Gaza War, Part 3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine I’m ok with different definitions of bad guys.

To your experiment, it would depend on who the 20 Hamas Fighters are. Sinwar and 19 friends? Yeah. The death of the 40 civilians credibly saves the lives of thousands. He’s credibly believed to have directed October 7. That’s tragic but proportionate. Similarly— 20 people who participated in Oct 7? Probably proportionate.

20 nobody rock throwers that can’t even for sure be linked to Hamas? 20 men of “fighting age”? No, that’s neither legitimate nor appropriate.

Of course the Hamas Ministry of Health will claim that all 20 were civilians, and children most of them. A 17-18 year old can be an accomplished and motivated fighter, and we all know that Hamas has indoctrination down to a science.

Absolutely they can. They can also be a high school kid. An anime nerd. A soccer star. Every time you get it wrong you cement the international idea of brutality, and convince the population of Gaza that you’re coming for their high school students.

Because really don’t think anyone cares that they *wanted* to get the accomplished and motivated fighter when the anime nerd never sees his eighteenth birthday.

I think you're trying to live in a world where the anime nerd is never the terrorist. People in Memphis, TN used to live in that world too. My point: one of the true tragedies here is the stuff that twists people to commit these kinds of atrocities. You keep trying to make this black and white because it's the only way your mind can process it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see the New York Times has finally belatedly acknowledged that Hamas used horrific sexual violence against Israeli women on 10/7, though I assume that does not matter to the Hamas supporters here who denied the rapes occurred because there weren’t rape kits or whatever, just extremely graphic and extremely obvious videos.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html

I assume HRW and UN Women and all those supposed human rights organizations are still silent on the matter of Israeli women being sexually tortured by Hamas, but my standards for them are so low now that it’s not a surprise.

Israel had never sent UN Women the notification needed for them to open an investigation. Which makes the complaints just another bad faith accusation.

This is surely a comment motivated by the best, purest faith.

It is. The lack of response from UN Women, which has a whole program specifically focused on the horrors of sexual violence in war, was very disturbing. That is until it turned out that Israel never took the basic steps to trigger an investigation and their hands were tied. The propaganda war against the UN by Israel is bad for the world. That they have undertaken, at least part of, it in bad faith is a shame.

To be clear, I am talking about the Government of Israel and not the regular people that amplify these messages. While we wouldn't know about the bureaucratic procedures of obscure UN agencies the Israeli Mission to the UN would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Over a hundred people were killed on Sunday in a strike on a residential neighborhood in Gaza. Israel admits they made a mistake:


The extensive damage caused by Israel's airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza on Sunday night was a mistake, according to an IDF military official who spoke to KAN news on Thursday morning.

The official told KAN that, following an internal IAF investigation, it came out that the type of weaponry used did not match the nature of the mission. As a result, there was extensive collateral damage that did not need to occur and could have been avoided if the correct weaponry had been used.

Dozens of innocent civilians were killed in this strike, KAN said, adding a report that the IDF had expressed regret over the incident.


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/death-toll-from-israeli-airstrike-in-central-gaza-rises-to-106-palestinian-officials-say
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-779836

My grandfather was in the US Air Force in 1944. They were assigned to bomb a Japanese weapons depot in New Guinea. One of their own planes sent its payload at the wrong time and my grandfather's plane was caught in the explosion. Everyone onboard was killed instantly.

My mother was three months old. He never met her. His family fell apart after his death.

This story is nothing compared to what other families have faced then and now, but I mention it because it taught me one lesson early, and perhaps it's one some of you need to hear: war is messy and casual and cruel. A lot of victorious noble deaths are anything but. War isn't sane. Bullets and bombs don't only hit bad people.

This is true. It’s why states must be responsible in the use of force. It means you only aim those bullets and drop those bombs at the bad people. Because if you can’t or won’t make that distinction, you are in fact “the bad people”.

Unfortunately, we don't yet make bullets and bombs with their own moral compasses.

