Israel: We Are At War

[pmv]

The Mongols gave their targets only one opportunity to surrender; else they simply sacked and destroyed cities.

As I understand it, Alexander the Great did much the same. If a city didn't surrender when called on to do so, and he had to conquer it by force, he'd then slaughter and enslave the entire population. And that earned him the title 'the Great', apparently. God save us from 'greatness'.

 

[pmv]

Their entire state was founded on extreme religious views. Never a good start.

I don't agree with this bit. The state was founded on a perceived need of the Jews for a nation of their own, owing to a rather long history of every attempt to live as part of someone else's "multi-cultural" state turning out very badly for them. The extreme religious views seem to have grown over time, much as they have done in many, many other countries.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Bottom line here is something different has to happen on this hate filled merry go round of war.

IMO the people immediately jumping to Israeli restraint are defacto extending this conflict in perpetuity.

If Israel is serious about wiping out Hamas, they are going to spill a lot of civilian blood. There is a vast moral gulf between an Israeli solders getting shot cause a Hamas fighter is using a Palestinian woman as a human shield, and Israel "dropping the hammer" as it were and just eliminating Gaza. I wouldn't expect the former and I would decry the later.

In between those is a path, where Israel uses a reasonable level of restraint which does not hinder it's objective of eliminating Hamas, and then comes out the other side with a real long term plan for Palestine, either as an administrative district of Israel or as its own independent state (maybe one leading to the other) where Palestinian children have a future as actual world citizens and not just meat shields for Hamas.

"War is cruelty, there is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over". When Sherman told the Atlanta city counsel that he would absolutely take every effort to spare civilian lives, but he was going to burn that city to the ground for the sake of bringing the Civil War to an ultimate resolution, he understood something fundamental about war: sometimes you have to do a horrible thing now, to prevent an even more horrible thing later.

That is where the Israel/Hamas conflict is now.

 

[MrSquished]

If I was at Palestinian that did not like Hamas and was hoping for peace with Israel, That would be completely replaced by now by only wanting to kill Israelis. It's pretty obvious to people there and not keyboard warrior pro zionists that was going on as genocide and what has been going on is an apartheid state.

Anyways there are no Israelis to make peace with. Look at their government now and what It has been for a while now. Nobody in the Israeli government has wanted peace for ages. They're enjoying this. And they're enjoying watching people defend this. It's all gross

 

[MrSquished]

I don't agree with this bit. The state was founded on a perceived need of the Jews for a nation of their own, owing to a rather long history of every attempt to live as part of someone else's "multi-cultural" state turning out very badly for them. The extreme religious views seem to have grown over time, much as they have done in many, many other countries.

I mean they literally called and call it the holy Land.

'Jews treat territories around Jerusalem as their holy land and their ancestral home. They refer to ancient scripture claiming that the land was promised by God to their ancestor Abraham and his descendants.'

And you think this is merely a coincidence?

 

[KMFJD]

Some sobering numbers from UNICEF

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell briefs UN Security Council on humanitarian situation in Gaza (as delivered)

www.unicef.org

~ 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza every day
~ 8,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 3,400 children, 6,300 children injured
~Of course, the violence being perpetrated against children extends beyond the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at least 37 children have reportedly been killed. And of course more than 30 Israeli children have reportedly been killed, while at least 20 remain hostage in the Gaza Strip – their fates unknown.

 

[amenx]

Sorry, but you display no understanding or knowledge of the history. This isn't about "stealing someone's land." There's plenty of space for both Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Arabs turned down the two state solution in 1939, 1948, 1999, and 2003. THe first of those offers would have given them 80% of Palestine. They rejected it because they don't want Jews there. Because they were different, and because they were "infidels." This is a culture war and a religious war, not a war about land or other material grievances.

Hasbara bullshit debunked by Israeli historians and Jewish academics over the decades (Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Simha Flapan, Norman Finkelstein and others).

 

[amenx]

Doctor working at Shifa hospital for 16 years demanding proof its being used as a Hamas command center. Debunks IDF and Netanyahu.

 

[woolfe9998]

As much as I think W should be cooling his heels in The Hague the US was not successful at destroying the Taliban because the measures that would have been required are several notches above what happened. ISIS also has not ceased to exist even though it does so in diminished form.

Yeah, you're right. You have to be careful about how to respond to terrorism. You might think twice, before, say, invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack based entirely on a false pretext like W did. Oh yeah, I didn't mention before that not only did we kill lots and lots of civilians in Iraq, but the entire war was based on a lie! And everyone knows it. Yet we're not "pariahs." The closest we've come to that was when Trump was in office.

