Israel is Coming Apart at the Seams, It Seems

I hope they catch the fucker who did this. Unacceptable.

I hope you didn't hurt yourself searching for that shit. Maybe you can do the pelosi thing and put some kente cloth on to show how performatively awesome you are. Then tell us all how you are a feminist because you hate trans girls swimming with cis girls in high school sports.

Oh lookie they are all coming out to perform. Maybe you could all form a line and kick your legs like the fucking rockettes.

Look at you all so concerned about the palestinians now. Where the fuck were you years ago when Isreal was dropping white sulfur on them? Maybe they should be dragging Bibi into the Hague? UI hope they catch these guys, but I do not think they happen to be the ones genociding the palestinians, while you play semantics with what genocide means.

I see ya.

I’m pretty sure I’ve read through this entire thread. I’m still left with a nagging question for the pro-Palestine crowd. After Hamas committed the October 7th massacre, how should Israel have responded? What was the correct course of action in the face of that massacre?

I do believe Isreal has the ability to have done a much more direct and aimed attack. Since the US MIC has been handing them some very advanced weapons, the US tax dollars have been funding their war machine, and the US has been training them for decades to be effective and efficient, killing a shitload of children and non-combatants was clearly genocidal and in no way aimed or careful. It was cruel and designed to destroy whatever resources the palestinian people had in order to cause as much death as possible.

We should not be giving them training, advanced weapons, resources, and funding they were never going to use. They could have gone as apeshit genocide as they wanted to with whatever they could have gathered, and the US did not need to enable such wanton cruelty and harm.

Since the leaders of Isreal cannot be civilized and aim their weapons, we should not be providing them with their arms. Let them do it themselves.

There is none, a fact of which Hamas was well aware.

Surrendered itself, abolish the state and IDF, and sit back and do nothing while millions of Jews and Arabs whose families didn’t leave Israel in 1948 are slaughtered, of course.

More technical way of what I was going to say:
They should have rolled over and said, "Thank you, may I have another?"

It’s kinda fucked up how both the media and political class in Israel are united in crediting the Biden Admin for forcing the ceasefire and now its extension on Netanyahu while the American media is completely ignoring that aspect and the far left are still pissed that he won’t SAY the word ceasefire.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! What is more important, getting a ceasefire or saying ceasefire?!?!?

This isn’t theater. Literal lives depend on this.

Someone with better meme skills please switch the Archer meme of “Do you want ants? This is how you get ants!” but replace Trump for ants.

Posing the question like that is itself a problem. It suggests that the massacre occurred out of the blue, from a source from which there was no grievance. But while it was not justified, it certainly was explicable. History did not begin on October 7th and a response to that attack cannot be seen in isolation either.

I am aware of other views, but I tend to take the same one as most international institutions. On and before October 7th Israel was an illegal occupying power, and has brutally repressed Palestinians for decades, having implemented a system of apartheid and with Gaza being essentially a concentration camp for the last 17 years. Occupation powers enjoy no "right to self defense" against the people that they occupy. Their obligation is to leave, and return control of the territory - including its borders, waters and airspace - to the people who live there and to pursue a negotiated settlement to any issues that exist, including release of hostages. Having done so, they are also free to pursue war crimes charges against those responsible for such on the Palestinian side, through the proper channels - while bearing in mind that resistance itself is not illegitimate but doing things like attacking civilians is.

Obviously everyone understands that the Israeli government is not about to fulfil it's international obligations, given their subscription to the alternate "rules-based order" whereby the United States sets the rules and everyone else follows them. So while Israel is attempting to render Gaza uninhabitable, kill a substantial portion of the population there and drive the rest into Egypt, it is worth noting that there are other options short of this available to it, which might even be more effective at reducing Hamas (the goal of destroying Hamas being a virtual impossibility). These include targeted special forces operations aimed at the Hamas leadership and those directly involved in the October 7th attack as discussed here. It certainly isn't a case that the options are outright genocide (yes, that's what we're seeing) or nothing.

Now, perhaps you'd like to answer a reverse question. If you lived in Gaza, and had experience of Israelis stealing your land, dropping 2,000lbs bombs on your family and then trying to starve whoever survived, what would your response be? Do you have a right to self-defense for example? Or should the exercise of violence only work one way?

You sure do go through a bunch of contortions to justify the slaughter of a bunch of mostly teenagers and young adults who were attending a music festival.

Targeting Israeli soldiers or government officials may have been "explicable" for an oppressed people fighting for their freedom.