I don't think you understand because you're not willing to understand, that Hamas isn't going to just stop. Japan wasn't going to stop. Germany wasn't going to stop. In general, someone fighting on the losing side of a war has very little TO lose. That's why, again, your simplistic armchair assessments aren't useful. You're not on the ground. Every piece of news you get is filtered through bias from one side or the other. We won't know the true extent of the tragedies occurring here for years, maybe decades. And a lot of those tragedies will be like the ones that played out in my family--for the want of one person the whole thing falls apart. It's heartbreaking. You have to be fully hardened to one side or the other not to see that.

People are doing what they can in a very messed up situation. On the ground, it's just about survival. In government chambers, it's some kind of brutal calculus: their lives or us.

I think war is a lot easier when you see it in terms like good versus evil, but unfortunately this war is more like, because of a few very manichean people on both sides, a lot of innocents suffer. Will those people ever have an accounting? Well, one hopes.

Oh I 100% understand Hamas will not voluntarily stop.

I also understand that most of Hamas is located in these storied tunnels. Not apartment buildings. Not hospitals. So when we drop the bombs and aim the bullets at hospitals and apartment building knowing that *most* of the people harmed, as on Christmas Eve, will
Not be Hamas, we are showing ourselves as the bad guys.

Is there some method I'm not aware of where you can implode tunnels and not having the buildings above them be affected?

Yes— first, unlike Christmas Eve, you target the correct buildings.

And not relying on aerial bombardment which doesn’t seem to be destroying these tunnels (see above on Hamas leadership still doing fine…) seems appropriate at this stage.

I don't think you understand how buildings work. You can collapse from both above and below. I also don't think you, or I, have enough information about what happened to make an assessment of its effectiveness. You have a collection of opinions and some chaotic first-hand accounts. And you have an opinion you decided already: Israel is in the wrong.

I think Israel’s conduct is wrong. I think they are not in the wrong for retaliating for October 7. I think they had a huge amount of international support which they have since lost by indiscriminately killing civilians. After October 7th I supported Israel’s right to respond and hoped they would do so in a surgical and devastating way. I was disappointed.

If Israel was conducting themselves as they did after 1972, they would have my support and, I imagine, the support of the international community, even though there were civilian casualties in that instance as well.

Oh, no! Not their conduct!

Nothing you say is wrong, and yet everything you say is wrong. I don't think you have the toolset to understand it. Really, this all boils down to a very simple set of questions: what do you expect Israel to do? Turn the other cheek? And how do you expect that would go? In your fantasy world, perhaps it would go well, but this is a world with magic bullets and bombs that only kill bad people. How many terrorists acts are okay with you? Have you ever lived in a country with car bombs and rapists who drape women across their trucks like trophiess? Does that sound good to you? No? Well, then.

Those aren’t the only options.

As I said— I hoped Israel would respond they did to Munich. That certainly wasn’t turning the other cheek.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Over a hundred people were killed on Sunday in a strike on a residential neighborhood in Gaza. Israel admits they made a mistake:


The extensive damage caused by Israel's airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza on Sunday night was a mistake, according to an IDF military official who spoke to KAN news on Thursday morning.

The official told KAN that, following an internal IAF investigation, it came out that the type of weaponry used did not match the nature of the mission. As a result, there was extensive collateral damage that did not need to occur and could have been avoided if the correct weaponry had been used.

Dozens of innocent civilians were killed in this strike, KAN said, adding a report that the IDF had expressed regret over the incident.


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/death-toll-from-israeli-airstrike-in-central-gaza-rises-to-106-palestinian-officials-say
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-779836

My grandfather was in the US Air Force in 1944. They were assigned to bomb a Japanese weapons depot in New Guinea. One of their own planes sent its payload at the wrong time and my grandfather's plane was caught in the explosion. Everyone onboard was killed instantly.

My mother was three months old. He never met her. His family fell apart after his death.

This story is nothing compared to what other families have faced then and now, but I mention it because it taught me one lesson early, and perhaps it's one some of you need to hear: war is messy and casual and cruel. A lot of victorious noble deaths are anything but. War isn't sane. Bullets and bombs don't only hit bad people.

This is true. It’s why states must be responsible in the use of force. It means you only aim those bullets and drop those bombs at the bad people. Because if you can’t or won’t make that distinction, you are in fact “the bad people”.

Unfortunately, we don't yet make bullets and bombs with their own moral compasses.

