Gaza War, Part 3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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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?

What “problem” am I a part of? The problem or people disagreeing with you and saying so out loud?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

UN Women regularly issues tweets, statements, etc. condemning sexual violence against women worldwide without the targets having triggered or requested an investigation. You of course know this. But in this case, the organization has been silent, and we all know why. You are just defending overt antisemitism from a corrupt organization.

I’m not Jewish or remotely tied to Israel and am critical of many aspects of the Israeli response, but I also think that the silence from the UN Women is inexcusable. I’ve certainly lost any faith I used to have in the UN. Their silence in the face of the sexual torture faced by the 10/7 victims is appalling, full stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

UN Women regularly issues tweets, statements, etc. condemning sexual violence against women worldwide without the targets having triggered or requested an investigation. You of course know this. But in this case, the organization has been silent, and we all know why. You are just defending overt antisemitism from a corrupt organization.

I’m not Jewish or remotely tied to Israel and am critical of many aspects of the Israeli response, but I also think that the silence from the UN Women is inexcusable. I’ve certainly lost any faith I used to have in the UN. Their silence in the face of the sexual torture faced by the 10/7 victims is appalling, full stop.

+100

[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.

Note that decades of Islamist terrorism created support for Bibi and the hard right in Israel. A popular rebellion against Bibi this summer ended because of the October 7th massacre, which caused Israel to pull together for the moment. Talk to your friends in Gaza about renouncing violence and maybe the world can move forward in a better direction? Because Palestinian terrorism does the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Note that decades of Islamist terrorism created support for Bibi and the hard right in Israel. A popular rebellion against Bibi this summer ended because of the October 7th massacre, which caused Israel to pull together for the moment. Talk to your friends in Gaza about renouncing violence and maybe the world can move forward in a better direction? Because Palestinian terrorism does the opposite.

And to all the useful idiots among our colleagues, friends, and neighbors who are egging Islamist terrorists on by glorifying their brutality as the cost of "liberation," you are also making the world a far more dangerous place with your clueless activism.

It feels good to throw the Jews under the bus, right? It's been a hard few years and nothing unites a fractured society like a good ol' round of scapegoating, amirite? It's all fine until the terrorists come for you, too, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Note that decades of Islamist terrorism created support for Bibi and the hard right in Israel. A popular rebellion against Bibi this summer ended because of the October 7th massacre, which caused Israel to pull together for the moment. Talk to your friends in Gaza about renouncing violence and maybe the world can move forward in a better direction? Because Palestinian terrorism does the opposite.

And to all the useful idiots among our colleagues, friends, and neighbors who are egging Islamist terrorists on by glorifying their brutality as the cost of "liberation," you are also making the world a far more dangerous place with your clueless activism.

It feels good to throw the Jews under the bus, right? It's been a hard few years and nothing unites a fractured society like a good ol' round of scapegoating, amirite? It's all fine until the terrorists come for you, too, no?

I don't understand how anyone can support Hamas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Note that decades of Islamist terrorism created support for Bibi and the hard right in Israel. A popular rebellion against Bibi this summer ended because of the October 7th massacre, which caused Israel to pull together for the moment. Talk to your friends in Gaza about renouncing violence and maybe the world can move forward in a better direction? Because Palestinian terrorism does the opposite.

I think the first statement is oversimplified— support for Bibi is also tied up in the settler movement which was not created by terrorism— but the second one is huge. October 7 may have saved his political life and further undermined moderate voices in Israel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Note that decades of Islamist terrorism created support for Bibi and the hard right in Israel. A popular rebellion against Bibi this summer ended because of the October 7th massacre, which caused Israel to pull together for the moment. Talk to your friends in Gaza about renouncing violence and maybe the world can move forward in a better direction? Because Palestinian terrorism does the opposite.

And to all the useful idiots among our colleagues, friends, and neighbors who are egging Islamist terrorists on by glorifying their brutality as the cost of "liberation," you are also making the world a far more dangerous place with your clueless activism.

It feels good to throw the Jews under the bus, right? It's been a hard few years and nothing unites a fractured society like a good ol' round of scapegoating, amirite? It's all fine until the terrorists come for you, too, no?

Liberals didn’t support Hamas. Netanyahu did. Dude was facing jail before 10/7.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

What “problem” am I a part of? The problem or people disagreeing with you and saying so out loud?

I mean the problem you care about--people dying in Gaza. Your opinions are not hurting me in any way as you assume.

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

Are we going to talk about the 2.8 million in cash stolen from the West Bank today by the IDF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

But that was the point of the Hamas massacres.

This is the most right wing government in the history of Israel. Hamas knew very well how Israel would respond to mass executions, the brutal torture of women, kidnapping babies, young women, and the elderly, and recording all of it. A bunch of lefty kibbutzers and very young music festival attendees for goodness sake.

And what Hamas did is unforgivable.

I made the terrible mistake of watching that footage when it was still up on reddit and X/twitter. The sadism is extreme. Do not recommend. It scars the soul.

But when you've seen Hamas take a dull shovel and spend twenty minutes decapitating some poor man in his home, yeah, well, your justice goes out the window. Not to mention all the brutalized women. The blood. The brutality.

Feel bad for the kids in Gaza.

I do not for the adults in Gaza though.

This is what they chose. You do that kind of thing. Reap the whirlwind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is liberal media reporting only Israel's evil deeds?
How is it ok to omit all the Hamas and Palestinians' wrongdoings?

October 7 atrocities received a lot of press and they still do. Did you miss all the reporting on it?

Yes, I do not see where news reported that Hamas did not allow people to cross into Israel, even those U.S. citizens stuck in Gaza. I did not see reports that Egypt would not open the border to allow people to escape. I miss all of those. And clearly, a lot of antisemites do not get that news.

I'm 100% sure it was Israel that did not allow people to cross into Israel.

LOL! Were you on the ground there? Sure, I'll take your word instead of those who were there to help U.S. citizens.

[Anonymous]

Is there a difference between Hamas and Palestinians? If the majority is against Hamas, they can easily remove them from leadership positions. They can easily take them out; I have yet to hear an escaped Palestinian say how they hate Hamas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

UN Women regularly issues tweets, statements, etc. condemning sexual violence against women worldwide without the targets having triggered or requested an investigation. You of course know this. But in this case, the organization has been silent, and we all know why. You are just defending overt antisemitism from a corrupt organization.

I’m not Jewish or remotely tied to Israel and am critical of many aspects of the Israeli response, but I also think that the silence from the UN Women is inexcusable. I’ve certainly lost any faith I used to have in the UN. Their silence in the face of the sexual torture faced by the 10/7 victims is appalling, full stop.

+100

+1