Targeting civilians is never "explicable".

FFS. I specifically said "not justified". Twice. "Explicable" means that there's an explanation, which is the case for just about everything. The Israeli response is explicable. Serial killing is explicable.

To shut this down completely (although I've no doubt that you'll move onto another one of the multiple deflection tactics employed for this subject) I'll observe that I'm actually on the fence as regards the fucking death penalty for those who target civilians in war and that certainly applies to anyone from Hamas who was involved in it.

I don't think anyone here would be horrified at Hamas if they restricted themselves to directly attacking the occupying power.

We're horrified at the deliberate, terroristic targeting of Israeli civilians, whom the occupying Israeli power has a right and responsibility to defend separate from whatever responsibilities one may argue they have in their relationship with Gaza.

To argue otherwise is to come perilously close to conflating the military with the civilians.

Oh for sure.

I don't see how slaughtering a concert is a justified way of stopping the bombs though.

But that's Hamas official policy. They to this day are saying they didn't attack any civilians on 10/7. Their first lie is because any Israeli civilian is a conscript and had to have been in the IDF at one point in their life, so every Israeli civilian is in fact a legitimate target.

They of course ignore the fact that they also murdered children and foreign nationals, so even if you bought that monumental piece of horseshit, they'd still be lying.

It doesn't. It does however kill Jews. Which is the point.

Christ, you're so full of shit.

How old am I in this scenario? Because Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. If I lived in Gaza and some Israeli stole my land at some point, they gave it back almost two decades ago.

Why'd they do that? Just for fun, or was it a retaliatory strike because my government attacked them? And did the IDF target a building my family was in just because they hate me, or because employees of my government were launching missiles at Israel and using that building for cover?

Why are they doing that? Do they just think I'm fat, or are they restricting what comes into the area because my government keeps trying to smuggle in weapons to use against them? Because my government is still managing to smuggle things in anyway, but for some reason it's weapons and not more food.

Well, in another life I lived in Alberta, where the provincial government does stupid self-destructive shit to antagonize the federal government pretty regularly, so I'd probably ask why Israel is doing these shitty things to me.

The federal government imposed a carbon tax in Alberta, all that money goes to the feds and they do whatever they like with it. That sucks, but it turns out they did it because Alberta elected a conservative government that eliminated the provincial carbon tax that kept all the money in Alberta, after the feds warned them they'd impose a federal carbon tax if they did that. So am I mad at the federal government for that? No, I'm mad at the provincial government for doing something stupid knowing exactly what the response would be.

If a black guy I've never met before randomly breaks into my house and tries to beat the shit out of me, I'd say I have the right to beat the shit out of him in return.

What I don't have is the right to spend years plotting to kill as many black children as possible because of anything the government or the police have done. That's not self-defense. That's barbarism, and it does nothing to make me safer.

See, this is why you're full of shit. You talk about context, but you don't really care about context. You only want to cherry pick the little bits of context that makes Israel look like a completely unjustified aggressor. That's not context, that's propaganda.

Example: Anc has posted this multiple times, but I've never seen you address it:

One of the most ridiculous things.

Hamas: We've launched a brutal attack on your civilian population after tricking you into thinking we actually want peace. Death to Israel. We will launch these attacks over and over again until Israel no longer exists.
Two days later:
Hamas: Hey! Why'd you turn off the water you provide us? We ripped up all the infrastructure the EU gave us for water and sewage to make rockets to attack you with! You have an obligation to provide us with water!

Hamas, ostensibly the rulers of Gaza, is on record as saying that caring for the people of Gaza isn't their responsibility, that it's up to the UN to help them. Also Hamas is shameless about stealing Israeli and UN aid meant for ordinary Gazans.

Obviously Israel's fault, of course.

This isn't just my determination. It's what international law (to which Israel has subscribed, despite its persistent breaches) holds, specifically the fourth Geneva Convention. This is an interesting summary of the situation, from a few years ago, which outlines some of the complexities and subtleties. For example, Israel is entitled in the territories that it occupies to exercise policing powers with the force that those ordinarily permit. One might argue that that constitutes self defense in the normal understanding of the term. But military self defense is a specific legal category covered by Article 51 of the UN Charter, and it is not applicable. To say nothing of what has actually been unfolding, which goes way beyond that.

It’s good you recognize that Israel has a right to respond to the October 7 attacks, and I gather (no surprise) that you disagree with the way in which Israel has responded.