I don't think you understand because you're not willing to understand, that Hamas isn't going to just stop. Japan wasn't going to stop. Germany wasn't going to stop. In general, someone fighting on the losing side of a war has very little TO lose. That's why, again, your simplistic armchair assessments aren't useful. You're not on the ground. Every piece of news you get is filtered through bias from one side or the other. We won't know the true extent of the tragedies occurring here for years, maybe decades. And a lot of those tragedies will be like the ones that played out in my family--for the want of one person the whole thing falls apart. It's heartbreaking. You have to be fully hardened to one side or the other not to see that.

People are doing what they can in a very messed up situation. On the ground, it's just about survival. In government chambers, it's some kind of brutal calculus: their lives or us.

I think war is a lot easier when you see it in terms like good versus evil, but unfortunately this war is more like, because of a few very manichean people on both sides, a lot of innocents suffer. Will those people ever have an accounting? Well, one hopes.

Oh I 100% understand Hamas will not voluntarily stop.

I also understand that most of Hamas is located in these storied tunnels. Not apartment buildings. Not hospitals. So when we drop the bombs and aim the bullets at hospitals and apartment building knowing that *most* of the people harmed, as on Christmas Eve, will
Not be Hamas, we are showing ourselves as the bad guys.

Is there some method I'm not aware of where you can implode tunnels and not having the buildings above them be affected?

Yes— first, unlike Christmas Eve, you target the correct buildings.

And not relying on aerial bombardment which doesn’t seem to be destroying these tunnels (see above on Hamas leadership still doing fine…) seems appropriate at this stage.

I don't think you understand how buildings work. You can collapse from both above and below. I also don't think you, or I, have enough information about what happened to make an assessment of its effectiveness. You have a collection of opinions and some chaotic first-hand accounts. And you have an opinion you decided already: Israel is in the wrong.

I think Israel’s conduct is wrong. I think they are not in the wrong for retaliating for October 7. I think they had a huge amount of international support which they have since lost by indiscriminately killing civilians. After October 7th I supported Israel’s right to respond and hoped they would do so in a surgical and devastating way. I was disappointed.

If Israel was conducting themselves as they did after 1972, they would have my support and, I imagine, the support of the international community, even though there were civilian casualties in that instance as well.

Oh, no! Not their conduct!

Nothing you say is wrong, and yet everything you say is wrong. I don't think you have the toolset to understand it. Really, this all boils down to a very simple set of questions: what do you expect Israel to do? Turn the other cheek? And how do you expect that would go? In your fantasy world, perhaps it would go well, but this is a world with magic bullets and bombs that only kill bad people. How many terrorists acts are okay with you? Have you ever lived in a country with car bombs and rapists who drape women across their trucks like trophiess? Does that sound good to you? No? Well, then.

Those aren’t the only options.

As I said— I hoped Israel would respond they did to Munich. That certainly wasn’t turning the other cheek.

But that decision isn't up to you, it is up to the attacked party. Of course if the attacker knew the exact consequences of their actions they would make a value judgment to determine if attack is worth it, we lose this to get that, ok with me they will say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine I’m ok with different definitions of bad guys.

To your experiment, it would depend on who the 20 Hamas Fighters are. Sinwar and 19 friends? Yeah. The death of the 40 civilians credibly saves the lives of thousands. He’s credibly believed to have directed October 7. That’s tragic but proportionate. Similarly— 20 people who participated in Oct 7? Probably proportionate.

20 nobody rock throwers that can’t even for sure be linked to Hamas? 20 men of “fighting age”? No, that’s neither legitimate nor appropriate.

Of course the Hamas Ministry of Health will claim that all 20 were civilians, and children most of them. A 17-18 year old can be an accomplished and motivated fighter, and we all know that Hamas has indoctrination down to a science.

Absolutely they can. They can also be a high school kid. An anime nerd. A soccer star. Every time you get it wrong you cement the international idea of brutality, and convince the population of Gaza that you’re coming for their high school students.

Because really don’t think anyone cares that they *wanted* to get the accomplished and motivated fighter when the anime nerd never sees his eighteenth birthday.