By contrast, however, if terrorists attack you, and you know where the specific terrorists who attacked you are, then yeah, you're going to attack them until they're gone, minimizing civilian casualties but tolerating what was unavoidable. Anyone with the responsibility of leadership would do it, if for no other reason, for pure politics. You'd do it too.

 

[mikeymikec]

Sorry, but you display no understanding or knowledge of the history. This isn't about "stealing someone's land." There's plenty of space for both Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Arabs turned down the two state solution in 1939, 1948, 1999, and 2003. THe first of those offers would have given them 80% of Palestine. They rejected it because they don't want Jews there. Because they were different, and because they were "infidels." This is a culture war and a religious war, not a war about land or other material grievances.

So far as the Jews are concerned, they fled genocides in Russia and later in Europe as a whole, which destroyed over a third of the Jewish population of the world. They went to Palestine to survive, not to steal people's land. But then, that doesn't concern you at all, does it? Gee I wonder why.

I was aware of how the state of Israel was created in the first place largely because of the British. As I said earlier in the thread, I am absolutely not cool with how the rest of the world after WW2 didn't want to take in Jewish refugees, I bet had they done so then we wouldn't be having this problem now. The Arab nations basically said no to Israel just like the rest of the world did to the Jewish people.

If there's enough land for both, then why have the Israelis taken thousands of properties from the Palestinians? Cementing wells so that Palestinians can't farm land? Why do you think that Gaza is being carpet-bombed? Israel wants more; if there's no property for a Palestinian to claim then there's less reason for them to want to come back. The present inhabitants of Gaza will get a fraction of what they had before, like the IDF said they'll be living in tents by the time the IDF is done, then Hamas will get uppity again, then the IDF will rinse and repeat.

 

[mikeymikec]

Bottom line here is something different has to happen on this hate filled merry go round of war.

IMO the people immediately jumping to Israeli restraint are defacto extending this conflict in perpetuity.

If Israel is serious about wiping out Hamas, they are going to spill a lot of civilian blood. There is a vast moral gulf between an Israeli solders getting shot cause a Hamas fighter is using a Palestinian woman as a human shield, and Israel "dropping the hammer" as it were and just eliminating Gaza. I wouldn't expect the former and I would decry the later.

In between those is a path, where Israel uses a reasonable level of restraint which does not hinder it's objective of eliminating Hamas, and then comes out the other side with a real long term plan for Palestine, either as an administrative district of Israel or as its own independent state (maybe one leading to the other) where Palestinian children have a future as actual world citizens and not just meat shields for Hamas.

"War is cruelty, there is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over". When Sherman told the Atlanta city counsel that he would absolutely take every effort to spare civilian lives, but he was going to burn that city to the ground for the sake of bringing the Civil War to an ultimate resolution, he understood something fundamental about war: sometimes you have to do a horrible thing now, to prevent an even more horrible thing later.

That is where the Israel/Hamas conflict is now.

People like myself are decrying Israel because we're sure that Israel's intent is to eliminate Gaza.

I seriously doubt that Israel can eliminate Hamas without eliminating Gaza. There are plenty of conflicts in the last ~50 years to draw on as experience to teach one that fighting into a built-up civilian area is extremely messy work for all sides (and even then I doubt there's a single example of the "insurgents" being wiped out without wiping out the civilian area), and IMO the only reason Israel is attempting to do it now is because "eliminating Hamas" is a red herring. The real objective is to uproot hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza and prep it for occupation followed by settlement. Why bother trying to eliminate Hamas in one stroke when multiple objectives can be achieved by giving them less room to run to, and their continued existence provides further excuse to keep expanding.

 

[mikeymikec]

I mean they literally called and call it the holy Land.

'Jews treat territories around Jerusalem as their holy land and their ancestral home. They refer to ancient scripture claiming that the land was promised by God to their ancestor Abraham and his descendants.'

And you think this is merely a coincidence?

I like the way that you and pmv are disagreeing and yet I agree with both of you

I completely understand why Jewish people are attracted to the idea of Zionism; they've been the official bogeyman/scapegoat of a multitude of "civilised" nations for centuries, on the sharp end of the stick of many governments. It makes sense that given that experience that they would want their own state where they're calling the shots. Where Zionism fucks up the most is this notion that there is land that inherently belongs to them despite whomever is living there now, beginning with the most theologically significant city in Judaism.

