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[Beachryan]

Is it glib to expect a nation of Israel's power militarily to not bomb civilian populations because they assume Hamas members are hiding there?

Firstly, your use of assume is doing a lot of work there.

But fine, Israel - in response to the biggest killing of Israeli citizens in generations - should have held their hands up and said: listen, Hamas did this, it's awful, but they're also really good at hiding, and so let's just hope it doesn't happen again. We'll try real hard to find them. We call on our neighbours to aid us with intelligence, and to stop supplying them with funding and arms.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

This really gets at my fundamental problem with the 'two-sidesing' of it all. Basically, 100% of people agree that if Hamas botched a rocket and it blew a hospital, that's just Hamas being Hamas. 100% people agree that if it was the IDF - even accidentally and maybe moreso - then we want accountability, we want investigations and so forth.

It's so assymetrical. Before the latest Hamas escalation, the UN estimated that just over 5,000 Gazan civilians had been killed since 2008. That's 15 years. Hamas killed 1,500 in an afternoon. And yes, Israel retailiation will now have surpassed that number, no doubt. But if Hamas hadn't acted 2 weeks ago, there'd be over 3,000 more civilians alive in that region right now. That is a simple fact.

But Israel are the bad guys, and only one side has agency to act. Hamas are simply a jihadist automaton without freewill, one cannot expect accountability, in fact it's really Israel's fault that Hamas killed its citizens en masse. In fact, it's really the Western nations' fault from 100 years ago.

We hold Israel and the advanced weapons tech we sell them to higher standard than Hamas, what a revelation.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Firstly, your use of assume is doing a lot of work there.

But fine, Israel - in response to the biggest killing of Israeli citizens in generations - should have held their hands up and said: listen, Hamas did this, it's awful, but they're also really good at hiding, and so let's just hope it doesn't happen again. We'll try real hard to find them. We call on our neighbours to aid us with intelligence, and to stop supplying them with funding and arms.

Ridiculous comment, a classic false dichotomy.

 

[Beachryan]

What a really odd take.

Do you believe if Hamas hadn't done anything notable 2 weeks ago, there would not be about 5,000 more human beings alive next week in that region? Is it that strange a take? It seems fairly straight-forward to me.

As context, I also wish about 3,500 more people would still be alive as Israel would not have killed any civilians whatsoever in response.

What would you do as Israel in response?

 

[Beachryan]

Ridiculous comment, a classic false dichotomy.

Well elucidate me then. What would you have done as Israel, in response?

 

[Andy_Cole]

That's a fair rebuttal to some extent. I'm disgusted by the Israel counteroffensive too, and wish that calmer heads had prevailed and it wasn't happening, and hope with Biden there a genuine ceasefire can be brokered. Having Netanyahu - a categorically bad human being - in charge and in genuine threat at the time has certainly made things far, far worse.

But I'm not sure what all of the anti-Israeli posters would have had Israel do in response to watching the attacks Hamas carried out. And a genuine response, not a glib 'maybe don't kill babies in hospitals'. Because it's not as though Hamas aren't hiding in those hospitals, or launching rockets from literally across the road.

The fact you have asked for people to not say ‘maybe don’t bomb hospitals’ shows how much you sympathise with the barbaric Israel.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

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I can't get over the whistling sound of the JDAM.

 

[BarstoolProphet]

Firstly, your use of assume is doing a lot of work there.

But fine, Israel - in response to the biggest killing of Israeli citizens in generations - should have held their hands up and said: listen, Hamas did this, it's awful, but they're also really good at hiding, and so let's just hope it doesn't happen again. We'll try real hard to find them. We call on our neighbours to aid us with intelligence, and to stop supplying them with funding and arms.

Well, someone has break out of that seemingly indefinite vicious cycle, and as an international recognised state instead of a terrorist/insurgent group, Israel should be the one to do it. And also they had a major incentive to do so - earn massive amount of regional goodwill that could have speeded up/improved massively the diplomatic relations with the likes of KSA, UAE, Jordan, Qatar etc which in turn would bring much-needed stability to the region. Instead we are back to strong rhetoric from Turkey and KSA (and reports of a deal is now completely off the table), whilst UAE calls for an emergency meeting in the UN Security Council and Qatar blaming Israel for all of this. Instead they have been hellbent on acting like a terrorist state instead, racking up war crimes like it's a sport.

