"We are demolishing more and more homes, they have nowhere to return. The only obvious result will be the desire of the Gazans to emigrate outside the Strip. Our main problem is in the receiving countries."
It's an interesting contrast with Azerbaijan whose soldiers were beheading elderly civilians that did not manage to run away in time, mutilating bodies of female soldiers, making it clear that no Armenian will stay alive under Azerbaijani occupation. As a result when Azerbaijan have occupied Karabakh everyone living there had to leave it and run for life in under a week, without demolishing homes, or getting condemnation from any country.
rurp 1 hours ago [-]
I've been seeing this kind of argument increasingly often from Israel's defenders and I have to say "Look at this other horrific atrocity that might be even worse than the one we're doing, but gets far less coverage in the US media" is a terrible defense. If that's the best Israel can come up with, and they continue down the path they are on, their western support will be gone before they know it.
To take this example, the Azerbaijani president didn't talk the American one into a major shit show of a war; one that is materially harming American lives. The Azerbaijani government doesn't run a major political influence operation in the US, spending 10s of millions of dollars against candidates for the sin of mildly criticizing them. The Azerbaijani government doesn't receive anything close to the level of military, diplomatic, and financial support from the US that Israel gets. The Azerbaijani prime minister didn't give an address to the US Congress to undermine a major foreign policy agreement, one which has only looked better in hindsight.
So no, it's not at all weird that the citizens of the US care more about Israeli committed atrocities than Azerbaijani ones. The US is far more involved with Israel's actions and has far more influence over them, influence that has so far not been used to try and alleviate the suffering in Gaza.
abustamam 14 minutes ago [-]
Yes, that was an atrocity. What does that have to do with what Israel is doing? We shouldn't be ok with atrocities just because worse atrocities that dont get as much media coverage exist.
estearum 4 hours ago [-]
Lots of countries condemned it. Maybe you're just not paying attention?
The Biden administration paused diplomatic relations, put out public states condemning it, and more.
In fact, Azerbaijan came out and complained about the US's "biased" stance against it.
English media also routinely violates house-style by using the passive voice when reporting actions by Israel: "50 civilians killed in Gaza" vs "Hamas/Syria kills 50 civilians". Boo English media
Georgelemental 4 hours ago [-]
Azerbaijan did that with 70% Israeli weapons! BFFs learn from one another
monirmamoun 40 minutes ago [-]
This is a typical Israeli harbara pattern. Oh, you anti-semite, I see you are ignoring this other non-Israeli genocide.
Save it.
4 hours ago [-]
98753579909754 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
rfrey 5 hours ago [-]
Why?
erxam 3 hours ago [-]
And they will not stop with Gazans. The plan of the bloodthirsty monsters that compose the Israeli Ethnosupremacist Republic is to rebuild Greater Israel, executing and shedding the blood of anyone and everyone who dare not be a chosen one. The chosen ones are the natural rulers of the world and we're their bitches.
None of these are far-right sources. Although, well, considering how chosen ones are buddy-buddy with nazis these days, that doesn't hold much water. These are mainstream sources.
erxam 3 hours ago [-]
An excerpt from the first link:
"The Torah explicitly commands us regarding hostile populations that endanger Israel: “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, then those whom you leave over will be as spikes in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land in which you settle” (Bamidbar 33:55). The Torah further states, “And I will make your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river, for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands, and you shall drive them out from before you” (Shemot 23:31)."
lorecore 3 hours ago [-]
Why is this "antisemitic" when it's the clearly stated goal of Israeli leadership? We're also commenting on a post where Israel destroyed an entire city. There's a great twist of propaganda where people are more upset at people being upset about a genocide, then they are about the actual genocide. Expecting that to work is an "avalanche of stupidity".
fcortes 15 hours ago [-]
There are Street View photos that look like they were taken from someone driving down one of the side streets so you can pretty much walk on it. You can see apartment buildings, local shops, people going about their day... It’s heart-wrenching to contrast that life with the current aerial view, with nothing but rubble and destruction.
How did they get those cameras inside and footage out? Isn't it an open air prison without electricity or internet, where you are shot immediately when trying to approach?
They don't, that's the point. All of the street view footage is from before the start of the current genocide. Gaza is under one of the most complete internet and media blackouts on earth, even the roaming international sim card loophole has been closed.
breezybottom 5 hours ago [-]
You realize people get cameras and phones into actual prisons, right?
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
You realise Gaza is more tightly controlled than actual prisons, right?
Alifatisk 5 hours ago [-]
I suggest creating two tabs, one for Google Maps link [1] and another for Apple Maps link [2], then quickly switch between these two pages. It made me realize how much have been destroyed. Heart wrenching.
Its really telling to see the destruction limited to where the structures used to be rather than to all of the surrounding green spaces. If the destruction of civilian dwellings was purely an accident you'd expect to see the destruction spread evenly over the area. Instead it looks much more like a prolonged set of surgical strikes to destroy the buildings while preserving as much of the surrounding areas as possible.
Wow. So the next Rachel Corinne will be killed by a robot.
biimugan 1 days ago [-]
I don't quite understand your argument here. In your first pin I'm struggling to find a single building that isn't leveled, or at least severely damaged. Even buildings far away from the city center in the boonies are leveled.
skissane 18 hours ago [-]
You can also see a lot of buildings demolished on the Egyptian side too.
In 2015, the Egyptian government announced a plan to demolish the entire Egyptian city of Rafah, in order to deter smuggling with the Gaza Strip. More than a decade on, most of it is gone. The residents were forcibly relocated to elsewhere in Egypt.
elcritch 16 hours ago [-]
It also looks similar to Mosul in Iraq before and after the ISIS and Iraq and coalition forces fought:
Urban warfare is brutal, especially when one side systematically digs in and uses IEDs and booby traps in civilian buildings.
erxam 3 hours ago [-]
> IEDs and booby traps
Scary! Can we get photos of those? Wait, they look suspiciously like medical equipment and incubators…
(Will the Chosen Ones reclassify radiological equipment as nuclear weapons next? Stay tuned for more!)
megous 11 hours ago [-]
Yeah, this is not what happened here. You can look up Israeli articles from the time that described that nothing was going on for weeks on end other than demolitions. Basically no fighting. You get Israeli politicians repeating beforehand that Rafah will get leveled.
They wanted to level the city, they did. That's all. There was some fighting eventually with a few fighters holed in in Rafah, but nothing that would justify this. And Israelis continue leveling entire areas the whole year after so called "ceasefire" during which there were almost no attacks on them, yet they managed to murder more than a thousand of people.
LorenPechtel 3 hours ago [-]
The problem is the reporting--it's only "fighting" if Hamas is actually shooting guns or doing things that actually kill Israelis. Anything below this threshold is either not mentioned or is "peaceful".
Thus anything that precludes Hamas from actually inflicting harm is not "fighting", even if it's demolishing Hamas booby traps or demolishing structures Hamas would use. Hamas knew what would happen, they intended the result. The more Gaza suffers the more the world blames Israel.
Just because the Israeli politicians knew what was going to happen doesn't change this. Urban combat flattens cities.
mobelkh 3 hours ago [-]
flattens the entire city? absolutely not, this is not a standard anyone should consider normal
stickfigure 2 hours ago [-]
Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Warsaw, Grozny, Aleppo, Mariupol, Carthage... war is hell.
Sadly it does seem pretty normal.
gravisultra 50 minutes ago [-]
Even if you take Israel at its word, Hamas only killed 1200 people. How many people did the Nazis or Imperial Japan kill before their cities were destroyed? And even that interpretation is completely neglecting the 78 years of terror and ethnic cleansing Israel has been inflicting on the Palestinians. 1,200 people is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of Palestinians murdered by Israel prior to Oct 7th.
21asdffdsa12 9 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cogman10 19 hours ago [-]
They are saying that this is genocidal destruction. In a war sometimes civilian infrastructure is hit as collateral. But here, all infrastructure is destroyed and it's clear this wasn't done by 1 or 2 errant bombs but rather because of direct targeting. It can't be argued to be an accident because in farmland you see no bombs which hit the farmland by mistake. In other-words, this is entirely purposeful.
rbanffy 17 hours ago [-]
A war requires at least two militaries. This is what happens when a well armed military engages a mostly unarmed civilian society unable to mount significant opposition.
torton 16 hours ago [-]
"Before the October 7, 2023 attacks, the total size of Hamas’s military wing (the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades) was estimated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and intelligence agencies to be between 25,000 and 30,000 fighters, with some intelligence assessments placing the upper limit as high as 40,000.
This army was organized into five regional brigades and 24 battalions."
"Hamas's military force prior to October 7, 2023, was roughly 3 to 4.5 times larger than the United States military when measured as a percentage of their respective total populations."
choo-t 12 hours ago [-]
No link to a source ?
Anyway, IDF as ≈170k active duty personnel and 465k reservists[1].
Literally a different order of magnitude.
Add to it the vast different of resources, access to an air force and nuclear weapons and it become even more clearer that there is no comparison possible.
(And comparing personnel count to the USA is laughable as it is vastly different military type. Both a fighter jet pilot and a foot soldier count as one personnel, but it's neither the same force projection nor the same investment of civilians working for the war machine).
You don't need to compare the military forces. You can compare the casualties on both sides or, for a different perspective, you might count the civilians killed inside their own territories (you might count the West Bank if you really want accurate numbers).
Forced displacement is also considered a war crime and, considering what is happening in Gaza and at the West Bank, it would qualify as genocide as well.
erkt 5 hours ago [-]
Maybe they should be treated like the festival goers?
mossTechnician 4 hours ago [-]
The IDF has killed not just a higher number but also a higher percentage of civilians, and a much higher percentage of children, than the October 7 attacks[0]. Even if collective punishment was considered not cruel but moral by the larger community, Israel has far surpassed it.
comparing the casualties just shows that Hamas are incompetent not that they aren't trying.
rbanffy 8 hours ago [-]
I was hoping the numbers would make it obvious the reaction is disproportionate and careless with the lives of civilians.
lukan 5 hours ago [-]
Yeah, there even is this old archaic rule from the bible/torah/quran, "eye for an eye" that is usually considered barbaric and outdated. But here they go by 35:1 ratio.
gegtik 5 hours ago [-]
new Voight-Kampff test just dropped
rbanffy 4 hours ago [-]
I wish I could turn off empathy at my convenience.
jibalt 4 hours ago [-]
It is obvious, but it is also to be expected that a significant number of people here, as elsewhere, will rationalize genocide ... and the comment you responded to is particularly crude in its lack of humanity.
erkt 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
k4rli 12 hours ago [-]
Source: the aggressors
16 hours ago [-]
LorenPechtel 3 hours ago [-]
Hamas chose this war, expecting the results they got.
What you are missing here is that Hamas' primary weapon is parading dead Gazans in front of the camera.
bonesss 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
iririririr 11 hours ago [-]
almost as if they didn't have the best interest of the civilians in mind uh
rbanffy 10 hours ago [-]
As Emiliano Zapata once said, "Better to die standing than to live on your knees".
While I don't condone violence, it's a legitimate way to defend against occupation.
lukan 5 hours ago [-]
Targeting military - yes, under certain conditions.
Targeting civilian homes and a festival - nothing legitimate about that.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
This is actually codified in international law IIRC - a nation that's subject to some kind of apartheid occupation has literally unlimited rights to resist its occupiers.
SiempreViernes 7 hours ago [-]
While Hamas does have a right of armed struggle against the occupation, the taking of hostages and the killing of civilians are not permissible forms of resistance.
That said, it is almost impossible to imagine that the Israeli response would have been something lesser than the current genocide attempt if Hamas had just taken POWs during the October 7 attack. Bibi would have arguably been even more humiliated if Hamas had been acting with restraint, so the impulse for revenge would be even greater.
throwaway198846 6 hours ago [-]
This show how little you understand Israelis. First this isn't about Bibi, second ot wasn't humiliation but failure, third no atrocities on civilians would certainly changed the response - probably equivalent to a larger cast lead operation which also act as precedent of how Israel acted on the past.
rhasimus 7 hours ago [-]
Making up scenarios sure is fun.
Let me try!
It is almost impossible to imagine Israel would even look at the direction of Gaza had they just taken the statehood offers presented to them in 1947, 2000, 2001, or 2008, instead of repeatedly choosing terrorizing civilians over gasp compromising.
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
What were the offers?
ta8903 5 hours ago [-]
>It is almost impossible to imagine Israel would even look at the direction of Gaza had they just taken the statehood offers presented to them in 1947, 2000, 2001, or 2008
It's very much possible to imagine that.
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
Considering every single offer that was accepted by both sides was immediately violated by the Israeli side
gosub100 4 hours ago [-]
Bibi was aware of the plans, and allowed the attack to manufacture support for the greater Israel project.
rhasimus 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
erkt 5 hours ago [-]
Then maybe the civilians should kill their Hamas neighbors, instead of cheering them in the streets and supporting the actions of Oct 7th…
tgsovlerkhgsel 14 hours ago [-]
Looks the same in Ukraine, and at least there it's most likely not primarily because Russians wanted flatten the city (I'm sure they'd have preferred taking it in one piece) but rather because fighting happens from buildings resulting in the buildings getting targeted.
Doesn't mean that here the targeting couldn't have been done with the primary goal of displacing the population, but the buildings being destroyed doesn't prove the motive.
kergonath 10 hours ago [-]
> Looks the same in Ukraine
It does not.
> and at least there it's most likely not primarily because Russians wanted flatten the city (I'm sure they'd have preferred taking it in one piece) but rather because fighting happens from buildings resulting in the buildings getting targeted.
What happened on the Ukrainian frontlines is a war of position. Everything gets pounded, even forests and tree lines. It’s more like Verdun than anything that happened in Gaza.
21asdffdsa12 9 hours ago [-]
Well, it happened in germany with the hitleryouth and volksturm.
JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago [-]
> It does not
In absolutely does [1].
> What happened on the Ukrainian frontlines is a war of position
If Gaza is a genocide then Ukraine almost certainly is too. The same messaging about exterminating a culture that doesn't "actually" exist from senior leadership. The same attacks on children. The same destruction and systematic razing of civilian settlements.
It can be (and is imho) true that both Russia and Israel have broadcasted genocidal intent with the consequences being war crimes and still not look identical
It seems like the state of Ukraine frontline cities is due to intense artillery fire and air bombingn whereas gaza cities states seem to be more of systematic bulldozing of entire areas which would erase the marks of actual bombings and make the scale harder to assess
kergonath 5 hours ago [-]
> If Gaza is a genocide then Ukraine almost certainly is too.
Both are the results of aggressive madmen, but both situations are different. And the genocide aspect is not what is discussed here.
Also, why do you think that “Russia is doing the same thing” is some kind of gotcha?
7 hours ago [-]
newsclues 7 hours ago [-]
The same thing happens in Ukraine in the urban front lines. Villages get erased with artillery and bombs, as basements are the best place to survive drones and fires from artillery and bombs.
Systematic destruction of urban areas is sadly what modern urban combat operations look like.
When an enemy digs in and choose to fight and die in an urban area, this is how war plays out.
> The same thing happens in Ukraine in the urban front lines. Villages get erased with artillery and bombs, as basements are the best place to survive drones and fires from artillery and bombs.
But that’s not what we see in Gaza. The parents specifically mentioned that only towns were leveled. The destroyed towns are not the only relevant aspect. The other one is that major damage happens only there. And of course it would, because the Israeli forces don’t want to sterilise the land; they want to take it. In contrast, Russia is happy to be king of the rubble as long as Ukrainians eat shells.
newsclues 3 hours ago [-]
If your enemy is dug in in an urban area, you bomb the hell out of it before you send in infantry to clean up. If you don’t use artillery and bombs the defenders will mow down the assault units.
This is how urban war is played out between near peer armies.
Think about this, I’m in a concrete bunker with a machine gun, do you want to charge the bunker and get shot, or do you want to call in an airstrike to destroy the bunker with the machine gun position? I know what I’d do
mthoms 1 hours ago [-]
Or, if you're the IDF, and the bunker is filled with neutral UN Observers monitoring for war crimes, you also send in a laser-guided bunker-busting airstrike. Then you insist it was an "accident" while refusing to cooperate with the subsequent investigations.
Of note, just days before the strike, one of the Observers sent an unencrypted email home to his wife noting that he was observing Israeli war crimes and would be reporting them.
No, Mariupol was just one (arguably not the best) example answer to the original question, "Does it look the same in the Ukraine? I haven’t seen any footage of entire cities leveled like this."
wongarsu 7 hours ago [-]
"Russia is claiming it as theirs for the last four years and has largely rebuilt it" is not really counter-evidence to destruction during the fighting
Mariupol probably did see less destruction. But for the actively contested regions, the biggest difference between Russian destruction and Israeli destruction is that the Russians use artillery, which leaves shells of buildings standing, while Israel uses bulldozers that are a lot more thorough in leaving no stone on the other
10 hours ago [-]
virgilp 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
westpfelia 9 hours ago [-]
To busy using white phosphorous on kids.
cassepipe 7 hours ago [-]
Well, Russia's use of white phosphorous during the invasion and ensuing occupation of Ukraine is well documented
virgilp 8 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cassepipe 7 hours ago [-]
I think your distinction is a valid one, Israel has some war crimes going on whereas russian invasion of Ukraine was a war crime festival but you are fighting an uphill battle because trying to make distinctions in levels of evil is generally frowned upon because to many people it looks like justification. The reason is because most people can't imagine any other value to making distinctions in evil. I personally can but each time you are going to do it, you should be prepared to defend why, in fact, making those distinctions is useful while being clear that the purpose is not justification of evil acts. It's a thin line to walk on.
more then 20 times the children killed in half time time.
virgilp 4 hours ago [-]
Only children matter? But, fine. How many were kidnapped? At least IDF can claim that they didn't intentionally target children - with kidnapping, that's harder. And the discrepancy in numbers can also be caused by how much Ukraine vs Hamas care about said children / how much they are put in harm's way.
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
What do you call aiming a sniper rifle at a child, centering her in the scope, accounting for drop, and then pulling the trigger? Seems pretty intentional to me, but maybe the sniper's finger slipped and did all that by accident?
virgilp 2 hours ago [-]
you believe those were sniper kills? :o Where did you get that from, the Hamas "x-rays" where bullets conveniently lodged inside a child cranium instead of shattering the surrounding bones?
virgilp 9 hours ago [-]
(i can't edit apparently): why the downvotes? Serious question I don't understand, is there anything I said above false? The parent comment is questioning whether RU cruelty in Ukraine is anything close to what IL did - and the answer is yes, it's actually much worse, especially when you factor in that it's completely unprovoked.
brabel 7 hours ago [-]
There is no way it’s worse. To be comparable the Russians would have to have flattened Kyiv and most other cities which is extremely far from reality. The cities being flattened are all in the frontline as there is no way to take a city by force without basically destroying every building.
virgilp 7 hours ago [-]
> The cities being flattened are all in the frontline as there is no way to take a city by force without basically destroying every building.
It's exactly the same in Gaza! You basically justified Israel's actions here... Check the distance between Gaza City & Israel border, vs distance beetween Bakhmut & Russia's border. Tell me which one is farther away - I'll wait
close04 7 hours ago [-]
The destruction in Ukraine is mostly focused on the front line. Gaza was treated as a front line almost in its entirety, with almost no place to hide.
virgilp 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
close04 3 hours ago [-]
That's exactly why Gaza took it far worse than anything Russia can do in Ukraine. Gaza is like shooting fish in a barrel and Israel fishes with dynamite and white phosphorus in that barrel. The Gaza war is about sterilizing that land of all its people, who I'm told aren't even considered people by their enemy. Even Russia didn't go that far.
virgilp 2 hours ago [-]
> who I'm told aren't even considered people
EXACTLY. You are told.
If that was really the goal, I go back to my previous point - wouldn't thermobaric bombs be faster, more economic & more convenient? It just makes no logical sense. If you already declared them to be monsters, what exactly is holding them back?
_DeadFred_ 4 hours ago [-]
I'm sorry, Ukraine war discussion was labeled political on HN, not allowed, actively moderated and shutdown. Please don't post it here. Only Gaza/Israel get's a special carveout for these sorts of discussions on HN.
teleforce 18 hours ago [-]
>this is entirely purposeful
Please check Norman Finkelstein's latest book namely Gaza's Gravediggers on this matter [1].
He also has a very telling and chilling interview recently on Palestine and Gaza [2].
[1] Gaza's Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places [book].
[2] Norman Finkelstein Reveals Shocking Discoveries While Researching History of Israel’s Gaza Obsession [video]:
He also promotes transphobia. Chomsky was friends with Epstein and acquaintance of Steve Bannon. I don’t think that discredits his entire body of work, but I think we should stop promoting him when there are sources that are less problematic.
cogman10 18 hours ago [-]
You are mixing Chomsky (the subreddit) up with Norm (the book author). Norm was friends with Chomsky but not Epstein or Bannon. I'm unaware of him having transphobic views.
cassepipe 7 hours ago [-]
Norman Finkelstein's treatment of sources is dubious at best , dishonest at worst, and he is not very good at defending his position when challenged on them
At least that was my takeaway after watching his debate with Destiny (the streamer) and Benny Morris (the historian):
I would caution against uncritical consumption of Finkelstein's work. He is a bit unhinged, and limited in what content he can analyse as he can't read Arabic or Hebrew.
Also Tucker Carlson? Seriously?
18 hours ago [-]
erkt 5 hours ago [-]
I’m not sure your point? They are not civilians when they are covering up tunnels in their homes for Hamas to use.
maeln 5 hours ago [-]
Look at Google map of Gaza city, Rafah, Khan-Younes, Al Qarara, ... pretty much all building have been destroyed. You want to try to argue that every one of them was somehow hiding a tunnel ?
tengbretson 4 hours ago [-]
Is having tunnels in their own territory a problem?
The way the IDF fought in Rafah and other areas is leading with bulldozers that can take RPGs, IEDs, mines etc. to clear way for troops behind. That's how the tunnel and other guerrilla advantages are neutralized.
So yes, the destruction is absolutely purposeful, its purpose is to take away the advantage of the tunnels and guerrilla tactics, and enable excavations for tunnel access and detection.
The sequence was something like this (AI assisted):
Early May 2024, the IDF issued extensive, phased evacuation orders. This prompted an estimated 1 million to 1.4 million civilians—many of whom had previously fled to Rafah from other parts of Gaza—to evacuate to designated zones like Al-Mawasi.
Once ground troops secured these largely emptied areas, the IDF Combat Engineering Corps moved in. Objective satellite damage assessments show a massive spike in structural destruction in Rafah beginning in the summer of 2024, directly correlating with the ground invasion.
Satellite imagery confirms that ground forces used controlled explosive demolitions and heavy earth-moving equipment, including armored D9 bulldozers, to systematically clear residential blocks, agricultural land, and infrastructure.
This mechanical destruction was particularly concentrated along the Philadelphi Corridor (the Gaza-Egypt border) and in eastern Rafah. The military objective of these block-by-block clearing operations was to uncover and destroy cross-border smuggling tunnels and to establish a widened, flattened security perimeter where structures previously stood.
In summary, while aerial bombardment occurred prior to and during the invasion, you are correct that the wholesale, block-by-block leveling of Rafah was heavily driven by engineering operations using bulldozers and controlled demolitions after the majority of the civilian population had evacuated the targeted areas.
pjc50 9 hours ago [-]
> evacuation orders. This prompted an estimated 1 million to 1.4 million civilians
"Evacuating" a million people who will not be allowed to return is "ethnic cleansing".
SiempreViernes 7 hours ago [-]
It's not even evacuation because the IDF does not provide facilities to go to, it's just forced displacement.
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
And the one major time (and probably many more unreported) that they did provide an evacuation site, they waited for the evacuation, then bombed the shit out of the evacuation site claiming "Hamas is here lol"
what 16 hours ago [-]
If it was genocide, why would you spare the farmers? Doesn’t really make sense.
thinkindie 10 hours ago [-]
there are videos of bulldozer in the West Bank eradicating secular olive trees from Palestinian farmland. There is no Hamas in West Bank, no tunnels, no fighters.
aetch 13 hours ago [-]
It’s more efficient to spend your ammo on housing and city buildings.
echoangle 11 hours ago [-]
Wouldn’t it actually be much more efficient to just destroy all the food infrastructure and just have everyone die from hunger instead of destroying all the houses?
a_paddy 11 hours ago [-]
You're right, it is, hence the strikes on World Central Kitchen and the blockade on food entering the area.
iririririr 11 hours ago [-]
they send armed settlers for the farms. they can't destroy those
neor 10 hours ago [-]
Farmland wasn't bombed, but they did use Bulldozers to destroy a lot of fields.
choo-t 11 hours ago [-]
Food production was target, even in different part of Palestine (west bank).
Farmers were killed, even in different part of Palestine.
Killing farmers have nothing to do with the definition of genocide.
5 hours ago [-]
cavisne 15 hours ago [-]
Oh 100%, you can see specific buildings (mostly marked as schools) that are still standing.
mda 6 hours ago [-]
Prolonged "surgical" strikes continued so long that there is almost nothing left to operate on I guess. And your justification is that some farms are not completely destroyed? What a disingenuous remark.
ImPostingOnHN 1 days ago [-]
They just use bulldozers to flatten whatever the bombs don't. They can drive a bulldozer pretty precisely, especially when they don't care who's in front of it or under it.
Caterpillar even supplies the IDF with bulldozers just for this purpose, which then get up-armored and sent into Palestinian civilian areas to do this (including unmanned versions).
Worth noting that Corrie was killed 23 years ago during a different phase of the conflict and under a previous government. (In which Netanyahu served as minister of finance.)
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
Interesting: the word "nakba" translates to Hebrew as "shoah" which is what many Jews call the (German) Holocaust - they're not even trying to hide what they're doing.
yyyk 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
antonvs 15 hours ago [-]
Only a child thinks 2003 was a long time ago.
laimewhisps 18 hours ago [-]
Of course it's relevant. Regardless, there are many instances of Israel killing civilians with bulldozers in Gaza.
tpowell 17 hours ago [-]
And then they bomb them in their tent cities while blocking aid, all while murdering hundreds of journalists so no one sees...
Been watching it for years. A great stain on history, with weapons paid for and built by Americans, not to mention a complicit media.
ImPostingOnHN 1 days ago [-]
Interesting claim. Where did you hear that? The IDF is pretty infamous for crushing people alive with these bulldozers, and also for denying search & rescue access to find civilians buried in the wreckage (and also for just killing said SAR and hiding the bodies and lying about it*).
What is your expectation of how the civilian population of Gaza are meant to live after this? You can repeat your propaganda all you like, but what is the actual outcome you expect from this? In five years time, is this land occupied? By the same population that was displaced, or by Israelis? Or by no one?
estearum 3 hours ago [-]
After the Allies flattened Nazi Germany (and Japan), civilized peoples looked at what they had done and said "wow we need to agree that this never happens again."
It's always funny hearing these defenses of Israel or Hamas which resolve to "hey what can you expect, they have the moral intuitions of cavepeople!"
Georgelemental 5 hours ago [-]
Ukraine looks nothing like this
YZF 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
a_paddy 11 hours ago [-]
How does bulldozing a family home have any affect on a tunnel?
JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago [-]
> How does bulldozing a family home have any affect on a tunnel?
The tunnel entrances and exits are tremendously hard to find. Some of them were located in private residences.
But Israel has an oil & gas industry. They have equipment that can look underneath a quiet city. If tunnel elimination were truly the goal, temporarily displacing the population while clearing operations took place should have been sufficient. As it stands, simply bulldozing over the entrances probably doesn't actually destroy the tunnels. It just hides their entrances.
21asdffdsa12 9 hours ago [-]
The problem is that the homes are booby trapped. US would not send soldiers into iraq towns too- one trap - one ambush, and its artillery o clock.
Georgelemental 6 hours ago [-]
Every single house in the entire city of Rafah was booby-trapped?
WarmWash 5 hours ago [-]
No, but how do you tell which ones are and which ones aren't?
Like when packaged food gets potentially contaminated, you don't test each package for bacteria. You throw away the whole lot.
21asdffdsa12 5 hours ago [-]
The problem with Ghaza is, that its the living proof that the peace process never could work. Charon returned it, des-ettlered it, the hippies moved near the border to help, they integrated them into the economy- only to get murdered on the 7th of october.
Not even egypt allows ghazans in- 10.000 euros for one passport is insane. And all those walls and checkpoints. And egypt is pretty islamist itself, so natural ally to hamas and the like.. but they know had that brush with the mb
Georgelemental 5 hours ago [-]
You neglected to mention the decades-long blockade, or Netanyahu doing everything in his power to keep Hamas in charge. A true "peace process" has never been tried. (Well, except by Rabin, so of course they murdered him)
Or, if you are not a genocidal terror group, you actually go house-to-house and check. Difficult, dangerous, but not a war crime. That's why Mosul isn't a pile of rubble, even though ISIS was more than willing to use booby traps!
---
"We are demolishing more and more homes, they have nowhere to return. The only obvious result will be the desire of the Gazans to emigrate outside the Strip. Our main problem is in the receiving countries."
Mosul doesn't have a massive network of underground tunnels that use civilian homes as entrances and exits.
If Hamas cared about Palestinians, they could just use military buildings for that.
ImPostingOnHN 5 hours ago [-]
> Like when packaged food gets potentially contaminated, you don't test each package for bacteria.
You're comparing wiping out tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian people's lives... to disinfection.
Like yeah, there's plenty of examples of israel's current leaders calling the Palestinian race sub-human, vermin, animal, saying it should be wiped off the earth, etc, but I didn't expect it on HN, JFC.
WarmWash 2 hours ago [-]
These buildings being bulldozed are empty, they are left booby trapped for when Israel sweeps them for tunnel entrances.
TalkingCodeMonk 5 hours ago [-]
"It's not a lie, if you believe it" — George Costanza
flyinglizard 5 hours ago [-]
How do you know which ones are booby trapped?
ImPostingOnHN 4 hours ago [-]
They didn't claim to. They are responding to a claim that all the houses were demolished because they all contained booby traps, because "might contain booby traps" is obviously a legally and morally insufficient justification for demolishing every home in the city and cleansing it of the previous inhabitant race. Your home might contain booby traps, too.
estearum 7 hours ago [-]
Can you link to any documented cases of the US leveling a city after encountering a trap or ambush?
Over a million people live here. The estimate was that "448 to 593 civilians were killed due to coalition military operations", orders of magnitude less than Israel has killed. Basra was not wiped off the map or seized and annexed by coalition forces while the population was herded into a concentration camp.
It is simply slander against the US military to suggest they have in the 21st century done anything like what the IDF has done in this genocide.
Huh? The Battle of Mosul was notable for its extremely intense infantry combat.
myth_drannon 3 hours ago [-]
There were weeks of airstrikes by the coalition and then artillery barage("Down Barage").
Basically Mosul was leveled before a single soldier entered it.
estearum 3 hours ago [-]
Uhh... no.
Here's historical satellite imagery. Go to 2017-08. You can see Mosul airport and surrounding facilities leveled, immediately adjacent to a city that is obviously a city and not 1) flattened Mosul airport or 2) similar in any way to the Rafah imagery above.
If you are describing Mosul as "leveled" then what adjective do you use to describe Rafah? It cannot possibly be also "leveled" given that vast areas of Rafah are actually a flat pile of rubble and Mosul is clearly a city with a destroyed airport, even in late 2017.
This is a good rebuttal to the claim that no part of Mosul was struck hard or leveled. But nobody claimed that.
From your linked AP article:
"Nearly a third of the Old City [a specific neighborhood] was damaged or destroyed in the final three weeks of bombardment up to July 8, according to a survey by U.N. Habitat using satellite imagery"
From MSF re Rafah:
"Over 15 months of all-out war on Gaza have left 92 percent of housing units and about 70 percent of all structures destroyed or damaged."
So we have 1/3rd of a particularly hard-hit neighborhood destroyed in Mosul versus 70% of the entire city of Rafah.
This is very obviously a completely different scale and comprehensiveness of destruction.
JumpCrisscross 8 hours ago [-]
> the homes are booby trapped
Robots. These things can be cleared. Particularly if the population isn't there.
wongarsu 7 hours ago [-]
That's kind of what they did. Just in the most heavy-handed indiscriminate way imaginable. But the booby-traps are cleared, and they did use teleoperated robots to do that
datsci_est_2015 6 hours ago [-]
Furthermore, in a way that’s conveniently equivalent to ethnically cleansing the land.
mschuster91 7 hours ago [-]
> These things can be cleared. Particularly if the population isn't there.