Zionism and its religious underpinnings are definitely relevant when examining Israel's actions:

Was a 'Children of Darkness' Post Deleted from Israel PM Netanyahu's X Account?

He made the same remark in a speech to the Israeli parliament.

www.snopes.com

 

[Moonbeam]

I like the way that you and pmv are disagreeing and yet I agree with both of you

I completely understand why Jewish people are attracted to the idea of Zionism; they've been the official bogeyman/scapegoat of a multitude of "civilised" nations for centuries, on the sharp end of the stick of many governments. It makes sense that given that experience that they would want their own state where they're calling the shots. Where Zionism fucks up the most is this notion that there is land that inherently belongs to them despite whomever is living there now, beginning with the most theologically significant city in Judaism.

Zionism and its religious underpinnings are definitely relevant when examining Israel's actions:

Was a 'Children of Darkness' Post Deleted from Israel PM Netanyahu's X Account?

He made the same remark in a speech to the Israeli parliament.

www.snopes.com

What did he do, plagiarize a speech by Hitler talking about the Jews?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

People like myself are decrying Israel because we're sure that Israel's intent is to eliminate Gaza.

I seriously doubt that Israel can eliminate Hamas without eliminating Gaza. There are plenty of conflicts in the last ~50 years to draw on as experience to teach one that fighting into a built-up civilian area is extremely messy work for all sides (and even then I doubt there's a single example of the "insurgents" being wiped out without wiping out the civilian area), and IMO the only reason Israel is attempting to do it now is because "eliminating Hamas" is a red herring. The real objective is to uproot hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza and prep it for occupation followed by settlement. Why bother trying to eliminate Hamas in one stroke when multiple objectives can be achieved by giving them less room to run to, and their continued existence provides further excuse to keep expanding.

-But then how else will Israel achieve its final form of "Massive Fucking Hypocrite" unless they find some sort of "final solution" to the "Palestinian problem".

 

[emperus]

Yeah, you're right. You have to be careful about how to respond to terrorism. You might think twice, before, say, invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack based entirely on a false pretext like W did. Oh yeah, I didn't mention before that not only did we kill lots and lots of civilians in Iraq, but the entire war was based on a lie! And everyone knows it. Yet we're not "pariahs." The closest we've come to that was when Trump was in office.

By contrast, however, if terrorists attack you, and you know where the specific terrorists who attacked you are, then yeah, you're going to attack them until they're gone, minimizing civilian casualties but tolerating what was unavoidable. Anyone with the responsibility of leadership would do it, if for no other reason, for pure politics. You'd do it too.

Would you consider those settlers, who are supported by the government, who attack/kill Palestinians, terrorists? And if so, does your theory of "attacking them until they're gone" also apply? If so, who would be the "them" in that case? If not, why not?

Like I said, I think killing innocent is evil, but it seems a lot of people are only ascribing that evil to one side, Hamas.

 

[woolfe9998]

Would you consider those settlers, who are supported by the government, who attack/kill Palestinians, terrorists? And if so, does your theory of "attacking them until they're gone" also apply? If so, who would be the "them" in that case? If not, why not?

Like I said, I think killing innocent is evil, but it seems a lot of people are only ascribing that evil to one side, Hamas.

No, I don't support terrorism, no matter which side it comes from.

 

[emperus]

No, I don't support terrorism, no matter which side it comes from.

Ok, so the settlers are using terroristic actions. Some get their guns from the Israeli government. You proposed a theory on how to deal with terrorism, "attack them till their gone". Does that theory apply to the settlers? If not, why not?

 

[IronWing]

Sorry, but you display no understanding or knowledge of the history. This isn't about "stealing someone's land." There's plenty of space for both Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Arabs turned down the two state solution in 1939, 1948, 1999, and 2003. THe first of those offers would have given them 80% of Palestine. They rejected it because they don't want Jews there. Because they were different, and because they were "infidels." This is a culture war and a religious war, not a war about land or other material grievances.

So far as the Jews are concerned, they fled genocides in Russia and later in Europe as a whole, which destroyed over a third of the Jewish population of the world. They went to Palestine to survive, not to steal people's land. But then, that doesn't concern you at all, does it? Gee I wonder why.

Because the genocide in Europe is irrelevant to the State of Israel's stealing of other people's land and implementing their apartheid state. The claim that the conflict isn't about land is ridiculous.

 

[Moonbeam]

Because the genocide in Europe is irrelevant to the State of Israel's stealing of other people's land and implementing their apartheid state. The claim that the conflict isn't about land is ridiculous.

