inspectors - no WMD. But more importantly, I didn't think destroying a country made any sense whatsoever for the actions of a terrorist organization. Was I an anti-Semite then, too? It makes about as much sense.

With Afghanistan, I also thought intelligence and precision would have won the day there, not a full-on multi-nation offensive army. Turns out Bin Laden was caught and killed using intelligence and a precision team, too. In Pakistan, mind you. That one was pretty anti-Semitic of me, though, I'll admit.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

well peace in the region requires Palestinians to forget the past and put up with what they have now and the war there right now is due to them not accepting the past, if Gazans were happy with just Gaza we wouldn't have a problem

lol, how are they going to forget the past when it's their present? Like, they're in a cage and under Israel's boot right now and prior to the terrorist attack on October 7 (or whenever it was).

[blankall]

Originally Posted by zunie75

Side question that maybe some posters here can shed light on. If Israel knows that for instance Hamas is operating in tunnels under hospitals etc., how long has this been known and are more covert operations not being pursued? or is bombing the only option? What ever came from that other hospital being bombed, the one where Israel was first blamed but then said it was not them?

More covert options? These bases are located underground in the the middle of Hamas strongholds that are located well within Gaza city. The bombing is occurring to soften up Hamas before a ground invasion (which may have already begun).

Israel didn't bomb that hospital. Despite this, the incident continues to be used as a propaganda piece against Israel.

The IDF currently has Yahya Sinwar labelled as the "leader" of Hamas and have stated they have him cornered in a bunker:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Sinwar

My guess is Israel will have their "mission accomplished" moment once they kill/capture Sinwar and then be ready to negotiate in exchange for the release of remaining Israeli hostages.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Sliver

lol, how are they going to forget the past when it's their present? Like, they're in a cage and under Israel's boot right now and prior to the terrorist attack on October 7 (or whenever it was).

This la la land magic of “just stop! forget everything! and there will be peace!” is insane. They’re not going to forget a week ago.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

It's not anti-Semitism; quit being simple.

We do expect them to fight back. They're fighting the wrong people, though. They need to find Hamas and stop killing civilians. Sorry that's a tough job, but it's the job.

I felt the same way when the USA attacked Iraq. First of all, I didn't believe in the WMD tale since that was literally the conclusion of the weapon's inspectors - no WMD. But more importantly, I didn't think destroying a country made any sense whatsoever for the actions of a terrorist organization. Was I an anti-Semite then, too? It makes about as much sense.

With Afghanistan, I also thought intelligence and precision would have won the day there, not a full-on multi-nation offensive army. Turns out Bin Laden was caught and killed using intelligence and a precision team, too. In Pakistan, mind you. That one was pretty anti-Semitic of me, though, I'll admit.

That's not possible, wasn't in world war two or Korea, isn't now, for Israel to defend itself it has to bomb Hamas and that kills civilians, even if Hamas weren't using civilians, there own people as shields (which they are) it still would end up with horrific civilian casualties, the fact Hamas wants Israel to kill civilians, that the whole point of Hamas starting this conflict was to get tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children killed makes it doubly impossible, you are asking Israel to just allow it's people to be raped and murdered without fighting back, I think Jewish history suggests that doesnt end in a good place for Jews

[Elkyiv]

Harris @ Making Sense released another hour long episode on this war yesterday. No paywall for this one.

https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/m...-good-and-evil

The transcript of that phone call at the end is pretty chilling.

The most important take away for me is his shining a light on just how little outrage we see when muslims are being killed by other muslims. I feel like we're so used to ingroup fighting, that it doesn't even register with people any more. It has to be tribal to matter.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

lol, how are they going to forget the past when it's their present? Like, they're in a cage and under Israel's boot right now and prior to the terrorist attack on October 7 (or whenever it was).

and there is the problem, why should Israel be expected to forget but Palestinians not? where do you draw the line? 4 weeks ago, '82, '72, '67 or 49?

You want to draw a line that benefits Muslims, Israel wants to draw a line that benefits Jews and keeps them safe

[marsplasticeraser]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Israel was attacked, in 1949, in 1967 (there is some revisionist history that suggests Israel could have prevented '67 but it was still attacked) in 1972 and again 4 weeks ago, they didnt start any of these wars they just won them, apparently the only country in the world we expect to not fight back when they are attacked, the only country in the world we expect to give back land they have captured in wars they didn't start but won just happens to be Jewish, we dont expect this of any other country, just Israel.

Is this anti Semitism? I suspect it is even if most of the people that believe it aren't aware of it

The assumption in your comment is that the only way to deal with extremist attacks is to attack back and kill greater numbers of 'the other side'.

But killing more of the other side just fuels hatred and a desire for retribution. It's a loop that perpetuates more violence, which further destabilizes the long-term security of Israel.

I know it would be very hard not to want retribution if I was in Israel and had lost a loved one. I hope I would have focused not on the past, but the future and how best to prevent atrocities like that from occuring.