Not if the trigger is based on detecting body heat. And you can't really clear more than the ground floor either, we don't have bipedal robots yet.
a_paddy 19 minutes ago [-]
How advanced do you think Hamas are? One of their main weapons is the Qassam rocket, a dug up sewer pipe filled with sugar.
throwaway173738 7 hours ago [-]
There are wheelchairs that can climb stairs. This is a solved problem if you want it to be.
mschuster91 3 hours ago [-]
These things are gimmicks. They work in stairs constructed by code, but are not usable in warzones both in terms of resiliency and speed.
7 hours ago [-]
jibalt 6 hours ago [-]
The problem is that it's genocide.
Gibbon1 8 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
IX-103 7 hours ago [-]
And if the structure isn't actually being used for military purposes they just have to say "oopsie"? It makes sense for occasional houses that are being used for military purposes to be destroyed, but destroying all houses simply due to suspicion seems like too much.
abirch 8 hours ago [-]
It’s frustrating when people use civilians as pawns.
jibalt 6 hours ago [-]
It's frustrating when people rationalize genocide.
Gibbon1 19 minutes ago [-]
It's demoralizing when people idolize Hamas committing crimes against humanity and starting wars.
MiroslavPokorny 10 hours ago [-]
Its called something like collective punishment, something that many cultures practiced around the world.
enaaem 6 hours ago [-]
Those cultures sound like savages to me
ragazzina 8 hours ago [-]
What do you think of the cultures that practiced it?
ascorbic 5 hours ago [-]
Which is a war crime
engine_y 9 hours ago [-]
have you seen the extent of tunnels that were there?
pjc50 9 hours ago [-]
No, have you? Is there any independent confirmation of their existence?
hdgvhicv 8 hours ago [-]
Personally I haven’t. I know my office is gone. I know the hotel I used to stay in (always fun to wake up seeing a gunboat a couple of miles off shore pointing at you out the window) has gone.
My colleagues have seen these tunnels. At least ore 2023. Israel has denied them entry since then.
21asdffdsa12 9 hours ago [-]
Yes, hamas posted about it?
engine_y 5 hours ago [-]
Tons of pictures and videos were published by both sides.
newsclues 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
estearum 7 hours ago [-]
Yes exactly like that.
"We're no worse than Hamas!" is an interesting argument.
newsclues 7 hours ago [-]
So if two sides are doing the same things in an existential struggle, how can you say one sides tactics are deplorable and wrong?
estearum 7 hours ago [-]
Because I can say that both sides are deplorable and wrong? In fact, I can even say they're both deplorable and wrong in uneven amounts, but that both meet the bar of "deplorable and wrong."
You think you have to choose a side between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel? You think you need to send one of them money?
tt24 6 hours ago [-]
So if we stopped sending money to Israel you’d stop talking about Israel and Gaza forever?
This idea that people only care about Israel because we support them with our tax dollars is such a joke
estearum 6 hours ago [-]
Well I care about it principally because of the degree to which it distorts our politics. The funding is one cause and effect of that distortion but there are others. For example the theological allegiance between US evangelicals and Zionists is a shockingly powerful force in US politics.
But yes the component that morally implicates me personally is the funding and it’d be a big improvement not to participate in it.
Just like I don’t think it’s obvious that we should fund Sinaloa despite them being decidedly less monstrous than New Generation.
Why wouldn’t you answer the question that I asked? Do we need to pick a side in the cartel wars? If no, why is that different?
conception 6 hours ago [-]
The power imbalance allows one side to exhibit restraint and use more civilized options. These aren’t actors on the same footing. It’s a nuclear power with a multi billion dollar military against some of the poorest people on the planet.
expedition32 7 hours ago [-]
What if... wait for it... They are both wrong?
Israel is the great betrayal. In 1948 it was supposed to become a secular country based on European values not a Jewish theocracy. It is dragging us down and for what?
erkt 5 hours ago [-]
The words you are looking for are combatants. How does bulldozing a combatants home have any affect on a tunnel? Because it destroys the entrance to the tunnel. There are no innocents in Gaza.
erxam 3 hours ago [-]
> There are no innocents in Gaza.
This is true. Their crime is not having been born a Jew. According to the Torah, the Talmud and the Talakha, shkotzim and shiksim like us must be slaughtered as is the right and the duty of the Chosen Ones to honor G-d.
vkou 11 hours ago [-]
It encourages the former occupants leave the country. Once they all leave or die, there will be no more tunnels or insurgents.
skybrian 8 hours ago [-]
And how would they leave? What countries take refugees from Gaza?
Not quite. Perhaps you were thinking of "ethnic cleansing" ?
latexr 10 hours ago [-]
It seems bonkers to me that we’re nitpicking what to call a given mass extermination of human lives, like some kind of deranged Clippy. Talk about loss of perspective.
The link provided in your parent post explicitly says there is no precise definition of “ethnic cleansing”, so I don’t even understand why you’d think the distinction matters.
latexr 7 hours ago [-]
I will add as a comment—because I can no longer edit the post—that it’s also bonkers how much the upvotes and downvotes are fluctuating on this. I couldn’t care less about the points, but the threshold for a downvote is higher than an upvote so it does show a certain tendency, and it’s disgusting that such a large part of this community values nitpicking of words over empathy and human lives.
Not that that was in question. HN is, after all, in too large a part a reflection of the greedy US tech industry. It has shown time and again that it’s selfishly OK with human exploitation and supremely susceptible to being manipulated by the right amount of technicality while simultaneously arrogantly believing it is immune to being influenced.
Some days I’m truly ashamed of this community and find myself incapable of defending it against the mockery and contempt it receives from the rest of the internet.
JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago [-]
> seems bonkers to me that we’re nitpicking what to call a given mass extermination of human lives
The OG genocides involved deaths in the millions [1]. That requires killing with industrial efficiency, something that made it categorically unique from the "wipe out the village" warfare that goes back to, probably, before civilisation. (Chimpanzees do it. To my knowledge, they're the only other species that annihilates versus merely fighting off enemies.)
At lower kill volumes, even in the tens and possibly even hundreds of thousands, the line between conventional warfare done conservatively, conventional warfare done brutally and a process that, if left unhindered, will reach a million-man death toll.
(Then you have the ambiguity, one which does not apply in Gaza, introduced by displacement also being included in genocide and it starts to intersect pretty much perfectly with war.)
If we want these words to keep having meaning, we have to nitpick around their use. Otherwise, overinclusivity will consume them.
Nitpick all you want, but at some point you should also ask why this is being debated so widely in the first place, and whether it's time for the international community to step in. Those approaches aren't mutually exclusive.
JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago [-]
> you should also ask why this is being debated so widely in the first place
Because there are lots of wars burning all over the planet. We tried to carve an exception into international law, after WWII, about it being permissible to intervene in the internal affairs of another sovereign state if they're doing genocide. So this is a real debate that should be had. The problem is by practically every definition, there are at least a handful of active genocides happening in multiple theaters around the world.
The abhorrence of genocide is one that needs to be refreshed with action if we're to restore the norm that it's not okay. But to do that, you have to set the new threshold.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
One of the items on this list has only 3000 deaths. Genocide isn't about how many people you succeed in killing.
dudefeliciano 9 hours ago [-]
> The OG genocides involved deaths in the millions
So if less than a million people are killed it's not a genocide? Seems like a very obtuse understanding of the word, which is also defined in the wiki you linked.
JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago [-]
> if less than a million people are killed it's not a genocide?
Nobody said that. OP asked why this is being debated. That's why. It's not clear what generally constitutes a genocide in a way that is separate from warfare in general. (Gaza and Ukraine are simpler, to me, because Russia and Israel explicitly message genocidal intent in a way New Delhi, Beijing and Washington do not.)
latexr 9 hours ago [-]
> OP asked why this is being debated.
I did not. I lamented (it was not a question) that we’re nitpicking (it’s not a debate) the definition, especially when the person in question suggested an alternative which is not defined.
I do wonder if you’d care about this conversation if you and your family were the ones being killed. If one of those people were in front of you crying for their home and life and asked for your compassion and help in fleeing the genocide, would you turn to them and say “ackchyually, someone on Hacker News said this is merely an ethnic cleansing, you’re on your own”?
JumpCrisscross 8 hours ago [-]
> do wonder if you’d care about this conversation if you and your family were the ones being killed
No. At that point, whether it's a genocide or not is kind of irrelevant. They're being killed. War doesn't need extra bits attached to it to be horrible.
> would you turn to them and say “ackchyually
What is this.
WarmWash 5 hours ago [-]
At what point does Israel go
"Ya know what, everybody already has us marked as commiting genocide, so why don't we just actually do it?"
The civilian population of Palestinians has shrunk ~1% since the war started, despite Israel have the weapons to actually just kill everyone.
latexr 8 hours ago [-]
> No. At that point, whether it's a genocide or not is kind of irrelevant. They're being killed. War doesn't need extra bits attached to it to be horrible.
Right. So what I’m saying is let’s have some empathy and compassion for other people. Let’s focus on how horrible it is and what we can do, the same way we would hope others would do for us if we were the ones in that situation.
hiddencost 9 hours ago [-]
There is a technical definition of genocide. There's no ambiguity as to what Israel is doing, only people like you who are probably concern trolling.
8 hours ago [-]
JumpCrisscross 8 hours ago [-]
> There is a technical definition of genocide
It's incredibly ambiguous. There are very few sets of people who agree on the list of ongoing genocides, much less historic ones. The only places where there is even a semblance of agreement is in Europe and urban America, and that's largely due to deferral to our institutions.
> There's no ambiguity as to what Israel is doing
I agree. That doesn't mean it's beyond discussion or debate. I think it's a genocide. I also think that term has been mangled, particularly online, to the point that it's virtually meaningless. (One of the problems with the term is it's grammatically odd. A homicide is a completed murder. Attempted murder is different. A genocide, completed, is an extermination or annihilation. But we give the ongoing project the same grammar as, in other cases, an act.)
well_ackshually 5 hours ago [-]
>A genocide, completed, is an extermination or annihilation.
Which is why zero armenians remain after the armenian genocide
oh wait no nevermind, your definition is just bullshit. Only one set of people define what is or isn't a genocide: historians. The ICC only covers crimes against humanity. Historians are also in wide agreement (except for the Israel aligned ones) that it is a genocide in Gaza.
The legal definition of genocide is precise and includes an element that is often hard to prove: "intent."
Determining whether a situation constitutes genocide is factually and legally complex. It should only be made following a careful and detailed examination of the facts against relevant legislation.
This examination is carried out to establish State responsibility or individual criminal responsibility for the crime of genocide. It must be done by a competent international or national court with jurisdiction to try such cases, after an investigation that meets appropriate due process standards.
Correct. If no such court case has delivered a verdict, then by definition no one can rightly claim genocide has occurred.
As for whats happening, the over represented proportion of male combatant age deaths, the well below average ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in complex urban warfare, the war being in response to an atrocious attack on civilians, stopping for polio vaccines, population numbers remaining stable etc puts a question on the "Only Reasonable Inference" standard.
What would you consider a proportionate response given Hamas's initial charter, the rockets fired over the years, the IRCG commanders statements about a co-ordinated attack from Gaza, southern Lebanon and the West Bank and the abhorrent attack of October 7th?
Major General Gholam Ali Rashid—commander of the Khatam ol Anbia Central Headquarters, which is the highest Iranian operational command level and responsible for all joint operations— expanded on this concept in a May 2024 interview and demonstrated how Iran is continuing to learn from Hamas. Rashid argued that the Hamas attack into Israel in October 2023 highlighted how effective and valuable ground attacks could be.[iii] Hamas’ attack demonstrated, Rashid said, that the Axis of Resistance could destroy the Israeli state by launching surprise attacks from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank simultaneously—echoing Salami’s comments. Rashid stated that such an attack would need 10,000 fighters from Lebanon, 10,000 fighters from the Gaza Strip, and 2,000-3,000 from the West Bank. Rashid’s interview is particularly noteworthy given his importance in Iranian military decision-making and planning as Khatam ol Anbia Central Headquarters commander.
You know what, it's been a while since I took the piss out of the hasbara, let's have fun.
> the well below average ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in complex urban warfare
Ah, yes, the very urban warfare art of bombing hospitals and refugee camps. Very urban. Much warfare. And you also get to claim that the civilians didn't die from the fighting, merely from the starvation!
>the war being in response to an atrocious attack on civilians
Yep. Nothing happened before October 7. 1947 ? Doesn't exist. Nakba? Probably some arab term that means nothing. Close to a century of warfare, torture, humiliation and putting Gazawis into concentration camps ? Naaaah. Hamas is responsible. Bad Hamas.
> population numbers remaining stable
There has been no accurate population counts for three years. But thank you for being so generous and letting palestinians reproduce while you park them in camps. Very kosher <3
>Hamas's initial charter
No shit, the armed resistance group that was formed to resist with arms against an attacker wants the attacker gone ? Silly Hamas. They should have done like Bibi and kept the actual plan quiet in cabinet meetings.
Hint: armed resistance against an occupier is legal and encouraged under international law.
>the rockets fired over the years
Yep. Israel did nothing. Didn't shoot children in the head, didn't regularly murder palestinians in prisons, didn't conduct raids on Palestinian territories or encourage settlers to colonize more. Poor little Israel.
>the IRCG commanders statements about a co-ordinated attack from Gaza, southern Lebanon and the West Bank
You regularly bomb another country, and you think that the other country is in the wrong for finding literally any way to make you eat shit ?
> the abhorrent attack of October 7th
A regrettable event and a needless loss of life. I'm not fully sure it justifies a retaliation that causes fifty times more death, destruction and horror, nor will the tribunal that will judge you for your crimes against humanity.
I'm not a genocide scholar, so may be way off the mark here, but imagine a language that only has a few 100 native speakers left. There's one person who really hates them, writes in his diary about how he longs for that culture to cease, and then he murders the only remaining historian or language teacher of that group. Is that attempted genocide? A little bit?
My point isn't "yeah it is" because I don't know, but I'm very certain that I'm still closer to whatever the heart of it is, than sheer "kill volume". We already have a word for massacres and mass murder, and genocide usually comes hand in hand with those and many other crimes, but it's not those crimes.
well_ackshually 5 hours ago [-]
.. any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (check)
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (check)
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (check)
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (check)
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[8] (check)
Israel is a genocidal, apartheid state and the biggest threat to the stability of the middle east. Whataboutism will not change facts.
hiddencost 9 hours ago [-]
Bruh it's literally text book.
myth_drannon 6 hours ago [-]
Not only tunnels. Almost every house was rigged with explosives, like what happened in Gaza city, entire neighborhoods would explode once the troops arrive. If not rigged then it would be a stash of weapons somewhere in the house or under, you are not going to spend days on each house that is potentially rigged looking for a needle in a haystack.
Unfortunately the worst for Gaza will come after the Israeli elections. Israel has 2 years of politically favorable US president to clear out Gaza City once and for all to correct the mistake of 2005 withdrawal.
Ar-Curunir 5 hours ago [-]
Begone foul genocide apologist.
4gotunameagain 11 hours ago [-]
An alternative to levelling entire cities to the ground to find tunnels, would be to stop the expanding of the settlers, stop the apartheid within Israel, stop the blockade and starving on Gaza, and try to actually foster peace instead of constant conflict, pain and misery in order to retain power.
This is despicable, inhumane. It is generational trauma that started with the Nazis, now propagated to the poor souls around the new western colony of Israel.
fangspire 9 hours ago [-]
[dead]
cess11 10 hours ago [-]
No, it predates the nazis. Zionist terrorism and genocidal actions in Palestine started earlier.
usumgallu 7 hours ago [-]
Indeed. I'll never forget setting out to find out the origins of terrorism thinking it was Iranian, and finding out it was mostly British and Zionist... and I worked in anti-terrorism and hadn't been taught much of that history...
8 hours ago [-]
kpozin 14 hours ago [-]
For comparison, here's Mosul in Iraq after the defeat of ISIS:
Interesting. Despite the images of Mosul (e.g. on the NYTimes) being presumably selected to show the areas with largest impacts, the destruction is in patches and you can see many houses still standing. In Rafah, every single house has been razed to the ground.
abrookewood 11 hours ago [-]
This should be higher I think - it is pretty clear that cities get demolished during war, whether purposefully or not.
rtkwe 4 hours ago [-]
Mosul still had tons of standing buildings where Rafah has entire neighborhoods demolished down to the ground. The destruction there is far more systematic because it's intentional and systematized to drive Palestinians out of the area.
throw310822 11 hours ago [-]
It's pretty clear you didn't look at the pictures. The destruction in Mosul appears very limited compared to the annihilation of Rafah.
abrookewood 11 hours ago [-]
I did look at them and the destruction in both was horrific. I'm not saying that the conflicts are in anyway comparable, but both include fairly comprehensive destruction of civilian areas.
I'm a little confused by this one, because if you hit the "Show historical imagery" button, and go back through the prior years, I don't really see much or anything of a playground there.
Internationally Israel is probably positioned weaker than before and there is a fissure running through liberal societies from Ireland to France, from Portugal to Germany and probably similar in the US.
This is conflict polarizes. A good example is the recent election in Berlin, which was focused on the housing crisis but now devolved into name calling based on how people think of Israel.
A minority might have voted “pro Palestine” but most people wanted affordable flats.
Sowing dissent among your adversaries is very effective.
monideas 12 hours ago [-]
The Israel stock market is up about 100% since October 7.
The Israeli Shekel is so strong against the dollar it is causing issues with exports.
Israel has signed major missile defense deals with many European countries and just signed a major new one with Greece.
Gaza is in near complete ruins, the tunnel infrastructure Hamas spent the past 2 decades building is being destroyed.
Nasrallah was killed and Hezbollah is severely diminished militarily and politically in Lebanon.
Iran’s nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile capabilities have been severely damaged and no longer pose an existential threat, at least for the time being.
Israel is doing very well since October 7 whereas Hamas and Gaza is not.
rurp 4 hours ago [-]
This seems like some serious rose colored outlook. Support for Israel in their patron state has absolutely plummeted in the last year. Support is almost certain to be cut back sharply by the next administration and might go to zero in the near future.
Iran's nuclear program has hardly been destroyed long term and there is almost no chance a durable nuclear agreement comes out of this war. It will almost certainly be a vague memorandum where Iran pinky swears to never build a nuke and then starts building one as soon as the fighting stops. America isn't going to start endless wars to prevent that and Israel can't do it alone. The long term future looks grim for the Middle East, especially for Israel.
pcthrowaway 37 minutes ago [-]
I wish I could share your optimism, but the fact of the matter is that American politicians are beholden to their sponsors on both sides of the aisle, and the military industrial complex and American imperialism which Israel is a part of, are both popular initiatives among their primary funding sources.
Meanwhile, most of the voter base (perhaps understandably) cares more about domestic issues than they do about the plight of people on the other side of the world who they are killing and exploiting with their tax dollars.
Given all this, I don't know how you can be so certain that anything will change with a new administration, even with polling demonstrating that voters do disapprove of support for Israel now. Most of the people who disapprove of funding Israel don't care about it strongly enough for it to be a significant factor in their engagement with electoral politics (which for most people is also just limited to voting once every 2 to 4 years)
3 hours ago [-]
niemandhier 9 hours ago [-]
I have no stake in this conflict.
The flip side of your statement is that more nations than before decided to recognize a Palestine state and that it seems for the first time in decades US support for Israel is waning.
Israel is military and economically strong. It’s also a small country in a difficult region that needs trade partners and international connections, probably more so in a future full of climate change.
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe they would find it easier to get trade partners if they hadn't spent most of a hundred years murdering the extended families of all their potential trade partners. Somehow I'm finding it hard to have sympathy for their inability to find trade partners.
monideas 9 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
niemandhier 8 hours ago [-]
I admire your optimism for the future. I cannot share it despite living in peace, stability and a region much les affected by planetary changes than others.
greggoB 6 hours ago [-]
> Since October 7 Israel has signed major missile defense and military tech export deals with various European countries including just recently Greece which is also part of a special military alliance with Israel and Cyprus.
You already said this in your parent comment?
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
Often times when communicating an idea you need to repeat yourself.
In this case I also mentioned the Greece Israel Cyprus military alliance which I didn’t before. This is an alliance which is due to the threat from Turkey which transcends a lot of the petty ideological issues with Israel coming from Western Europe.
greggoB 4 hours ago [-]
Or it's an indication that you're trying to push an agenda (Israel = great, Israel = winning) which from your other comments in this thread is pretty evidently the case.
And it would be one thing if you were doing this in a thread discussing geopolitics, but this one is about satellite evidence showing the total destruction of a city. And your response is to boost the state that caused this?
monideas 4 hours ago [-]
Total destruction of cities is generally the way that wars end. This is simply a historical fact and anyone who studied history with any sort of interest would understand this.
greggoB 3 hours ago [-]
This wouldn't be an answer to anything, even if it were true (which it isn't): how exactly does this translate to praising states that persecute such destruction?
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
It's clear from their comment history what they are.
MiroslavPokorny 10 hours ago [-]
Strange way to measure success, reducing everything to a powerpoint with graphs, its almost like humans dont exist.
monideas 9 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
yladiz 8 hours ago [-]
> Arabs themselves understand and respect what Israel is doing in Gaza and why.
Any sources that aren’t just anecdotes? I’d love to see some details about “Arabs” understanding and respecting the atrocities in Gaza, because many news organizations including English available ones like Al-Jazeera don’t seem to.
manyaoman 8 hours ago [-]
I hear that myth repeated sometimes but never with any evidence. Like a masterful propagandist, "monideas" has a talent for making claims that are hard to believe but also hard to prove wrong.
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cultofmetatron 9 hours ago [-]
> Israel is doing very well since October 7 whereas Hamas and Gaza is not.
sounds like the terrorists did indeed win
erxam 3 hours ago [-]
Also Mileikowsky and the roving gang of international Zionists and Chosen Ones have veto power over 90% of the governments in the world.
The US congress and senate get their laws and edicts directly from the top brass of the IDF.
Every single head of state in the Eurozone (bar Perro Sanxe, who is controlled by Morocco instead) and every single bureaucrat have to follow the rules set down by Israel, lest the union collapse.
They're everywhere you look. You don't have to fall for Hasbara or Unit 8200 propaganda about how this totally means you're an irredeemable monster, they are the ones who are pushing this.
bsoqk 2 hours ago [-]
Perro is controlled by Morocco because he’s being blackmailed by Morocco for the stuff they found in his phone… using Israeli spyware.
croes 11 hours ago [-]
> Iran’s nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile capabilities have been severely damaged
Is that the same program that was compeletly damages last year?
lbreakjai 8 hours ago [-]
The same program that was two weeks away from completion since the nineties. And will again be two weeks away the next time it's convenient.
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
TalkingCodeMonk 5 hours ago [-]
This is a psychopaths measure of success.
monideas 5 hours ago [-]
Well Israel is also the only developed country on earth with a fertility rate above replacement.
I don’t know what metrics you would consider non-psychopathic.
Getting married, having children, being materially successful, destroying your enemies. These are good things.
brenschluss 4 hours ago [-]
> destroying your enemies
This is psychopathic.
3 hours ago [-]
pluc 7 hours ago [-]
Eh, those are short term gains. Popular opinion has shifted away from Israel since they've increased their attacks and basically no longer hide the fact they want to eradicate Palestinians wherever they may be. They can't throw antisemitism rhetoric anymore because people have caught on to their victim syndrome. What they're doing is the same thing the US has been doing for decades, creating terrorists by oppressing entire generations and it will end the same way, eventually, when a critical mass opposes their regime or until they elect someone as dumb as the US did and throws all pretenses out the window. They either succeed in their genocide or all they're doing is motivating people who will one day have an impact.
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
pluc 7 hours ago [-]
> The basic idea behind what you’re saying is that people are basically good and oppression or deprivation makes them do bad things. This is simply not an accurate model of human psychology.
Have you heard of survival? Personal, cultural, geographic. People will do anything if you push them hard enough or deprive them of alternatives.
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
pluc 6 hours ago [-]
"October 7th" disproves every single one of your claim. Unless you think that was unprovoked of course, and not the result of years of oppression. If you do, then there really is nothing left to argue here.
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
pluc 6 hours ago [-]
And here you're saying that October 7th happened because Palestinians were not oppressed enough so I'm going to just disagree with you and wish you a good day.
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
dominicrose 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
There've been many holocausts throughout history - after the WW2 one, people started studying them more closely and came up with the more scientific term "genocide", which means the same thing. Nothing in the definition says that one couldn't be perpetuated by a group that happens to be Jewish.
monideas 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
manyaoman 6 hours ago [-]
Yeah some people really go overboard with their rhetoric, I can only imagine how awful you must feel. Anyway, can we now get back to discussing how entire cities in Gaza have been razed and their inhabitants displaced or killed?
monideas 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
What happened on October 6?
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Yes, also some old lady in India got up and made tea.
What happened to Gaza on that day?
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
Do you know what happened to Gaza on October 5?
MSFT_Edging 6 hours ago [-]
There's no high ground here. There were riots in Israel after the slightest bit of pushback against torturing prisoners via sexual assault.
Decades prior to Oct 7th, the IDF was shooting children through fences and ethnically cleansing villages.
Israel has been doing a similar thing to "1st amendment auditors", the people who harass random people and police in order to get a reaction and sue. They got the reaction, now Israel is attempting to play the victim. You cannot put people in fences, force them through militarized checkpoints, and allow settlers to harass and assault people in their homes with military backing and even begin to pretend to be the victim.
monideas 5 hours ago [-]
The sexual assault thing never happened. It was simply a lie.
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Yes, it turns out Hamas didn't commit mass rape on Oct 7. The NY Times, who made up the lie, eventually admitted it was a lie and published an article about how they lied about it.
mda 6 hours ago [-]
"Hamas and Gaza" You mean Palestinians right?
But yeah, it seems genocide is a profitable business.
monideas 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
crote 12 hours ago [-]
> The sad thing is that in a way the terrorist won.
So did Netanyahu. His far-right policies require an eternal enemy to distract the people and blame for everything going wrong. The October 7 attack definitely didn't hurt his position in national politics.
ifwinterco 12 hours ago [-]
I don't have a strong position on this but seems at least plausible that the Israeli security services did in fact know about Oct 7th but chose not to act.
I mean come on... Hamas were seen practising flying hang gliders around the strip and one of the most paranoid states in the world didn't think that merited some investigation?
And everyone just happened to not be at their posts?
swiftcoder 9 hours ago [-]
> seems at least plausible that the Israeli security services did in fact know about Oct 7th but chose not to act
Regardless of the facts in this specific event, you can make much the same argument about many of the major 21st century terror attacks - there were multiple warnings leading up to 9/11, and the FBI and CIA had eyes on several of the perpetrators before the attacks. They didn't "choose not to act" in so much as institutional disfunction prevented the dots from being connected or any preemptive action being taken, but from the outside it looks pretty much the same.
ifwinterco 8 hours ago [-]
I would indeed also cast some suspicions on those events, yes, but also with no firm conclusion.
I'm open minded, could see it either way
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
Several spy agencies also tipped them off about the specific attack, I think it was UAE and Qatar as well as the IDF themselves?
throwaway198846 11 hours ago [-]
> And everyone just happened to not be at their posts?
Is wrong. It is kind of you to show you don't know what you are talking about.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
ifwinterco 8 hours ago [-]
Well the official story IIRC is the border was more lightly manned than normal (and with more reservists than normal) because it was a national holiday.
But again does that make sense given how the Israeli elites feel about Palestinians? Just assume because it's a Jewish holiday Hamas will also take the day off?
Because if that is stupidity then yes, it is very stupid
throwaway198846 6 hours ago [-]
Official? It is well known in Israel and for it's enemy that on holidays there are less people. Nothing weird or reasons to doubt it.
> But again does that make sense given how the Israeli elites feel about Palestinians? Just assume because it's a Jewish holiday Hamas will also take the day off?
No, if they did they wouldn't have anyone on the border.
Dear reader, notice how they shifted their claim from "And everyone just happened to not be at their posts" to the official story (wink wink although I offered no real evidence) is that the border was lightly manned.
manyaoman 5 hours ago [-]
> It is well known in Israel and for it's enemy that on holidays there are less people. Nothing weird or reasons to doubt it.
I'm Israel's enemy and still had no idea about that. Beyond stupid if true.
ifwinterco 3 hours ago [-]
They are a truly strange people sometimes
kotaKat 10 hours ago [-]
Bibi had the advance knowledge and let it happen because he’s fine with collateral damage even if it’s his own countrymen. A few dead Jews are nothing to him if it means More Land To King Over.
“You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet” and all that.
ifwinterco 8 hours ago [-]
Yes that would be the basic thesis.
It's a bit too 4D chess for my liking but would also explain some things that otherwise don't add up
son_of_a_star 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
kiproping 10 hours ago [-]
That's the sad thin? not the destruction and wholescale murder?
reorder9695 10 hours ago [-]
There's not much of a fissure in Ireland, the consensus there is pro Palestine. They see parallels between how Israel is treating the Palestinians and how the UK treated Ireland. Generally they don't view the bigger country next door trying to take over a smaller country favourably, and that's even without the mention of the word genocide which certainly doesn't help Israel's case.
indy 13 hours ago [-]
"Sowing dissent among your adversaries is very effective"
Yes it is, and some countries have become very good at doing that
nomilk 13 hours ago [-]
I take a harsher stance: that we should expect division to be sewn among us by our adversaries, and harden ourselves accordingly through open mindedness, debate, clear info, leaders who discuss deeply and write essays, integrity, best-faith debate (rather than flame wars, especially in popular contexts like tv and social media).
vnorilo 12 hours ago [-]
I find it strange that the antidotes to a lot of the bad stuff going on today is basic enlightement stuff: cultivating a citizenry who value evidence-based worldview, education and rule of law. Yet it feels like that is increasingly slipping from our fingers.
phoe-krk 11 hours ago [-]
The "bad stuff going on today" that you call is the opposite of enlightenment - citizenry based on emotions, tribal and racial affiliations, and rule of strength. There are countries and media that actively promote such a world, since it's easy to get rich and powerful in circumstances like these.
watwut 7 hours ago [-]
> open mindedness, debate, clear info, leaders who discuss deeply and write essays, integrity, best-faith debate
Except that people doing that lost. Very very clearly, it is not sufficient at all. And people who won loved to frame themselves as rational, open to ideas, even wrote essays and pretended good faith.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
I'm confused about your opening line. First you say the terrorists won, then you continue to elaborate how the terrorists are losing. So they won but now they are losing again?
undersuit 54 minutes ago [-]
Those aren't the same people. I am pro-Palestine, I am not a terrorist.
SauciestGNU 28 minutes ago [-]
Israelis largely consider anyone who acknowledges the existence of Arab descendants of the Canaanites as terrorists.
pjc50 9 hours ago [-]
The problem is the inexorable logic of war - fighting everyone everywhere all the time - has led to the war expanding until it collides with an enemy that is actually comparable to Israel, i.e. Iran. And that war has now expanded to include the world's supply of oil.
It's going to affect everyone, and I don't think you can stop Western voters noticing that the price of fuel has gone up. Then they're going to start sharing the blame around: Iran, yes, but also Trump and Netenyahu.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
It's hard to blame Iran when they literally weren't doing anything until we attacked them. You don't blame a child for punching back against the school bully - unless you're also a bully.
pjc50 6 hours ago [-]
I don't think Iran are entirely blameless given their sponsorship of Hezbollah and participation in the Yemeni (and previously Lebanese!) civil wars. They've been maintaining a sort of sub-threshold threat in the area for a long time. Which was why, yes, it was an incredibly bad idea for US/Israeli attacks to escalate that.
Any rocket or bullet turned against Israel for the past 20 years has its roots in Iran. Iran controlled Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza and Iraq through its militias.
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
This rhetoric reminds me of how, at one time, everything bad that happened to Germany was said to be orchestrated by you know who.
flyinglizard 2 hours ago [-]
Those who shall not be named did not fund, arm, train and direct militias that controlled Austria, France and Poland.
someonebaggy 1 hours ago [-]
German media said they did
Germans believed they did
stein1946 12 hours ago [-]
> The sad thing is that in a way the terrorist won.
That's what the sad thing is?
> A minority might have voted “pro Palestine” but most people wanted affordable flats.
Interesting interpretation.
ruthvik947 8 hours ago [-]
Indeed the terrorists did win, as we can see from these images.
xinuc 11 hours ago [-]
which one you called terrorist?
surely the one creating such destructions and deaths no?
praptak 5 hours ago [-]
Somehow a powerful state army destroying homes and killing civilians is not "terrorist". It's only "terrorist" if the weak try to respond in kind, using means available to them. It's almost like "terrorist" is a propaganda term used by the strong against the weak who try to resist.