I would certainly say that your opinion here seems obviously true to me and add that, in my opinion also, justifying the killing of civilians caught in the conflict regarding that land as an inevitability that any state would do when doing the illegally seizing is a monstrous rationalization not justified by the claim that everyone else would do the same in their shoes. Israel put on those shoes in my opinion.

I find it ironic, also, the Jew who was my childhood idol willingly gave His own life so that others would find salvation in turning the other cheek.

Now the people of Light are burying Palestinian children in rubble.

Why didn’t the Jews devote all of their resources bringing ‘the savages’ around them up to the Light too few of them still see.

This is our world, the ego takers and the love bringers of every nation, race, and people.

 

[manly]

It became evident to U.S. officials that Israeli leaders believed mass civilian casualties were an acceptable price in the military campaign. In private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II — including the dropping of the two atomic warheads in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — to try to defeat those countries.

Israel thought the U.S. would just rubber stamp any level of collateral damage as a necessary evil.

NYT - Biden’s Support for Israel Now Comes With Words of Caution

 

[Sunburn74]

Yeah, you're right. You have to be careful about how to respond to terrorism. You might think twice, before, say, invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack based entirely on a false pretext like W did. Oh yeah, I didn't mention before that not only did we kill lots and lots of civilians in Iraq, but the entire war was based on a lie! And everyone knows it. Yet we're not "pariahs." The closest we've come to that was when Trump was in office.

By contrast, however, if terrorists attack you, and you know where the specific terrorists who attacked you are, then yeah, you're going to attack them until they're gone, minimizing civilian casualties but tolerating what was unavoidable. Anyone with the responsibility of leadership would do it, if for no other reason, for pure politics. You'd do it too.

I think you're a little misguided in how you're equating the US response to 9/11 to what the Israelies are doing. Firstly, the loss of life in this Israeli conflict is much much worse. In the entire invasion of Iraq , worst case estimates of civilians casualties is 15000 per year. Remember this is across an entire country and over an entire year (300K dead over 20 years). Currently the Israelis are on track to blow those numbers out of the water. They are already at 9000 civilians dead or so. Simply put there was considerable restraint and care to minimize civilian deaths with us military actions in the middle east, restraint the Israelies are not showing. What I see happening to me is closer to genocide under the pretense of war. I mean my understanding is in wars people (civilians and leadership) can surrender, give themselves up, walk out with their hands up saying no more, let's talk etc. That's the difference between a war and a massacre.

 

[emperus]

I'm at a loss. Israel bombs a refugee camp, knowing there were refugees there because they claim a "Hamas" leader may have been there.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1719412278351507487

 

[KMFJD]

Another day another war crime by Israel

https://twitter.com/x/status/1719416385418182740

 

[Pens1566]

I think you're a little misguided in how you're equating the US response to 9/11 to what the Israelies are doing. Firstly, the loss of life in this Israeli conflict is much much worse. In the entire invasion of Iraq , worst case estimates of civilians casualties is 15000 per year. Remember this is across an entire country and over an entire year (300K dead over 20 years). Currently the Israelis are on track to blow those numbers out of the water. They are already at 9000 civilians dead or so. Simply put there was considerable restraint and care to minimize civilian deaths with us military actions in the middle east, restraint the Israelies are not showing. What I see happening to me is closer to genocide under the pretense of war. I mean my understanding is in wars people (civilians and leadership) can surrender, give themselves up, walk out with their hands up saying no more, let's talk etc. That's the difference between a war and a massacre.

The #s vary wildly. With the high end being closer to 500k killed in just the first few years of the war. I'd say that's more the "worst case".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Almost everything the United States did in the GWOT after the colossal failure to capture Bin Laden at Tora Bora was an enormous mistake, outside of killing Bin Laden in Abottabad.

Lets stop with the false equivocation and moralizing. US response to 9/11 bad. Israel's response to 10/7 has very quickly veered into bad. Americans broadly supported GWB and he handily won reelection in 2004 AFTER he had invaded Iraq. Israelis are rallying around Netanyahu even through he is deeply unpopular outside of wartime.

Israeli's are not magical faries that float above all, I think people have a bad tendency of morally "infantilizing" Jews because some really bad shit happened to Jews back in the 30's and 40's so they're supposed to be all "never again" and fart peace/love/forgiveness. They're people, and they're acting on their desire for vengeance right now.

We can only hope, as a small nation where dissenting voices have a chance to be better heard over the general bloodlust and desire for revenge, that Israel will refocus on their core goal of gutting Hamas *and then building a roadmap for Palestinian self-governance/statehood*.