I think you're trying to live in a world where the anime nerd is never the terrorist. People in Memphis, TN used to live in that world too. My point: one of the true tragedies here is the stuff that twists people to commit these kinds of atrocities. You keep trying to make this black and white because it's the only way your mind can process it.

Actually it’s basic math. The newspaper reporting is that there are approximately 30,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza. There are 1,000,000 Gazans under 18.

The anime nerd is statistically an anime nerd.

[Anonymous]

40,000 Hamas. You’re off by 25%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Horrific rapes =/= ok to murder 22,000 people many via war crimes

I presume you have another way to remove Hamas from power and ensure the security of the Jewish people. A real, practical plan, no doubt! Let's hear it.

Let's also hear what you are doing in your activism that makes demands of Hamas and its many backers like Iran and Russia. Because surely you are not coming here merely to demand the Jews turn the other cheek.

DP. Creating more terrorists like Israel is doing isn't going to ensure the security of Jewish people. It does the opposite.

well nothing else has really worked either. palestinians chose a terrorist organization for their government - and that terrorist organization chose to steal all the money that should have gone to improving people's lives, then waged a war on israel that they knew would lead to exactly what it's led to.

it's terrible - and do you think not responding to 10/7 would have, like, made all these people love israel? we have thousands of pages of posts from people on dcum saying that israel got what it deserved - do you think people in gaza think otherwise? you think but for the war their government incited, they'd have thought that israel was pretty cool and best course of action was to, like, try to live peacefully side by side?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine I’m ok with different definitions of bad guys.

To your experiment, it would depend on who the 20 Hamas Fighters are. Sinwar and 19 friends? Yeah. The death of the 40 civilians credibly saves the lives of thousands. He’s credibly believed to have directed October 7. That’s tragic but proportionate. Similarly— 20 people who participated in Oct 7? Probably proportionate.

20 nobody rock throwers that can’t even for sure be linked to Hamas? 20 men of “fighting age”? No, that’s neither legitimate nor appropriate.

Of course the Hamas Ministry of Health will claim that all 20 were civilians, and children most of them. A 17-18 year old can be an accomplished and motivated fighter, and we all know that Hamas has indoctrination down to a science.

Absolutely they can. They can also be a high school kid. An anime nerd. A soccer star. Every time you get it wrong you cement the international idea of brutality, and convince the population of Gaza that you’re coming for their high school students.

Because really don’t think anyone cares that they *wanted* to get the accomplished and motivated fighter when the anime nerd never sees his eighteenth birthday.

people had anime in that open air prison? how? i thought israel kept everyone in gaza in shackles such that they had to go slaughter and rape their way into freedom.

i'm not trying to diminish the tragedy of what is happening in gaza. it's brutal. i don't know if it will even accomplish what israel wants it to accomplish. but i sure find it crazy hearing you talk about the dreams of this poor palestinian anime nerd when not two posts ago someone's telling us how life was essentially intolerable in gaza because of israel's cruelty and that's why hamas had to do all that slaughtering and raping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Over a hundred people were killed on Sunday in a strike on a residential neighborhood in Gaza. Israel admits they made a mistake:


The extensive damage caused by Israel's airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza on Sunday night was a mistake, according to an IDF military official who spoke to KAN news on Thursday morning.

The official told KAN that, following an internal IAF investigation, it came out that the type of weaponry used did not match the nature of the mission. As a result, there was extensive collateral damage that did not need to occur and could have been avoided if the correct weaponry had been used.

Dozens of innocent civilians were killed in this strike, KAN said, adding a report that the IDF had expressed regret over the incident.


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/death-toll-from-israeli-airstrike-in-central-gaza-rises-to-106-palestinian-officials-say
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-779836

My grandfather was in the US Air Force in 1944. They were assigned to bomb a Japanese weapons depot in New Guinea. One of their own planes sent its payload at the wrong time and my grandfather's plane was caught in the explosion. Everyone onboard was killed instantly.

My mother was three months old. He never met her. His family fell apart after his death.

This story is nothing compared to what other families have faced then and now, but I mention it because it taught me one lesson early, and perhaps it's one some of you need to hear: war is messy and casual and cruel. A lot of victorious noble deaths are anything but. War isn't sane. Bullets and bombs don't only hit bad people.