As the saying goes "war is terrorism with a bigger budget".
uludag 8 hours ago [-]
Look at the pictures from the original post.
Imagine the death and destruction caused by the hands of Israel.
Realize that this reaction wasn't necessary. Those who run Israel are adults. They could have chosen a path with much less deaths. They were not forced to commit a genocide, they chose it.
Realize that when people see such pictures, of entire cities completely leveled to the ground, that people get extremely upset. Imagine the place you live reduced to rubble and how atrocious you would find this. The inhabitants of Gaza are humans just like you and the world is justified in their disdain.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
This wasn't a reaction though, this is what Israel's been doing there since its foundation. Oct 7 only intensified existing patterns.
abdelhai 12 hours ago [-]
"The sad thing" is that 100k+ humans were brutally killed and the lives of 2 million others were destroyed. The second sad thing is that Germany will never learn. Also, I'd suggest you look up the definition of the word "terrorist".
the_origami_fox 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
Hamas's Health Ministry was destroyed in April 2024 and the official numbers stopped increasing at that time because the people who published the numbers were dead, but we continue citing then because they are the lowest numbers that it's possible to justify and of course we want Israel to look as good as possible. If you would extrapolate that rate of killing through to the present, it's about 500,000 deaths.
choo-t 11 hours ago [-]
> By Hamas' own military figure pre-war and Israel's war assessments, up to half could be non-civilian.
You are quoting Wikipedia which quotes an article by the Guardian that the IDF had identified ~9000 Hamas/PIJ casualties by name. It is a logical fallacy to then assume the remainder are not part of Hamas/PIJ. Further, identifying adversary combatant deaths by name is an extraordinary high standard for warfare and is applied to no other conflict on earth.
choo-t 10 hours ago [-]
Oh boy, more disinformation and "we do this better than any other military" bullshit.
First, the article cite multiple estimations by different source.
Second, there is no logical fallacy, you on the other hand are trying to frame that unidentified body (by Israel) could be majority of combatants, disregarding that nothing prove this and that lot of them are women and children.
Third, you are only quoting IDF number and no other third party, this only quoting the perpetrator to defend its body count
abdelhai 11 hours ago [-]
Those numbers don't account for people still under the rubble.
DownGoat 9 hours ago [-]
They do, the Gaza health ministry numbers include those who are assumed dead and still not found.
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
*as of April 2024
13 hours ago [-]
ytdbhtsvhtxv 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
tyromaniac 6 hours ago [-]
I would honestly say the people committing the genocide won, as it was always their goal
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
That's what they said - the terrorists.
engine_y 9 hours ago [-]
There are several factors involved as I see it - a lot of money from Qatar flowing to make sure Israel is always shown as the aggressor, anti-semmitism is still prevalent, most people can't grok what the issue is in the Middle East anyway, people don't understand what living 10km from people who want to kill you looks and, and war is horrible and it's always easier to side with the people who seem to be the underdog.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
> most people can't grok what the issue is in the Middle East
In your own words, what is the issue in the Middle East?
engine_y 5 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately this is a story as long as time itself, with tons of narratives to it so I can't write as a HN comment.
I wish I was eloquent and knowledgeable enough to write it, I'd probably write a book.
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Is it? Here's my summary for you:
In 1948 a colonial mission from West Europe invaded Palestine. This has made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
simondotau 3 hours ago [-]
That’s certainly one way of describing it.
Another is: an indigenous people with a continuous presence in the land, joined by mostly legal immigrants (and later by refugees fleeing pogroms and the Holocaust with literally nowhere else to go) built towns, farms and infrastructure, drained swamps and developed an economy that also attracted some Arab immigration and created Arab employment.
This happened under the colonial rule of the Ottomans. Then later under the colonial rule of the British. Finally in 1948, colonial rule ended, much to the dismay of Arab colonialists.
someonebaggy 3 hours ago [-]
You could say that, but you'd be wrong, like saying indigenous people with a continuous presence in the land, joined mostly by lehalmimmgirwnts, built towns, farms and infrastructure, drained swamps and developed an economy, in South Africa.
The icons from what was there before are a haunting digital ghost. School, Restaurant, Pharmacy all the city is just rubble.
juliusceasar 12 hours ago [-]
Israeli regime is pure terror.
olalonde 10 hours ago [-]
Stupid question but if Israel is willing to flatten cities, how have they not won the war yet?
n1b0m 9 hours ago [-]
They have won. The goal is keeping Netanyahu in power and ethic cleansing.
Itamar Ben-Gvir (National Security Minister) has repeatedly called for the "voluntary emigration" or forced removal of Gazan residents and urged the permanent resettlement of Israelis inside the Gaza Strip.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
They don't want to completely destroy Gaza. In the aftermath, they would be held accountable for destroying Gaza, plus they'd have no guinea pigs for the surveillance and military tech. All the big Israeli surveillance firms test their products on Gaza first, it's the most surveilled place in the world.
But they also don't want it to get too big or powerful. Israel calls it "mowing the lawn"[1]. You want to have grass on the lawn, but not too much, so you periodically cut off the excess grass.
> In the aftermath, they would be held accountable for destroying Gaza
By who?
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
The ICC, their own political opposition, their own competitors within their party.
iAMkenough 4 hours ago [-]
Doubt it. Bibi operates above all that noise. Same as Putin.
Accountability isn’t achievable, as far as I can tell. Especially when there’s some lucrative real estate deals for Gaza land on the table. IDF brings bulldozers as part of their attacks on other countries for a reason.
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Both Bibi and Putin hold their positions more precariously than you'd think, although they do manage to maintain them.
How easy do you think it would be for anyone close to Putin to slip him some poison or just stab him with a knife? To prevent that happening, a whole lot of stuff has to be kept oriented towards him remaining the president.
One of Bibi's support pillars is the perpetual threat of Israel's destruction. He positions himself as standing between Israel and destruction, so replacing him would be dangerous.
pjc50 9 hours ago [-]
Not every Palestinian is dead yet. And they've moved on to Lebanon. Not to mention that the war has widened to include Iran.
Steve16384 8 hours ago [-]
What would qualify as having won? Every Palestinian dead?
erxam 2 hours ago [-]
They did in Gaza. They still have Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, the Sinai Peninsula and Iran to go through before they achieve The Greatest Israel. That's a ton of genocide, over 100M people they have to kill. It's gonna take a while.
lopsotronic 2 hours ago [-]
Push far enough north and you're also sharing engagement area with Turkey, which has already been a bit of a worry even this year.
I also suspect that the Great Alliance between the Sunni/Arab autocracies and Israel is more fragile than it appears. Or, more accurately, and the Sunni/Arab autocracies themselves are more fragile than they appear.
MiroslavPokorny 10 hours ago [-]
Too many Palestinians have nothing to live for, except revenge.
creatonez 4 hours ago [-]
Genocide doesn't actually work as a tactic, especially in an urban setting. It strengthens the victim's resolve. The Palestinian people are not known for giving up on survival.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
Well, it works if you complete it, because there is nobody left to fight back. But Israel wants a short lawn, not a slab of dirt.
lopsotronic 2 hours ago [-]
I'm sorry, but that's quantitatively incorrect. In ancient settings, particularly for pre-agrarian forces, "genocide" was another word for "victory", but we have plenty of examples.
North America of course, but Africa is an overlapping series of successful genocides, Argentina's "Conquest of the Desert", Qing conquest of the Dzungar, Russia's conquest of the Circassians, Athens and Melos 416 BCE, Rome and Carthage, Rome and lots, Mongolians and whew even more than that -- all of them victories but also a "Where are the Khazars?" sort of event. They're just gone. Violence will forever be Mankind's one true Universal Language -- easier to learn than Esperanto.
Post-Trinity, the thermonuclear deterrent has put the kibosh on genocide as a working tactic. For a bit. The evolution post Cold-War might well turn out to be that genocide is back, baby, as long as the genocidee doesn't have a nuclear deterrent. It's cosmically fitting that the great genocidal wars of the 20th century birthed the final perfected weapon for doing genocides.
iAMkenough 5 hours ago [-]
Has the United States won its "war on terror" yet? Why not?
Some of the people contributing here were born after the "war on terror" started.
Ellis_dev 13 hours ago [-]
Google Maps acting as a real-time war damage tracker is a sobering use case. The raw satellite data is a stark visual.
igleria 1 days ago [-]
Atomic dome vibes when looking at some of the few buildings still standing
umeshunni 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
Ozzie_osman 12 hours ago [-]
It's sad that so much of this conversation has devolved into technicalities of whether this is a genocide.
You can't look at this, at reports coming out of Gaza and the West Bank, at Israel's own government officials' statements, and not, at minimum, believe that brutal war crimes were committed on a massive basis here. Whether it's "Holocaust level" or "genocide" is a red herring. It needs universal condemnation, it needs to stop, and the people who did it need to be held accountable.
amelius 8 hours ago [-]
> and the people who did it need to be held accountable.
The ICC is trying to do that, but is being impeded by the US.
drstewart 7 hours ago [-]
Sounds like quite the impotent organization then
Frieren 4 hours ago [-]
That is why the ICC needs our help and support.
Rightful people supports the week. Only the depraved laughs when a person without power is being abused.
4 hours ago [-]
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
Eh. First, they made a mistake: the ICC cannot hold anyone accountable - it only will only determine beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israel did, in fact, do a genocide. Despite finding it beyond a shadow of a doubt (which is why it's taking so long), they will be doubted anyway.
boxed 12 hours ago [-]
> it needs to stop
It did stop. When the hostages were freed and Hamas gave up. Which they could have done at any point. Or you know, they could not have started the war too.
Maybe look at Hamas own videos on when they started the war too. For comparison.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Hamas offered to free all the hostages on October 7. Israel refused and shot all of the hostages they did release. Why did Israel do that?
ManuelKiessling 7 hours ago [-]
What are your sources for both claims?
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
The Haaretz investigation
boxed 2 hours ago [-]
Israel... shot... the hostages. Is this seriously your claim?
ragazzina 8 hours ago [-]
There are no technicalities, only sophisms written by bots.
King-Aaron 11 hours ago [-]
I have been watching the atrocities that Israel have been committing since 1987 and there is simply zero argument any supporter of the regime can make to change my mind that they are evil, by every definition of the word.
There is no justification for their actions. There is no justification for the greater Israel project they are pushing. There is no justification for them to be taking a leadership role in the global security technology industry. The whole thing is just absolutely Fkd and I find any person trying to contort the argument in a way to justify this shit to be evil themselves.
The fact that this comment is being upvoted as much as down shows me that evil exists here too.
9 hours ago [-]
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Have you considered that it's bad to kill Jews and that Jews deserve a homeland? Israel is building a great project there - a Jewish homeland - while Arabs are trying to destroy it.
Never mind that it's also a Palestinian homeland and Muslim homeland. Those ones don't count because uh, we said so.
_menelaus 6 hours ago [-]
Are you willing to give up your land so that someone else can have it as their 'homeland'? Who was there 2000 years ago?
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Maybe you missed the sarcasm. Btw the descendants of the people there 2000 years ago are the current Palestinians; the current Israelis are mostly the descendants of West European colonizers from the 1948 invasion.
scarecrowbob 3 hours ago [-]
You can take that or leave my feedback, but your comment didn't come across as sarcasm to me until I read this comment.
Poes law or something.
I agree with your position, but it didn't read as sarcasm to me.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
> those ones don't count because uh, we said so
wasn't a dead giveaway?
pcthrowaway 26 minutes ago [-]
I read your full comment and got the sarcasm, but I don't blame people who read the first line and tuned out the rest because it was such a perfect example of the genocide apologia that we've seen so much of already.
I get that in this case the rest of the comment was short and the obvious indicator of sarcasm came quickly, but it's all too common for this to devolve into paragraphs of repetitive, uncreative slopaganda, which has resulted in many who disagree just tuning out early.
Thank you for putting this together. Free Palestine!
paulus_magnus2 10 hours ago [-]
IANAL nor ICJ nor ICC to officially name genxxide but
This looks much (MUCH) worse than the worst thing Putin did to Ukraine
barbazoo 4 hours ago [-]
Are you afraid to use the word "genocide"? Just curious.
saturn_vk 1 days ago [-]
It's sad that most world leaders do nothing to combat such genocide. There are so few sanctions against the state, or specific people, of Israel. Foreign forums are very much still open for business to them.
bamboozled 20 hours ago [-]
What do you think world leaders should've done differently?
hedora 18 hours ago [-]
Send all collaborators to the international criminal court. (In the US, especially congress critters and members of the executive branch.)
Also, blockade Israel proportionally to the Gaza blockades. I doubt they would have kept murdering red cross members in Gaza once the supermarkets started running out of food.
selfmodruntime 8 hours ago [-]
How can they forcibly imprison the leaders of a soverein, nuclear armed state?
hedora 5 hours ago [-]
The remaining non-corrupt members of the executive branch (or the state governments) would uphold the oaths they took, lock potus and friend in boxes, and ship them off.
As for Israel, as I understand it, the next election will mean domestic jail time for the incumbents unless the polls are wildly wrong.
At that point, it would be easy for Israel to start climbing out of lawlessness too.
sdenton4 19 hours ago [-]
Cut off weapon gifts+sales to Israel, impose sanctions. Same way we dealt with the South African apartheid state.
lelanthran 11 hours ago [-]
> Same way we dealt with the South African apartheid state.
Who's this "we" who dealt with the SA apartheid state?
The international pressure on SA did absolutely nothing to change their mind (I'm old enough to have seen PW Botha's Rubicon speech live on TV). The NP (political party in charge) was slowly and carefully convinced to push out the hardliners.
The people left, like FW De Clerk, actually did the dismantling - unbanned the ANC, released Mandfela from prison, switched to allowing black voters, etc.
The rest of the world's pressure had absolutely no effect on the leadership. Change only came when leadership started changing.
The actual on the ground resistance was of central importance in the end of South African apartheid, but the international pressure and sanctions greatly increased the need for negotiations to begin. The point is to increase the pressure to change leadership through democratic means.
This could hopefully happen somewhat faster with Israel, given that the government isn't a literal Nazi remnant, as the South African government was. (Though, ironically, the main arms supplier to South Africa during the arms embargo was Israel, often reselling weapons from the United States. Sigh.)
"By the late 1980s, the South African state was in profound crisis, crippled by international sanctions, a stagnant economy, and widespread resistance. Recognizing the unsustainable nature of the perpetual conflict, the government under P.W. Botha began tentative, secret contact with the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and the exiled African National Congress (ANC) leaders."
Israel has both nuclear weapons and the Epstein files, so that's not really an option (granted: SA had nuclear weapons too, but nobody really to drop them on).
crote 13 hours ago [-]
So you're suggesting that Israel would drop a nuke on a Western country imposing a boycott? Somehow, I doubt it.
almogo 18 hours ago [-]
Nuclear weapons sure, but what is this about Epstein?
MC995 16 hours ago [-]
Epstein (and Ghislaine Maxwell in particular) are widely believed to have operated as a massive Mossad blackmail operation, collecting (and creating) blackmail material against western politicians and influential individuals to ensure their support for Israel.
I won't go into details that support or refute this claim, but that is what the parent poster likely meant.
KoftaBob 9 hours ago [-]
and it seems pretty likely that's exactly what was happening.
The idea that a nation-state was/is running a child sex trafficking ring, and we're *not* turning over heaven and earth to investigate that so that country faces unprecedented consequences...I don't even know what to say
bamboozled 9 hours ago [-]
Why is it likely ? Why not Russia ? I’ve heard it’s Russia ?
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Because Epstein had ties to Israel and not to Russia. There might be a similar ring run by Russia as well, who knows.
cassepipe 4 hours ago [-]
Epstein definitely had ties to Russia. I don't know how to assess how important those were but they did exist
bamboozled 7 hours ago [-]
Didn't he have ties to basically all powerful people? Is there something special about his Israel ties that are different to his Bill Gates ties?
I thought this was interesting, from Al Jazeera to boot:
Political Reactions: While critics and unverified intelligence memos pointed to the deep relationship as a sign of state ties, current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly dismissed the notion, stating on social media that Epstein's close ties to Barak (a political opponent of Netanyahu) actually "proves the opposite" of Epstein working for the Israeli state.
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
He has ties to all powerful people as his clients, but he has ties to Israel that look closer to them being his employer.
bamboozled 5 hours ago [-]
Without some pretty good evidence, it sounds like conjecture, which is fine, but nothing of substance is being presented here.
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Of course. A very valid way to view it, and the same way I would've viewed it in 2016 if you told me there was a global elite pedophile ring that helped get Trump elected.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Epstein is thought to have been working for Mossad. If that's true, they probably have copies of all the video tapes (which we know were made) of all the stuff rich people did on Epstein island. This theory would single-handedly explain why almost everyone in the Epstein files supports Israel so strongly.
slim 16 hours ago [-]
he's referring to the fact that epstein is a mossad agent and that compromised world leaders are being blackmailed to support the genocide
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Immediately stop all exports and money flows to Israel. Food and medical aid should still be allowed to both sides, of course.
7734128 13 hours ago [-]
At the very least diplomatic condemnation and a South African level sanction.
skywhopper 19 hours ago [-]
The post you are responding to lists several possible actions. Another good start would be to stop providing the weapons that have done this damage.
cogman10 19 hours ago [-]
A lot.
Literally on Oct 7, Hamas tried to return civilian hostages, who the IDF killed. This is why Hamas changed policies to only give up hostages through 3rd parties. They reached out to israel to try and return hostages and were ignored. They reached out to the US to return hostages and were ignored. [1]
So for starters, the US could have pressured Israel to negotiate with Hamas to return the hostages.
As Israel started to show genocidal intent (for example, killing aide workers multiple times). The US could have at a minimum threaten to withhold aide. In fact, there are laws on the books that a country such as Israel committing war crimes is ineligible for aide.
Finally, the UN should have deployed peace keepers to gaza specifically to stop the genocide.
Actions could have been taken, but they weren't because our politicians are so bribed by Israeli lobby money as to turn a complete blind eye to it's misdeeds.
UN has no such power. I am still amazed how people do not get this.
Members need to vote for such things to happen. It wouldn't, not in this climate.
cogman10 18 hours ago [-]
The question was
> What do you think world leaders should've done differently?
Members should have voted in the UN to deploy peace keeping troops. The UN does have that power if it's voted for. This isn't a question of the current realities but a question of what the right actions are.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
That would result in the USA going to war against the UN. There is a reason the UN only takes action when the security council agrees. Countries on the security council can plausibly use their military might to prevent any UN action, so to prevent the senseless deaths of peacekeepers, they are given a verbal veto instead.
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
No it wouldn't? We are talking hypotheticals. When talking about what world leaders should do I include the US in world leaders.
I wasn't engaging in what's likely, just what should be. Biden and Trump should have been on board with deploying peace keepers. They were not.
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
If Biden or Trump would simply cut off funding there probably wouldn't be a need for peace keepers any more.
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
I tend to agree. The US bears a pretty large amount of blame here and I don't think Israel would have continued their aggression had the US withdrawn aid (or threatened to). But if they had continued, then that's where UN peacekeepers should have been deployed.
cromka 9 hours ago [-]
That's not how that answer was phrased. It directly indicated that the UN should have taken that action.
cogman10 7 hours ago [-]
Make it make sense. The question is what should have happened. You say I answered what should have happened. But you also say "that's not how the answer was phrased".
How is my "should have" happened not a direct answer to the question?
bamboozled 18 hours ago [-]
This is where you notice that the world is more complicated than social media posts.
Like it would've been a nice idea, until you realize that Hamas is heavily backed by Iran, Iran is helping Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine, and it starts to look like that level of intervention is a step towards a world war.
Then you notice world energy markets are going to be effected by a massive conflict etc.
If the UN went into Gaza, got attacked by Iran, then had to respond, next minute they're attacking a close Russian ally, and maybe even China might have to get involved in that.
What would've been good is if October 7 didn't happen, and that goes for both sides.
cogman10 18 hours ago [-]
Iran would WELCOME UN peace keepers in gaza, are you kidding? Hell, I think even Hamas would welcome their presence. UN peace keepers would mean the likes of UNRA could operate once again in Gaza to deliver aid. It would also mean that Israel would have to stop it's aggression.
> Iran is helping Russia
lol, no, other way around. Though the Russia hasn't really been involved with Iran since Ukraine started. It's actually China that's the biggest Iranian trade partner.
The only party that'd be upset over UN peace keepers in Gaza is Israel.
bamboozled 7 hours ago [-]
I don't think what you're saying is actually right, if peacekeepers came in, it would (likely) mean a freezing of the current borders / situation, and isn't that what most people say justified October 7, "the theft of land"?
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
Only if you think Israel is entirely correct in their assessment that every single civilian building actually houses dangerous hamas terrorists. I don't think that assessment is correct so I don't think the UN peacekeepers would be behaving exactly like Israel and the IDF has behaved in Gaza. Nor do I think the UN would put the same restrictions on aid coming into Gaza. They wouldn't stop peanut butter and baby formula from entering.
manyaoman 6 hours ago [-]
Allowing international journalists in would make the genocide even harder to deny and at that point there's no more returning to the "current situation". Regarding the border, at least for Hamas the 1967 borders would be just fine: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full (article 20).
bamboozled 5 hours ago [-]
Are you actually sending the Hamas charter and expecting me to read that and think it's reasonable ?
(I have read it before)
manyaoman 5 hours ago [-]
By all means please enlighten me, what's so unreasonable about it?
yyyk 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cogman10 18 hours ago [-]
> Lie. It was a deal to get complete immunity for a massacre. Also, 'Civilian' per Hamas is anyone over 60. 'Let Hamas murder and keep nearly all hostages' was not in Israel's playbook.
You are making stuff up. Nobody reports that Hamas was shooting for a "get out pillaging free" card. And the fact still remains that they tried to return 3 hostages to show good faith who the IDF proceeded to kill.
> Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.
Hamas, on multiple occasions, agreed to all the terms only for Israel to reject the agreement and change the terms. That was all public. It's why the hostage families became really mad at the government.
> Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.
Two wrongs don't make a right and yes, it's relevant when the IDF explodes clearly marked aid vehicles rendering aid. There's no reason to do that.
> Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.
Does that really matter? The question wasn't "how effective will this be" it's "What world leaders should have done". That's what world leaders should have done.
> I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.
These are weaker lobbies because of US laws. The likes of AIPAC and CUFI get around campaign finance restrictions because they are operated by US citizens (in behest of Israel). No other nation has that sort of organizations in the US. The closet you can find is things like the weirdo Shen Yun cult.
This allowed them to spend $60M in a democrat primary. You won't find that sort of direct spending from Qatar or the Saudis (barring the clear bribe in the Jet. They aren't exactly giving away jets to every primary run).
yyyk 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Isn't it interesting how Israel always seems to do bad things in error. Have they ever improved their processes to stop doing things in error? Nope. In fact it seems they just continue doing more and more very bad things in error.
Remember they know exactly who everyone is and where everyone is at all times. Gaza is the most thoroughly surveilled place on earth.
hamsteredf 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
monideas 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cogman10 7 hours ago [-]
This is an uncharitable reading of my point and not what I meant.
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
What did you mean then?
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
> They reached out to israel to try and return hostages and were ignored. They reached out to the US to return hostages and were ignored.
That Hamas was open extremely early on in the conflict to negotiations for returning hostages and Israel and the US knew this while they waged a bombing campaign and pretended like Hamas wasn't trying or willing to return hostages.
Negotiations weren't happening because Israel didn't want those negotiations, not because they weren't available.
And, I don't know if you are aware, but negotiations involve give and take. Israel didn't need to "traded for all of the concessions Hamas wanted in exchange for them".
The reason the hostages weren't returned sooner is because Israel didn't want them. In 2024 Hamas accepted all of Israel's terms multiple times only for Israel to change terms. Israel knew they'd have fewer justifications for their genocide if they got the hostages back.
That's my point.
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
You said.
> What he means is they could have been traded for all of the concessions Hamas wanted in exchange for them.
Where in my writing did I say that Israel needed to accept all concessions. Please quote me.
Do you think it's unreasonable or "insane" for Israel to have accepted some concessions for the safe return of hostages?
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
Yes it would have been insane to accept any concessions. If you don’t understand that then you have work to do on yourself. This is a very weak and suicidal position to take.
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
> Yes it would have been insane to accept any concessions.
Any? Like even a temporary ceasefire? That's a suicidal position?
Notice how you had to change from "all" to "any".
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
There were many temporary ceasefires in exchange for hostages but this was done as part of the broader war effort, ultimately Israel is not bound to anything in these “agreements”. It’s basically just saying and doing whatever needs to be said and done to accomplish the war goals.
If that is what you’re talking about ok, but it sounds like you were saying to actually make concessions.
The point is to accomplish the aims of the war. There are no concessions that have to or should be made. Israel is by far the stronger power.
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
A ceasefire is a concession. And my point, which I think is clear, is there's a pretty wide gap between "They have to accept all hamas concessions" and "they have to negotiate".
It's pretty hard for you to argue against the fact that there are, in fact, reasonable concessions that aren't "suicidal".
monideas 5 hours ago [-]
The context of this discussion is the idea that war could have been avoided if Israel had been willing to negotiate with Hamas over the hostages.
cogman10 5 hours ago [-]
That is not the context of the discussion. The context is "what should world leaders have done differently".
And, I never said that the war was either avoidable or that Israel was wrong to use force after Oct 7.
What I am saying is that the war could have ended years ago and that Israel has committed genocide. I'm also saying that the pretext that it was about "getting the hostages home" was false.
And with that context, yes there are things world leaders should have done to stop Israel from committing genocide.
cogman10 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
monideas 12 hours ago [-]
Essentially your point is that Hamas protected the hostages from the IDF by not returning them and keeping them underground in chains in near starvation conditions.
This is abject insanity and it’s a good representation of what is going on in the minds of most of humanity.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Are they wrong? On October 7, Hamas released three hostages. Israel shot and killed the hostages, so Hamas said they won't release any more hostages without some kind of security deal. That sounds a lot like protecting them to me.
halflife 5 hours ago [-]
That is completely incorrect. The terrorists that were put in charge of these hostages fled and left them alone in a war zone. They were definitely NOT released.
They were killed because of mistaken identity, which is horrible, but it happens in war, some IDF soldiers died from friendly fire.
Hamas definitely didn’t ask protection for the hostages, they asked protection for themselves.
There are many hostages reports of Hamas terrorists saying to hostages that if IDF will draw near, they will shoot the hostages.
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
They accidentally sniped the naked guy holding a white flag and shouting in Hebrew?
halflife 2 hours ago [-]
Yes, because Hamas routinely does that to lure IDF soldiers.
Let’s use occams razor hear.
Option A - mistaken identity because the enemy wears no uniform, embeds itself in civilians, and uses inhumane tactics to confuse IDF soldiers (like putting explosives on dead bodies, placing speakers with hostages recording as bait)
Option B - IDF decided to kill the hostages they came to rescue for some evil reason
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
Very interesting to compare this wording with your previous comment.
When it's about Hamas imprisoning hostages: "Hamas kept them underground in chains in near starvation conditions. This is abject insanity."
When it's about Israel murdering hostages: "Well, you know... We don't always agree on right and wrong. That's why different countries exist. Is this discussion really fruitful?"
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
My dude, they pointed a sniper rifle at an unarmed naked Israeli man holding a white flag and shouting for help in Hebrew, centered him in the scope, and pulled the trigger.
monideas 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
tourist2d 17 hours ago [-]
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halflife 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Typo correction: Palestinian hostages
bamboozled 19 hours ago [-]
So you feel like after October 7, there should've just been a talk about what happened and some form of negotiation ?
cogman10 19 hours ago [-]
Quote exactly where I even implied that.
ebbi 18 hours ago [-]
Well what else do you expect when you subjugate a native population for decades? Just expect perfect victims?
The peaceful route didn't work. Only idiots will think continuing with the status quo will result in anything different.
bamboozled 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ebbi 18 hours ago [-]
sorry buddy, you can't just kill 700k people, displace the rest into an open air prison for decades, and expect no blowback.
You can't just continue to 'mow the lawn' where children are killed and kidnapped, put into Israeli prisons, and expect no blowback.
You can't just shoot people in the knees while protesting peacefully, and then expect no blowback
You can't just rape Palestinian prisoners (most of whom have been arrested under no charges), and expect no blowback.
You can't just install bombs in pagers, and set it off amongst civilians, which resulted in children being injured or killed, and expect no blowback.
Sorry buddy, but your days of gaslighting is over.
bamboozled 18 hours ago [-]
You provided a list of reasons why you feel like teenagers at a music festival should be murdered, right?
Like my personal sentiment is, war is senseless, and both sides are wrong in some way or another. But yeah, I don't think children should be murdered period, so I'm not going to try and give a list of reasons why it's OK, because there isn't one.
Anyone committing war crimes should be punished for it, period.
My original question was simply, what should have been done differently "by the world leaders"?
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
World leaders should stop giving free money to the guys who are doing a holocaust. I think we can all agree on that.
bamboozled 5 hours ago [-]
What do you think Israel should do now? What would be a sensible course of action going forwards?
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Their options are to prolong this forever-war (it's worked so far, 75 years, but getting precarious), or actually do the thing and destroy Palestine once and for all (won't be hard - they have nukes), or negotiate peace (also not difficult - it's always Israel who rejects reasonable peace deals), or accept their own destruction and flee.
cindyllm 1 hours ago [-]
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ebbi 18 hours ago [-]
How many teenagers were killed by Hamas? And are there independent sources that verify this?
Also, is Oct 7 enough justification to shoot 335 bullets at 6 year old Hind Rajab?
Your questions reek of bias by trying to centre everything to Oct 7, as though history began there. If you really cared about children, you'd have referenced the thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel before Oct 7.
thinkingtoilet 19 hours ago [-]
If you had to guess, what do you think they might do? I feel like questions like this are in bad faith. Think about it for a minute, and try to come up with some things that they might do.
lenerdenator 21 hours ago [-]
1) Ultimately, money means more to foreign nations than what happens with internal affairs of their trading partners
2) Accusations of genocide, whether they stand up or not, are great fodder for whataboutism discussions. Let's say the world's two largest economies, the US and China, decided to start sanctioning Israel for what's happening in Gaza. You could expect other countries to start threatening actions against the US and China over their previous or current genocidal behaviors. These are obviously not things that the US and China want to deal with.
bjork 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
phantompeace 1 days ago [-]
History will look back on people like you quite unfavourably.
ImPostingOnHN 1 days ago [-]
Please. We can judge for ourselves, and don't need you to try this "jedi mind trick" schtick.
Please try posting more constructive content than unconvincing, blanket denials. It doesn't make for good discussion.
762236 19 hours ago [-]
Do not forget that world leaders are heads of sovereign states that are in charge of their self defense. Those that actually have to defend themselves, like the US, rather than relying on strong allies, need to make public statements that are not hypocritical about what they would do for self defense. This is why both U.S. administrations support Israel's actions
crote 13 hours ago [-]
> Those that actually have to defend themselves, like the US, rather than relying on strong allies
Sure, but are we going to ignore about the US having to rely on its "helpless" allies to provide staging points and cannon fodder for its illegal imperialistic wars? How much of a superpower would it be without its overseas bases?
rixed 16 hours ago [-]
Sure, the need to self defense against US dangerous neighbors. Looking at you, Canada!
dboreham 19 hours ago [-]
Pretty sure that's not why US administrations support Israel's actions.
762236 18 hours ago [-]
Bad phrasing on my part. That is one of many reasons
slim 16 hours ago [-]
need to make public statements that are not hypocritical
wow, you hold a very high opinion of american politics. you must have been reading new from paper news paper for the last 30 years
dartharva 15 hours ago [-]
Have you been living under a rock? The time when "public statements" used to work is long, long gone.
Barrin92 12 hours ago [-]
reminded me of this post from earlier this year, also Rafah but from the ground:
Ah yeah, one side starved and bombarded civilians for years, cut off their water and food. But only the side that unleashed a day of savage terrorism is the "barbaric" one.
Funny how plenty of people still think if someone defends the barbarism of Hamas (which I'm not doing), this person should be lynched, but if another person defends the barbarism of the Netanyahu regime, it's fine, because (insert justifications here)... What the fuck's the difference?
krembo 6 hours ago [-]
Which side starved and cut water? Are you talking about the Egyptians who have a border with Gaza?
netsharc 3 hours ago [-]
Israel, madam.