 

[Beachryan]

Well, someone has break out of that seemingly indefinite vicious cycle, and as an international recognised state instead of a terrorist/insurgent group, Israel should be the one to do it. And also they had a major incentive to do so - earn massive amount of regional goodwill that could have speeded up/improved massively the diplomatic relations with the likes of KSA, UAE, Jordan, Qatar etc which in turn would bring much-needed stability to the region. Instead we are back to strong rhetoric from Turkey and KSA (and reports of a deal is now completely off the table), whilst UAE calls for an emergency meeting in the UN Security Council and Qatar blaming Israel for all of this.

I 100% agree with this sentiment and would hope that's what Israel would have been doing...up until the attacks. At that stage the equation just changes for me. Israel had been having better relations with KSA, with Jordan and even opened better channels with Lebanon. But after 1,500 citizens get murdered, it shifts.

Anyway, clearly I'm getting nowhere, what Israel should have done, as a major power with fancy weapons is just risen above base instincts, accepted it as an intelligence failure, and moved on. What a world we'd be in if that were possible.

 

[RexHamilton]

Firstly, your use of assume is doing a lot of work there.

But fine, Israel - in response to the biggest killing of Israeli citizens in generations - should have held their hands up and said: listen, Hamas did this, it's awful, but they're also really good at hiding, and so let's just hope it doesn't happen again. We'll try real hard to find them. We call on our neighbours to aid us with intelligence, and to stop supplying them with funding and arms.

Why is my use of assume doing a lot of work? Do they know for definite where all Hamas members are? So they're not really good at hiding?

And yes, I would hope a military power like Israel could use the intelligence available to them to get their targets while minimising civilian casualties as opposed to indiscriminate shelling of a civilian population in one of the most densely populated areas on earth. The fact that you suggested that sarcastically kind of astounds me.

 

[Revan]

I really don’t like piling on Biden as there’s so much right wing hate, but he might be one of the worst presidents to have at this time. I don’t know if it’s his age, or if he’s always been like this, but he genuinely seems to have no idea or care for how important his wording is.

Check speeches from him 20-30 years ago, and you realize that he never was the brightest.

Saying that, I actually think that he has been a decent-to-good president.

 

[botond]

Palestinian media publish a picture of what they claim to be the crater caused by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza .
how did this cause so many victims ?

 

[That_Bloke]

We already know Israel are levelling Gaza and civillian infrastructure, we already know Hamas are firing rockets from amidst civillian infrastructure. The risk both sides take is that something like this happens and, guilty or not, they get blamed for it happening. It's one group of known liars who could easily lie about hitting a hospital versus another group of known liars who could easily lie about hitting a hospital. With little hard evidence backing either claim up.

Unless/until we see investigations and evidence from 3rd parties, people are just feeding into the propaganda fight when they say "X did it", as you clearly can't know from the evidence presented so far.

And, in big picture terms, I doubt it matters to most people doing the speculating anyway. It's not like this will suddenly 180 their opinion of the IDF or Hamas.

Yeah, that's how anyone should approach this matter.

My personal feeling though is that whoever responsible for this atrocity didn't do it deliberately. Just something that went awfully wrong and, as always, innocent people died because of it.

 

[africanspur]

Do you believe if Hamas hadn't done anything notable 2 weeks ago, there would not be about 5,000 more human beings alive next week in that region? Is it that strange a take? It seems fairly straight-forward to me.

As context, I also wish about 3,500 more people would still be alive as Israel would not have killed any civilians whatsoever in response.

What would you do as Israel in response?

Yes I do believe that they would still be alive. I also believe that Israel has found a way to commit heinous acts on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank on a daily basis without any cost to them whatsoever, has managed to compartmentalise them away fully from day to day life. They are forgotten and, when forgotten, its easy to steal even more of their land and trap them even further.