This is true. It’s why states must be responsible in the use of force. It means you only aim those bullets and drop those bombs at the bad people. Because if you can’t or won’t make that distinction, you are in fact “the bad people”.

Unfortunately, we don't yet make bullets and bombs with their own moral compasses.

I don't think you understand because you're not willing to understand, that Hamas isn't going to just stop. Japan wasn't going to stop. Germany wasn't going to stop. In general, someone fighting on the losing side of a war has very little TO lose. That's why, again, your simplistic armchair assessments aren't useful. You're not on the ground. Every piece of news you get is filtered through bias from one side or the other. We won't know the true extent of the tragedies occurring here for years, maybe decades. And a lot of those tragedies will be like the ones that played out in my family--for the want of one person the whole thing falls apart. It's heartbreaking. You have to be fully hardened to one side or the other not to see that.

People are doing what they can in a very messed up situation. On the ground, it's just about survival. In government chambers, it's some kind of brutal calculus: their lives or us.

I think war is a lot easier when you see it in terms like good versus evil, but unfortunately this war is more like, because of a few very manichean people on both sides, a lot of innocents suffer. Will those people ever have an accounting? Well, one hopes.

Oh I 100% understand Hamas will not voluntarily stop.

I also understand that most of Hamas is located in these storied tunnels. Not apartment buildings. Not hospitals. So when we drop the bombs and aim the bullets at hospitals and apartment building knowing that *most* of the people harmed, as on Christmas Eve, will
Not be Hamas, we are showing ourselves as the bad guys.

Is there some method I'm not aware of where you can implode tunnels and not having the buildings above them be affected?

Yes— first, unlike Christmas Eve, you target the correct buildings.

And not relying on aerial bombardment which doesn’t seem to be destroying these tunnels (see above on Hamas leadership still doing fine…) seems appropriate at this stage.

I don't think you understand how buildings work. You can collapse from both above and below. I also don't think you, or I, have enough information about what happened to make an assessment of its effectiveness. You have a collection of opinions and some chaotic first-hand accounts. And you have an opinion you decided already: Israel is in the wrong.

I think Israel’s conduct is wrong. I think they are not in the wrong for retaliating for October 7. I think they had a huge amount of international support which they have since lost by indiscriminately killing civilians. After October 7th I supported Israel’s right to respond and hoped they would do so in a surgical and devastating way. I was disappointed.

If Israel was conducting themselves as they did after 1972, they would have my support and, I imagine, the support of the international community, even though there were civilian casualties in that instance as well.

Oh, no! Not their conduct!

Nothing you say is wrong, and yet everything you say is wrong. I don't think you have the toolset to understand it. Really, this all boils down to a very simple set of questions: what do you expect Israel to do? Turn the other cheek? And how do you expect that would go? In your fantasy world, perhaps it would go well, but this is a world with magic bullets and bombs that only kill bad people. How many terrorists acts are okay with you? Have you ever lived in a country with car bombs and rapists who drape women across their trucks like trophiess? Does that sound good to you? No? Well, then.

+1 they think it's a video game or a movie or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine I’m ok with different definitions of bad guys.

To your experiment, it would depend on who the 20 Hamas Fighters are. Sinwar and 19 friends? Yeah. The death of the 40 civilians credibly saves the lives of thousands. He’s credibly believed to have directed October 7. That’s tragic but proportionate. Similarly— 20 people who participated in Oct 7? Probably proportionate.

20 nobody rock throwers that can’t even for sure be linked to Hamas? 20 men of “fighting age”? No, that’s neither legitimate nor appropriate.

Of course the Hamas Ministry of Health will claim that all 20 were civilians, and children most of them. A 17-18 year old can be an accomplished and motivated fighter, and we all know that Hamas has indoctrination down to a science.

Absolutely they can. They can also be a high school kid. An anime nerd. A soccer star. Every time you get it wrong you cement the international idea of brutality, and convince the population of Gaza that you’re coming for their high school students.