And so what, yes the Egyptians closed the border, does that mean you consider it fine for Israel to do those things, and they can escape being labelled of "barbaric war criminals", because... why? Because Egypt?
It's like an abusive father beating his kids, and when the neighbor doesn't want to have the burden of taking care of the kids for the foreseeable future (because the police/government clearly prefers to pretend "everything is fine"), you say "Well, it's the neighbor's fault those kids are getting beat up!".
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, don't you think? That "day of savage terrorism" flowed the other way every single day both before and after 7/10/2023.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Israel started the war, so it's more like Bucha
krembo 6 hours ago [-]
Never in history people faked facts as fast as you do now when saying Israel started Oct 7 war. Not to mention it's modern times and everything was live broadcasted to YouTube by the murderers themselves, this makes you even a bigger liar.
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
There's no Oct 7 war. There's the Israel-Palestine war, which has been ongoing since 1948.
krembo 6 hours ago [-]
The 1948 war between the newly formed Israel vs Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon? Do you notice which imaginary country you suggest about is missing from the list?
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
Nope, the 1948 war between Israel and the people who were already in that territory before some invaders came and declared that it was Israel.
krembo 6 hours ago [-]
Well, historically the land was Israel, and at the 1948 time the land was under British mandate, so factually speaking, the jewish people actually returned to their homeland and freed it from the British colonizers
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
What do you mean?
a_paddy 11 hours ago [-]
But Israel started the war, in 1948.
krembo 11 hours ago [-]
Against whom? The British mandate?
a_paddy 10 hours ago [-]
Against the people of Palestine who didn't meet the ethno religious profile of the new state.
krembo 6 hours ago [-]
My ancestors been to this land long before Muhammad married Aisha and sent the colonizers from the Arab peninsula to the shores of the Mediterranean sea.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
That's cool, my ancestors are from Africa. Should I invade?
fangspire 9 hours ago [-]
[dead]
avazhi 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
altacc 7 hours ago [-]
You're wrong on so many counts here but it seems obvious you're not in a place to listen to reason. Your confirmation bias has to be very strong to think you know better that the majority of neutral genocide experts.
avazhi 5 hours ago [-]
> neutral genocide experts.
Peak comedy, thanks for the laugh.
FridayoLeary 9 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
bigchorizo 8 hours ago [-]
> but how come the source post is always blatantly anti Israel
I would like to know how would anyone give a positive spin to genocide and civilian displacement
mschuster91 5 hours ago [-]
> I would like to know how would anyone give a positive spin to genocide and civilian displacement
Well... what did Hamas expect after Oct 7th, other than the IDF riding into Gaza and cleaning shop for good?
As for the genocide claim... we're seeing average casualty and collateral damage reports for highly urban warfare. Hard to make a credible claim of genocide.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
What did IDF expect after Oct 6th, other than Oct 7th?
mschuster91 2 hours ago [-]
IDF left Gaza in 2006.
someonebaggy 1 hours ago [-]
Mango mango pineapple shoe, I can babble too.
KoftaBob 9 hours ago [-]
> but how come the source post is always blatantly anti Israel?
Same reason blatantly anti Nazi sources have a higher chance of staying up compared to pro nazi sources. I'll let you process that one.
cities do not get systematically flattened with bulldozers in urban warfare, you only completely wipe out cities when you don't want any the civilians to come back.
db48x 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
ardit33 1 days ago [-]
nah... it is explicit genocide, and the deliberate destruction of every civilian possible. Everyone knows what's going on.
therealdrag0 16 hours ago [-]
> deliberate destruction of every civilian possible.
Clearly not? Sometime like 2% of gazans have been killed. IDF could kill many many more if it wanted.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
You mean until April 2024 I assume because that's when the statistics end due to Israel blowing up the statistics department.
slim 16 hours ago [-]
no, they can't. it's their maximum geoncide capacity
khazhoux 10 hours ago [-]
I don't think the goal is to kill every Palestinian. It's more of a flagrant disregard for Palestinian life. Those are different things.
1 days ago [-]
the_origami_fox 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
mittensc 24 hours ago [-]
Imagine this was Jerusalem and someone made a similar comment.
What would you respond?
Sabinus 21 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
newspaper1 21 hours ago [-]
You just described all cities in Israel, only they've been hyper-militarized since Nakba, the ethnic cleansing on Palestine in 1948. Israel has mandatory conscription and most of its inhabitants serve or have served in the IDF.
Sabinus 19 hours ago [-]
I was not aware that every city in Israel has an extensive military tunnel network. Is that the case?
If Hamas were to take one of those tunnel cities and Israel were doing guerrilla warfare from them I wouldn't blame Hamas for bulldozing.
Israel does have mandatory conscription. They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian. While in the military they're all fair targets, and if they're not serving, and at a music festival, they're not.
newspaper1 19 hours ago [-]
Israeli cities have far more threatening military infrastructure than tunnels. They literally have nuclear weapons.
> They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian.
When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian". When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
Sabinus 18 hours ago [-]
>Israeli cities have far more threatening military infrastructure than tunnels. They literally have nuclear weapons.
And Hamas is permitted, as per the rules of war, to target that military infrastructure. If Israel has co-located it with civilian buildings, and attacks miss their targets, then too-bad for Israel.
>When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian".
This is very arguable for the West Bank settlers, but the Israeli civilians that were targeted by October 7 are not settlers and are in very solid Israeli land from a conflict 80 years prior. Arguing that all civilians in Israel proper are valid targets makes you no better than Smotrich and Ben-gvir, and you are essentially advocating for the genocide of Israelis.
Which is your right to do, I guess, but that's certainly not going to convince the (nuclear armed, remember) Israelis to moderate and compromise, or actually bring about justice for Palestinians.
> When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
Military uniforms are for the protection of civilians. If you forgo them, then your civilians will receive more harm. Israel is responsible for their actions and many war crimes, but Hamas is responsible for theirs.
laimewhisps 18 hours ago [-]
Zionists are not civilians, they're literally living on stolen land. It doesn't matter that they've been stealing it for 80 years, it's not their land and the relatives of the people they murdered have every right to defend themselves and get their land back, by any means necessary.
Sabinus 18 hours ago [-]
If that's the way you want the conflict to be sorted, which is a genocide competition, then Israel will win that competition. I assume you don't want that?
"You're on stolen land and you've done it this time with the genocide, Israel, now you have to dissolve yourself and migrate back to Poland, Brooklyn and Iraq" is not a realistic ultimatum to deliver to a nuclear armed state established precisely because it's citizens experienced centuries of persecution living as scattered minorities.
Israel under Netanyahu has done plenty to criticise but I would actually like to see an Israel/Palestine deal not the West following both sides into radicalisation.
AuthAuth 1 days ago [-]
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the_origami_fox 1 days ago [-]
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crayforbrains 18 hours ago [-]
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lwansbrough 19 hours ago [-]
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FridayoLeary 19 hours ago [-]
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lwansbrough 19 hours ago [-]
Ethnic cleansing, then. But this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about - very typical of Israel supporters: they debate you on the letter instead of acknowledging that what we see here is horrendous.
Then they suggest that this is justified because Israel is a jewish ethnostate.
FridayoLeary 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
kelnos 18 hours ago [-]
Not sure where you're getting your numbers or data, but that's just false. At least 60,0000 innocent civilians have been killed in Gaza, and Israel is to blame for this.
Hamas starting it is besides the point. We are capable of holding two different ideas in our heads: that what Hamas did to kick this off was reprehensible, and that what Israel has done since then has been horrifying.
I would personally argue that what Israel has done is far worse than what Hamas did, but it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with that. Israel has gone far far far beyond your notion of "fighting back".
> should work to destroy Hamas who are responsible for turning Gaza into such a hellhole.
Israel seems to be doing a good job of that on their own. And had been even prior to the current conflict.
lwansbrough 18 hours ago [-]
In what sense is the forced, systematic removal of people from this area based on religious grounds "factually groundless"?
They don't live there anymore, they're displaced.
mlmonkey 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
laimewhisps 18 hours ago [-]
Jews immigrating to Israel is not "ethnic cleansing". Now the Palestinian land they moved to was ethnically cleansed by the Zionists.
pchristensen 16 hours ago [-]
Most Middle Eastern Jews were definitely not voluntary migrants in 1948. They were expelled from cities and lands they had lived in for centuries.
mlmonkey 18 hours ago [-]
So all Jews who had to leave their lands, from Morocco to Pakistan, left of their own free will and emigrated to Israel? None were driven out? Are you saying they can return to their former homes then?
slim 17 hours ago [-]
yes, they can return to their former homes and they often do. they keep their moroccan, pakistani passport too
mlmonkey 14 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
lwansbrough 18 hours ago [-]
What's this got to do with Israel razing a neighbouring city?
skulk 17 hours ago [-]
I think you're not getting it. If an ethnic cleansing has happened to your direct ancestors, you're allowed to do one back. Just one though.
mlmonkey 14 hours ago [-]
Let's not try to be so dense.
If Hamas supporters argue that what they did on Oct 07 is payback for "Naqba" (or whatever historical injustice dujour they fancy), then the question becomes: why can't Israel retaliate?
skulk 12 hours ago [-]
> why can't Israel retaliate
No, I totally agree. I think for the October 7th attack, all of Gaza had to be razed. How will those terrorists learn otherwise?
mlmonkey 14 hours ago [-]
What about the Jews who lived in Saudi Arabia before Mohammed came along? What about the Jewish tribes Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Nadir and Banu Qurayza (the three biggest tribes)?
cromka 18 hours ago [-]
> being against the only jewish country in the world.
Unironiclly, I think the US can be called one, too, at this point.
anramon 19 hours ago [-]
>everyone is a terrorist but us
And this people has the dare of accusing other people of being propagandized.
It's the good old whataboutism. It's almost a universal telltale for people in denial of their dirty consciousness.
ebbi 18 hours ago [-]
Such weak whataboutism as well. I know so many pro-Palestine people personally and people I follow online that also speak out about Sudan, Iran, other ME countries.
Heck, I know so many Muslims critical of Muslim majority nations.
18 hours ago [-]
newspaper1 19 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
fortran77 5 hours ago [-]
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core_dumped 5 hours ago [-]
This is no war. Absolutely nothing justifies this level of destruction.
fortran77 2 hours ago [-]
You think raping women at a music festival is good? That's scary.
core_dumped 2 hours ago [-]
You think that justifies the atrocities that have occurred so far? That's terrifying.
gravisultra 55 minutes ago [-]
There is zero evidence that women were raped. There's not a single victim.
5 hours ago [-]
erkt 5 hours ago [-]
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FridayoLeary 19 hours ago [-]
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newspaper1 19 hours ago [-]
That's absurd. History didn't start on October 7th. All of this is downstream from Nakba and the Balfour Declaration. Zionism was by its very definition genocidal.
mlmonkey 18 hours ago [-]
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laimewhisps 18 hours ago [-]
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Sabinus 15 hours ago [-]
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esalman 18 hours ago [-]
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ajot 19 hours ago [-]
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mlmonkey 18 hours ago [-]
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thehappypm 18 hours ago [-]
I have an Israeli friend. His answer:
This result is exactly what the anti-Israel coalition wanted. They bet Bibi would go nuts and burn up the remaining global goodwill that Israel had, leaving them isolated.
tgsovlerkhgsel 13 hours ago [-]
It doesn't seem to have that many negative consequences for Israel though, and Oct 7 gave them enough justification for what they're doing in Gaza that they can get away with it internationally, and it has likely also limited the backlash they're getting for the escalating settlements in the West Bank.
esalman 18 hours ago [-]
They helped Bibi stay in control. That was the end goal.
laimewhisps 18 hours ago [-]
The Zionists invaded Palestine and ethnically cleansed over 750,000 people off their land. That is the war they started, Hamas are just the relatives of the people Israel murdered fighting the occupying invaders. Thankfully they opened the world's eyes to Israel's crimes and now it's a dead man walking. Israel will not last another generation.
pchristensen 16 hours ago [-]
From how I understand the history, in 1948, the attacking Arab armies from neighboring countries told the local Arabs (Palestinians) to leave the war zone to be safe. But when Israel won the war, those Arabs could not return.
Sabinus 5 hours ago [-]
The way I heard it, there was a bit of everything. There was some attacks because of the violence that had been happening previously, some fled because of rumours of violence, and some were encouraged by the Arab armies.
monideas 16 hours ago [-]
How do you think Arabic came to be spoken in Palestine?
mlmonkey 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
slim 16 hours ago [-]
the end goal is resistance. colonisers must be reminded they can't live in peace
peter_retief 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
ImPostingOnHN 1 days ago [-]
Calling this "propaganda" is propaganda.
peter_retief 1 days ago [-]
Sure, buildings were demolished, is that unusual in a war zone?
ImPostingOnHN 1 days ago [-]
> Sure, buildings were demolished, is that unusual in a war zone?
I'm going to assume good faith in your framing, rather than intentional minimization. Suffice it to say, more has happened than "buildings were demolished", and those more things are the subject of the article. Like, for example, an entire city systemically flattened with every single civilian inhabitant killed or exiled on their own land.
To answer your question in that context: yes, that is unusual in war these days, because it is tantamount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Havoc 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
claykkari 10 hours ago [-]
I'm more optimistic. The region was relatively peaceful before WW1. Eventually there has to be "reversion to the mean".
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
There was something that changed after WW2 and is still there today that guarantees eternal war as long as it is there.
n1b0m 9 hours ago [-]
Compared to all the peace in Europe during the last 500 years and the on going conflict in Ukraine?
Havoc 7 hours ago [-]
I’m a bit more optimistic about wars where there isn’t a strong religious aspect on both sides. Can still be bloody (WW1/2) but doesn’t have the same dynamics that make me so pessimistic about the Middle East
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
We don't have to bring peace to the region, but for god's sake can we stop funding the eviler side in every conflict? The USA spends more money blowing up schools of brown people than it does on keeping its own schools running.
bigchorizo 8 hours ago [-]
> I just feel nihilism/defeatism towards the Middle East. In 500 years they’ll still be killing each other with all sides genuinely believing in their righteousness
Phrasing it as something that happens over there is disingenuous when it resource extraction and foreign interference that directly contributed to political unrest and radicalization and war. It is the CIA that poured literal millions in funding extremists groups. It is western troops and bombs and that landed on their soil again and again.
It's not something that simply happens over there, war is not some unforgivable trait related to tanned foreign people who believe in islam. Our governments have their hand in this cookie jar.
The middle east is an outdated term referring to a conflict zone that the West itself created.
Havoc 7 hours ago [-]
Your response to me saying everyone is blaming each other is to give your opinion as to who is to blame?
See why I’m not optimistic?
wencalyn 5 hours ago [-]
You're not being as sly as you think you are. You said "they’ll still be killing each other", implying that this is the nature of the "Middle Eastern" people.
This, of course, is a statement that almost required the person who replied to you to add context due to the absurdity of the statement.
If you genuinely did not mean to imply this, you might consider reading your comments before submitting.
dTal 4 hours ago [-]
That's not what you said. You implied it's simply in the nature of the Middle East to be fighting religious wars, and that is why you are hopeless.
In fact, the aggressors in this case are European colonists, only 3rd generation or so, and they are pretty much following the standard historical playbook for how European colonists treat locals, including the assumed divine right of genocide ("manifest destiny") The Middle East isn't an especially belligerent place otherwise.
So I call your characterization unfair.
selfmodruntime 8 hours ago [-]
And over what? A bone dry desert and acres of literal dirt.
10 hours ago [-]
sammy2255 15 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
brookst 15 hours ago [-]
Well it sure is a good thing for Netanyahu that the terrorists have far too much power, eh?
newspaper1 15 hours ago [-]
The whole world does sympathize with the Palestinians. Israel is a pariah.
antonvs 15 hours ago [-]
Sentiments like that are an excuse. You could have said something very similar about the IRA in Ireland before its independence from the UK, or the ANC in South Africa during apartheid. You’re essentially asking people to peacefully accept their oppression. If it was you, is that really what you’d do?
“Sympathy” is not much use in situations like these. “Sorry your people are being murdered” doesn’t really help.
partiallypro 14 hours ago [-]
There have been attacks on Israel long before there was "oppression" of Palestine. You're just making a circular argument, you can say the same thing to justify what Israel is doing. I think saying Hamas is justified is actually grotesque, they also starve the people of Palestine, sell of children and women into sex slavery, intentionally put civilians in just as much harms way. How is doing that justified as a reaction to Israel exactly?
They aren't a Robin Hood like resistance. You're actually just siding with a different oppressor.
sammy2255 15 hours ago [-]
>You’re essentially asking people to peacefully accept their oppression
When you get arrested, do you fight back and resist?
antonvs 15 hours ago [-]
That’s an awful false equivalence. We’re not talking about people being arrested by their own government with, presumably, probable cause. We’re talking about people - innocent civilians, including children - being murdered just for existing.
If the choice is fighting back or being killed, many people will choose to fight back. If you’re fighting back against a state, then the form that fighting back will take is asymmetric warfare, which is typically described as “terrorism” by the state doing the murdering.
But with all this in mind, you want to sit back and say, “They really ought to be more polite about it.”
sammy2255 6 hours ago [-]
>We’re talking about people - innocent civilians, including children - being murdered just for existing.
This is exactly what HAMAS did on October 7th attacks - they choose to target civilians
oliyoung 15 hours ago [-]
"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"
Leonard_of_Q 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
dumberquestions 1 days ago [-]
History didn't start on October 7th.
biimugan 1 days ago [-]
What belief is being expressed in your comments? That if someone wins a military conflict, any action they took is justified? That seems like either moral relativism or ahistorical, blind patriotism. The Soviets also won that war -- does that mean they were justified in their constellations of gulags?
If anything, the more apt historical comparison is to the Czechoslovakian and Polish partisans who wanted nothing less than to harry the Germans on (or within) their borders before the war. The British and French ambassadors (i.e. Qatar, etc) took great pains to try and convince the Polish and Czechoslovakian governments to restrain their partisans from attacking German people or positions, since they suspected Germany would use any and all provocation, no matter how small, as a casus belli. Anyone who's read a bit of WW2 history also knows how often the German government attempted to engineer exactly these kinds of events to justify their aggression.
It sounds straight out of the Likud playbook, doesn't it? But in what universe does an attack that kills 1000 people, a good number of them active duty soldiers, justify killing and maiming over 100,000 civilians and leveling hundreds of thousands of buildings? If the shoe were on the other foot, this implies Hamas also has the moral imperative to do just the same to Israel. That's moral relativism for you.
Perhaps Europe had a better understanding of this topic when they instituted the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law after the war than we do today, 100 years out, trying to now claim none of it actually matters and the means justify the ends.
I don’t use TikTok, but I’ll chip in and cite the United Nations [1], the International Association of Genocide Scholars [2], Physicians for Human Rights-Israel [3], Amnesty International [4], Human Rights Watch [5], and Doctors Without Borders [6] to get started.
While the genocide case brought against Israel hasn't concluded as of now, to say there's no reason to believe this is genocide is incorrect.
If you’d like to share some sources (rather than only telling others to), maybe we can compare.
Does that make this link twice as truthful as the one you sent?
iaaan 1 days ago [-]
What, succinctly, is your point? You first claimed that this was not a genocide, then posted a link to a list of other genocides. Are you saying that none of the genocides in your list happened? Or that they are miscategorized?
Leonard_of_Q 24 hours ago [-]
My point is that wikis are not reliable sources no matter how many sources they link to. You'd have to check all the other sources to verify their veracity and that only gets harder the more sources are linked.
constantius 22 hours ago [-]
Lazy dismissal ,but then again, you don't really have a leg to stand on to defend your point.
You don't have to check all the links mate, just check a few for the organisations or institutionsnyou know. Unless you think they're all Hamas, of course.
Leonard_of_Q 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
lotadicarus 1 days ago [-]
was always a lurker so never had an account. I just think it's important to counter Israel's misinformation campaign :) very telling you think those words have lost their meaning though. I don't think we need further discussion
Leonard_of_Q 24 hours ago [-]
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24 hours ago [-]
98753579909754 10 hours ago [-]
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gbriel 12 hours ago [-]
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fesoliveira 11 hours ago [-]
But the West does acknowledge it, almost exclusively. Any criticism of Israel's war crimes are followed by "But do you agree that Israel has a right to exist?" and "Do you condemn Hamas and the attack they conducted in Oct 7"? Mainstream media only shows Hamas actions, and only recently started highlighting Israel's war crimes due to increased souring of their reputation among audiences. Hamas actions also shouldn't be taken in isolation, the atrocities of October 7 didn't happen in a vacuum, but as a reaction to a conflict that has been happening for almost 80 years that is overwhelmingly one sided.
SiempreViernes 7 hours ago [-]
> But do you agree that Israel has a right to exist?
I've started to think this worry about a particular nation's right to exist is really a great rhetorical trick: nobody is particularly upset the nation of east Germany ceased to exist, and you don't hear Erdogan opposing Kurdish independence with "Doesn't the Turkie have a right to exist?"
There is a basic human right of self determination, but if you think what follows is that you should get your own nation then look at how the soviet policies of providing exactly that worked out. They even created a the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the far east!
WarmWash 5 hours ago [-]
Israel understands that power and diplomacy are what secure your land.
Hamas still thinks a made up God is what does.
esjeon 10 hours ago [-]
Pin-pointing Hamas and Oct 7 is pretty much a logical trap, because Netanyahu and Hamas had been symbiotic -- which put them in the very same ballpark. Both enjoyed their own external threats, and, through that, established strong political influence.
The one difference is that Israel always had been able to control the situation for decades to its liking, while Hamas had been passively reaping the hatred that Israel had sown -- only until October 7.
So, Israelis fearing Hamas? That's a horror they created through their democracy, purely by abusing powerless people. Total hypocrisy.
engine_y 9 hours ago [-]
that's non-sense. Symbiotic is a horrible way to put it. You and I may not be supporters of any of them but to call a terror organization with a clear charter of destroying Israel and killing all jews symbiotic with Nethanyhu is just succumbing to a narrative someone is feeding you.
these kind of messages show us how good propaganda and brain washing is.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
Netanyahu literally created them because their alternative was getting too peaceful and if Gaza was peaceful they wouldn't have a justification to keep destroying it. This is well-known info.
What's the actual, concrete, material, actual reality that actually exists?
Is Hamas killing every Jewish person or is the Likud party of Israel actually killing the residents of Palestine?
Let's look at the actual material reality.
For instance, Israel intentionally destroyed all the farms and ruined the fields to grow crops. They have a naval blockade that stops them from fishing so you can't get food there either. They've cut off all external water supplies, blocked food aid from coming in and have openly said they are trying to starve the population to death. Actual, concrete, material reality, available on any news website, with interviews, videos, satellite photos, extremely well documented.
Amnesty International, Doctors without borders, Human Rights Watch, the IPC, the UN, all have been unequivocal in their condemnation of this. Even Haaretz and other Israeli newspapers have been critical of it.
There's two possibilities here: Either every international organization, news source, academic journal, independent third party, satellite, photographer,and videographer is controlled by a powerful invisible puppetmaster or reality is reality.
I know stuff like this is unwelcome but someone's gotta stand up for reality.
cassepipe 7 hours ago [-]
This is one those arguments that has a strong version that is wrong and a weaker version that is true but then it's up to you to assess responsibility and blame
I won't post the answer here but I'd suggest anyone to ask you favorite llm (Opus for me) the following prompt:
Assess the statement that Nethanhyu has been working to prop up Hamas or with Hamas in some sort of "my best ennemy" scheme
SiempreViernes 7 hours ago [-]
If you can't bother to write it why would anyone bother to read it?
cassepipe 7 hours ago [-]
I am not going to start copy/pasting llm output here no.
I am just reminding everyone that assessing those kinds of claims with a good llm is a good way to fend off the craziness of some comments while learning more about the new information they just told you about
aga98mtl 5 hours ago [-]
Israel is doing colonial violence to steal land and do ethnic cleansing. Hamas is doing anti-colonial violence to free themselves from people oppressing them.
You could argue that Israel is doing this because Hamas is so bad, but then you look at what Israel is doing in the other part of palestine not controlled by Hamas? Daily pogroms and violent ethnic oppression of all kinds.
The problem is that Israel is based on ethnic supremacy. The way the victims (the palestinians) react is not relevant.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
A new Haaretz investigstion found that on October 7 Hamas offered to release the hostages. Israel said no. That's because Israel needs the hostages to be hostages as a casus belli.
cassepipe 6 hours ago [-]
I am just tired of having to sort through the endless half-truths people post over and over. Can't you just get at least the information right ?
The ALLEGED offer was to release hostages under 18 and over 50 IN EXCHANGE of stopping the ground incursions and changes to Al-aqsa mosk access
Was it a reasonable offer ? Should they have accepted it ? I don't care, I just care that you get your (alleged) facts right.
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
3 Israeli hostages were released on that day. Israel shot them. Israel doesn't give a shit about hostages.
cassepipe 4 hours ago [-]
Yet another one-liner with no context. How dare you reply to my comment with this ?
You don't give a shit about truth
rzk 5 hours ago [-]
> but often we don't acknowledge the horror of Hamas on Israel and Palestinians when talking about this conflict
Often we don't acknowledge the horror of Israel's multi-decade siege on Gaza¹ and occupation of Palestinians when talking about this conflict.
There, I fixed it for you.
[1] As early as 1967, U.S. Senator Albert Gore Sr. called Gaza “a vast concentration camp on the sand”.
YZF 12 hours ago [-]
You forgot the extensive tunnel infrastructure dug under all these civilian areas. The fighting in civilian clothing. Weapon caches and tunnel entrances in civilian buildings. Booby trapping civilian structures to kill soldiers that attempt to search/enter them. Mining roads in civilian areas to inflict damage on invading forces.
None of Israel's critics is able to suggest some significantly different strategy that would allow Israel to after Hamas. So the discussion inevitably ends up (with said critics) at Hamas had a right to commit these crimes, because they are the oppressed/occupied, and Israel has no right to defend itself by going after and defeating Hamas while minimizing its casualties like any other western army would do and has done (see Mosul or many other examples).
bayarearefugee 11 hours ago [-]
> You forgot the extensive tunnel infrastructure dug under all these civilian areas. The fighting in civilian clothing. Weapon caches and tunnel entrances in civilian buildings. Booby trapping civilian structures to kill soldiers that attempt to search/enter them. Mining roads in civilian areas to inflict damage on invading forces.
Sounds a lot like how the colonists fought much of the revolutionary war here in America where I am from.
But that aside, how "honorably" would you fight back if your homeland were occupied and turned into an apartheid state and you were treated as a second-class citizen effectively living in an open air prison while armed settlers came in and claimed many of your neighbor's homes, possibly killing them in the process?
Georgelemental 5 hours ago [-]
The IDF could have engaged in actual urban warfare, going house-to-house. ISIS does all those things far more than Hamas does, but Mosul is in far better shape than Rafah!
siffin 6 hours ago [-]
Don't forget Israel gov 100% knew Hamas was going to attack on October 7th, and intentionally allowed it to happen because of the public outcry it would generate. The more hostages and the worse it was, the better the propoganda. They'll take the West Bank. They're taking Lebanese land too.
They knew the attack was going to happen and allowed the music festival to go on a day longer, one might guess they were frothing at the mouth at how good that propoganda was going to be.
Take a read of the book title The Palestine Laboratory - How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World - and you'll even learn that Israel has a long long history of murder around the world, aint none of this new.
One side won the propoganda war, and it wasn't the dirt poor Palestinains.
iririririr 11 hours ago [-]
maybe just stop funding it?
Hikikomori 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
gbriel 12 hours ago [-]
Also Russians have just bombed a Dobrobut hospital in Kyiv. One of many war crimes happening every day. We also need to be talking about that conflict as well.
fesoliveira 11 hours ago [-]
The main difference here is that Russia is not funded by western nations nor is it an ally to most of NATO countries. The gripe many of us have with Israel's actions is that we enable them directly by providing money, weapons and manpower. No nation in the west will hesitate to condemn Russia's war crimes, whereas just recently we started seeing some manner of blowback to Israel's.
lostlogin 10 hours ago [-]
> The main difference here is that Russia is not funded by western nations
Incorrect.
The west still buys Russian gas. Half of Russian gas exports go there.
> No nation in the west will hesitate to condemn Russia's war crimes
The US doesn’t condemn Russian aggression, and try get the current administration to say that Russia invaded or is committing war crimes.
Skwid 10 hours ago [-]
The situations are not the same, but western nations are absolutely funding Putin’s actions through oil and gas imports.
Despite a lot of posturing, and a fair amount of presumably sincere effort, billions continue to flow.
AlecSchueler 8 hours ago [-]
But considerably less than before the war and the EU are making efforts to decouple themselves, it's just not a switch that could be turned off, certainly not in the same way that support for Israel could be or could have been in the past decades.
vkou 11 hours ago [-]
How much more do we need to talk about it?
For one thing, there isn't a major, bi-partisan, pro-Russian-war-crime lobby with a controlling interest currently sitting in government.
cassepipe 6 hours ago [-]
I support Ukraine with all my heart (and a little money) but whatabouting will get you nothing. This is a thread about the hamas-israeli war. There's no reason to change the subject and it doesn't take away ability to talk about Ukraine elsewhere.
Actually some people have mentioned the invasion and occupation of Ukraine in this comment section to draw parallels or make distinctions
icannotstandit 7 hours ago [-]
This war's blood is on your hands. It could have been stopped in January 2022, it could have been stopped several months later. There were other occasions, every time you torpedoed whatever efforts there were. In all cases you pursued your "geopolitical" goals, which is to dismember Russia, take its territory and resources, and do to its people things way worse than what you (yes, you) did to them in the 90-s.
As for the war crimes, "for some reason" you don't tell about the ukranian ones, which are plenty.
As you are - of course - not concerned with their homicidal nationalistic anti Russisn propaganda, which gives further "motivation" to these crimes.
nova22033 7 hours ago [-]
Ah, yes...Russia had no choice but to invade the land of the sovereign nation and bomb civilian targets with hypersonic missiles.
icannotstandit 3 hours ago [-]
ukranians massacred civilians in Izyum, Kupyanzk, Kursk, just to name a few, for not wanting to side with them. They arbitrarily kill people (elderly, women, children) who want to escape to the Russian side (or if they just want to exclude this possibility). These are facts (source: telegram channels, which, confronted with your "free journalism", are a more reliable source of information).
This is the war, which were not you around, would never happen.
King-Aaron 12 hours ago [-]
It should be noted that Hamas exists because of the occupation and atrocities that Israel has been committing for decades and decades. All war is atrocious, the actions of terrorists are disgusting, BUT you cannot discuss the actions of Hamas in a vacuum and forget why they even formed in the first place and continue to carry out their actions.
engine_y 9 hours ago [-]
What was there before Hamas?
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
The PLO, which was getting too peaceful for Netanyahu's tastes so he had to prop up Hamas instead.
engine_y 5 hours ago [-]
What makes you believe this? Please show hard facts, not just wand waving
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Netanyahu said so. Please do a quick Google before commenting, it'll make your propaganda much more effective.
Interesting you didn't make any actual point there. On purpose, I assume. You're just doing the Joe Rogan meme of telling us to think about something.
7 hours ago [-]
croes 11 hours ago [-]
As soon as you murder civilians you lose all your justification.
I mean both sides.
itchyouch 9 hours ago [-]
I used to believe this.
It seems like a reasonable take. But when we look at any oppressed group, getting murdered at the hands of their oppressors, there often is no negotiation through peaceful means.
History shows us that the threat of violence or violence becomes a necessary point of leverage to bring about change.
American schools have washed the story of the civil rights movement, but MLK only had success because of Malcolm X.
There’s many other historical instances of this. Whether it’s the Indian Independence movement in the 1940s fighting from British rule, the 1500s-1800s of native Americans resisting our ancestors colonialization, our own American revolution, and even labor movements like the battle of Blair mountain in the 1920s.
We like to propagandize American history where non-violence was productive, but violence has always been an unfortunately necessary tool when it comes to changing oppression.
cassepipe 6 hours ago [-]
It's a thought that is intuitive and intellectually satisfying but you produce no evidence for your claims.
Blair Mountain was a total defeat for the miners. Union organizing in West Virginia collapsed afterward and only recovered with New Deal labor law in the 30s
For native Americans, well, do you really want to discuss the results ?
For India you could argue that it's not non-violence but the fact the empire was exhausted militarily that worked. But it's hard to make the case that violent uprisings, who were either suppressed or contained well enough, had an effect. If anything the popularity of the insurgents may have done more that the actual violence but you can get that kind of popularity with non-violence too.