In terms of strange takes:

-There's something so incredibly jarring about seeing this conflict described with the word asymmetry and that being used to refer to Israel.
-Your number of civilian casualties was totally off
-As I said above, easy to not commit civilian casualties when you've found a way to imprison an entire population and keep them out of sight
-How is anyone saying its just Hamas being Hamas? Can you point to a single person on this thread saying this? Or even on social media?
-How is it strange to you that a country, which classes itself as the most moral army in the world, which has Western backing as it operates an open air prison, land stealing and systems of apartheid, which receives the most military aid of any country in the world, which has had 2 of the most powerful nations on the planet send naval assets to the Med to support.....would be held to a different moral standard?
-As I said before, can you point to a single citizen of Israel that has been tried before the ICC?
-Why is it that there is no blaming the Israelis for the response but there is blaming the Palestinians for their response? Or did this conflict erupt in a vacuum 2 weeks ago>

What would I do as Israel? Strike back?
What would you do as Palestinians? I assume sit and smile?

 

[JPRouve]

If you honestly can't read this thread and quickly establish the view of many on Israel, I'm not sure what to say. Fine, then what would neutral posters have had Israel do?

I would like you to share your own perspective otherwise it's difficult to understand where you are coming from. I know how I interpret things, I don't know how you do it and who you are talking about.

Edit: I would guess that neutral people would like to see Israel not commit on a daily basis what the UN observers label as war crimes(this is before the past 10 days).

 

[Boycott]

Well elucidate me then. What would you have done as Israel, in response?

Not give the terrorists what they want with a full on vengeance mission.

Israel was close to signing an agreement with the Saudis which would have potentially led to some concessions towards Palestine as a demand of the Saudis and is probably the motivation of Hamas's attack. In order to turn the region against Israel again.

Israel has the preventative defense systems to intercept rockets and stop attacks on their turf and up until two weeks ago their defence capabilities was probably second to none. A deal with the Saudis, possibly the Jordanians and smoother relations with Egypt who they do have a long standing treaty with could have made the issue of identifying the actual terrorists a joint venture and through the sharing of intelligence. Rather than going kamikaze on their own.

That's what I think Israel should have done. Nothing would have brought the lives Hamas slaughtered back but what they are doing in vengeance is going to cause more lives to be lost and backsliding of diplomacy for another decade.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Palestinian media publish a picture of what they claim to be the crater caused by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza .
how did this cause so many victims ?

I guess if there’s any truth to the claims that 5000 people were crammed together in that courtyard…

 

[moses]

If you honestly can't read this thread and quickly establish the view of many on Israel, I'm not sure what to say. Fine, then what would neutral posters have had Israel do?

Stay within the boundaries of International law and the Geneva Convention for a start?

 

[JagUTD]

Palestinian media publish a picture of what they claim to be the crater caused by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza .
how did this cause so many victims ?

Where did the figures come from?

 

[Buster15]

Check speeches from him 20-30 years ago, and you realize that he never was the brightest.

Saying that, I actually think that he has been a decent-to-good president.

Doesn't he/didn't he suffer from a speech impediment/stammer which may make him appear a bit less quick.
I Might be wrong about that.

 

[africanspur]

I mean, Israeli intelligence were likely monitoring Hamas channels & individuals anyway as ongoing intel work. Them missing the October 7th attack doesn't mean they're starting from scratch here.

However, the Israelis have been remarkably awful at their PR. They're all over the place, it seems.

Of course they're monitoring.

Its just funny that they've missed the biggest attack on their history but suddenly so switched on and magically find 2 dumbos having the exact conversation they want to show the world straight away.

Their PR is awful because they lie all the time and make shit up. As I said, even if they didn't do it, it looks awful when they're simultaneously claiming that its Hamas and PIJ. That they have a Hamas telegram channel showing their rocket paths and a Hamas conversation blaming it on PIJ.

 

[Buster15]

Palestinian media publish a picture of what they claim to be the crater caused by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza .
how did this cause so many victims ?