There was an opportunity for Israel to handle this quite differently and build towards their long-term peace and security.

This still would have allowed Israel to get retribution by hyper-targeting Hamas leadership, but their sense of humanity would have gained respect from neighbours and led to a reduction in radicalization from the population in Gaza.

It would have required true leadership though, which is in short supply in most countries.

Ultimately, what's happening in Gaza feels like what happened in Irag, Afghanistan, Vietnam and more. Innocent civilians are killed, radicalization grows, all for what proves to be of no strategic or political value.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser

The assumption in your comment is that the only way to deal with extremist attacks is to attack back and kill greater numbers of 'the other side'.

But killing more of the other side just fuels hatred and a desire for retribution. It's a loop that perpetuates more violence, which further destabilizes the long-term security of Israel.

I know it would be very hard not to want retribution if I was in Israel and had lost a loved one. I hope I would have focused not on the past, but the future and how best to prevent atrocities like that from occuring.

There was an opportunity for Israel to handle this quite differently and build towards their long-term peace and security.

This still would have allowed Israel to get retribution by hyper-targeting Hamas leadership, but their sense of humanity would have gained respect from neighbours and led to a reduction in radicalization from the population in Gaza.

It would have required true leadership though, which is in short supply in most countries.

Ultimately, what's happening in Gaza feels like what happened in Irag, Afghanistan, Vietnam and more. Innocent civilians are killed, radicalization grows, all for what proves to be of no strategic or political value.

The trouble is history suggests that the best way to win a conflict in the long run is to kill and displace all of the other side, that 'being nice' just extends the conflict, all this talk of 'creating more extremism' only applis if you dont utterl pound the other team into the dust, we didn't 'create more extremism' in Germany or Japan because we killed them in such vast numbers that they accepted their place.

Iraq Afghanistan and Vietnam are all examples where we didnt just kill all of them, where we did try to be hands off and nice, we left the other side alive and tried not to just kill them and it just bit us in the arse

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

That's not possible, wasn't in world war two or Korea, isn't now, for Israel to defend itself it has to bomb Hamas and that kills civilians, even if Hamas weren't using civilians, there own people as shields (which they are) it still would end up with horrific civilian casualties, the fact Hamas wants Israel to kill civilians, that the whole point of Hamas starting this conflict was to get tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children killed makes it doubly impossible, you are asking Israel to just allow it's people to be raped and murdered without fighting back, I think Jewish history suggests that doesnt end in a good place for Jews

No, the whole point was to get Israel to completely overreact to get the world questioning support for Israel. I think I called it on day one. Israel was going to totally blow this by being absolutely monstrous and terrible and murderous.

There were options on October 8 and October 9. There was worldwide goodwill, support and sympathy for Israel. They could have placed bounties on Hamas leaders. They could have dropped leaflets with photos of the terrorist attack all over Gaza. They could have airdropped DVDs with videos of the terrorist attack. They could have garnered more support from Palestinians than they have ever had in history. They could have rallied the world to find and prosecute Hamas, including help from Gazans.

Did they do that? No, of course not. That would have been too smart and there are too many absolute morons who think their only option was to...bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure because there might be a Hamas guy hiding in the basement? Sorry, that's dumb.

The sacrifice - albeit unwilling, unfair and awful - of the victims of the October 7 terrorist attack has been wasted by the moronic Israeli government and botched to a crazy degree. They played into the hands of Hamas, and now you have people all over the world directing hatred toward Jewish people. It was a great strategy from the perspective of Hamas - particularly since they DGAF about their own people.

In all my 46 years I have never seen so much negativity directed at Israel from your average Joe. Hamas played Israel like a fiddle and this will ultimately harm Israel and Jewish people more than Hamas could have ever hoped. And you are encouraging that and helping Hamas' plan work. For every kid Israel kills, 10 terrorists are born. Yet you want them to keep bombing.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

The trouble is history suggests that the best way to win a conflict in the long run is to kill and displace all of the other side, that 'being nice' just extends the conflict, all this talk of 'creating more extremism' only applis if you dont utterl pound the other team into the dust, we didn't 'create more extremism' in Germany or Japan because we killed them in such vast numbers that they accepted their place.

Iraq Afghanistan and Vietnam are all examples where we didnt just kill all of them, where we did try to be hands off and nice, we left the other side alive and tried not to just kill them and it just bit us in the arse

No, you goofball, the lesson learned there was we shouldn't have gone to war in those places in the first place.

Is this guy for real?

[PepsiFree]

Literally never in my life have I heard someone suggest that the problem with the Vietnam war was that the Vietnamese weren’t wiped off the earth.

wtf

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Sliver

No, the whole point was to get Israel to completely overreact to get the world questioning support for Israel. I think I called it on day one. Israel was going to totally blow this by being absolutely monstrous and terrible and murderous.