The only time when insurgency is working is when you are able to hide, endure and survive until your enemy is down for other reasons. It can be quite long. Think Mao. Was it the case for India ? Maybe but it's not obvious at all
I actually agree about Malcolm X... except it didn't actually use violence. Only violent rethoric and advocating self-defense. Annnnnd biggest wins like the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (August 6, 1965) passed before the Watts riot (August 11, 1965) and the wave of urban uprisings that followed
croes 7 hours ago [-]
Where did I say non-violence?
I said don't murder civilians
manyaoman 7 hours ago [-]
Also, who exactly "loses justification": just the individual perpetrators or their whole collective? I hope you wouldn't say that every black slave lost their right for freedom after Nat Turner's gang killed civilians? [0]
if you mean that all war is unjustified, consider stating that plainly. if that's not what you mean, then perhaps there is some nuance left out of your statement.
JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago [-]
> f you mean that all war is unjustified, consider stating that plainly
Most war is unjustified. Violent resistance is almost never unjustified if one lacks access to elections.
But violent resistance that targets civilians robs itself and its cause of justice until that rot is removed and regretted. It's not only morally wrong. It's strategically stupid. Terrorist tactics do not work–they radicalize the enemy and unfavorably polarize the alliance space.
Remember the videos Ukraine circulated of sharing tea with Russian POWs? Imagine if Hamas had only targeted military outposts and then shared images like that one from its bunkers under Gaza City?
A cause can be fundamentally justified but still piss away its advantages with poor strategy. At the end of the day, Hamas has acted in Iran's interests. Not the Palestinians'. (Same with Hezbollah. Same with the Houthis, though to a marginally lesser degree.)
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
What if your ability to accurately target has been destroyed?
JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago [-]
> What if your ability to accurately target has been destroyed?
Prioritize a cease fire. If you can’t target you probably can’t run much of a modern economy either. Which raises the question of what you’re actually fighting for.
someonebaggy 1 hours ago [-]
Preventing the systematic extermination of your entire ethnic group? Read your own comment back to yourself and imagine it's about the Jews in Germany.
ako 11 hours ago [-]
In every war civilians are murdered. By both sides: bombing of rotterdam, Dresden, Hiroshima…
cassepipe 6 hours ago [-]
And yet we can and we should still make distinctions when we talk about those subjects
Estimates for the death toll of US and British strategic bombing, for instance, range from 300,000 to 600,000 in Europe and around 330,000 in Japan (including the atomic bombings)
Now compare that with 12–17 million civilians killed deliberately by Nazi Germany and the around 6 millions killed deliberately by imperial Japan
I'd like to point out though that Israel are unique in the sense that every single authoritative body on the subject have declared that Israel is committing genocide, Hamas for all their drama, is not.
Ar-Curunir 5 hours ago [-]
In every such post you have people both-sidesing. Killing almost 100k people is not equivalent to whatever Hamas has done. Hamas bad, Israel worse. It's not very difficult.
megous 11 hours ago [-]
You really need to quantify each of those things and many more to be able to compare. Otherwise it's meaningless.
jmyeet 5 hours ago [-]
It's not a war. It's US/Israeli propaganda to call it as such. Wars occurs between state actors. This is wholesale slaughter of people on land you claim that you've deliberately put in an open air prison and starved.
The level of violence is set by the occupier. Would there be pearl-clutching about the Warsaw Uprising, John Brown or Nat Turner? What about resistance to British occupation of Ireland (or India or any number of other British colonial projects)? The ANC in South Africa was incredibly violent in its resistance to apartheid. Resistance movements in occupied Europe were also incredibly violent (eg killing collaborators).
What you seem to have fallen for is tone policing a 78 year long resistance. A lot of people (generally, not you specifically) have this belief that things began on Oct 7. You will get questions of "why can't they resist peacefully?" Well, they have. Multiple times. Most recently with the March of Return several years earlier. Many don't know about it because it was barely reported on. What happened? For the "crime" of standing within a few hundred yards of the fence, the IOF used protestors as target practice. 500+ dead, 8000+ wounded. "Wounded" here is doing a lot of heavy lifting too because it included deliberately and permanently maiming people by blowing their legs off deliberately [1].
"Terrorism" is a political designation. And the US doesn't face such threats? Really? The police kill over 1000 people every single year. Mass shootings? Why isn't that seen as terrorism? Or the violence committed by ICE against random US citizens or detainees?
I'll leave you with this quote from JFK [2]:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable
Hamas has every right to resist. Unguided rockets? There's IDF in nearly every building in Israel. The excuses used to genocide Palestinians far more aptly describe Israel.
raverbashing 11 hours ago [-]
You mean, Hamas, one of the only armies that doesn't fight with a uniform and hides artillery in civilian buildings?
defrost 11 hours ago [-]
Do the settlers wear uniforms when they kill villagers?
I wouldn't call them an invention of Israel, but they were allowed/encouraged to flourish.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
It's because it sounds like antisemitic propaganda and not everyone knows it's true.
boxed 12 hours ago [-]
They won the election in Gaza and has been running the entire thing for years.
King-Aaron 11 hours ago [-]
I wonder why
boxed 1 hours ago [-]
Because the alternative was seen as too corrupt. Which is kinda hilarious considering how Hamas then stopped elections and stole food that was shipped in by the UN to sell back to the population.
boxed 12 hours ago [-]
Also using child soldiers.
someonebaggy 8 hours ago [-]
Isn't almost everyone in Gaza a child since they tend to starve or get struck by missiles before reaching adulthood?
boxed 2 hours ago [-]
Are you saying there was mass starvation BEFORE the war now?
hananbo 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Georgelemental 5 hours ago [-]
The Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister have openly stated that the destruction of Rafah was intended as collective punishment and ethnic cleansing of civilians.
It is absolutely fascinating to see how people are justifying a genocide right before your eyes in this comment thread.
From a psychological point of view, watching what is happening in Israel right now could really help understand human behavior in previous historical events involving genocide and mass killings.
esjeon 10 hours ago [-]
It's no secret that people get blinded by their own belief and faith. They forget how to see, how to smell, how to taste, and how to hear. They get trapped in a virtual world inside their own minds -- a gigantic Matrix, but without sophisticated machinery.
Look at the current physical state of the city, the raw sight of it -- no amount of fair punishment can justify this scale of pure, one-sided destruction of lives, daily-lives, and futures. This is directed violence, clearly beyond practical necessity -- unless practicality is defined in terms of ethnic cleansing.
Any logic that jumps through the hoops of background material (history, religion, beliefs, politics, and so on) is mere mind tricks, designed to draw your eyes away from reality -- the horrific nature of the Israeli genocide.
(EDIT: grammar check)
totetsu 10 hours ago [-]
I don't think its just religious faith and belief, but also like how much people want to believe that the society they are part of, and that provides for their every day life, is a moral, just, and necessary one. And how much that puts on the blinders to questioning things. Israel is simply labeled a "like minded country".. at this point sounds a lot like "we have certain things in common, Jeffery" to me..
amelius 8 hours ago [-]
Well, the first thing that happens is "dehumanization" of the enemy. This is the root of all evil.
manyaoman 7 hours ago [-]
This. It's just so much more compelling to follow these discussions as they happen, compared to reading a historical correspondence or something. Of course I'd much prefer if there weren't genocides taking place at all.
9 hours ago [-]
almogo 18 hours ago [-]
Israeli here. Maybe I can give some helpful context.
Most people in Israel have not, and probably will not see this - any “support” for Palestinians is seen as a very far-left idea after Oct 7. There are still many here who oppose the extent of the war - I see regular demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for peace. I will note that there seems to be fairly universal agreement that _something_ needed to be done after Oct 7. If you want to understand the Israeli perspective (doesn’t seem like most commenters do, but I’m not writing this for them), you have to look at how Oct 7 shaped Israeli society these last 3 years.
But anyways, don’t take my word for anything, pay attention to our upcoming elections. We will see how big the tents are then.
Wishing for peace, for saner voices to rise, and for an end to this cycle of violence.
MomsAVoxell 13 hours ago [-]
If we have to look at how October 7 shaped Israeli culture, we also have to look at how all of the dates leading up to October 6 shaped Palestinian culture. How many people were killed in the West Bank on October 6 - does that register, anywhere?
jLaForest 6 hours ago [-]
I just looked it up and on Oct 6th Israeli 'Settlers' murdered 19-year-old college student named Labib Mohammed Dumaidi. The state of Israel later teargassed his funeral.... Perfect example of needed context if you are truly trying to understand Oct 7th
6 hours ago [-]
red75prime 11 hours ago [-]
Can you try to free your brain from political bullshit for a moment and think which kind of a person can come up with a plan to kill civilians not in the heat of battle, but with premediation and purpose? And in which kind of society this idea could have a wide enough support to be implemented.
n1b0m 9 hours ago [-]
Netanyahu preferred Hamas to the PLO in order to guarantee that no unified Palestinian movement might arise. The way to do that, according to Netanyahu, was to strengthen the Islamist Hamas in Gaza at the expense of its rival, the Fatah-dominated PLO in the West Bank.
“Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas,” said Netanyahu at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to divide the Palestinians between those in Gaza and those in Judea and Samaria.”
Someone who has no ability to accurately target because the other side destroyed it?
What should one do in war if they only have improvised rockets available, and surrendering will guarantee your extermination? You'd throw them in the general direction of the enemy, right? And the enemy knows this and will not put civilians in range of the rockets - unless they plan to use them as human shields. It is the same reason the German trenches were not full of clockmakers.
jLaForest 6 hours ago [-]
Do you not see the article you are commenting on? The state of Israel is being accused with evidence ofsimilar crimes on a scale an order of magnitude larger. I just can't stand the hypocrisy....
watwut 7 hours ago [-]
> Can you try to free your brain from political bullshit for a moment and think which kind of a person can come up with a plan to kill civilians not in the heat of battle, but with premediation and purpose?
But that is what settlers movement and Israel army were doing for decades?
anon48293 13 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
eastbound 13 hours ago [-]
For me (France), it's not October 7, it's the 9 previous months. From January 1st, French TV was showing about 1,000 rockets per month sent onto residential Israeli quarters. Sure beautiful pictures of the counter-missiles destroying them in flight, but I remember thinking:
"How long can Israel counter 30 rockets a day? What's the cost?"
"How is not each of them (7,000 in total) a war crime by Palestinians?"
"Sure it's not Palestinians it's Hamas, but the last time there was an election, they've elected Hamas, so what do you do?"
"Seriously, how is this not 7,000 counts of war crimes? Why is Israel not reacting? Why is Israel militiae into Gaza to catch the authors?"
Turns out the limit is 7,001 attacks.
danbruc 8 hours ago [-]
Where are you getting this numbers from, I am unable to find anything close to 1000 rockets throughout 2023? In May between 1000 and 2000 shells and rockets were fired in response to the Israelian operation Shield and Arrow resulting in two deaths and ten injuries.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
It's not a war crime to hit human shields. It is a war crime to use human shields.
n1b0m 9 hours ago [-]
Netanyahu preferred Hamas to the PLO in order to guarantee that no unified Palestinian movement might arise. The way to do that, according to Netanyahu, was to strengthen the Islamist Hamas in Gaza at the expense of its rival, the Fatah-dominated PLO in the West Bank.
“Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas,” said Netanyahu at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to divide the Palestinians between those in Gaza and those in Judea and Samaria.”
> you have to look at how Oct 7 shaped Israeli society these last 3 years.
Counterpoint, a more passive turn of phrase is more fitting: How Israeli society was shaped around oct 7.
The event doesn't shape society by itself, political and media response/interest shape the society.
flowerlad 17 hours ago [-]
I support Israel, but not wholeheartedly. I understand how Nakba was a matter of survival of your people. But why is this still going on today? Why is Israel continuing to expand settlements? Can you not understand how Palestinians must feel to constantly live in fear of being pushed out of their own homes? This is what gives me heartache. Can't you draw a line and say, what happened in the past cannot be reversed, but we will not continue to expand settlements?
almogo 13 hours ago [-]
The position you’re describing is essentially the modern left position in Israeli politics. Again, we’ll see in the upcoming election, but not everyone here supports the current goings on in the West Bank. The “Palestinian situation” is a major question in Israeli politics, both wrt Gaza and the wb.
One thing you will find across the board is that nobody is willing to compromise on security. Most voters today remember the second intifada. There is no serious political position where Israel fully withdraws from the wb. But there’s a big difference between “massively expanse settlements” and “phase out settlements and make room for the possibility of a future Palestinian state”.
The words “Palestinian state” are usually political suicide here in Israel, but the fact that Palestine is recognized to various extent by many countries in the world means that eventually these two realities are going to have to clash.
incompatible 12 hours ago [-]
Israel rejects the two-state solution. They seem to be aggressively pursing a one-state solution, incorporating all of former Palestine (and perhaps beyond) into Israel. Obviously this doesn't include taking in the people living there, giving them Israeli citizenship. People will be killed or expelled. All while Israel continually claims to be the victim "look at what those people trying to stop us stealing their land did to us now."
ShinyLeftPad 4 hours ago [-]
you're describing what current government does, do you think everyone agrees with them?
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
Polls in Israel keep showing high numbers of support. 80%, 90%, agree with Palestinian eradication
ShinyLeftPad 28 minutes ago [-]
where else goalposts can be moved?
comment said: "rejecting two state solution". poll numbers I see is around half rejects it, not 80%.
comment said: "killing or expelling all people in former palestine". there is no poll numbers for that specifically and the closest numbers for expelling people I see online is less than half, not 80%.
now you say "Palestinian eradication". OK, show the polls about 80-90% of israel supporting "Palestinian eradication".
12 hours ago [-]
moi2388 12 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
incompatible 12 hours ago [-]
The history is vast, you'll have to be more specific about what you are referring to.
"Palestinian right of return" was a perfectly normal political position, but you don't hear much about it these days.
So this situation is a bit like when the Nazis invaded Poland and then said, we have to destroy Poland because if we don't, they'll kill all our Nazi soldiers.
Isn't the humane solution to move the troops back out, instead? Of course the aggressors in a war will never do so, they will only press forward.
ShinyLeftPad 4 hours ago [-]
didn't they do that in South Lebanon and then quickly rockets appear near the border and nearby towns get evacuated semi daily?
also they did it in entire Gaza, unilateral disengagement
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Was food prevented from entering Gaza during this "disengagement"?
ShinyLeftPad 2 hours ago [-]
depends if you consider israel as controlling egypt's border i guess
someonebaggy 1 hours ago [-]
Why would it depend on that
ShinyLeftPad 32 minutes ago [-]
why did you put "disengagement" in quotes
elcritch 16 hours ago [-]
> Can't you draw a line and say, what happened in the past cannot be reversed, but we will not continue to expand settlements?
I did a study abroad in Israel in 2005 (not jewish, just for middle eastern studies) when Israel pulled out of Gaza and did essentially that. They forcibly removed settlers and left Gaza. As I recall most Israeli's thought it'd be good step toward peace.
Unfortunately Hamas took over Gaza shortly after and shot some 12k+ rockets into southern Israel over the next 20 years, and then launched Oct 7.
Unfortunately now there seems to be far less interest in Israel now in restricting settlers in the West Bank. I also feel for the Palestinians, particularly the Arab Christian communities, however extremists on both sides don't want peace.
crote 14 hours ago [-]
> They [..] left Gaza.
Sure, if you ignore the part where they kept bombing Gaza, assassinated political leaders, did ground incursions, and blocked it by land, sea, and air.
If Israel wanted a peaceful two-state solution, why did they keep occupying Gaza by turning it into an open-air prison?
porjo 13 hours ago [-]
> Sure, if you ignore the part where they kept bombing Gaza,
The answer is in the post you replied to.
>> Unfortunately Hamas took over Gaza shortly after and shot some 12k+ rockets into southern Israel
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
"shortly after". Let's just forget for a moment that Israel made that happen, intentionally. What happened during that "shortly", was there a food blockade?
ShinyLeftPad 4 hours ago [-]
wasn't Egypt in control of southern border? did Egypt participate in the blockade?
someonebaggy 4 hours ago [-]
Yes.
ShinyLeftPad 4 hours ago [-]
why did Egypt participate in the blockade? did it have something to do with their president's assassination? i don't have a precise timeline in memory
elcritch 2 hours ago [-]
Yes partly; around 2015/2016 according to the Egyptian government and more recently a surge in hamas-linked terrorist groups in the Sinai.
Netanyahu preferred Hamas to the PLO in order to guarantee that no unified Palestinian movement might arise. The way to do that, according to Netanyahu, was to strengthen the Islamist Hamas in Gaza at the expense of its rival, the Fatah-dominated PLO in the West Bank.
“Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas,” said Netanyahu at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to divide the Palestinians between those in Gaza and those in Judea and Samaria.”
That caught my attention too. It's refreshing to see at least one Christian Zionist showing concern for Arab Christians though.
elcritch 2 hours ago [-]
I don't consider myself a "Christian Zionist".
I'm a Zionist only in the sense that I believe both the Jews and Arabs (Palestinians) have/had a right to states in their respective majority areas because of secular reasons after studying the history of both sides; not on religious or theological grounds.
It's partly what led me to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy which doesn't believe in "Christian Zionism" as a form of end-of-days prophecy. The level of crazy I saw in Evangelical churches and groups during my time there could become absurd.
manyaoman 16 minutes ago [-]
Interesting insights, thanks. I was raised Protestant (in Europe) and have similar impression of Evangelicals. I'll never be able to wrap my head around some of that shit.
elcritch 2 hours ago [-]
Nothing makes them more "worthy" of empathy. It's that I have somewhat more of a personal connection to them. During my studies the Arab Christians on the campus in Tel Aviv were some of the most peaceful and kind people I met over there and it influenced me greatly.
They also happen to be caught between a rock and a hard place where both the Israelis and the Muslim Palestinians both oppress them. Quoting from [1]:
I am a Christian by religion, born in Nazareth, Israel to
Arabic-speaking Christian parents and brought up in Kufur Yasief,
the hiding place of Josephus Flavius
Persecution for Christians in Israel and Palestine is not on the
scale it is in Egypt, but it is there nonetheless. It must be added
that there is a growing number of Jewish-background, and Russian
Christians in Israel, who suffer more persecution from the
Jewish state and people.
...
Christian Arabs in Israel/Palestine live in a climate of fear
and therefore hypocrisy. Pressure on Arabic-speaking Christians
to tow the Muslim Arab nationalist line is so great, that we are even
afraid of complaining about injustices against us.
We suffer:
• At the hands of Jews, because we are seen as:
o Arabs: and so enemies, and primitive.
o Christian: and so gentiles. WE are often blamed, by association,
for the European holocaust.
• At the hands of Muslims because we are Christian, and "infidels."
We are often punished for “western” bias towards Israel.
Probably tougher to do politically than me stopping ICE from putting non-violent immigrants in concentration camps
mandevil 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
nixon_why69 16 hours ago [-]
America didn't do things like this after 9/11, we tried to build democracies in a naive way, failed, and got a lot of people killed unnecessarily. Iraq was completely unjustified and based on fabrications.
But we weren't trying to wage war against the entire civilian populations as revenge. That's an entirely different category of crime.
mandevil 16 hours ago [-]
A lot of the stories that came out of Abu Ghraib sure sound like they have very strong parallels to what is happening today. At the level of "poorly trained reservists trying to do something difficult without sufficient oversight and getting frustrated and turning to torture" it sounds very similar.
And the destruction of Fallujah from Phantom Fury ended up only marginally better than what happened to Rafah (destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in Fallujah and damaged another quarter).
nixon_why69 16 hours ago [-]
Abu Ghraib was a scandal, some people got punished, probably not all of the right ones.
When it came out that Israel was systematically sodomizing detainees with nightsticks, they had protestors come out in favor of the guards. It's still ongoing, all charges have been dropped. Nobody is scandalized by it.
breppp 13 hours ago [-]
That's a very flat take. That ignores the fact that the doctor that saw the prisoner reported it for investigation or that the military had chose to prosecute it, also you don't mention this was one case, not "systematic"
Even ignoring the fact that protests do not imply popular support, there is no comparison as 9/11 did not include widespread sexual violence and ongoing hostage rape was still going on at the time this happened.
So even if this seemed terrible to most Israelis, it was hard to find someone who will publicly defend a rapist from rape in jail
12 hours ago [-]
tomnipotent 13 hours ago [-]
Sure if you ignore the UN Commission of Inquiry report from March 2025 that concluded sexual and gender-based violence was used systematically against Palestinian detainees.
breppp 13 hours ago [-]
the UNHR is comically biased against Israel though and controlled by totalitarian countries with less than stellar human rights records
tomnipotent 13 hours ago [-]
Except Israel calls all criticism against it biased or anti semitic. Even a bad programmer can spot another bad programmer, sharing the trait doesn't mean you're not qualified to call it out in others.
breppp 13 hours ago [-]
I don't know, an example, Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese spreading nazi era conspiracy theories about Jews controlling political systems.
And that's from a human rights body, and from its representative to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
Was it Jews or Israelis?
13 hours ago [-]
13 hours ago [-]
deaux 16 hours ago [-]
The reaction of Americans to Abu Ghraib and the reaction of Israelis to the - larger scale - torture of Palestinian prisoners, is miles apart. It's also why there was always an end in sight to the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, yet there isn't for Gaza until it has not a single Palestinian left.
FpUser 16 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
0xDEAFBEAD 14 hours ago [-]
Would you have preferred that the US stay out of WW2 to avoid killing any civilians? Sure, the Nazis took over, but at least our hands are clean!
lol you flagged me but not the parent? I only posted this under the assumption this entire thread was going to be taken down for the blatant insanity and guideline violation of the parent comment
For Iraq, you can see a small dip for the 2003 invasion, which quickly recovers and in subsequent years grows above its pre-invasion value. Far from being "destroyed", Iraq is now doing better than ever.
For Palestine, the dip is about 3x larger.
mempko 13 hours ago [-]
How many people died in Iraq? The country is completely broken. Look what's happening in the latest Iran war.
Israel is committing a genocide and we are their partners in crime.
The fact that the dip is so small for both is more a reflection of the dataset. I mean, Gaza is all but completely destroyed, how can the HDI be that high?
0xDEAFBEAD 12 hours ago [-]
>The country is completely broken.
"Iraqis celebrate their comeback with soccer tournament after decades of isolation"
That was 2023: Iraq hosted the 25th Arabian Gulf Cup, and won the tournament.
I think if you're going to claim that something bad happened to Iraq post-2023, attributing that to the 2003 US invasion is a little dubious. Iraq was also in bad shape before the US invaded! It's a mistake to assume that if any foreign power has had any level of involvement, every bad thing that subsequently happens is therefore the fault of the foreign power.
>The fact that the dip is so small for both is more a reflection of the dataset. I mean, Gaza is all but completely destroyed, how can the HDI be that high?
Another possibility is that viral news stories are not always a good way to get a representative picture of how life has changed for civilians on the ground.
>Israel is committing a genocide and we are their partners in crime.
If Israel had genocidal intent -- in the sense of attempting extermination of Palestine's civilian population -- what fraction of Palestine's civilian population would you expect to be dead by now?
Once you've got that fraction in your head, try prompting your favorite LLM with something like the following:
"Please estimate the fraction of Iraq's population which died due to the 2003 US invasion, and the fraction of Gaza's population which died due to the 2023 Israeli invasion. Please provide an estimated breakdown of deaths based on whether they were due to invader military activity, destruction of civilian infrastructure, internal conflict, or other causes."
(you won't be able to paste the reply here due to HN rules against AI-generated content)
Another interesting prompt template: "Give me a sense of how civilian deaths happened in [Iraq/Gaza] due to [US/Israeli] military activity. Tell me a few representative vignettes which show various typical ways in which this occurred."
Hikikomori 11 hours ago [-]
You deleted your other comment, funny.
Interesting how you think Iraqs invasion of Iran was justified but not Kuwait. Or did you forget who started the Iran/Iraq war and deleted your comment out of embarrassment?
0xDEAFBEAD 11 hours ago [-]
I didn't claim that Iraq's invasion of Iran was justified.
But I notice that you don't seem upset with the idea that Iran would retaliate against Iraq when Iraq invades Iran (including direct attacks on civilian targets, not just dual-use infrastructure!), yet you do see upset that the US would retaliate against Iraq when Iraq invades Kuwait. That seems like the sort of double standard I was talking about.
I deleted my comment because I thought it would be fairly tedious to litigate this. I agree the US has done some dubious things, but I don't think they are a distinctively bad actor relative to other players in the region. I'm also not sure you are telling the truth, e.g. I haven't been able to find a source for your claim that the US targeted hospitals during the Gulf War.
Hikikomori 9 hours ago [-]
No but the way you wrote it you seemed to be okay with US supporting Iraqs invasion of Iran but totally against it when it came to Kuwait. So your opinion and morality is not consistent. I can say that Both wars were bad and unnecessary and that Saddam was a dictator supported by the US when it was convenient for them, like they've done many times before.
I can also say that the current Iran regime should not be in power or even exist. But I also know why they are in power and it is yet again because of US direct meddling in the region as them helping with the coup in 53 and installing a western aligned leader lead directly to the religious fanatics taking power as that regime had suppressed all other viable options with the support of the US to keep power.
The US is a lot more than a distinctively bad actor, even compared to their enemies, who are only their enemies because of US meddling in the region. I hope you can straighten out your moral compass at some point.
0xDEAFBEAD 8 hours ago [-]
>US supporting Iraqs invasion of Iran
More distortions on your part. (I notice you said nothing about the hospital point.) The US supported Iraq when Iran's counterattack was going too well, to prevent Iraq from being conquered by Iran, a regime you yourself say "should not be in power".
>Saddam was a dictator supported by the US when it was convenient for them, like they've done many times before.
I don't think this is intrinsically bad. The US also supported Stalin during WW2. Our rapprochement with China helped lift millions out of poverty. Were those mistakes?
>But I also know why they are in power and it is yet again because of US direct meddling in the region as them helping with the coup in 53 and installing a western aligned leader lead directly to the religious fanatics taking power as that regime had suppressed all other viable options with the support of the US to keep power.
This is some serious mental gymnastics to blame the US for a rebellion motivated in part by anti-Americanism. By your own logic, maybe the US is actually in the wrong for not giving the Shah even more support in order to crush the rebels.
If anti-Americanism caused a rebellion that you acknowledge as destructive, why do you lend support to anti-Americanism as an ideology?
You've created a catch-22 where the US can be the bad guy even if it supports a leader that's better than the plausible alternative for the country in question. What if the USSR had turned Iran into another satellite like in Eastern Europe? Ask the Poles how they feel about life under the Soviets.
I think these questions are simply not as obvious as you're making them out to be.
>The US is a lot more than a distinctively bad actor
We haven't initiated a war of conquest since the late 1800s. Even being a superpower after WW2, our territory actually shrunk when we gave the Philippines their independence "for free".
How many historic great powers can you name which were so restrained when it comes to territorial conquest? Considering the great powers during WW2: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, British Empire, French Empire, Italian Empire, USSR, PRC, USA. Who among those is the angel that you would've liked to see crowned global leader?
The world has generally become a much better place while the US has been hegemonic:
Iraq was in a bad state because of the previous war where US intentionally targeted civilian infrastructure like power, industry, hospitals and such. They wanted to create a failed state. This was after supporting Saddam in the Iran war and selling him chemical weapon precursors while knowing what he would use them for.
12 hours ago [-]
tick_tock_tick 14 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
nixon_why69 14 hours ago [-]
9/11 did happen to us.
Admittedly, this was before social media but back then you didn't get 50% support for gassing anybody.
breppp 13 hours ago [-]
That ended in a million dead over bi-partisan 20 years of war. Without 9/11 including massive hostage taking, rape or mass murder with torture in people homes.
The other main difference is that 9/11 ended within a few days, the hostage part of 7/10 made it an ongoing disaster for years in Israel.
miracle2k 11 hours ago [-]
The actual violent civilian caused by coalition forces are estimated to be around 15,000 in Iraq and 10,000 in Afghanistan - over a period of 20y and populations around 25x that of Gaza.
Everyone knows that Israel essentially went on a rampage of revenge, which you basically seem to agree with given your explanation for the destruction (i.e. not military necessity while protecting civilian lives).
Hikikomori 12 hours ago [-]
Hamas offered the hostages to end the war within the first week or so, Israel refused, as they did many times later. They also got many warnings about the attack, even from Hamas. It was always about the destruction of Gaza, the situation is manufactured.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
And then Israel has done everything it could to kill the hostages. Perhaps because it's afraid the stories might get out, of how Hamas treated them. I wonder why it might be afraid of that.
stanfordkid 14 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
alterom 14 hours ago [-]
Did Native Americans also pick "the wrong patch of land to occupy"?
stanfordkid 3 hours ago [-]
Don't understand why I'm being downvoted for a historically accurate and amoral characterization of what has truly happened. Human rights, racial equality, and international law "became a thing" at a specific point in human history. Israel is a part of modernity while Native Americans are not... and no, I don't think it was right to displace the native Americans.
Palestine is sacred land that was colonized by Britain and handed over to create Israel. Israel proceeded to displace and murder large numbers of people to give birth to it's creation. It is a colonial project. Westerners do not understand the meaning of this. Mecca and Jerusalem are significant to a very large number of people. Whether or not they are irrational for believing this is besides the point -- it is a material reality.
These are just facts. I'm not the type of person that debates whether or not something is morally justifiable or not.
jimbob45 13 hours ago [-]
Native Americans overwhelmingly died from Smallpox that was accidentally brought over by Europeans. There is no credible evidence that the transmission was malicious.
In return, Native Americans accidentally gave the Europeans Syphilis. Fair trade? Probably not, although the all-time death totals aren’t as incomparable as you might think.
igleria 8 hours ago [-]
> Native Americans accidentally gave the Europeans Syphilis
not comparable, how do you GIVE someone (that is probably raping you) syphilis?
soperj 14 hours ago [-]
> America also did not conduct genocidal actions in the manner Israel has.
First Nations
> Israel is a colonial project that annexes land and homes from people against international law and has done so since it's conception.
What do they call it in the US? Manifest Destiny?
avazhi 14 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
samudrijan 13 hours ago [-]
What is happening in Gaza is a genocide.
13 hours ago [-]
tomnipotent 13 hours ago [-]
> has never expressed
Yes, the 4% of the Palestinian population they've killed is definitely not a form of expression. Like somehow killing only matters if you talk about how fun it is first.
For the record that's greater than the % of Bosniaks killed in the Bosnia genocide.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
4% is an ancient estimate btw. It's conservatively at least 25% now. Probably much more. We won't know until the war ends and maybe not even then.
avazhi 12 hours ago [-]
4% isn’t much in the grand scheme of things and again, yes you have to be able to prove the intent. Pretty basic legal principle. It could be 85% and that wouldn’t by itself prove genocide.
Do you guys even bother being minimally informed before commenting? Like, Wikipedia is right there…
Hikikomori 12 hours ago [-]
Hey I found this wiki page for you, hope you enjoy
You (and the contributors to that particular article) seem to not know the difference between war crimes (which Israel has probably committed) and genocide, which is much more onerous to prove. What you should be doing is looking at how genocide is defined generally and at how genocide cases have been prosecuted historically. Only by changing the goalposts of how genocide is defined can you attempt to construe what’s happening in gaza as genocide, which is what that article (which presupposes that what is happening in gaza is genocide by its title, obliterating any notion of objectivity) does throughout.
Put simply, if you use any legally accepted definition of genocide (as a matter of the historical record) then what is happening in gaza doesn’t even come close. And of course the legally accepted definition is ultimately all that matters. That’s very different from whether laymen think it’s genocide because what’s happening hurts their feelings.
Hikikomori 9 hours ago [-]
You asked for evidence of intent and you got a long list of Israeli officials currently in power doing just that.
Sorry, can you point me to the part where an Israeli military or political leader has expressed the view that all or some Palestinians should be murdered because they are Palestinians?
I missed that part when I looked, and for that I apologise.
Hikikomori 7 hours ago [-]
Is that supposed to be the definition of genocide? Laughable.
Keep moving the goalpost I guess
avazhi 4 hours ago [-]
Look up the word in the dictionary big guy. Also read actual case law on the subject before commenting on HN about it.
Hikikomori 2 hours ago [-]
You got the legal definition.
someonebaggy 2 hours ago [-]
It sounds like you're suggesting that everything Hitler did was okay except for the part where he said "I want to exterminate the Jews"?
megous 10 hours ago [-]
I understand Israeli perspective already, from what I've seen last few years, and read about the history.