Doesn't look much like a crater to me.

 

[Beachryan]

Not give the terrorists what they want with a full on vengeance mission.

Israel was close to signing an agreement with the Saudis which would have potentially led to some concessions towards Palestine as a demand of the Saudis and is probably the motivation of Hamas's attack. In order to turn the region against Israel again.

Israel has the preventative defense systems to intercept rockets and stop attacks on their turf and up until two weeks ago their defence capabilities was probably second to none. A deal with the Saudis, possibly the Jordanians and smoother relations with Egypt who they do have a long standing treaty with could have made the issue of identifying the actual terrorists a joint venture and through the sharing of intelligence. Rather than going kamikaze on their own.

That's what I think Israel should have done. Nothing would have brought the lives Hamas slaughtered back but what they are doing in vengeance is going to cause more lives to be lost and backsliding of diplomacy for another decade.

I'm 100% with you, and wish that was a possiblity. It would be better for just about everyone.

But I also know enough about the history of the area to know that was never a possiblity, given the scale of Hamas' action. Wish it were otherwise.

 

[sullydnl]

Firstly, your use of assume is doing a lot of work there.

But fine, Israel - in response to the biggest killing of Israeli citizens in generations - should have held their hands up and said: listen, Hamas did this, it's awful, but they're also really good at hiding, and so let's just hope it doesn't happen again. We'll try real hard to find them. We call on our neighbours to aid us with intelligence, and to stop supplying them with funding and arms.

It's not a question of what, it's a question of how.

I think most people suspect that it would be possible for Israel, a massively more dominant millitary power than Hamas, to take millitary action against Hamas without this high a degree of civillian casualties. But rather than there being a definitive inability to do so, there's a perceived unwillingness on Israel's part to hinder their military goals and risk additional Israeli lives by operating within those confines and adjusting their strategy accordingly.

That's why the calls from other western governments have been for restraint, to avoid a disproportionate response and to abide by the rules of war. Not "don't take any millitary action against Hamas".

And that's without getting into everything Israel could have done prior to the attack to stop it reaching this point, which is a lot.

 

[moses]

I guess if there’s any truth to the claims that 5000 people were crammed together in that courtyard…

Those figures have been consistent with reports, there has been almost a million displaced, with nowhere to go, and one hospital said to have an insane 35,000 sheltering there a few days ago.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/...s-run-low-and-ground-offensive-looms-00121600

 

[Dan_F]

Check speeches from him 20-30 years ago, and you realize that he never was the brightest.

Saying that, I actually think that he has been a decent-to-good president.

I meant about the way he talks, rather his actual abilities overall as the president, if that makes sense.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Those figures have been consistent with reports, there has been almost a million displaced, with nowhere to go, and one hospital said to have an insane 35,000 sheltering there a few days ago.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/...s-run-low-and-ground-offensive-looms-00121600

With that many people crammed into a small space the explosion in the photo above could easily kill 500 people.

35k people all stuffed into a hospital together is mind blowing.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

And a genuine response, not a glib 'maybe don't kill babies in hospitals'. Because it's not as though Hamas aren't hiding in those hospitals, or launching rockets from literally across the road.

"Don't kill babies in hospitals" is not a glib response. It is an extremely basic and simple moral test. Israel is demanding the right to miserably fail this simple test and get to keep calling themselves paragons of moral virtue.

This is not complicated. It is baked into our communal sense of morality. Have you ever seen a movie where the villain takes a child hostage in order to escape, and the hero simply takes his machine gun and unloads 1000 bullets into both of them? Everything in our culture tells us that this is a line we cannot cross.

The reason Israel is comfortable crossing it is quite simple: the distinction between "the villain" and "the civilians" doesn't matter a whole lot to them. They want all the Palestinians out.

 

[Buster15]

I can't get over the whistling sound of the JDAM.

Is that the sound they make?
Honest question.

 

[Drizzle]

I think the balance of probability is that this was a failed IJ rocket, not Israel, and that nowhere near 500 people died. Obviously hard to be 100% on this, but that seems to be the emerging view from neutral observers.