Because really don’t think anyone cares that they *wanted* to get the accomplished and motivated fighter when the anime nerd never sees his eighteenth birthday.

people had anime in that open air prison? how? i thought israel kept everyone in gaza in shackles such that they had to go slaughter and rape their way into freedom.

i'm not trying to diminish the tragedy of what is happening in gaza. it's brutal. i don't know if it will even accomplish what israel wants it to accomplish. but i sure find it crazy hearing you talk about the dreams of this poor palestinian anime nerd when not two posts ago someone's telling us how life was essentially intolerable in gaza because of israel's cruelty and that's why hamas had to do all that slaughtering and raping.

People can view a problem differently and still think killing children is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Over a hundred people were killed on Sunday in a strike on a residential neighborhood in Gaza. Israel admits they made a mistake:


The extensive damage caused by Israel's airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza on Sunday night was a mistake, according to an IDF military official who spoke to KAN news on Thursday morning.

The official told KAN that, following an internal IAF investigation, it came out that the type of weaponry used did not match the nature of the mission. As a result, there was extensive collateral damage that did not need to occur and could have been avoided if the correct weaponry had been used.

Dozens of innocent civilians were killed in this strike, KAN said, adding a report that the IDF had expressed regret over the incident.


https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/death-toll-from-israeli-airstrike-in-central-gaza-rises-to-106-palestinian-officials-say
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-779836

My grandfather was in the US Air Force in 1944. They were assigned to bomb a Japanese weapons depot in New Guinea. One of their own planes sent its payload at the wrong time and my grandfather's plane was caught in the explosion. Everyone onboard was killed instantly.

My mother was three months old. He never met her. His family fell apart after his death.

This story is nothing compared to what other families have faced then and now, but I mention it because it taught me one lesson early, and perhaps it's one some of you need to hear: war is messy and casual and cruel. A lot of victorious noble deaths are anything but. War isn't sane. Bullets and bombs don't only hit bad people.

This is true. It’s why states must be responsible in the use of force. It means you only aim those bullets and drop those bombs at the bad people. Because if you can’t or won’t make that distinction, you are in fact “the bad people”.

Unfortunately, we don't yet make bullets and bombs with their own moral compasses.

I don't think you understand because you're not willing to understand, that Hamas isn't going to just stop. Japan wasn't going to stop. Germany wasn't going to stop. In general, someone fighting on the losing side of a war has very little TO lose. That's why, again, your simplistic armchair assessments aren't useful. You're not on the ground. Every piece of news you get is filtered through bias from one side or the other. We won't know the true extent of the tragedies occurring here for years, maybe decades. And a lot of those tragedies will be like the ones that played out in my family--for the want of one person the whole thing falls apart. It's heartbreaking. You have to be fully hardened to one side or the other not to see that.

People are doing what they can in a very messed up situation. On the ground, it's just about survival. In government chambers, it's some kind of brutal calculus: their lives or us.

I think war is a lot easier when you see it in terms like good versus evil, but unfortunately this war is more like, because of a few very manichean people on both sides, a lot of innocents suffer. Will those people ever have an accounting? Well, one hopes.

Oh I 100% understand Hamas will not voluntarily stop.

I also understand that most of Hamas is located in these storied tunnels. Not apartment buildings. Not hospitals. So when we drop the bombs and aim the bullets at hospitals and apartment building knowing that *most* of the people harmed, as on Christmas Eve, will
Not be Hamas, we are showing ourselves as the bad guys.

Is there some method I'm not aware of where you can implode tunnels and not having the buildings above them be affected?

Yes— first, unlike Christmas Eve, you target the correct buildings.

And not relying on aerial bombardment which doesn’t seem to be destroying these tunnels (see above on Hamas leadership still doing fine…) seems appropriate at this stage.

I don't think you understand how buildings work. You can collapse from both above and below. I also don't think you, or I, have enough information about what happened to make an assessment of its effectiveness. You have a collection of opinions and some chaotic first-hand accounts. And you have an opinion you decided already: Israel is in the wrong.

I think Israel’s conduct is wrong. I think they are not in the wrong for retaliating for October 7. I think they had a huge amount of international support which they have since lost by indiscriminately killing civilians. After October 7th I supported Israel’s right to respond and hoped they would do so in a surgical and devastating way. I was disappointed.

If Israel was conducting themselves as they did after 1972, they would have my support and, I imagine, the support of the international community, even though there were civilian casualties in that instance as well.