Or is there some other perspective, other than what Israelis can be observed as doing? I assume what I've seen is what Israel is like.
themgt 16 hours ago [-]
Most people in Israel have not, and probably will not see this
The only requirement to join the world's leading association of genocide scholars is paying a $30 membership fee. No expertise required. This makes it trivial to manipulate the association for propaganda purposes. Its declaration that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was approved by less than 20% of its members. The remaining 80% were never even asked or never voted on it. An acquaintance of mine has been a member since 2013 and is a real scholar with genuine expertise on the Rwandan Genocide. She was not made aware that this resolution was being proposed and learned of its adoption in the press.
monideas 14 hours ago [-]
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aetch 13 hours ago [-]
I wouldn’t call that necessarily a good thing. Stable societies can have a decrease in population after peaking.
monideas 13 hours ago [-]
They’re not all actually decreasing in population, they are increasing via mass migration, legal and illegal. That is how the elite strata of Western European societies and the Anglo sphere countries (US, Canada, Australia) are dealing with this.
In Japan, Korea, China, Hungary, etc they are indeed decreasing.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that a society where the marriage rates are so low is stable though. For some definition of stability yes, but usually we also mean healthy when we say stable.
7734128 13 hours ago [-]
I don't think appealing to how good a country is at breeding is a valid counter to its genocidal tendencies. That's probably the strangest argument I've ever seen.
monideas 13 hours ago [-]
Well we’ve already established that the use of the term genocide is nonsense, I’m arguing something different. In this case that the type of defective thinking displayed in the idea you need to be a member of some institution to apply your intellect is in part responsible for the fact every other developed society is dying, it has to do with agency and libido (the psychological sense of the term).
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
No we have not established that. You've asserted it without evidence.
monideas 7 hours ago [-]
50k civilians dead out of a population of 2.2M. The population of Gaza has increased since the war began. That’s not a genocide insofar as the word means anything.
If it was a genocide you would expect basically 90% of the population of Gaza to be dead. Israel controls the water supply and the food into Gaza, they could just poison the food and water, dropping bombs isn’t even necessary.
I don’t know how to make it more simple than that.
someonebaggy 6 hours ago [-]
Thanks for the gish gallop.
Where do population statistics on Gaza come from?
What's the minimum number of deaths that make a genocide?
Why would Israel want to completely exterminate its pet guinea pig surveillance beta testers?
Do some people enjoy inflicting terror?
Can you inflict terror on dead people?
monideas 5 hours ago [-]
Ok so you agree there’s no genocide, I guess because they want to keep them alive for fun or something.
someonebaggy 5 hours ago [-]
What's the minimum number of deaths that make a genocide?
crote 13 hours ago [-]
"Destroying all the buildings" is already a genocide on its own. In the Genocide Convention this would fall under "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part".
monideas 13 hours ago [-]
“in part” this would only require 1 building to be destroyed to satisfy this definition, in fact any sort of action taken at all during war or any sort of inter ethnic conflict would satisfy this definition.
That makes this definition useless, just to be clear.
If the “in part” refers to the physical destruction of the people itself rather than the potential nexus between the act and the physical destruction of the people, then clearly this doesn’t meet the definition because Israel didn’t destroy the buildings in order to bring about the physical destruction of the Gazans. The buildings were not destroyed in some round about way to kill the Gazans.
mempko 16 hours ago [-]
Does this help you sleep? Rationalization is a coping mechanism.
The Nazis first asked the Jewish people to leave and worked with Zionists to provide incentives for them to leave. 60k left under that law to British Palestine. It wasn't until much later in the war did they start doing mass genocide. It's not like they started with mechanized murder. It starts as ethnic cleansing and ends in genocide.
So don't be proud of "only 50k" and destroying everyones home. Israel is still at committing genocide and things can get much worse. It's not like it's over. 50k is the beginning unless Israel is stopped.
It's frankly disgusting to argue over definitions and words when people are still dieing daily.
This "lawyer" mentality is so dumb.
monideas 14 hours ago [-]
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lorecore 17 hours ago [-]
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almogo 17 hours ago [-]
Israelis generally do learn about the Nakba in school. But we’re much more concerned about the circumstances Jews find themselves in after the Holocaust/WWII. We don’t see it in the way you describe. For us it was a matter of the survival of our people.
Reparations - Israel would love nothing more than that. Pay Palestinians to leave? That’s the easiest way about it! Bibi would be delighted. Unfortunately it’s a non starter. The fight was always about the land, and Palestinians have been losing since 1948. There is a complex history of “whose fault was it” - neither side has clean hands.
I don’t agree with the conflation of Zionism to ethnic cleansing. I think there were paths to peace that could have worked early on. Call it bad luck. I think Palestinian leadership failed its people by failing to secure them a diplomatic end to the conflict. Fighting a lost war for decades seems a bad plan. I also do blame Israeli leadership, for not always offering the olive branch without condition.
Edit: i will also address your initial question directly: “Is there any acknowledgement in Israel that Nakba and the very formation of the country is to blame?” - a very, very small fringe of the far left phrases it like this. I’m not trying to be dismissive, just pointing out that it’s a really tiny minority. I, as a self-described center left, disagree with the premise.
wpm 15 hours ago [-]
> There is a complex history of “whose fault was it” - neither side has clean hands.
As is true in every war.
The question is who started it.
brookst 15 hours ago [-]
If that’s the question, it truly is hopeless. Because whoever you think started it, they don’t see it that way. So there can be no shared understanding, ever. It’s just circular blame across centuries.
In the rare cases where adults have prevailed, the question has been “what will it take to end it”.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
The Germans thought the Jews started a war against the Germans, but now we know that's not true. There is an answer even if one side pretends it is not the answer.
brookst 6 hours ago [-]
I should have qualified it as “in any conflict going back more than a generation or so” because you’re right: there are net new attacks that are simpler.
But if you’re attempted to draw a parallel between Hitler’s use of an ethnic minority as a nationalist punching bag and the situation in the Middle East, that I totally reject.
lorecore 4 hours ago [-]
The Zionist ethnic cleansing and now genocide of Palestinians is even more straight forward than WWII. Europeans created Zionism which at it's very onset, required the removal of Palestinians from their land. They've been enacting that policy with Western support since then.
brookst 54 minutes ago [-]
Are you seriously suggesting there were no Arab / Jewish wars and atrocities in that same area before WWII? It all just started then?
lorecore 45 minutes ago [-]
No, it started with the creation of Zionism, which pre-dates WWII.
jbenjoseph 10 hours ago [-]
>it truly is hopeless
This is perhaps one of the most obviously immutable conflicts that at the same time, everyone thinks there is some simple solution to. Usually thinly veiled, "it will be over when my side wins".
brookst 6 hours ago [-]
I don’t know this “everyone” you speak of, and I don’t identify or cheerlead for one group of murderers the other, and I empathize with all of the many innocent victims.
But I agree that those with the power and the weapons do seem to only believe in simple, violent solutions.
There might be complex solutions to be had, but it will take different leaders, and that seems unlikely in the short term.
noosphr 14 hours ago [-]
The British like usual.
expedition32 11 hours ago [-]
That is unfair. The British actually did not like the Zionists and they tried to keep the peace.
lorecore 4 hours ago [-]
> The question is who started it.
Zionists. Their ideology, created in Europe in the late 1800s, has the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians at its very core.
claykkari 10 hours ago [-]
> I don’t agree with the conflation of Zionism to ethnic cleansing. I think there were paths to peace that could have worked early on. Call it bad luck.
Calling it "bad luck" is extremely charitable. To international observers the problems with Zionism were already obvious as early as 1919:
For “a national home for the Jewish people” is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” [0]
> I think Palestinian leadership failed its people by failing to secure them a diplomatic end to the conflict.
Hang on though, isn't it Palestine who keeps accepting peace deals and then Israel keeps rejecting them and dropping a few more missiles? Do they not teach you that part? E.g. on October 7 Hamas released 3 Israeli hostages. Israel shot them dead, so Hamas didn't release any more.
17 hours ago [-]
crote 13 hours ago [-]
> But we’re much more concerned about the circumstances Jews find themselves in after the Holocaust/WWII.
The problem is that the historical timeline doesn't match up. Zionism started way earlier, and tried to found a "Jewish homeland" in 1820 in New York, and in 1903 in Uganda, and there are literally dozens of other examples throughout history. Even if we look solely at modern-day Israel, it dates back all the way to the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The first settler violence started decades before the Holocaust ever begun.
> I don’t agree with the conflation of Zionism to ethnic cleansing.
How do you propose Zionists could've established an ethnically Jewish country on land already occupied by Palestinians without ethnic cleansing? Why didn't the Zionists migrate to Palestine by integrating in the already-present culture and society, rather than by displacing it?
hitroicasd 10 hours ago [-]
> Why didn't the Zionists migrate to Palestine by integrating in the already-present culture and society, rather than by displacing it?
Jews have been doing that for hundreds of years. By 1922 when the British did a census of Palestine, Jerusalem was majority Jewish.
Only after the Arab revolt the British started severely restricting Jewish immigration, including shutting the doors for Jews trying to escape the Holocaust.
There was enough room in Palestine for everyone. It had a lot of empty space. It still has a lot of empty space. You can go on Google satellite and look around how much empty space there is in both Israel and the West Bank (more than half empty).
Most of Israel’s major population centers were built on empty land that Jews paid for and bought legally - and many of its biggest cities were founded in the 19th century, long before the Balfour declaration.
It was never about space. It was about Arab hatred of the Idea of a Jewish presence and country in Israel, even alongside an Arab one.
lorecore 16 hours ago [-]
> Pay Palestinians to leave? That’s the easiest way about it!
That’s not what reparations are, that’s ethnic cleansing.
sudosysgen 16 hours ago [-]
How can you simultaneously decide you do not need to care about the lives of a group of people on the basis of a difference of ethnicity as you prioritize the formation of an ethnic state, and simultaneously refuse the premise that the formation of that state is to blame for ethnic strife? Your first and last paragraphs cannot be reconciled.
fnordpiglet 14 hours ago [-]
I do wonder, isn’t there a sense the Palestinians face the survival of their people today?
Their leadership failing the people feels like a heavy burden to place on the average person, especially in a society where there is no meaningful democracy, but even then.
There appears to be no end to what’s happening three years on. October 7th was a horror of horrors, but to visit that on an entire people day after day for years upon years as revenge, when almost none of the people suffering participated or planned it? What’s the point?
I have always supported Israel, but these last few years have gone into a zone of inhumanity towards their fellow man that is shocking to the soul of any person with human compassion.
There appears to be no condition to end the suffering other than their death. That’s genocide. Evicting them from their homes by relocation, appropriation, settlement, destruction, is the definition of ethnic cleansing. These are disturbing things that we all agreed should never happen again after WWII. It disturbs me that Israel gets a free pass because of what happened to the Jews - the horror of the past doesn’t entitle anyone to visiting their own horrors.
Am I wrong? I’ve struggled with how to discuss this with my Israeli friends.
mempko 17 hours ago [-]
An ethno state is a stupid backwards idea.
EDIT: how is anyone downvoting thos. Who thinks it's a good idea?
thomassmith65 11 hours ago [-]
An ethnostate generally is a bad, illiberal idea, but concerning Israel, the ideas that are good in terms of ideology would have been, and possibly still would be, worse in practice.
The existence of Israel as an ethnostate is more down to the ethnic preferences of others in Russia¹, Germany, multiple middle eastern countries², and elsewhere³, than the ethnic preferences of jews.
Most of the jews I have known in my life are liberals who see Israel as a refuge against illiberals, not supremacist weirdos that get attention on the internet.
Exactly! I have the same experience. Most jews I know are not Zionists and are amazing people. Israel is not about religion, but about ideology as you point out and is deeply illiberal.
expedition32 13 hours ago [-]
Orthodox Jews are against marrying non Jews. Is this not known?
They do not share Western social values.
jcomp 15 hours ago [-]
Didn't downvote but I'll bite: Haven't states largely always been ethno-states, and isn't "ethno-state bad" a relatively modern and potentially as-yet unproven argument in the big scheme of things?
It's clearly bad to specifically re-engineer the ethnic composition of an existing state to create one, particularly violently, but I don't know that it necessarily follows that a naturally occurring ethno-state is conceptually abhorrent as you seem to be suggesting. Japan is very much such a state - is Japan bad for existing?
mempko 14 hours ago [-]
What is modern are states like we have now. Passports didn't exist before WW1 for example. The idea that people can't freely move across land and imaginary lines we call borders is a modern idea.
The history section has an example of a passport in the Old Testament and a lot of other examples where people needed travel documents and were limited in their travels way before the First World War.
mempko 4 hours ago [-]
Wow, has reading comprehension escaped the world? What is different about the passport system compared to the examples you gave? Just think about it for a while.
echoangle 4 hours ago [-]
Do you maybe want to explain it, because I don’t see it. Borders that limit travel weren’t invented around WWI.
mempko 2 hours ago [-]
The distinction is a world wide system of borders we call countries where you need passports to cross. That is distinctly a modern thing. The way countries work now is a distinctly modern thing. Yes, there were always some places that had walls and borders, but never as a world-wide system.
jcomp 1 hours ago [-]
The way boats and airplanes work is also a distinctly modern thing, with those technologies curiously advancing around the time you claim passports were invented.
hactually 15 hours ago [-]
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nixon_why69 15 hours ago [-]
There are black French and Muslim French.
Yes, there are some Arab Israelis but the vast majority of Arabs under Israeli governance would never be suffered to assimilate, specifically because it would change the ethnic character of the state.
10 hours ago [-]
thomassmith65 10 hours ago [-]
Due to the (most likely innocent) conflation between 'arab' and 'muslim', that is misleading.
nixon_why69 7 hours ago [-]
I don't follow? Yes, unintentional conflation but there are arab french as well.
thomassmith65 4 hours ago [-]
If the Israeli state has reluctance to assimilate arab muslims or 'black' muslims, the qualm primarily is with their faith, not their race.
That is clear from the considerable number of Mizrahi Israelis and Ethiopian Israelis.
nixon_why69 4 hours ago [-]
Ok, totally true but faith and race are conflated for jews, much more so than muslims or christians. Mizrahi jews aren't called Arab jews, judaism is not a proselitizing religion in general for 5,000 years so of course it has bloodlines rather than converts.
Israel is an ethnostate apartheid system on that conflated definition. After all, religion is almost as hereditary as race.
I guess I don't see the distinction as all that important? Aside from the fact that it would be an all-time troll if 2 million people in Gaza declared that they're Jewish now and applied for aliyah.
14 hours ago [-]
esafak 15 hours ago [-]
So is Israel the homeland of the Jews? If so, what does that make Palestinians? Tourists?
AlexandrB 15 hours ago [-]
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saligne 14 hours ago [-]
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itchyouch 16 hours ago [-]
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hactually 15 hours ago [-]
Is it not good that the US and Israel govt are generally doing what their people want though?
What's the point of a democracy if it acts against it's people like the UK does?
Tarq0n 12 hours ago [-]
No. Look into the history of human rights. It's long been recognized that there need to be backstops against excesses of (democratic) government.
rootusrootus 14 hours ago [-]
> Is it not good that the US and Israel govt are generally doing what their people want though?
At least in the case of the US, I would point out that the current sitting president was elected with less than 50% support from the people who bothered to show up and vote. I would say the system is not really working well.
hhh 13 hours ago [-]
I mean it was 49.8% it's not like it was 30 or even 40. There are plenty of people that actually wanted Donald Trump to be elected.
zmmmmm 13 hours ago [-]
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machina_ex_deus 5 hours ago [-]
Israel, in the worst blunder in its history, disengaged from Gaza and left Gaza to be purely in the control of the Palestinians. The Palestinians elected Hamas, which killed of Fatah and took control of Gaza, leading to the following 20 years of escalating violence which reached a peak in the 7th October.
The only reasonable conclusion from the Gaza experiment of giving control to the Palestinians is that they will only use that to attack Israel. The mistake of the disengagement will not be repeated.
Nobody in Israel is willing to give Palestinians control anymore. We've tried that and we see how it went completely wrong. Thank god it was just Gaza because if 7th october attacks came from the west bank, Israel would be gone.
The most peace that can be achieved is sadly in the current situation where Israel maintains control of the Palestinians and they don't get a chance to organize another 7th of October from the west bank, which is just few kilometers from Tel Aviv.
The Palestinians authority can't even win elections and they have stopped doing elections. If they were to resume elections, presumably Hamas would also take control of the west bank too. The majority of Palestinians would support 7th of October attacks on the rest of Israel. Which is an existential threat to Israel.
It's worth noting that the whole notion of having Palestinian "democratic" regime alongside Israel is as far from arabic culture as possible. There are no arabic democracies. Even after the arabic spring, none of the arabic countries developed a functioning democracy. So the current situation of the Palestinians not having a "fully democratic" regime is actually the norm in all arabic countries. The most democracy that Palestinians could hope for is the current situation under Israeli control. If the entirety of Israel vanished tommorow, and the Palestinians were given democratic elections, they would immediately devolve into an Islamic state with Sharia law where the average Palestinian has less freedom than today.
So anyone judging Israel for the continued control over the Palestinians needs to remember both what would happen to Israel without this control (genocide) and what would have happened to the Palestinians themselves (Sharia theocracy with less rights).
There might be some Tel-Aviv detached people who support the Palestinians, but I guaranty you there are no Palestinian supporters in the Gaza adjacent zones which were hit in the 7th of October.
selfmodruntime 8 hours ago [-]
While I vehemently disagree with the IDFs handling and it's hard to deny the genocidal effort, let's not forget Americans reacted very similarly after 9/11. People are not keen on ideas of peace after a large scale terrorist attack.
someonebaggy 7 hours ago [-]
> People are not keen on ideas of peace after a large scale terrorist attack.
Except for Palestinians of course, who suffer a terror attack every day, and are expected to remain peaceful afterwards, or they will be punished with another terror attack.
manyaoman 7 hours ago [-]
Revenge and collective punishment may be natural human reactions to a terror attack but that doesn't make them justified. Especially when those in charge anticipated the attack and deliberately exploited it.
—Benjamin Netanyahu, 2025
https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/article-1195594
To take this example, the Azerbaijani president didn't talk the American one into a major shit show of a war; one that is materially harming American lives. The Azerbaijani government doesn't run a major political influence operation in the US, spending 10s of millions of dollars against candidates for the sin of mildly criticizing them. The Azerbaijani government doesn't receive anything close to the level of military, diplomatic, and financial support from the US that Israel gets. The Azerbaijani prime minister didn't give an address to the US Congress to undermine a major foreign policy agreement, one which has only looked better in hindsight.
So no, it's not at all weird that the citizens of the US care more about Israeli committed atrocities than Azerbaijani ones. The US is far more involved with Israel's actions and has far more influence over them, influence that has so far not been used to try and alleviate the suffering in Gaza.
The Biden administration paused diplomatic relations, put out public states condemning it, and more.
In fact, Azerbaijan came out and complained about the US's "biased" stance against it.
https://asbarez.com/aliyev-criticizes-biden-for-biased-towar...
Save it.
https://jewishlink.news/when-did-torah-values-become-extreme...
https://www.dw.com/en/from-the-nile-to-the-euphrates-inside-...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-it-may-be-justified-t...
None of these are far-right sources. Although, well, considering how chosen ones are buddy-buddy with nazis these days, that doesn't hold much water. These are mainstream sources.
"The Torah explicitly commands us regarding hostile populations that endanger Israel: “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, then those whom you leave over will be as spikes in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land in which you settle” (Bamidbar 33:55). The Torah further states, “And I will make your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river, for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands, and you shall drive them out from before you” (Shemot 23:31)."
https://www.google.com/maps/place/31%C2%B016'58.6%22N+34%C2%...
There was internet connectivity at least before the widespread destruction - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_Palestine#Ga...
1. https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2963743,34.2449952,1665m
2. https://maps.apple.com/frame?map=satellite¢er=31.296508%...
For a great example of this, look at this pin https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZcMbdFcx87PrqoYNA
And here's a pin of where the farms were spared https://maps.app.goo.gl/iZbbTH4iH27FCz4s9
In 2015, the Egyptian government announced a plan to demolish the entire Egyptian city of Rafah, in order to deter smuggling with the Gaza Strip. More than a decade on, most of it is gone. The residents were forcibly relocated to elsewhere in Egypt.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/15/world/middlee...
Urban warfare is brutal, especially when one side systematically digs in and uses IEDs and booby traps in civilian buildings.
Scary! Can we get photos of those? Wait, they look suspiciously like medical equipment and incubators…
(Will the Chosen Ones reclassify radiological equipment as nuclear weapons next? Stay tuned for more!)
They wanted to level the city, they did. That's all. There was some fighting eventually with a few fighters holed in in Rafah, but nothing that would justify this. And Israelis continue leveling entire areas the whole year after so called "ceasefire" during which there were almost no attacks on them, yet they managed to murder more than a thousand of people.
Thus anything that precludes Hamas from actually inflicting harm is not "fighting", even if it's demolishing Hamas booby traps or demolishing structures Hamas would use. Hamas knew what would happen, they intended the result. The more Gaza suffers the more the world blames Israel.
Just because the Israeli politicians knew what was going to happen doesn't change this. Urban combat flattens cities.
Sadly it does seem pretty normal.
"Hamas's military force prior to October 7, 2023, was roughly 3 to 4.5 times larger than the United States military when measured as a percentage of their respective total populations."
Anyway, IDF as ≈170k active duty personnel and 465k reservists[1]. Literally a different order of magnitude. Add to it the vast different of resources, access to an air force and nuclear weapons and it become even more clearer that there is no comparison possible.
(And comparing personnel count to the USA is laughable as it is vastly different military type. Both a fighter jet pilot and a foot soldier count as one personnel, but it's neither the same force projection nor the same investment of civilians working for the war machine).
1: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2023/10/14/idf-explai...
Forced displacement is also considered a war crime and, considering what is happening in Gaza and at the West Bank, it would qualify as genocide as well.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war
What you are missing here is that Hamas' primary weapon is parading dead Gazans in front of the camera.
While I don't condone violence, it's a legitimate way to defend against occupation.
Targeting civilian homes and a festival - nothing legitimate about that.
That said, it is almost impossible to imagine that the Israeli response would have been something lesser than the current genocide attempt if Hamas had just taken POWs during the October 7 attack. Bibi would have arguably been even more humiliated if Hamas had been acting with restraint, so the impulse for revenge would be even greater.
It is almost impossible to imagine Israel would even look at the direction of Gaza had they just taken the statehood offers presented to them in 1947, 2000, 2001, or 2008, instead of repeatedly choosing terrorizing civilians over gasp compromising.
It's very much possible to imagine that.
Doesn't mean that here the targeting couldn't have been done with the primary goal of displacing the population, but the buildings being destroyed doesn't prove the motive.
It does not.
> and at least there it's most likely not primarily because Russians wanted flatten the city (I'm sure they'd have preferred taking it in one piece) but rather because fighting happens from buildings resulting in the buildings getting targeted.
What happened on the Ukrainian frontlines is a war of position. Everything gets pounded, even forests and tree lines. It’s more like Verdun than anything that happened in Gaza.
In absolutely does [1].
> What happened on the Ukrainian frontlines is a war of position
If Gaza is a genocide then Ukraine almost certainly is too. The same messaging about exterminating a culture that doesn't "actually" exist from senior leadership. The same attacks on children. The same destruction and systematic razing of civilian settlements.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ySLyCjNnrI
It seems like the state of Ukraine frontline cities is due to intense artillery fire and air bombingn whereas gaza cities states seem to be more of systematic bulldozing of entire areas which would erase the marks of actual bombings and make the scale harder to assess
Both are the results of aggressive madmen, but both situations are different. And the genocide aspect is not what is discussed here.
Also, why do you think that “Russia is doing the same thing” is some kind of gotcha?
Systematic destruction of urban areas is sadly what modern urban combat operations look like.
When an enemy digs in and choose to fight and die in an urban area, this is how war plays out.
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/10/28/how-russias-invas...
WAR IS HELL
But that’s not what we see in Gaza. The parents specifically mentioned that only towns were leveled. The destroyed towns are not the only relevant aspect. The other one is that major damage happens only there. And of course it would, because the Israeli forces don’t want to sterilise the land; they want to take it. In contrast, Russia is happy to be king of the rubble as long as Ukrainians eat shells.
This is how urban war is played out between near peer armies.
Think about this, I’m in a concrete bunker with a machine gun, do you want to charge the bunker and get shot, or do you want to call in an airstrike to destroy the bunker with the machine gun position? I know what I’d do
https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2015/07/24/history-july-25th-2006-m...
Of note, just days before the strike, one of the Observers sent an unencrypted email home to his wife noting that he was observing Israeli war crimes and would be reporting them.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/un-officer-reported-is...
"When in doubt, send in an airstrike."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/5/24/satellite-...
And that just from the start of war.
Mariupol probably did see less destruction. But for the actively contested regions, the biggest difference between Russian destruction and Israeli destruction is that the Russians use artillery, which leaves shells of buildings standing, while Israel uses bulldozers that are a lot more thorough in leaving no stone on the other
https://gwaramedia.com/en/russia-has-killed-744-injured-almo...
20000 palestianian children killed
https://theconversation.com/a-un-report-details-the-overwhel...
more then 20 times the children killed in half time time.
It's exactly the same in Gaza! You basically justified Israel's actions here... Check the distance between Gaza City & Israel border, vs distance beetween Bakhmut & Russia's border. Tell me which one is farther away - I'll wait
EXACTLY. You are told.
If that was really the goal, I go back to my previous point - wouldn't thermobaric bombs be faster, more economic & more convenient? It just makes no logical sense. If you already declared them to be monsters, what exactly is holding them back?
Please check Norman Finkelstein's latest book namely Gaza's Gravediggers on this matter [1].
He also has a very telling and chilling interview recently on Palestine and Gaza [2].
[1] Gaza's Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places [book].
[2] Norman Finkelstein Reveals Shocking Discoveries While Researching History of Israel’s Gaza Obsession [video]:
https://youtu.be/Jmv2h1WYnNo
https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/uyqjn2/norman_fink...
At least that was my takeaway after watching his debate with Destiny (the streamer) and Benny Morris (the historian):
You be the judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X_KdkoGxSs&list=PLrAXtmErZg...
Also Tucker Carlson? Seriously?
The way the IDF fought in Rafah and other areas is leading with bulldozers that can take RPGs, IEDs, mines etc. to clear way for troops behind. That's how the tunnel and other guerrilla advantages are neutralized.
So yes, the destruction is absolutely purposeful, its purpose is to take away the advantage of the tunnels and guerrilla tactics, and enable excavations for tunnel access and detection.
The sequence was something like this (AI assisted):
Early May 2024, the IDF issued extensive, phased evacuation orders. This prompted an estimated 1 million to 1.4 million civilians—many of whom had previously fled to Rafah from other parts of Gaza—to evacuate to designated zones like Al-Mawasi.
Once ground troops secured these largely emptied areas, the IDF Combat Engineering Corps moved in. Objective satellite damage assessments show a massive spike in structural destruction in Rafah beginning in the summer of 2024, directly correlating with the ground invasion.
Satellite imagery confirms that ground forces used controlled explosive demolitions and heavy earth-moving equipment, including armored D9 bulldozers, to systematically clear residential blocks, agricultural land, and infrastructure.
This mechanical destruction was particularly concentrated along the Philadelphi Corridor (the Gaza-Egypt border) and in eastern Rafah. The military objective of these block-by-block clearing operations was to uncover and destroy cross-border smuggling tunnels and to establish a widened, flattened security perimeter where structures previously stood.
In summary, while aerial bombardment occurred prior to and during the invasion, you are correct that the wholesale, block-by-block leveling of Rafah was heavily driven by engineering operations using bulldozers and controlled demolitions after the majority of the civilian population had evacuated the targeted areas.
"Evacuating" a million people who will not be allowed to return is "ethnic cleansing".
Farmers were killed, even in different part of Palestine.
Killing farmers have nothing to do with the definition of genocide.
Caterpillar even supplies the IDF with bulldozers just for this purpose, which then get up-armored and sent into Palestinian civilian areas to do this (including unmanned versions).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Caterpillar_D9
I suggest that you learn more about the Nakba, friend. [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
Been watching it for years. A great stain on history, with weapons paid for and built by Americans, not to mention a complicit media.
* surprise, it was in Rafah, the city formerly located in the wasteland from the article we're discussing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_paramedic_massacre
It's always funny hearing these defenses of Israel or Hamas which resolve to "hey what can you expect, they have the moral intuitions of cavepeople!"
The tunnel entrances and exits are tremendously hard to find. Some of them were located in private residences.
But Israel has an oil & gas industry. They have equipment that can look underneath a quiet city. If tunnel elimination were truly the goal, temporarily displacing the population while clearing operations took place should have been sufficient. As it stands, simply bulldozing over the entrances probably doesn't actually destroy the tunnels. It just hides their entrances.
Like when packaged food gets potentially contaminated, you don't test each package for bacteria. You throw away the whole lot.
Not even egypt allows ghazans in- 10.000 euros for one passport is insane. And all those walls and checkpoints. And egypt is pretty islamist itself, so natural ally to hamas and the like.. but they know had that brush with the mb
https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2023/10/27/netanyahus-sup...
Or, if you are not a genocidal terror group, you actually go house-to-house and check. Difficult, dangerous, but not a war crime. That's why Mosul isn't a pile of rubble, even though ISIS was more than willing to use booby traps!
---
"We are demolishing more and more homes, they have nowhere to return. The only obvious result will be the desire of the Gazans to emigrate outside the Strip. Our main problem is in the receiving countries."
—Benjamin Netanyahu, 2025
https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/article-1195594
If Hamas cared about Palestinians, they could just use military buildings for that.
You're comparing wiping out tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian people's lives... to disinfection.
Like yeah, there's plenty of examples of israel's current leaders calling the Palestinian race sub-human, vermin, animal, saying it should be wiped off the earth, etc, but I didn't expect it on HN, JFC.
You can go look at Basra right here:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Basrah,+Basra+Governorate,...
Over a million people live here. The estimate was that "448 to 593 civilians were killed due to coalition military operations", orders of magnitude less than Israel has killed. Basra was not wiped off the map or seized and annexed by coalition forces while the population was herded into a concentration camp.
It is simply slander against the US military to suggest they have in the 21st century done anything like what the IDF has done in this genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mosul_(2016%E2%80%93...
Here's historical satellite imagery. Go to 2017-08. You can see Mosul airport and surrounding facilities leveled, immediately adjacent to a city that is obviously a city and not 1) flattened Mosul airport or 2) similar in any way to the Rafah imagery above.
If you are describing Mosul as "leveled" then what adjective do you use to describe Rafah? It cannot possibly be also "leveled" given that vast areas of Rafah are actually a flat pile of rubble and Mosul is clearly a city with a destroyed airport, even in late 2017.
https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wayback/#mapCenter=43.12003%2...
NYT - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/15/world/middlee...
and AP drone imagry https://apimagesblog.com/blog/2017/7/14/mosul-drone-footage-...
From your linked AP article:
"Nearly a third of the Old City [a specific neighborhood] was damaged or destroyed in the final three weeks of bombardment up to July 8, according to a survey by U.N. Habitat using satellite imagery"
From MSF re Rafah:
"Over 15 months of all-out war on Gaza have left 92 percent of housing units and about 70 percent of all structures destroyed or damaged."
So we have 1/3rd of a particularly hard-hit neighborhood destroyed in Mosul versus 70% of the entire city of Rafah.
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/destruction-hom...
This is very obviously a completely different scale and comprehensiveness of destruction.
Robots. These things can be cleared. Particularly if the population isn't there.
Not if the trigger is based on detecting body heat. And you can't really clear more than the ground floor either, we don't have bipedal robots yet.
My colleagues have seen these tunnels. At least ore 2023. Israel has denied them entry since then.
"We're no worse than Hamas!" is an interesting argument.
You think you have to choose a side between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel? You think you need to send one of them money?
This idea that people only care about Israel because we support them with our tax dollars is such a joke
But yes the component that morally implicates me personally is the funding and it’d be a big improvement not to participate in it.
Just like I don’t think it’s obvious that we should fund Sinaloa despite them being decidedly less monstrous than New Generation.
Why wouldn’t you answer the question that I asked? Do we need to pick a side in the cartel wars? If no, why is that different?
Israel is the great betrayal. In 1948 it was supposed to become a secular country based on European values not a Jewish theocracy. It is dragging us down and for what?