I’m perfectly fine with the US setting the rules because Israel has belligerents all around them that want to wipe them off the map. International law, or international rules, would be applied inconsistently and with bias against Israel.

Now, I think your reverse question should be phrased to say what if Israel launched a sneak attack against the Palestinians that killed 1200 and took 250 hostage. In that case, the Palestinians are fully justified in responding with force that exceeds what was inflicted upon them.

Germany, the largest provider of aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, has frozen all aid.

Why?

UNWRA schools have been found to 'teach hate, glorify jihad and promote antisemitism.'

IMPACT-se led multiple policy meetings with the German government and legislature to raise this issue, presenting reports which showed Palestinian Authority (PA) schools celebrating the October 7 massacres, including UNRWA teachers and staff, in addition to learning material branded with the agency's logo that glorifies violent jihad, antisemitism and violence against Jews.

Germany is the foremost supporter of UNWRA, with the EU total contribution being equal to $158 million per year.

“With these conditions that urgently need to be changed, UNRWA is not making a contribution to a peaceful solution,” Human rights-focused politician Max Lucks, from the Greens party, stated, adding “Not a single cent from Germany should reach teachers who glorify the terror of Hamas.”

That kooky ole UN.

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/inte...unrwa-operations-in-gaza-amid-internal-review

"If you lived in Gaza..."

Well, let's see. I'm an atheist; I also have a lot of friends who are female, gay, or trans, three categories of people who are far better off under the Israeli government than pretty much any other government in the region.

So I'm pretty sure I'd be hoping that Israel never leaves.

The Palestinians don’t have any time for those issues right now. I heard you don’t work on painting your kitchen if the whole house is on fire.

I'm not willing to diminish the horrifying human rights situation faced by women and minority groups in ... well, pretty much every Middle Eastern country except Israel ... by writing it off as "painting the kitchen."

Besides which, it's Hamas who set the house on fire.

No, no, didn't you hear? Israel tortures and kills LGBTQ folks. They run the country by the book of Leviticus.

I am sure I have said repeatedly Isreal has to destroy Hamas. It is a matter of how you do things. During jan 6th we do not bomb the capital building into rubble because there is a bunch of right wing terrorists there. We do not go dropping bombs on Trump rallies. Even in charlottsville we don't go bombing the jews do not replace us crowd because we are physically and technologically capable of better action.

When The right wing terror people seized government land under Obama and were having a Bundy family revolution did we bomb the town they were in because they tolerated this shit? No, we even let them wander about and fuck with the local people and get supplies because we had the superior position. That could have turned into a bloodbath.

Isreal has been given access to the best firepower and weaponry in the world. We give them billions every year toi buy more and defend themselves. They chose to kill everyone, especially the injured and children. They did what they always do, and I even predicted that based upon their past actions and current motivations to genocide the palestinians. The people in control of Isreal's military and government have a dominant genocidal bent to their actions against palestinians and muslims beyond that.

No one had to lay down and take it from Hamas, but they just went after the palestinian's ability to survive and maul their people.

That is not how you defeat Hamas. That is actually how you make things worse because you push any palestinian or muslim without ties to hamas to hamas.

This ios why i think we have the wrong Biden in office. I get what he is doing, but that is not goingh to win the elction for him if he needs the left who wants some more action.

Let us remember it is not the moderates who guide either party. It is the far end. This is because they are the ones willing to fuck it all if they do not get what they want.

You can bitch about this, but it is how people have been trained to be in a two party and no other faction system. This is why I now oppose a single executive power holder. It was a necessity in the old days, but now that we have communication we could have three or five decision makers which would allow for some nuance in decisions like this. Instead we have one guy who will lose his election to the worst of the worst because he compromised and is being diplomatic.

I am giving Biden credit here for trying to balance a diplomatic situation. I agree in diplomacy if you getr the job done without the harsh language that is the way to go. That is not what america is right now because you need to keep the radicals to get elected.

We have trained people to be at each others throats and to hold everything hostage for their desires. Biden may get the ceasefire now, but it will get trump closer to the white house, and a second Trump term means dumping Isreal because he no longer needs their support.

Because one oppressor treats it’s under privileged better than another oppressor, doesn’t make the first oppressor less guilty.

However, if they get their way, it will mean more people oppressed - and many, many more dead.

Look, the reality is we are human and that was the default setting. We are trying to get out of that pattern and do something else.

I know evolution is a fucking crime to the god people, but maybe someday we will stop oppressing and killing people.