Oh, no! Not their conduct!

Nothing you say is wrong, and yet everything you say is wrong. I don't think you have the toolset to understand it. Really, this all boils down to a very simple set of questions: what do you expect Israel to do? Turn the other cheek? And how do you expect that would go? In your fantasy world, perhaps it would go well, but this is a world with magic bullets and bombs that only kill bad people. How many terrorists acts are okay with you? Have you ever lived in a country with car bombs and rapists who drape women across their trucks like trophiess? Does that sound good to you? No? Well, then.

+1 they think it's a video game or a movie or something.

This is why Israel needs to eradicate Hamas-- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html To think that people support Hamas is truly sick. It is one of the most horrendous accounts I have seen to date about what Hamas did on October 7th. And this is mild compared to the actual events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:40,000 Hamas. You’re off by 25%

I’ll believe the IDF figures over those of an internet stranger if that’s ok with you.

https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-12-10-23/h_403d0f55740b5d165adc6416cf5be5cf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine I’m ok with different definitions of bad guys.

To your experiment, it would depend on who the 20 Hamas Fighters are. Sinwar and 19 friends? Yeah. The death of the 40 civilians credibly saves the lives of thousands. He’s credibly believed to have directed October 7. That’s tragic but proportionate. Similarly— 20 people who participated in Oct 7? Probably proportionate.

20 nobody rock throwers that can’t even for sure be linked to Hamas? 20 men of “fighting age”? No, that’s neither legitimate nor appropriate.

Of course the Hamas Ministry of Health will claim that all 20 were civilians, and children most of them. A 17-18 year old can be an accomplished and motivated fighter, and we all know that Hamas has indoctrination down to a science.

Absolutely they can. They can also be a high school kid. An anime nerd. A soccer star. Every time you get it wrong you cement the international idea of brutality, and convince the population of Gaza that you’re coming for their high school students.

Because really don’t think anyone cares that they *wanted* to get the accomplished and motivated fighter when the anime nerd never sees his eighteenth birthday.

people had anime in that open air prison? how? i thought israel kept everyone in gaza in shackles such that they had to go slaughter and rape their way into freedom.

i'm not trying to diminish the tragedy of what is happening in gaza. it's brutal. i don't know if it will even accomplish what israel wants it to accomplish. but i sure find it crazy hearing you talk about the dreams of this poor palestinian anime nerd when not two posts ago someone's telling us how life was essentially intolerable in gaza because of israel's cruelty and that's why hamas had to do all that slaughtering and raping.

People can view a problem differently and still think killing children is wrong.

Sure! I'll bet the kids killed when we dropped a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have rather been alive, too. It's terrible when your government does such vicious, unthinkable things that it is inevitable that a lot of people are going to suffer for it.

But I just don't understand how these kids in Gaza had anime when they lived in an open air prison so awful it required their government to slaughter and rape and send rockets and bombs. I mean, it's like you're got these incompatible thoughts that you keep expressing - only, the one thing that's constant is those dirty Israelis are bad in every one of the stories. Maybe reflect on that, too. And on the Israeli lives that have been taken. Where are the hostages? Are you wondering at all about their dreams, and their families' dreams? I haven't heard many people on this gdforsaken website share their grief over those lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine I’m ok with different definitions of bad guys.

To your experiment, it would depend on who the 20 Hamas Fighters are. Sinwar and 19 friends? Yeah. The death of the 40 civilians credibly saves the lives of thousands. He’s credibly believed to have directed October 7. That’s tragic but proportionate. Similarly— 20 people who participated in Oct 7? Probably proportionate.

20 nobody rock throwers that can’t even for sure be linked to Hamas? 20 men of “fighting age”? No, that’s neither legitimate nor appropriate.

Of course the Hamas Ministry of Health will claim that all 20 were civilians, and children most of them. A 17-18 year old can be an accomplished and motivated fighter, and we all know that Hamas has indoctrination down to a science.

Absolutely they can. They can also be a high school kid. An anime nerd. A soccer star. Every time you get it wrong you cement the international idea of brutality, and convince the population of Gaza that you’re coming for their high school students.