Given that the region is now closer than ever to getting engulfed in flames because of how this was reported, it would be good if those who immediately called for an extreme response based on false reporting could row back a little and hold their hands up and call for calm and more evidence.

It's not going to happen though is it. At best we'll see silence but the damage has been done. People will die because of this dishonesty, on all sides.

 

[sullydnl]

Yeah, that's how anyone should approach this matter.

My personal feeling though is that whoever responsible for this atrocity didn't make it deliberately. Just something that went awfully wrong and, as always innocent people, died because of it.

I would very much suspect this is true.

But then when you recklessly level whole areas of the city with bombings, or recklessly launch rockets from within civillian areas, whether you meant to do it or not doesn't ultimately count for that much.

It's akin to US law where someone can be charged with second-degree murder if they act with "depraved indifference" to human life and it results in a death, even if there was no specific intent to kill (e.g. blindly firing a gun into a crowded room). Except in this case the depraved indifference to human life is on a millitary scale.

 

[Buster15]

That's a terribly narrow-minded view of the whole conflict and exactly why the situation there never changes.

If you had looked, you would have seen that I was responding to a specific post and was not addressing 'the whole conflict'.
And had you also looked, you would have seen that I have repeatedly blamed both Israel and Hamas for the latest situation.
Hope that is clear to you.

 

[Raven]

For the majority of the time, most Palestinians do live their lives in relative peace, given the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

The decision that was made in 1948 to give the Israeli people their homeland is what it is.
And the State of Israel is, in the main, recognised by the global community.

This latest situation was the result of a terrorist group attacking Israel. Not the other way round.

An equally stupid and offensive thing to say. Well done.

 

[Buster15]

I think the balance of probability is that this was a failed IJ rocket, not Israel, and that nowhere near 500 people died. Obviously hard to be 100% on this, but that seems to be the emerging view from neutral observers.

Given that the region is now closer than ever to getting engulfed in flames because of how this was reported, it would be good if those who immediately called for an extreme response based on false reporting could row back a little and hold their hands up and call for calm and more evidence.

It's not going to happen though is it. At best we'll see silence but the damage has been done. People will die because of this dishonesty, on all sides.

Quite right.
The silence is deafening.

 

[africanspur]

For the majority of the time, most Palestinians do live their lives in relative peace, given the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

The decision that was made in 1948 to give the Israeli people their homeland is what it is.
And the State of Israel is, in the main, recognised by the global community.

This latest situation was the result of a terrorist group attacking Israel. Not the other way round.

How do most Palestinians live their lives in relative peace most of the time?

I think we may have very different definitions of 'peace'.

 

[JPRouve]

How do most Palestinians live their lives in relative peace most of the time?

I think we may have very different definitions of 'peace'.

Relative is doing some heavy lifting. Aggressions or murders on a daily basis are relative peace when you think about it.

 

[sullydnl]

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[bosnian_red]

For the majority of the time, most Palestinians do live their lives in relative peace, given the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

The decision that was made in 1948 to give the Israeli people their homeland is what it is.
And the State of Israel is, in the main, recognised by the global community.

This latest situation was the result of a terrorist group attacking Israel. Not the other way round.

Slaves in the US lived their lives in relative peace, relative of course. Until they decided enough was enough.

When you deny basic human rights to a group of people, when you treat them like 3rd rate citizens, it is a matter of when, not if, they fight back.

 

[Mike Smalling]

They live in peaceful oppression in an Apartheid state or an open air prison. What bliss.

 

[Ted Lasso]

Hagari said some 450 rockets fired from Gaza had fallen short and landed inside the Strip within the last 11 days.

- Reuters

So we've got Hamas and another terrorist group bombing Palestinians on top of any collateral civilian loss from Israel's attacks? Absolutely awful. That region is just a curse.

Have now had a couple of Arab friends here in the US tell me about being confronted and called animals or hoping their country gets carpet bombed to the ground. Neither of them is Palestinian but my goodness this propaganda filled period is creating so much additional hatred.