This is true. Their crime is not having been born a Jew. According to the Torah, the Talmud and the Talakha, shkotzim and shiksim like us must be slaughtered as is the right and the duty of the Chosen Ones to honor G-d.
[1] https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
The link provided in your parent post explicitly says there is no precise definition of “ethnic cleansing”, so I don’t even understand why you’d think the distinction matters.
Not that that was in question. HN is, after all, in too large a part a reflection of the greedy US tech industry. It has shown time and again that it’s selfishly OK with human exploitation and supremely susceptible to being manipulated by the right amount of technicality while simultaneously arrogantly believing it is immune to being influenced.
Some days I’m truly ashamed of this community and find myself incapable of defending it against the mockery and contempt it receives from the rest of the internet.
The OG genocides involved deaths in the millions [1]. That requires killing with industrial efficiency, something that made it categorically unique from the "wipe out the village" warfare that goes back to, probably, before civilisation. (Chimpanzees do it. To my knowledge, they're the only other species that annihilates versus merely fighting off enemies.)
At lower kill volumes, even in the tens and possibly even hundreds of thousands, the line between conventional warfare done conservatively, conventional warfare done brutally and a process that, if left unhindered, will reach a million-man death toll.
(Then you have the ambiguity, one which does not apply in Gaza, introduced by displacement also being included in genocide and it starts to intersect pretty much perfectly with war.)
If we want these words to keep having meaning, we have to nitpick around their use. Otherwise, overinclusivity will consume them.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides
Because there are lots of wars burning all over the planet. We tried to carve an exception into international law, after WWII, about it being permissible to intervene in the internal affairs of another sovereign state if they're doing genocide. So this is a real debate that should be had. The problem is by practically every definition, there are at least a handful of active genocides happening in multiple theaters around the world.
The abhorrence of genocide is one that needs to be refreshed with action if we're to restore the norm that it's not okay. But to do that, you have to set the new threshold.
So if less than a million people are killed it's not a genocide? Seems like a very obtuse understanding of the word, which is also defined in the wiki you linked.
Nobody said that. OP asked why this is being debated. That's why. It's not clear what generally constitutes a genocide in a way that is separate from warfare in general. (Gaza and Ukraine are simpler, to me, because Russia and Israel explicitly message genocidal intent in a way New Delhi, Beijing and Washington do not.)
I did not. I lamented (it was not a question) that we’re nitpicking (it’s not a debate) the definition, especially when the person in question suggested an alternative which is not defined.
I do wonder if you’d care about this conversation if you and your family were the ones being killed. If one of those people were in front of you crying for their home and life and asked for your compassion and help in fleeing the genocide, would you turn to them and say “ackchyually, someone on Hacker News said this is merely an ethnic cleansing, you’re on your own”?
No. At that point, whether it's a genocide or not is kind of irrelevant. They're being killed. War doesn't need extra bits attached to it to be horrible.
> would you turn to them and say “ackchyually
What is this.
"Ya know what, everybody already has us marked as commiting genocide, so why don't we just actually do it?"
The civilian population of Palestinians has shrunk ~1% since the war started, despite Israel have the weapons to actually just kill everyone.
Right. So what I’m saying is let’s have some empathy and compassion for other people. Let’s focus on how horrible it is and what we can do, the same way we would hope others would do for us if we were the ones in that situation.
It's incredibly ambiguous. There are very few sets of people who agree on the list of ongoing genocides, much less historic ones. The only places where there is even a semblance of agreement is in Europe and urban America, and that's largely due to deferral to our institutions.
> There's no ambiguity as to what Israel is doing
I agree. That doesn't mean it's beyond discussion or debate. I think it's a genocide. I also think that term has been mangled, particularly online, to the point that it's virtually meaningless. (One of the problems with the term is it's grammatically odd. A homicide is a completed murder. Attempted murder is different. A genocide, completed, is an extermination or annihilation. But we give the ongoing project the same grammar as, in other cases, an act.)
Which is why zero armenians remain after the armenian genocide
oh wait no nevermind, your definition is just bullshit. Only one set of people define what is or isn't a genocide: historians. The ICC only covers crimes against humanity. Historians are also in wide agreement (except for the Israel aligned ones) that it is a genocide in Gaza.
As for whats happening, the over represented proportion of male combatant age deaths, the well below average ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in complex urban warfare, the war being in response to an atrocious attack on civilians, stopping for polio vaccines, population numbers remaining stable etc puts a question on the "Only Reasonable Inference" standard.
What would you consider a proportionate response given Hamas's initial charter, the rockets fired over the years, the IRCG commanders statements about a co-ordinated attack from Gaza, southern Lebanon and the West Bank and the abhorrent attack of October 7th?
https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/how-iran-plans-to-d...> the well below average ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in complex urban warfare
Ah, yes, the very urban warfare art of bombing hospitals and refugee camps. Very urban. Much warfare. And you also get to claim that the civilians didn't die from the fighting, merely from the starvation!
>the war being in response to an atrocious attack on civilians
Yep. Nothing happened before October 7. 1947 ? Doesn't exist. Nakba? Probably some arab term that means nothing. Close to a century of warfare, torture, humiliation and putting Gazawis into concentration camps ? Naaaah. Hamas is responsible. Bad Hamas.
> population numbers remaining stable
There has been no accurate population counts for three years. But thank you for being so generous and letting palestinians reproduce while you park them in camps. Very kosher <3
>Hamas's initial charter
No shit, the armed resistance group that was formed to resist with arms against an attacker wants the attacker gone ? Silly Hamas. They should have done like Bibi and kept the actual plan quiet in cabinet meetings.
Hint: armed resistance against an occupier is legal and encouraged under international law.
>the rockets fired over the years
Yep. Israel did nothing. Didn't shoot children in the head, didn't regularly murder palestinians in prisons, didn't conduct raids on Palestinian territories or encourage settlers to colonize more. Poor little Israel.
>the IRCG commanders statements about a co-ordinated attack from Gaza, southern Lebanon and the West Bank
You regularly bomb another country, and you think that the other country is in the wrong for finding literally any way to make you eat shit ?
> the abhorrent attack of October 7th
A regrettable event and a needless loss of life. I'm not fully sure it justifies a retaliation that causes fifty times more death, destruction and horror, nor will the tribunal that will judge you for your crimes against humanity.
I'm not a genocide scholar, so may be way off the mark here, but imagine a language that only has a few 100 native speakers left. There's one person who really hates them, writes in his diary about how he longs for that culture to cease, and then he murders the only remaining historian or language teacher of that group. Is that attempted genocide? A little bit?
My point isn't "yeah it is" because I don't know, but I'm very certain that I'm still closer to whatever the heart of it is, than sheer "kill volume". We already have a word for massacres and mass murder, and genocide usually comes hand in hand with those and many other crimes, but it's not those crimes.
This is despicable, inhumane. It is generational trauma that started with the Nazis, now propagated to the poor souls around the new western colony of Israel.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/15/world/middlee...
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/middle-east/2016/11/01/battl...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mosul-satellite_n_596d34a3e4b...
https://earth.google.com/web/search/31%2e297226,+34%2e243649... - then click "show historical imagery" next to the search box.
Internationally Israel is probably positioned weaker than before and there is a fissure running through liberal societies from Ireland to France, from Portugal to Germany and probably similar in the US.
This is conflict polarizes. A good example is the recent election in Berlin, which was focused on the housing crisis but now devolved into name calling based on how people think of Israel. A minority might have voted “pro Palestine” but most people wanted affordable flats.
Sowing dissent among your adversaries is very effective.
The Israeli Shekel is so strong against the dollar it is causing issues with exports.
Israel has signed major missile defense deals with many European countries and just signed a major new one with Greece.
Gaza is in near complete ruins, the tunnel infrastructure Hamas spent the past 2 decades building is being destroyed.
Nasrallah was killed and Hezbollah is severely diminished militarily and politically in Lebanon.
Iran’s nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile capabilities have been severely damaged and no longer pose an existential threat, at least for the time being.
Israel is doing very well since October 7 whereas Hamas and Gaza is not.
Iran's nuclear program has hardly been destroyed long term and there is almost no chance a durable nuclear agreement comes out of this war. It will almost certainly be a vague memorandum where Iran pinky swears to never build a nuke and then starts building one as soon as the fighting stops. America isn't going to start endless wars to prevent that and Israel can't do it alone. The long term future looks grim for the Middle East, especially for Israel.
Meanwhile, most of the voter base (perhaps understandably) cares more about domestic issues than they do about the plight of people on the other side of the world who they are killing and exploiting with their tax dollars.
Given all this, I don't know how you can be so certain that anything will change with a new administration, even with polling demonstrating that voters do disapprove of support for Israel now. Most of the people who disapprove of funding Israel don't care about it strongly enough for it to be a significant factor in their engagement with electoral politics (which for most people is also just limited to voting once every 2 to 4 years)
The flip side of your statement is that more nations than before decided to recognize a Palestine state and that it seems for the first time in decades US support for Israel is waning.
Israel is military and economically strong. It’s also a small country in a difficult region that needs trade partners and international connections, probably more so in a future full of climate change.
You already said this in your parent comment?
In this case I also mentioned the Greece Israel Cyprus military alliance which I didn’t before. This is an alliance which is due to the threat from Turkey which transcends a lot of the petty ideological issues with Israel coming from Western Europe.
And it would be one thing if you were doing this in a thread discussing geopolitics, but this one is about satellite evidence showing the total destruction of a city. And your response is to boost the state that caused this?
Any sources that aren’t just anecdotes? I’d love to see some details about “Arabs” understanding and respecting the atrocities in Gaza, because many news organizations including English available ones like Al-Jazeera don’t seem to.
sounds like the terrorists did indeed win
The US congress and senate get their laws and edicts directly from the top brass of the IDF.
Every single head of state in the Eurozone (bar Perro Sanxe, who is controlled by Morocco instead) and every single bureaucrat have to follow the rules set down by Israel, lest the union collapse.
They're everywhere you look. You don't have to fall for Hasbara or Unit 8200 propaganda about how this totally means you're an irredeemable monster, they are the ones who are pushing this.
Is that the same program that was compeletly damages last year?
I don’t know what metrics you would consider non-psychopathic.
Getting married, having children, being materially successful, destroying your enemies. These are good things.
This is psychopathic.
Have you heard of survival? Personal, cultural, geographic. People will do anything if you push them hard enough or deprive them of alternatives.
What happened to Gaza on that day?
Decades prior to Oct 7th, the IDF was shooting children through fences and ethnically cleansing villages.
Israel has been doing a similar thing to "1st amendment auditors", the people who harass random people and police in order to get a reaction and sue. They got the reaction, now Israel is attempting to play the victim. You cannot put people in fences, force them through militarized checkpoints, and allow settlers to harass and assault people in their homes with military backing and even begin to pretend to be the victim.
So did Netanyahu. His far-right policies require an eternal enemy to distract the people and blame for everything going wrong. The October 7 attack definitely didn't hurt his position in national politics.
I mean come on... Hamas were seen practising flying hang gliders around the strip and one of the most paranoid states in the world didn't think that merited some investigation?
And everyone just happened to not be at their posts?
Regardless of the facts in this specific event, you can make much the same argument about many of the major 21st century terror attacks - there were multiple warnings leading up to 9/11, and the FBI and CIA had eyes on several of the perpetrators before the attacks. They didn't "choose not to act" in so much as institutional disfunction prevented the dots from being connected or any preemptive action being taken, but from the outside it looks pretty much the same.
I'm open minded, could see it either way
Is wrong. It is kind of you to show you don't know what you are talking about.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
But again does that make sense given how the Israeli elites feel about Palestinians? Just assume because it's a Jewish holiday Hamas will also take the day off?
Because if that is stupidity then yes, it is very stupid
> But again does that make sense given how the Israeli elites feel about Palestinians? Just assume because it's a Jewish holiday Hamas will also take the day off?
No, if they did they wouldn't have anyone on the border.
Dear reader, notice how they shifted their claim from "And everyone just happened to not be at their posts" to the official story (wink wink although I offered no real evidence) is that the border was lightly manned.
I'm Israel's enemy and still had no idea about that. Beyond stupid if true.
“You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet” and all that.
It's a bit too 4D chess for my liking but would also explain some things that otherwise don't add up
Yes it is, and some countries have become very good at doing that
Except that people doing that lost. Very very clearly, it is not sufficient at all. And people who won loved to frame themselves as rational, open to ideas, even wrote essays and pretended good faith.
It's going to affect everyone, and I don't think you can stop Western voters noticing that the price of fuel has gone up. Then they're going to start sharing the blame around: Iran, yes, but also Trump and Netenyahu.
https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-lebanese-civil-war-in-... (article is rather more favourable to them than I would be, but it describes the basic history)
Germans believed they did
That's what the sad thing is?
> A minority might have voted “pro Palestine” but most people wanted affordable flats.
Interesting interpretation.
surely the one creating such destructions and deaths no?
As the saying goes "war is terrorism with a bigger budget".
Imagine the death and destruction caused by the hands of Israel.
Realize that this reaction wasn't necessary. Those who run Israel are adults. They could have chosen a path with much less deaths. They were not forced to commit a genocide, they chose it.
Realize that when people see such pictures, of entire cities completely leveled to the ground, that people get extremely upset. Imagine the place you live reduced to rubble and how atrocious you would find this. The inhabitants of Gaza are humans just like you and the world is justified in their disdain.
No a single estimation are near your number : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war#Civ...
Most are about 80 to 90% civilian killed.
First, the article cite multiple estimations by different source.
Second, there is no logical fallacy, you on the other hand are trying to frame that unidentified body (by Israel) could be majority of combatants, disregarding that nothing prove this and that lot of them are women and children.
Third, you are only quoting IDF number and no other third party, this only quoting the perpetrator to defend its body count
In your own words, what is the issue in the Middle East?
I wish I was eloquent and knowledgeable enough to write it, I'd probably write a book.
In 1948 a colonial mission from West Europe invaded Palestine. This has made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Another is: an indigenous people with a continuous presence in the land, joined by mostly legal immigrants (and later by refugees fleeing pogroms and the Holocaust with literally nowhere else to go) built towns, farms and infrastructure, drained swamps and developed an economy that also attracted some Arab immigration and created Arab employment.
This happened under the colonial rule of the Ottomans. Then later under the colonial rule of the British. Finally in 1948, colonial rule ended, much to the dismay of Arab colonialists.
Itamar Ben-Gvir (National Security Minister) has repeatedly called for the "voluntary emigration" or forced removal of Gazan residents and urged the permanent resettlement of Israelis inside the Gaza Strip.
But they also don't want it to get too big or powerful. Israel calls it "mowing the lawn"[1]. You want to have grass on the lawn, but not too much, so you periodically cut off the excess grass.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass
By who?
Accountability isn’t achievable, as far as I can tell. Especially when there’s some lucrative real estate deals for Gaza land on the table. IDF brings bulldozers as part of their attacks on other countries for a reason.
How easy do you think it would be for anyone close to Putin to slip him some poison or just stab him with a knife? To prevent that happening, a whole lot of stuff has to be kept oriented towards him remaining the president.
One of Bibi's support pillars is the perpetual threat of Israel's destruction. He positions himself as standing between Israel and destruction, so replacing him would be dangerous.
I also suspect that the Great Alliance between the Sunni/Arab autocracies and Israel is more fragile than it appears. Or, more accurately, and the Sunni/Arab autocracies themselves are more fragile than they appear.
North America of course, but Africa is an overlapping series of successful genocides, Argentina's "Conquest of the Desert", Qing conquest of the Dzungar, Russia's conquest of the Circassians, Athens and Melos 416 BCE, Rome and Carthage, Rome and lots, Mongolians and whew even more than that -- all of them victories but also a "Where are the Khazars?" sort of event. They're just gone. Violence will forever be Mankind's one true Universal Language -- easier to learn than Esperanto.
Post-Trinity, the thermonuclear deterrent has put the kibosh on genocide as a working tactic. For a bit. The evolution post Cold-War might well turn out to be that genocide is back, baby, as long as the genocidee doesn't have a nuclear deterrent. It's cosmically fitting that the great genocidal wars of the 20th century birthed the final perfected weapon for doing genocides.
Some of the people contributing here were born after the "war on terror" started.
You can't look at this, at reports coming out of Gaza and the West Bank, at Israel's own government officials' statements, and not, at minimum, believe that brutal war crimes were committed on a massive basis here. Whether it's "Holocaust level" or "genocide" is a red herring. It needs universal condemnation, it needs to stop, and the people who did it need to be held accountable.
The ICC is trying to do that, but is being impeded by the US.
Rightful people supports the week. Only the depraved laughs when a person without power is being abused.
It did stop. When the hostages were freed and Hamas gave up. Which they could have done at any point. Or you know, they could not have started the war too.
There is no justification for their actions. There is no justification for the greater Israel project they are pushing. There is no justification for them to be taking a leadership role in the global security technology industry. The whole thing is just absolutely Fkd and I find any person trying to contort the argument in a way to justify this shit to be evil themselves.
The fact that this comment is being upvoted as much as down shows me that evil exists here too.
Never mind that it's also a Palestinian homeland and Muslim homeland. Those ones don't count because uh, we said so.
Poes law or something.
I agree with your position, but it didn't read as sarcasm to me.
wasn't a dead giveaway?
I get that in this case the rest of the comment was short and the obvious indicator of sarcasm came quickly, but it's all too common for this to devolve into paragraphs of repetitive, uncreative slopaganda, which has resulted in many who disagree just tuning out early.
Also, blockade Israel proportionally to the Gaza blockades. I doubt they would have kept murdering red cross members in Gaza once the supermarkets started running out of food.
As for Israel, as I understand it, the next election will mean domestic jail time for the incumbents unless the polls are wildly wrong.
At that point, it would be easy for Israel to start climbing out of lawlessness too.
Who's this "we" who dealt with the SA apartheid state?
The international pressure on SA did absolutely nothing to change their mind (I'm old enough to have seen PW Botha's Rubicon speech live on TV). The NP (political party in charge) was slowly and carefully convinced to push out the hardliners.
The people left, like FW De Clerk, actually did the dismantling - unbanned the ANC, released Mandfela from prison, switched to allowing black voters, etc.
The rest of the world's pressure had absolutely no effect on the leadership. Change only came when leadership started changing.
See this for more background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiations_to_end_apartheid_...
This could hopefully happen somewhat faster with Israel, given that the government isn't a literal Nazi remnant, as the South African government was. (Though, ironically, the main arms supplier to South Africa during the arms embargo was Israel, often reselling weapons from the United States. Sigh.)
"By the late 1980s, the South African state was in profound crisis, crippled by international sanctions, a stagnant economy, and widespread resistance. Recognizing the unsustainable nature of the perpetual conflict, the government under P.W. Botha began tentative, secret contact with the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and the exiled African National Congress (ANC) leaders."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa_(1948%...
I won't go into details that support or refute this claim, but that is what the parent poster likely meant.
The idea that a nation-state was/is running a child sex trafficking ring, and we're *not* turning over heaven and earth to investigate that so that country faces unprecedented consequences...I don't even know what to say
I thought this was interesting, from Al Jazeera to boot:
Political Reactions: While critics and unverified intelligence memos pointed to the deep relationship as a sign of state ties, current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly dismissed the notion, stating on social media that Epstein's close ties to Barak (a political opponent of Netanyahu) actually "proves the opposite" of Epstein working for the Israeli state.
Literally on Oct 7, Hamas tried to return civilian hostages, who the IDF killed. This is why Hamas changed policies to only give up hostages through 3rd parties. They reached out to israel to try and return hostages and were ignored. They reached out to the US to return hostages and were ignored. [1]
So for starters, the US could have pressured Israel to negotiate with Hamas to return the hostages.
As Israel started to show genocidal intent (for example, killing aide workers multiple times). The US could have at a minimum threaten to withhold aide. In fact, there are laws on the books that a country such as Israel committing war crimes is ineligible for aide.
Finally, the UN should have deployed peace keepers to gaza specifically to stop the genocide.
Actions could have been taken, but they weren't because our politicians are so bribed by Israeli lobby money as to turn a complete blind eye to it's misdeeds.
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-politics/2026-09-...
UN has no such power. I am still amazed how people do not get this.
Members need to vote for such things to happen. It wouldn't, not in this climate.
> What do you think world leaders should've done differently?
Members should have voted in the UN to deploy peace keeping troops. The UN does have that power if it's voted for. This isn't a question of the current realities but a question of what the right actions are.
I wasn't engaging in what's likely, just what should be. Biden and Trump should have been on board with deploying peace keepers. They were not.
How is my "should have" happened not a direct answer to the question?
Like it would've been a nice idea, until you realize that Hamas is heavily backed by Iran, Iran is helping Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine, and it starts to look like that level of intervention is a step towards a world war.
Then you notice world energy markets are going to be effected by a massive conflict etc.
If the UN went into Gaza, got attacked by Iran, then had to respond, next minute they're attacking a close Russian ally, and maybe even China might have to get involved in that.
What would've been good is if October 7 didn't happen, and that goes for both sides.
> Iran is helping Russia
lol, no, other way around. Though the Russia hasn't really been involved with Iran since Ukraine started. It's actually China that's the biggest Iranian trade partner.
The only party that'd be upset over UN peace keepers in Gaza is Israel.
(I have read it before)
You are making stuff up. Nobody reports that Hamas was shooting for a "get out pillaging free" card. And the fact still remains that they tried to return 3 hostages to show good faith who the IDF proceeded to kill.
> Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.
Hamas, on multiple occasions, agreed to all the terms only for Israel to reject the agreement and change the terms. That was all public. It's why the hostage families became really mad at the government.
> Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.
Two wrongs don't make a right and yes, it's relevant when the IDF explodes clearly marked aid vehicles rendering aid. There's no reason to do that.
> Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.
Does that really matter? The question wasn't "how effective will this be" it's "What world leaders should have done". That's what world leaders should have done.
> I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.
These are weaker lobbies because of US laws. The likes of AIPAC and CUFI get around campaign finance restrictions because they are operated by US citizens (in behest of Israel). No other nation has that sort of organizations in the US. The closet you can find is things like the weirdo Shen Yun cult.
This allowed them to spend $60M in a democrat primary. You won't find that sort of direct spending from Qatar or the Saudis (barring the clear bribe in the Jet. They aren't exactly giving away jets to every primary run).
Remember they know exactly who everyone is and where everyone is at all times. Gaza is the most thoroughly surveilled place on earth.
That Hamas was open extremely early on in the conflict to negotiations for returning hostages and Israel and the US knew this while they waged a bombing campaign and pretended like Hamas wasn't trying or willing to return hostages.
Negotiations weren't happening because Israel didn't want those negotiations, not because they weren't available.
And, I don't know if you are aware, but negotiations involve give and take. Israel didn't need to "traded for all of the concessions Hamas wanted in exchange for them".
The reason the hostages weren't returned sooner is because Israel didn't want them. In 2024 Hamas accepted all of Israel's terms multiple times only for Israel to change terms. Israel knew they'd have fewer justifications for their genocide if they got the hostages back.
That's my point.
> What he means is they could have been traded for all of the concessions Hamas wanted in exchange for them.
Where in my writing did I say that Israel needed to accept all concessions. Please quote me.
Do you think it's unreasonable or "insane" for Israel to have accepted some concessions for the safe return of hostages?
Any? Like even a temporary ceasefire? That's a suicidal position?
Notice how you had to change from "all" to "any".
If that is what you’re talking about ok, but it sounds like you were saying to actually make concessions.
The point is to accomplish the aims of the war. There are no concessions that have to or should be made. Israel is by far the stronger power.
It's pretty hard for you to argue against the fact that there are, in fact, reasonable concessions that aren't "suicidal".
And, I never said that the war was either avoidable or that Israel was wrong to use force after Oct 7.
What I am saying is that the war could have ended years ago and that Israel has committed genocide. I'm also saying that the pretext that it was about "getting the hostages home" was false.
And with that context, yes there are things world leaders should have done to stop Israel from committing genocide.
This is abject insanity and it’s a good representation of what is going on in the minds of most of humanity.
They were killed because of mistaken identity, which is horrible, but it happens in war, some IDF soldiers died from friendly fire.
Hamas definitely didn’t ask protection for the hostages, they asked protection for themselves.
There are many hostages reports of Hamas terrorists saying to hostages that if IDF will draw near, they will shoot the hostages.
Let’s use occams razor hear.
Option A - mistaken identity because the enemy wears no uniform, embeds itself in civilians, and uses inhumane tactics to confuse IDF soldiers (like putting explosives on dead bodies, placing speakers with hostages recording as bait)
Option B - IDF decided to kill the hostages they came to rescue for some evil reason
When it's about Hamas imprisoning hostages: "Hamas kept them underground in chains in near starvation conditions. This is abject insanity."
When it's about Israel murdering hostages: "Well, you know... We don't always agree on right and wrong. That's why different countries exist. Is this discussion really fruitful?"
The peaceful route didn't work. Only idiots will think continuing with the status quo will result in anything different.
You can't just continue to 'mow the lawn' where children are killed and kidnapped, put into Israeli prisons, and expect no blowback.
You can't just shoot people in the knees while protesting peacefully, and then expect no blowback
You can't just rape Palestinian prisoners (most of whom have been arrested under no charges), and expect no blowback.
You can't just install bombs in pagers, and set it off amongst civilians, which resulted in children being injured or killed, and expect no blowback.
Sorry buddy, but your days of gaslighting is over.
Like my personal sentiment is, war is senseless, and both sides are wrong in some way or another. But yeah, I don't think children should be murdered period, so I'm not going to try and give a list of reasons why it's OK, because there isn't one.
Anyone committing war crimes should be punished for it, period.
My original question was simply, what should have been done differently "by the world leaders"?
Also, is Oct 7 enough justification to shoot 335 bullets at 6 year old Hind Rajab?
Your questions reek of bias by trying to centre everything to Oct 7, as though history began there. If you really cared about children, you'd have referenced the thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel before Oct 7.
2) Accusations of genocide, whether they stand up or not, are great fodder for whataboutism discussions. Let's say the world's two largest economies, the US and China, decided to start sanctioning Israel for what's happening in Gaza. You could expect other countries to start threatening actions against the US and China over their previous or current genocidal behaviors. These are obviously not things that the US and China want to deal with.
Please try posting more constructive content than unconvincing, blanket denials. It doesn't make for good discussion.
Sure, but are we going to ignore about the US having to rely on its "helpless" allies to provide staging points and cannon fodder for its illegal imperialistic wars? How much of a superpower would it be without its overseas bases?
https://x.com/MacaesBruno/status/2017251152900079675
https://aifundingtracker.com/who-owns-alphabet/
Funny how plenty of people still think if someone defends the barbarism of Hamas (which I'm not doing), this person should be lynched, but if another person defends the barbarism of the Netanyahu regime, it's fine, because (insert justifications here)... What the fuck's the difference?
And so what, yes the Egyptians closed the border, does that mean you consider it fine for Israel to do those things, and they can escape being labelled of "barbaric war criminals", because... why? Because Egypt?
It's like an abusive father beating his kids, and when the neighbor doesn't want to have the burden of taking care of the kids for the foreseeable future (because the police/government clearly prefers to pretend "everything is fine"), you say "Well, it's the neighbor's fault those kids are getting beat up!".
This has the tone of "a few minutes of action": https://www.espn.co.uk/college-sports/story/_/id/15997412/br...
Peak comedy, thanks for the laugh.
I would like to know how would anyone give a positive spin to genocide and civilian displacement
Well... what did Hamas expect after Oct 7th, other than the IDF riding into Gaza and cleaning shop for good?
As for the genocide claim... we're seeing average casualty and collateral damage reports for highly urban warfare. Hard to make a credible claim of genocide.
Same reason blatantly anti Nazi sources have a higher chance of staying up compared to pro nazi sources. I'll let you process that one.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jy96w6pw2o
Clearly not? Sometime like 2% of gazans have been killed. IDF could kill many many more if it wanted.
What would you respond?
If Hamas were to take one of those tunnel cities and Israel were doing guerrilla warfare from them I wouldn't blame Hamas for bulldozing.
Israel does have mandatory conscription. They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian. While in the military they're all fair targets, and if they're not serving, and at a music festival, they're not.
> They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian.
When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian". When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
And Hamas is permitted, as per the rules of war, to target that military infrastructure. If Israel has co-located it with civilian buildings, and attacks miss their targets, then too-bad for Israel.
>When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian".
This is very arguable for the West Bank settlers, but the Israeli civilians that were targeted by October 7 are not settlers and are in very solid Israeli land from a conflict 80 years prior. Arguing that all civilians in Israel proper are valid targets makes you no better than Smotrich and Ben-gvir, and you are essentially advocating for the genocide of Israelis.
Which is your right to do, I guess, but that's certainly not going to convince the (nuclear armed, remember) Israelis to moderate and compromise, or actually bring about justice for Palestinians.
> When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
Military uniforms are for the protection of civilians. If you forgo them, then your civilians will receive more harm. Israel is responsible for their actions and many war crimes, but Hamas is responsible for theirs.
Israel under Netanyahu has done plenty to criticise but I would actually like to see an Israel/Palestine deal not the West following both sides into radicalisation.
Then they suggest that this is justified because Israel is a jewish ethnostate.
Hamas starting it is besides the point. We are capable of holding two different ideas in our heads: that what Hamas did to kick this off was reprehensible, and that what Israel has done since then has been horrifying.
I would personally argue that what Israel has done is far worse than what Hamas did, but it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with that. Israel has gone far far far beyond your notion of "fighting back".
> should work to destroy Hamas who are responsible for turning Gaza into such a hellhole.
Israel seems to be doing a good job of that on their own. And had been even prior to the current conflict.
They don't live there anymore, they're displaced.
If Hamas supporters argue that what they did on Oct 07 is payback for "Naqba" (or whatever historical injustice dujour they fancy), then the question becomes: why can't Israel retaliate?
No, I totally agree. I think for the October 7th attack, all of Gaza had to be razed. How will those terrorists learn otherwise?
Unironiclly, I think the US can be called one, too, at this point.
And this people has the dare of accusing other people of being propagandized.
It's not Genocide...
...because UN is corrupt...
...and numbers are from Khamassss,,,,
...and whatabout whatabout whatabout Iran Sudan....
...you hate us coz we're Jewssss....
Heck, I know so many Muslims critical of Muslim majority nations.
This result is exactly what the anti-Israel coalition wanted. They bet Bibi would go nuts and burn up the remaining global goodwill that Israel had, leaving them isolated.
I'm going to assume good faith in your framing, rather than intentional minimization. Suffice it to say, more has happened than "buildings were demolished", and those more things are the subject of the article. Like, for example, an entire city systemically flattened with every single civilian inhabitant killed or exiled on their own land.
To answer your question in that context: yes, that is unusual in war these days, because it is tantamount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Phrasing it as something that happens over there is disingenuous when it resource extraction and foreign interference that directly contributed to political unrest and radicalization and war. It is the CIA that poured literal millions in funding extremists groups. It is western troops and bombs and that landed on their soil again and again.
It's not something that simply happens over there, war is not some unforgivable trait related to tanned foreign people who believe in islam. Our governments have their hand in this cookie jar.
The middle east is an outdated term referring to a conflict zone that the West itself created.
See why I’m not optimistic?
This, of course, is a statement that almost required the person who replied to you to add context due to the absurdity of the statement.
If you genuinely did not mean to imply this, you might consider reading your comments before submitting.
In fact, the aggressors in this case are European colonists, only 3rd generation or so, and they are pretty much following the standard historical playbook for how European colonists treat locals, including the assumed divine right of genocide ("manifest destiny") The Middle East isn't an especially belligerent place otherwise.
So I call your characterization unfair.
“Sympathy” is not much use in situations like these. “Sorry your people are being murdered” doesn’t really help.
They aren't a Robin Hood like resistance. You're actually just siding with a different oppressor.
When you get arrested, do you fight back and resist?
If the choice is fighting back or being killed, many people will choose to fight back. If you’re fighting back against a state, then the form that fighting back will take is asymmetric warfare, which is typically described as “terrorism” by the state doing the murdering.
But with all this in mind, you want to sit back and say, “They really ought to be more polite about it.”
This is exactly what HAMAS did on October 7th attacks - they choose to target civilians
If anything, the more apt historical comparison is to the Czechoslovakian and Polish partisans who wanted nothing less than to harry the Germans on (or within) their borders before the war. The British and French ambassadors (i.e. Qatar, etc) took great pains to try and convince the Polish and Czechoslovakian governments to restrain their partisans from attacking German people or positions, since they suspected Germany would use any and all provocation, no matter how small, as a casus belli. Anyone who's read a bit of WW2 history also knows how often the German government attempted to engineer exactly these kinds of events to justify their aggression.