Because really don’t think anyone cares that they *wanted* to get the accomplished and motivated fighter when the anime nerd never sees his eighteenth birthday.

people had anime in that open air prison? how? i thought israel kept everyone in gaza in shackles such that they had to go slaughter and rape their way into freedom.

i'm not trying to diminish the tragedy of what is happening in gaza. it's brutal. i don't know if it will even accomplish what israel wants it to accomplish. but i sure find it crazy hearing you talk about the dreams of this poor palestinian anime nerd when not two posts ago someone's telling us how life was essentially intolerable in gaza because of israel's cruelty and that's why hamas had to do all that slaughtering and raping.

People can view a problem differently and still think killing children is wrong.

Sure! I'll bet the kids killed when we dropped a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have rather been alive, too. It's terrible when your government does such vicious, unthinkable things that it is inevitable that a lot of people are going to suffer for it.

But I just don't understand how these kids in Gaza had anime when they lived in an open air prison so awful it required their government to slaughter and rape and send rockets and bombs. I mean, it's like you're got these incompatible thoughts that you keep expressing - only, the one thing that's constant is those dirty Israelis are bad in every one of the stories. Maybe reflect on that, too. And on the Israeli lives that have been taken. Where are the hostages? Are you wondering at all about their dreams, and their families' dreams? I haven't heard many people on this gdforsaken website share their grief over those lives.

I have never said any of the bolded. You have either confused me for a different poster or you have a narrative you’re responding to in your mind.

And for the hostages, I support the UNSC resolution which immediately called for their unconditional release. I’m horrified my government chose to abstain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine I’m ok with different definitions of bad guys.

To your experiment, it would depend on who the 20 Hamas Fighters are. Sinwar and 19 friends? Yeah. The death of the 40 civilians credibly saves the lives of thousands. He’s credibly believed to have directed October 7. That’s tragic but proportionate. Similarly— 20 people who participated in Oct 7? Probably proportionate.

20 nobody rock throwers that can’t even for sure be linked to Hamas? 20 men of “fighting age”? No, that’s neither legitimate nor appropriate.

Of course the Hamas Ministry of Health will claim that all 20 were civilians, and children most of them. A 17-18 year old can be an accomplished and motivated fighter, and we all know that Hamas has indoctrination down to a science.

Absolutely they can. They can also be a high school kid. An anime nerd. A soccer star. Every time you get it wrong you cement the international idea of brutality, and convince the population of Gaza that you’re coming for their high school students.

Because really don’t think anyone cares that they *wanted* to get the accomplished and motivated fighter when the anime nerd never sees his eighteenth birthday.

people had anime in that open air prison? how? i thought israel kept everyone in gaza in shackles such that they had to go slaughter and rape their way into freedom.

i'm not trying to diminish the tragedy of what is happening in gaza. it's brutal. i don't know if it will even accomplish what israel wants it to accomplish. but i sure find it crazy hearing you talk about the dreams of this poor palestinian anime nerd when not two posts ago someone's telling us how life was essentially intolerable in gaza because of israel's cruelty and that's why hamas had to do all that slaughtering and raping.

People can view a problem differently and still think killing children is wrong.

Sure! I'll bet the kids killed when we dropped a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have rather been alive, too. It's terrible when your government does such vicious, unthinkable things that it is inevitable that a lot of people are going to suffer for it.

But I just don't understand how these kids in Gaza had anime when they lived in an open air prison so awful it required their government to slaughter and rape and send rockets and bombs. I mean, it's like you're got these incompatible thoughts that you keep expressing - only, the one thing that's constant is those dirty Israelis are bad in every one of the stories. Maybe reflect on that, too. And on the Israeli lives that have been taken. Where are the hostages? Are you wondering at all about their dreams, and their families' dreams? I haven't heard many people on this gdforsaken website share their grief over those lives.

I have never said any of the bolded. You have either confused me for a different poster or you have a narrative you’re responding to in your mind.

And for the hostages, I support the UNSC resolution which immediately called for their unconditional release. I’m horrified my government chose to abstain.

Yeah you are part of the problem if you only ever talk about or think about what Isreal needs to do to stop the violence now and in the future. Consider, if Israel didn't change a thing, what are your ideas for stopping the violence?