Israel/Gaza - Here we go again...

Joat42 wrote:Your (and others) logical error here is assuming that I'm saying that you can't attack a military target if there is even the slightest possibility of collateral damage in the form of dead civilian, which I'm not. The unfortunate reality of war is there will always be collateral damage, but it is never okay.

This is a distinction without a practical difference.

Joat42 wrote:So how many dead civilians is a Hamas-fighter or target worth? That's what I'm asking, I just used the number of dead as a reminder that there are thousands upon thousands of dead civilians.

And this is a big part of why we didn't go into Gaza (with a limited exception in 2014) in the last decade and a half. Which in retrospect was a big mistake, because the butcher's bill would have been a lot smaller if we'd gone in after their 2007 coup.

And in regards to the amount of dead in Gaza, let me quote Barbara Leaf who is assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs at the White House:

Barbara Leaf wrote:We think they're very high, frankly, and it could be that they're even higher than are being cited.

And by cited, she means the numbers the health ministry in Gaza publishes.

So again, is she saying that Hamas has suffered 0 losses?

Eyal wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Your (and others) logical error here is assuming that I'm saying that you can't attack a military target if there is even the slightest possibility of collateral damage in the form of dead civilian, which I'm not. The unfortunate reality of war is there will always be collateral damage, but it is never okay.

This is a distinction without a practical difference.

Ie, you think it's okay to kill civilians.

Joat42 wrote:So how many dead civilians is a Hamas-fighter or target worth? That's what I'm asking, I just used the number of dead as a reminder that there are thousands upon thousands of dead civilians.

And this is a big part of why we didn't go into Gaza (with a limited exception in 2014) in the last decade and a half. Which in retrospect was a big mistake, because the butcher's bill would have been a lot smaller if we'd gone in after their 2007 coup.

And in regards to the amount of dead in Gaza, let me quote Barbara Leaf who is assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs at the White House:

Barbara Leaf wrote:We think they're very high, frankly, and it could be that they're even higher than are being cited.

And by cited, she means the numbers the health ministry in Gaza publishes.

So again, is she saying that Hamas has suffered 0 losses?[/quote]
So again, you are defending the killing of civilians as okay.

But do rationalize and come up with justifications, I'm sure that'll help you if you are ever personally affected - because a terrorist blowing up a bus or a train is entirely justified in their own eyes doing that.

First of all, sorry for being away from this topic.

Eyal wrote:If Hamas is a prison gang, it's one which has been controlling the prison. For a decade and a half, we tried to avoid going into Gaza. We went so far as to try to buy off Hamas to keep things fairly quiet. And make no mistake, for all that Netanyahu is being exorciated now for "supporting" Hamas, the entire Western world supported that. I still remember the horror leftists expressed when Lieberman - who called for overthrowing the Hamas government - was appointed defense minister in 2017, thinking he would carry through.

To me, the israeli strategy of trying to contain palestinians by occasionally throwing a bone towards Hamas looks a lot like keeping a hostile force alive because the idea of peace is too threatening to the status quo.

In retrospect, we should have gone in back in 2007. Before Hamas had time to build up its weapons, fortify Gaza, dig its tunnels everywhere and develop its rockets so that now the entirety of Israel is in range. But we didn't. We were afraid of the casualties, both ours and the Palestinians. And now we have over 1200 dead and 240 hostages who no-one knows if they are even alive.

This looks to me very much like a self-inflicted wound. Israeli politics regarding palestinians have resulted in creating the world's largest open-air prison, a prison that has been consistently shrinking, with absurd restrictions on the people inside. Sooner or later, it was going to explode. Now it did, and the vaunted "most precise military in the world" is killing innocents left and right because urban combat is hell.

So once again, fuck that. Hamas has proven that we can't live with it as Gaza's ruler. And despite all the fantasies I've seen over social media, there's no clean way to root them out.

Correct, there isn't. There's literal decades of bad blood, this can't be resolved by police action. Hamas isn't a suitable government for gaza or palestinians, but neither is Israel.

but the aggressor in this conflict? It's not Hamas.

You know, I have a lot of respect for you. This is making me reconsider.

[/quote]

I am sorry to hear that. The thing is, I try to be consistent in my opinions and writings. If I see something that looks very much like a government engaging in ethnic cleansing, then I know which side I am going to be on - especially when around me, very moderate and reasonable calls for cease-fires, calls for empathy and to minimize suffering are equated with open support for terrorism by the establishment.

No country should be allowed to commit atrocities within or without its borders. Not Russia, not Israel, not the US, not Germany, noone.

I have no grand idea for how to fix Israel and Palestine. There is nothing I can offer in that regard. All I can see is people being made to suffer because the political powers have maneuvered themselves into a situation where said suffering became unavoidable, and now doubling and tripling down on the decisions that created this mess.

Eyal wrote:And this is a big part of why we didn't go into Gaza (with a limited exception in 2014) in the last decade and a half. Which in retrospect was a big mistake, because the butcher's bill would have been a lot smaller if we'd gone in after their 2007 coup.

Are you realizing that you are treating "we need to send troops into Gaza to defeat Hamas" as an inevitability? That there is seemingly no other choice?

That's what establishment framing looks like. The impression that the only ways to deal with this situation involve the application of force by the side in power. Either contain palestinians in Gaza, or commit to an urban warfare campaign.

A NYT report that claims Israeli intel had seen the plans for Hamas' attack a year ago but dismissed them as "aspirational".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68014882

Pakistan launches retaliatory strikes into Iran…[quote][/quote]

It’s getting so that a program will soon be needed to tell who’s playing!
Who’s allied with whom? Who’s fighting whom?

A significant part of the problem is that the current situation suits the leaders on both sides.
Hamas gets what it wants, with international condemnation of Israel, and cementing their place as the Palestinians leader.
Israel's hard right government, also cements their place as the defenders of the state.
Meanwhile many innocent people are dying.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/hamas-arme ... -1.6765566

Hamas armed wing says three Israeli hostages killed in Israeli airstrikes

Two Israeli hostages rescued!
Purely coincidentally at the same time this is announced, Hamas announces that three of the Israeli hostages in their keeping, has died of wounds received in an Israeli air attack!
Easily verified if Hamas would turn over the remains!