It sounds straight out of the Likud playbook, doesn't it? But in what universe does an attack that kills 1000 people, a good number of them active duty soldiers, justify killing and maiming over 100,000 civilians and leveling hundreds of thousands of buildings? If the shoe were on the other foot, this implies Hamas also has the moral imperative to do just the same to Israel. That's moral relativism for you.
Perhaps Europe had a better understanding of this topic when they instituted the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law after the war than we do today, 100 years out, trying to now claim none of it actually matters and the means justify the ends.
I glad you are not AI!
While the genocide case brought against Israel hasn't concluded as of now, to say there's no reason to believe this is genocide is incorrect.
If you’d like to share some sources (rather than only telling others to), maybe we can compare.
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...
[2] https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS...
[3] https://www.phr.org.il/en/genocide-in-gaza-eng/
[4] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...
[5] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-exterminat...
[6] https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-response-is...
would you say the same?
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Genocides,_Cultural_Genoc...
Does that make this link twice as truthful as the one you sent?
You don't have to check all the links mate, just check a few for the organisations or institutionsnyou know. Unless you think they're all Hamas, of course.
I've started to think this worry about a particular nation's right to exist is really a great rhetorical trick: nobody is particularly upset the nation of east Germany ceased to exist, and you don't hear Erdogan opposing Kurdish independence with "Doesn't the Turkie have a right to exist?"
There is a basic human right of self determination, but if you think what follows is that you should get your own nation then look at how the soviet policies of providing exactly that worked out. They even created a the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the far east!
Hamas still thinks a made up God is what does.
The one difference is that Israel always had been able to control the situation for decades to its liking, while Hamas had been passively reaping the hatred that Israel had sown -- only until October 7.
So, Israelis fearing Hamas? That's a horror they created through their democracy, purely by abusing powerless people. Total hypocrisy.
these kind of messages show us how good propaganda and brain washing is.
Is Hamas killing every Jewish person or is the Likud party of Israel actually killing the residents of Palestine?
Let's look at the actual material reality.
For instance, Israel intentionally destroyed all the farms and ruined the fields to grow crops. They have a naval blockade that stops them from fishing so you can't get food there either. They've cut off all external water supplies, blocked food aid from coming in and have openly said they are trying to starve the population to death. Actual, concrete, material reality, available on any news website, with interviews, videos, satellite photos, extremely well documented.
Amnesty International, Doctors without borders, Human Rights Watch, the IPC, the UN, all have been unequivocal in their condemnation of this. Even Haaretz and other Israeli newspapers have been critical of it.
Here's a scholarly peer reviewed paper from the Science of Remote Sensing documenting the farm destruction: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266601722... Scroll down to see the photos.
Even right wing news, such as Fox has covered this: https://www.foxnews.com/world/before-after-images-show-devas...
There's two possibilities here: Either every international organization, news source, academic journal, independent third party, satellite, photographer,and videographer is controlled by a powerful invisible puppetmaster or reality is reality.
I know stuff like this is unwelcome but someone's gotta stand up for reality.
I won't post the answer here but I'd suggest anyone to ask you favorite llm (Opus for me) the following prompt:
Assess the statement that Nethanhyu has been working to prop up Hamas or with Hamas in some sort of "my best ennemy" scheme
You could argue that Israel is doing this because Hamas is so bad, but then you look at what Israel is doing in the other part of palestine not controlled by Hamas? Daily pogroms and violent ethnic oppression of all kinds.
The problem is that Israel is based on ethnic supremacy. The way the victims (the palestinians) react is not relevant.
The ALLEGED offer was to release hostages under 18 and over 50 IN EXCHANGE of stopping the ground incursions and changes to Al-aqsa mosk access
Was it a reasonable offer ? Should they have accepted it ? I don't care, I just care that you get your (alleged) facts right.
You don't give a shit about truth
Often we don't acknowledge the horror of Israel's multi-decade siege on Gaza¹ and occupation of Palestinians when talking about this conflict.
There, I fixed it for you.
[1] As early as 1967, U.S. Senator Albert Gore Sr. called Gaza “a vast concentration camp on the sand”.
None of Israel's critics is able to suggest some significantly different strategy that would allow Israel to after Hamas. So the discussion inevitably ends up (with said critics) at Hamas had a right to commit these crimes, because they are the oppressed/occupied, and Israel has no right to defend itself by going after and defeating Hamas while minimizing its casualties like any other western army would do and has done (see Mosul or many other examples).
Sounds a lot like how the colonists fought much of the revolutionary war here in America where I am from.
But that aside, how "honorably" would you fight back if your homeland were occupied and turned into an apartheid state and you were treated as a second-class citizen effectively living in an open air prison while armed settlers came in and claimed many of your neighbor's homes, possibly killing them in the process?
They knew the attack was going to happen and allowed the music festival to go on a day longer, one might guess they were frothing at the mouth at how good that propoganda was going to be.
Take a read of the book title The Palestine Laboratory - How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World - and you'll even learn that Israel has a long long history of murder around the world, aint none of this new.
One side won the propoganda war, and it wasn't the dirt poor Palestinains.
Incorrect.
The west still buys Russian gas. Half of Russian gas exports go there.
https://energyandcleanair.org/august-2026-monthly-analysis-o...
> No nation in the west will hesitate to condemn Russia's war crimes
The US doesn’t condemn Russian aggression, and try get the current administration to say that Russia invaded or is committing war crimes.
Despite a lot of posturing, and a fair amount of presumably sincere effort, billions continue to flow.
For one thing, there isn't a major, bi-partisan, pro-Russian-war-crime lobby with a controlling interest currently sitting in government.
Actually some people have mentioned the invasion and occupation of Ukraine in this comment section to draw parallels or make distinctions
As for the war crimes, "for some reason" you don't tell about the ukranian ones, which are plenty. As you are - of course - not concerned with their homicidal nationalistic anti Russisn propaganda, which gives further "motivation" to these crimes.
This is the war, which were not you around, would never happen.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
Think about how the PLO was a KGB linked terrorist organizations.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB106419296113226300
It seems like a reasonable take. But when we look at any oppressed group, getting murdered at the hands of their oppressors, there often is no negotiation through peaceful means.
History shows us that the threat of violence or violence becomes a necessary point of leverage to bring about change.
American schools have washed the story of the civil rights movement, but MLK only had success because of Malcolm X.
There’s many other historical instances of this. Whether it’s the Indian Independence movement in the 1940s fighting from British rule, the 1500s-1800s of native Americans resisting our ancestors colonialization, our own American revolution, and even labor movements like the battle of Blair mountain in the 1920s.
We like to propagandize American history where non-violence was productive, but violence has always been an unfortunately necessary tool when it comes to changing oppression.
Blair Mountain was a total defeat for the miners. Union organizing in West Virginia collapsed afterward and only recovered with New Deal labor law in the 30s
For native Americans, well, do you really want to discuss the results ?
For India you could argue that it's not non-violence but the fact the empire was exhausted militarily that worked. But it's hard to make the case that violent uprisings, who were either suppressed or contained well enough, had an effect. If anything the popularity of the insurgents may have done more that the actual violence but you can get that kind of popularity with non-violence too.
The only time when insurgency is working is when you are able to hide, endure and survive until your enemy is down for other reasons. It can be quite long. Think Mao. Was it the case for India ? Maybe but it's not obvious at all
I actually agree about Malcolm X... except it didn't actually use violence. Only violent rethoric and advocating self-defense. Annnnnd biggest wins like the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (August 6, 1965) passed before the Watts riot (August 11, 1965) and the wave of urban uprisings that followed
I said don't murder civilians
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner#Rebellion
Most war is unjustified. Violent resistance is almost never unjustified if one lacks access to elections.
But violent resistance that targets civilians robs itself and its cause of justice until that rot is removed and regretted. It's not only morally wrong. It's strategically stupid. Terrorist tactics do not work–they radicalize the enemy and unfavorably polarize the alliance space.
Remember the videos Ukraine circulated of sharing tea with Russian POWs? Imagine if Hamas had only targeted military outposts and then shared images like that one from its bunkers under Gaza City?
A cause can be fundamentally justified but still piss away its advantages with poor strategy. At the end of the day, Hamas has acted in Iran's interests. Not the Palestinians'. (Same with Hezbollah. Same with the Houthis, though to a marginally lesser degree.)
Prioritize a cease fire. If you can’t target you probably can’t run much of a modern economy either. Which raises the question of what you’re actually fighting for.
Estimates for the death toll of US and British strategic bombing, for instance, range from 300,000 to 600,000 in Europe and around 330,000 in Japan (including the atomic bombings)
Now compare that with 12–17 million civilians killed deliberately by Nazi Germany and the around 6 millions killed deliberately by imperial Japan
Relevant bluesky thread for HN's dearest historian, Bret Devereaux: https://bsky.app/profile/bretdevereaux.bsky.social/post/3mw4...
I'd like to point out though that Israel are unique in the sense that every single authoritative body on the subject have declared that Israel is committing genocide, Hamas for all their drama, is not.
The level of violence is set by the occupier. Would there be pearl-clutching about the Warsaw Uprising, John Brown or Nat Turner? What about resistance to British occupation of Ireland (or India or any number of other British colonial projects)? The ANC in South Africa was incredibly violent in its resistance to apartheid. Resistance movements in occupied Europe were also incredibly violent (eg killing collaborators).
What you seem to have fallen for is tone policing a 78 year long resistance. A lot of people (generally, not you specifically) have this belief that things began on Oct 7. You will get questions of "why can't they resist peacefully?" Well, they have. Multiple times. Most recently with the March of Return several years earlier. Many don't know about it because it was barely reported on. What happened? For the "crime" of standing within a few hundred yards of the fence, the IOF used protestors as target practice. 500+ dead, 8000+ wounded. "Wounded" here is doing a lot of heavy lifting too because it included deliberately and permanently maiming people by blowing their legs off deliberately [1].
"Terrorism" is a political designation. And the US doesn't face such threats? Really? The police kill over 1000 people every single year. Mass shootings? Why isn't that seen as terrorism? Or the violence committed by ICE against random US citizens or detainees?
I'll leave you with this quote from JFK [2]:
[1]: https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-snipers-brag-about-deli...[2]: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/978019...
The world is aware of the answer to that one.
I wouldn't call them an invention of Israel, but they were allowed/encouraged to flourish.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pm-said-to-tell...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/warning-of-kidn...
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/google-maps-...
From a psychological point of view, watching what is happening in Israel right now could really help understand human behavior in previous historical events involving genocide and mass killings.
Look at the current physical state of the city, the raw sight of it -- no amount of fair punishment can justify this scale of pure, one-sided destruction of lives, daily-lives, and futures. This is directed violence, clearly beyond practical necessity -- unless practicality is defined in terms of ethnic cleansing.
Any logic that jumps through the hoops of background material (history, religion, beliefs, politics, and so on) is mere mind tricks, designed to draw your eyes away from reality -- the horrific nature of the Israeli genocide.
(EDIT: grammar check)
Most people in Israel have not, and probably will not see this - any “support” for Palestinians is seen as a very far-left idea after Oct 7. There are still many here who oppose the extent of the war - I see regular demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for peace. I will note that there seems to be fairly universal agreement that _something_ needed to be done after Oct 7. If you want to understand the Israeli perspective (doesn’t seem like most commenters do, but I’m not writing this for them), you have to look at how Oct 7 shaped Israeli society these last 3 years.
But anyways, don’t take my word for anything, pay attention to our upcoming elections. We will see how big the tents are then.
Wishing for peace, for saner voices to rise, and for an end to this cycle of violence.
“Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas,” said Netanyahu at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to divide the Palestinians between those in Gaza and those in Judea and Samaria.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/the-netanyahu-...
What should one do in war if they only have improvised rockets available, and surrendering will guarantee your extermination? You'd throw them in the general direction of the enemy, right? And the enemy knows this and will not put civilians in range of the rockets - unless they plan to use them as human shields. It is the same reason the German trenches were not full of clockmakers.
But that is what settlers movement and Israel army were doing for decades?
"How long can Israel counter 30 rockets a day? What's the cost?"
"How is not each of them (7,000 in total) a war crime by Palestinians?"
"Sure it's not Palestinians it's Hamas, but the last time there was an election, they've elected Hamas, so what do you do?"
"Seriously, how is this not 7,000 counts of war crimes? Why is Israel not reacting? Why is Israel militiae into Gaza to catch the authors?"
Turns out the limit is 7,001 attacks.
“Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas,” said Netanyahu at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to divide the Palestinians between those in Gaza and those in Judea and Samaria.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/the-netanyahu-...
Counterpoint, a more passive turn of phrase is more fitting: How Israeli society was shaped around oct 7.
The event doesn't shape society by itself, political and media response/interest shape the society.
One thing you will find across the board is that nobody is willing to compromise on security. Most voters today remember the second intifada. There is no serious political position where Israel fully withdraws from the wb. But there’s a big difference between “massively expanse settlements” and “phase out settlements and make room for the possibility of a future Palestinian state”.
The words “Palestinian state” are usually political suicide here in Israel, but the fact that Palestine is recognized to various extent by many countries in the world means that eventually these two realities are going to have to clash.
comment said: "rejecting two state solution". poll numbers I see is around half rejects it, not 80%.
comment said: "killing or expelling all people in former palestine". there is no poll numbers for that specifically and the closest numbers for expelling people I see online is less than half, not 80%.
now you say "Palestinian eradication". OK, show the polls about 80-90% of israel supporting "Palestinian eradication".
"Palestinian right of return" was a perfectly normal political position, but you don't hear much about it these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return
Isn't the humane solution to move the troops back out, instead? Of course the aggressors in a war will never do so, they will only press forward.
also they did it in entire Gaza, unilateral disengagement
I did a study abroad in Israel in 2005 (not jewish, just for middle eastern studies) when Israel pulled out of Gaza and did essentially that. They forcibly removed settlers and left Gaza. As I recall most Israeli's thought it'd be good step toward peace.
Unfortunately Hamas took over Gaza shortly after and shot some 12k+ rockets into southern Israel over the next 20 years, and then launched Oct 7.
Unfortunately now there seems to be far less interest in Israel now in restricting settlers in the West Bank. I also feel for the Palestinians, particularly the Arab Christian communities, however extremists on both sides don't want peace.
Sure, if you ignore the part where they kept bombing Gaza, assassinated political leaders, did ground incursions, and blocked it by land, sea, and air.
If Israel wanted a peaceful two-state solution, why did they keep occupying Gaza by turning it into an open-air prison?
The answer is in the post you replied to.
>> Unfortunately Hamas took over Gaza shortly after and shot some 12k+ rockets into southern Israel
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/egypt-court-seeks-deat... https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/the-egyptian-armys-c...
It's more complicated of course:
https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2024/02/27/why-e...
“Anyone who wants to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas,” said Netanyahu at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to divide the Palestinians between those in Gaza and those in Judea and Samaria.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/the-netanyahu-...
I'm a Zionist only in the sense that I believe both the Jews and Arabs (Palestinians) have/had a right to states in their respective majority areas because of secular reasons after studying the history of both sides; not on religious or theological grounds.
It's partly what led me to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy which doesn't believe in "Christian Zionism" as a form of end-of-days prophecy. The level of crazy I saw in Evangelical churches and groups during my time there could become absurd.
They also happen to be caught between a rock and a hard place where both the Israelis and the Muslim Palestinians both oppress them. Quoting from [1]:
1: https://christianpersecutionreview.org.uk/storage/2019/09/Is... 2: https://anglicanjournal.com/arab-christians-among-middle-eas... 3: https://www.newarab.com/news/palestinian-christians-defiant-... 4: https://jcfa.org/article/palestinian-crimes-against-christia...But we weren't trying to wage war against the entire civilian populations as revenge. That's an entirely different category of crime.
And the destruction of Fallujah from Phantom Fury ended up only marginally better than what happened to Rafah (destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in Fallujah and damaged another quarter).
When it came out that Israel was systematically sodomizing detainees with nightsticks, they had protestors come out in favor of the guards. It's still ongoing, all charges have been dropped. Nobody is scandalized by it.
Even ignoring the fact that protests do not imply popular support, there is no comparison as 9/11 did not include widespread sexual violence and ongoing hostage rape was still going on at the time this happened.
So even if this seemed terrible to most Israelis, it was hard to find someone who will publicly defend a rapist from rape in jail
And that's from a human rights body, and from its representative to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-development-index?t...
For Iraq, you can see a small dip for the 2003 invasion, which quickly recovers and in subsequent years grows above its pre-invasion value. Far from being "destroyed", Iraq is now doing better than ever.
For Palestine, the dip is about 3x larger.
Israel is committing a genocide and we are their partners in crime.
The fact that the dip is so small for both is more a reflection of the dataset. I mean, Gaza is all but completely destroyed, how can the HDI be that high?
"Iraqis celebrate their comeback with soccer tournament after decades of isolation"
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/football/iraq-gulf-cup-comeba...
That was 2023: Iraq hosted the 25th Arabian Gulf Cup, and won the tournament.
I think if you're going to claim that something bad happened to Iraq post-2023, attributing that to the 2003 US invasion is a little dubious. Iraq was also in bad shape before the US invaded! It's a mistake to assume that if any foreign power has had any level of involvement, every bad thing that subsequently happens is therefore the fault of the foreign power.
https://i.imgflip.com/a6ptj6.jpg
>The fact that the dip is so small for both is more a reflection of the dataset. I mean, Gaza is all but completely destroyed, how can the HDI be that high?
Another possibility is that viral news stories are not always a good way to get a representative picture of how life has changed for civilians on the ground.
>Israel is committing a genocide and we are their partners in crime.
If Israel had genocidal intent -- in the sense of attempting extermination of Palestine's civilian population -- what fraction of Palestine's civilian population would you expect to be dead by now?
Once you've got that fraction in your head, try prompting your favorite LLM with something like the following:
"Please estimate the fraction of Iraq's population which died due to the 2003 US invasion, and the fraction of Gaza's population which died due to the 2023 Israeli invasion. Please provide an estimated breakdown of deaths based on whether they were due to invader military activity, destruction of civilian infrastructure, internal conflict, or other causes."
(you won't be able to paste the reply here due to HN rules against AI-generated content)
Another interesting prompt template: "Give me a sense of how civilian deaths happened in [Iraq/Gaza] due to [US/Israeli] military activity. Tell me a few representative vignettes which show various typical ways in which this occurred."
Interesting how you think Iraqs invasion of Iran was justified but not Kuwait. Or did you forget who started the Iran/Iraq war and deleted your comment out of embarrassment?
But I notice that you don't seem upset with the idea that Iran would retaliate against Iraq when Iraq invades Iran (including direct attacks on civilian targets, not just dual-use infrastructure!), yet you do see upset that the US would retaliate against Iraq when Iraq invades Kuwait. That seems like the sort of double standard I was talking about.
I deleted my comment because I thought it would be fairly tedious to litigate this. I agree the US has done some dubious things, but I don't think they are a distinctively bad actor relative to other players in the region. I'm also not sure you are telling the truth, e.g. I haven't been able to find a source for your claim that the US targeted hospitals during the Gulf War.
I can also say that the current Iran regime should not be in power or even exist. But I also know why they are in power and it is yet again because of US direct meddling in the region as them helping with the coup in 53 and installing a western aligned leader lead directly to the religious fanatics taking power as that regime had suppressed all other viable options with the support of the US to keep power.
The US is a lot more than a distinctively bad actor, even compared to their enemies, who are only their enemies because of US meddling in the region. I hope you can straighten out your moral compass at some point.
More distortions on your part. (I notice you said nothing about the hospital point.) The US supported Iraq when Iran's counterattack was going too well, to prevent Iraq from being conquered by Iran, a regime you yourself say "should not be in power".
>Saddam was a dictator supported by the US when it was convenient for them, like they've done many times before.
I don't think this is intrinsically bad. The US also supported Stalin during WW2. Our rapprochement with China helped lift millions out of poverty. Were those mistakes?
>But I also know why they are in power and it is yet again because of US direct meddling in the region as them helping with the coup in 53 and installing a western aligned leader lead directly to the religious fanatics taking power as that regime had suppressed all other viable options with the support of the US to keep power.
This is some serious mental gymnastics to blame the US for a rebellion motivated in part by anti-Americanism. By your own logic, maybe the US is actually in the wrong for not giving the Shah even more support in order to crush the rebels.
If anti-Americanism caused a rebellion that you acknowledge as destructive, why do you lend support to anti-Americanism as an ideology?
You've created a catch-22 where the US can be the bad guy even if it supports a leader that's better than the plausible alternative for the country in question. What if the USSR had turned Iran into another satellite like in Eastern Europe? Ask the Poles how they feel about life under the Soviets.
I think these questions are simply not as obvious as you're making them out to be.
>The US is a lot more than a distinctively bad actor
We haven't initiated a war of conquest since the late 1800s. Even being a superpower after WW2, our territory actually shrunk when we gave the Philippines their independence "for free".
How many historic great powers can you name which were so restrained when it comes to territorial conquest? Considering the great powers during WW2: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, British Empire, French Empire, Italian Empire, USSR, PRC, USA. Who among those is the angel that you would've liked to see crowned global leader?
The world has generally become a much better place while the US has been hegemonic:
https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/The...
Admittedly, this was before social media but back then you didn't get 50% support for gassing anybody.
The other main difference is that 9/11 ended within a few days, the hostage part of 7/10 made it an ongoing disaster for years in Israel.
Everyone knows that Israel essentially went on a rampage of revenge, which you basically seem to agree with given your explanation for the destruction (i.e. not military necessity while protecting civilian lives).
Palestine is sacred land that was colonized by Britain and handed over to create Israel. Israel proceeded to displace and murder large numbers of people to give birth to it's creation. It is a colonial project. Westerners do not understand the meaning of this. Mecca and Jerusalem are significant to a very large number of people. Whether or not they are irrational for believing this is besides the point -- it is a material reality.
These are just facts. I'm not the type of person that debates whether or not something is morally justifiable or not.
In return, Native Americans accidentally gave the Europeans Syphilis. Fair trade? Probably not, although the all-time death totals aren’t as incomparable as you might think.
not comparable, how do you GIVE someone (that is probably raping you) syphilis?
First Nations
> Israel is a colonial project that annexes land and homes from people against international law and has done so since it's conception.
What do they call it in the US? Manifest Destiny?
Yes, the 4% of the Palestinian population they've killed is definitely not a form of expression. Like somehow killing only matters if you talk about how fun it is first.
For the record that's greater than the % of Bosniaks killed in the Bosnia genocide.
Do you guys even bother being minimally informed before commenting? Like, Wikipedia is right there…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intent_and_incitement_in_the_G...
Put simply, if you use any legally accepted definition of genocide (as a matter of the historical record) then what is happening in gaza doesn’t even come close. And of course the legally accepted definition is ultimately all that matters. That’s very different from whether laymen think it’s genocide because what’s happening hurts their feelings.
Since you like wikipedia here's a list of organizations that say its a genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humanitarian_and_human...
The legal definition, which is not just "kill all the peoples" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention
Also current legal proceedings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide#Legal_proceeding...
Is wikipedia is Hamas now?
I missed that part when I looked, and for that I apologise.
Keep moving the goalpost I guess
Or is there some other perspective, other than what Israelis can be observed as doing? I assume what I've seen is what Israel is like.
It is outside their zone of interest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67082047
This article is from a few days after that, but I remember that there were confirmations already during the day.
“The world's leading association of genocide scholars has declared that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
In Japan, Korea, China, Hungary, etc they are indeed decreasing.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that a society where the marriage rates are so low is stable though. For some definition of stability yes, but usually we also mean healthy when we say stable.
If it was a genocide you would expect basically 90% of the population of Gaza to be dead. Israel controls the water supply and the food into Gaza, they could just poison the food and water, dropping bombs isn’t even necessary.
I don’t know how to make it more simple than that.
Where do population statistics on Gaza come from?
What's the minimum number of deaths that make a genocide?
Why would Israel want to completely exterminate its pet guinea pig surveillance beta testers?
Do some people enjoy inflicting terror?
Can you inflict terror on dead people?
That makes this definition useless, just to be clear.
If the “in part” refers to the physical destruction of the people itself rather than the potential nexus between the act and the physical destruction of the people, then clearly this doesn’t meet the definition because Israel didn’t destroy the buildings in order to bring about the physical destruction of the Gazans. The buildings were not destroyed in some round about way to kill the Gazans.
The Nazis first asked the Jewish people to leave and worked with Zionists to provide incentives for them to leave. 60k left under that law to British Palestine. It wasn't until much later in the war did they start doing mass genocide. It's not like they started with mechanized murder. It starts as ethnic cleansing and ends in genocide.
So don't be proud of "only 50k" and destroying everyones home. Israel is still at committing genocide and things can get much worse. It's not like it's over. 50k is the beginning unless Israel is stopped.
It's frankly disgusting to argue over definitions and words when people are still dieing daily.
This "lawyer" mentality is so dumb.
Reparations - Israel would love nothing more than that. Pay Palestinians to leave? That’s the easiest way about it! Bibi would be delighted. Unfortunately it’s a non starter. The fight was always about the land, and Palestinians have been losing since 1948. There is a complex history of “whose fault was it” - neither side has clean hands.
I don’t agree with the conflation of Zionism to ethnic cleansing. I think there were paths to peace that could have worked early on. Call it bad luck. I think Palestinian leadership failed its people by failing to secure them a diplomatic end to the conflict. Fighting a lost war for decades seems a bad plan. I also do blame Israeli leadership, for not always offering the olive branch without condition.
Edit: i will also address your initial question directly: “Is there any acknowledgement in Israel that Nakba and the very formation of the country is to blame?” - a very, very small fringe of the far left phrases it like this. I’m not trying to be dismissive, just pointing out that it’s a really tiny minority. I, as a self-described center left, disagree with the premise.
As is true in every war.
The question is who started it.
In the rare cases where adults have prevailed, the question has been “what will it take to end it”.
But if you’re attempted to draw a parallel between Hitler’s use of an ethnic minority as a nationalist punching bag and the situation in the Middle East, that I totally reject.
This is perhaps one of the most obviously immutable conflicts that at the same time, everyone thinks there is some simple solution to. Usually thinly veiled, "it will be over when my side wins".
But I agree that those with the power and the weapons do seem to only believe in simple, violent solutions.
There might be complex solutions to be had, but it will take different leaders, and that seems unlikely in the short term.
Zionists. Their ideology, created in Europe in the late 1800s, has the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians at its very core.
Calling it "bad luck" is extremely charitable. To international observers the problems with Zionism were already obvious as early as 1919:
For “a national home for the Jewish people” is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” [0]
[0] https://britainpalestineproject.org/recommendations-of-the-k...
Hang on though, isn't it Palestine who keeps accepting peace deals and then Israel keeps rejecting them and dropping a few more missiles? Do they not teach you that part? E.g. on October 7 Hamas released 3 Israeli hostages. Israel shot them dead, so Hamas didn't release any more.
The problem is that the historical timeline doesn't match up. Zionism started way earlier, and tried to found a "Jewish homeland" in 1820 in New York, and in 1903 in Uganda, and there are literally dozens of other examples throughout history. Even if we look solely at modern-day Israel, it dates back all the way to the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The first settler violence started decades before the Holocaust ever begun.
> I don’t agree with the conflation of Zionism to ethnic cleansing.
How do you propose Zionists could've established an ethnically Jewish country on land already occupied by Palestinians without ethnic cleansing? Why didn't the Zionists migrate to Palestine by integrating in the already-present culture and society, rather than by displacing it?
Jews have been doing that for hundreds of years. By 1922 when the British did a census of Palestine, Jerusalem was majority Jewish.
Only after the Arab revolt the British started severely restricting Jewish immigration, including shutting the doors for Jews trying to escape the Holocaust.
There was enough room in Palestine for everyone. It had a lot of empty space. It still has a lot of empty space. You can go on Google satellite and look around how much empty space there is in both Israel and the West Bank (more than half empty).
Most of Israel’s major population centers were built on empty land that Jews paid for and bought legally - and many of its biggest cities were founded in the 19th century, long before the Balfour declaration.
It was never about space. It was about Arab hatred of the Idea of a Jewish presence and country in Israel, even alongside an Arab one.
That’s not what reparations are, that’s ethnic cleansing.
Their leadership failing the people feels like a heavy burden to place on the average person, especially in a society where there is no meaningful democracy, but even then.
There appears to be no end to what’s happening three years on. October 7th was a horror of horrors, but to visit that on an entire people day after day for years upon years as revenge, when almost none of the people suffering participated or planned it? What’s the point?
I have always supported Israel, but these last few years have gone into a zone of inhumanity towards their fellow man that is shocking to the soul of any person with human compassion.
There appears to be no condition to end the suffering other than their death. That’s genocide. Evicting them from their homes by relocation, appropriation, settlement, destruction, is the definition of ethnic cleansing. These are disturbing things that we all agreed should never happen again after WWII. It disturbs me that Israel gets a free pass because of what happened to the Jews - the horror of the past doesn’t entitle anyone to visiting their own horrors.
Am I wrong? I’ve struggled with how to discuss this with my Israeli friends.
EDIT: how is anyone downvoting thos. Who thinks it's a good idea?
The existence of Israel as an ethnostate is more down to the ethnic preferences of others in Russia¹, Germany, multiple middle eastern countries², and elsewhere³, than the ethnic preferences of jews.
Most of the jews I have known in my life are liberals who see Israel as a refuge against illiberals, not supremacist weirdos that get attention on the internet.
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom
² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_...
³ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis
They do not share Western social values.
It's clearly bad to specifically re-engineer the ethnic composition of an existing state to create one, particularly violently, but I don't know that it necessarily follows that a naturally occurring ethno-state is conceptually abhorrent as you seem to be suggesting. Japan is very much such a state - is Japan bad for existing?
You have it backwards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport
The history section has an example of a passport in the Old Testament and a lot of other examples where people needed travel documents and were limited in their travels way before the First World War.
Yes, there are some Arab Israelis but the vast majority of Arabs under Israeli governance would never be suffered to assimilate, specifically because it would change the ethnic character of the state.
That is clear from the considerable number of Mizrahi Israelis and Ethiopian Israelis.
Israel is an ethnostate apartheid system on that conflated definition. After all, religion is almost as hereditary as race.
I guess I don't see the distinction as all that important? Aside from the fact that it would be an all-time troll if 2 million people in Gaza declared that they're Jewish now and applied for aliyah.
What's the point of a democracy if it acts against it's people like the UK does?
At least in the case of the US, I would point out that the current sitting president was elected with less than 50% support from the people who bothered to show up and vote. I would say the system is not really working well.
The only reasonable conclusion from the Gaza experiment of giving control to the Palestinians is that they will only use that to attack Israel. The mistake of the disengagement will not be repeated.
Nobody in Israel is willing to give Palestinians control anymore. We've tried that and we see how it went completely wrong. Thank god it was just Gaza because if 7th october attacks came from the west bank, Israel would be gone.
The most peace that can be achieved is sadly in the current situation where Israel maintains control of the Palestinians and they don't get a chance to organize another 7th of October from the west bank, which is just few kilometers from Tel Aviv.
The Palestinians authority can't even win elections and they have stopped doing elections. If they were to resume elections, presumably Hamas would also take control of the west bank too. The majority of Palestinians would support 7th of October attacks on the rest of Israel. Which is an existential threat to Israel.
It's worth noting that the whole notion of having Palestinian "democratic" regime alongside Israel is as far from arabic culture as possible. There are no arabic democracies. Even after the arabic spring, none of the arabic countries developed a functioning democracy. So the current situation of the Palestinians not having a "fully democratic" regime is actually the norm in all arabic countries. The most democracy that Palestinians could hope for is the current situation under Israeli control. If the entirety of Israel vanished tommorow, and the Palestinians were given democratic elections, they would immediately devolve into an Islamic state with Sharia law where the average Palestinian has less freedom than today.
So anyone judging Israel for the continued control over the Palestinians needs to remember both what would happen to Israel without this control (genocide) and what would have happened to the Palestinians themselves (Sharia theocracy with less rights).
There might be some Tel-Aviv detached people who support the Palestinians, but I guaranty you there are no Palestinian supporters in the Gaza adjacent zones which were hit in the 7th of October.
Except for Palestinians of course, who suffer a terror attack every day, and are expected to remain peaceful afterwards, or they will be punished with another terror attack.