There were options on October 8 and October 9. There was worldwide goodwill, support and sympathy for Israel. They could have placed bounties on Hamas leaders. They could have dropped leaflets with photos of the terrorist attack all over Gaza. They could have airdropped DVDs with videos of the terrorist attack. They could have garnered more support from Palestinians than they have ever had in history. They could have rallied the world to find and prosecute Hamas, including help from Gazans.

Did they do that? No, of course not. That would have been too smart and there are too many absolute morons who think their only option was to...bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure because there might be a Hamas guy hiding in the basement? Sorry, that's dumb.

The sacrifice - albeit unwilling, unfair and awful - of the victims of the October 7 terrorist attack has been wasted by the moronic Israeli government and botched to a crazy degree. They played into the hands of Hamas, and now you have people all over the world directing hatred toward Jewish people. It was a great strategy from the perspective of Hamas - particularly since they DGAF about their own people.

In all my 46 years I have never seen so much negativity directed at Israel from your average Joe. Hamas played Israel like a fiddle and this will ultimately harm Israel and Jewish people more than Hamas could have ever hoped. And you are encouraging that and helping Hamas' plan work. For every kid Israel kills, 10 terrorists are born. Yet you want them to keep bombing.

I disagree pretty strongly with this take. Considering the level of devastation, the opposition to Israel has been pretty muted. Of course, the usual anti-Israeli crowd has been vocal, but Israel was never going to win those people over.

Prior to Oct 7, many people viewed Israel as the true bully who could never be hurt by Hamas. After Oct 7, people saw what a threat Hamas was and how easily things could spiral out of control. The benefit of the doubt was gone.

I'd say this is true of many government officials and people I've discussed the issue with in person. Most people just get it now.

Also, airdropping DVDs? The citizens of Gaza were having parades through the street after the attacks. They were spitting on and mutilating the bodies of raped young women. They weren't going to show sympathy because of DVDs. They would have used those DVDs as part of some highlight reel.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Literally never in my life have I heard someone suggest that the problem with the Vietnam war was that the Vietnamese weren’t wiped off the earth.

wtf

You guys misunderstand my point, I am not arguing it was a good or bad thing, I am saying that winning wars involves wiping the other side out utterly, the only reason we wring our hands at Vietnam is because we weren't facing our own extinction, no one here is arguing we shouldn't have bombed Germany into rubble and killed millions of civilians between 39 and 45, why? because it was an existential conflict where our survival was in the balance

Israel is in an existential conflict, one side or the other is going to have to cease to exist or be so utterly defeated that, like Germany, they never think of resisting again, it is a black and white choice, either you are ok with millions of Palestinians suffering or millions of Jews

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

You guys misunderstand my point, I am not arguing it was a good or bad thing, I am saying that winning wars involves wiping the other side out utterly, the only reason we wring our hands at Vietnam is because we weren't facing our own extinction, no one here is arguing we shouldn't have bombed Germany into rubble and killed millions of civilians between 39 and 45, why? because it was an existential conflict where our survival was in the balance

Israel is in an existential conflict, one side or the other is going to have to cease to exist or be so utterly defeated that, like Germany, they never think of resisting again, it is a black and white choice, either you are ok with millions of Palestinians suffering or millions of Jews

OK, now make a list of all the times war ended where that wasn't the case.

[RobotTalk]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Literally never in my life have I heard someone suggest that the problem with the Vietnam war was that the Vietnamese weren’t wiped off the earth.

wtf

There's a difference between totally defeating an enemy militarily and wiping the population off the face of the map, he was clearly referring to the former, as he also cited Germany and Japan - two countries that were totally defeated yet didn't have their populations wiped out.

In the case of the Vietnam War there's an argument to be made (although not one that I accept) that if the US had engaged in unrestrained bombing of North Vietnamese infrastructure they could have destroyed the North's ability to sustain it's forces in combat and thus would have won the war. For example, the US looked at bombing damns and dykes in order to disrupt Vietnam's food supply but largely opted not to do it (for reasons far more complicated than the wiki below outlines).

That's an example of how US restraint may have lead to their defeat in Vietnam. You can find similar, although smaller scale, examples of western military restraint impeding military effectiveness in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In this case, when the IDF, fighting in an urban area that Hamas has spent years preparing for a fight, opts to not strike targets with AirPower, artillery, and other indirect fires, it puts it's soldiers at much greater risk because infantry clearing buildings in urban areas are extremely vulnerable to ambush. If you're an Israeli commander, why shouldn't you destroy a dual use target (which a building becomes when it's used for military purposes, including as a spot for Hamas fighters to attack from) via an airstrike when clearing it using 'more humane' methods puts your troops at extreme risk? Especially when Hamas started this war and you need to keep as many of your troops alive for the next one.

That's one specific example of why military people will tell you, if you're going to go engage in a war, you go all the way with everything you have, otherwise you're just prolonging the bloodshed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propos...0River%20delta.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

OK, now make a list of all the times war ended where that wasn't the case.

cant think of one, can you? every war that didnt involve one side utterly wiping out the other and replacing them ends up with the war being reversed eventually, India, the UK conquered it, now their arse is gone and India is free again