That's a remarkably small number. It makes me think journalists weren't present in the warzone at all.
Irrespective of which side you support, Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians. An elevated civilian death count, including journalists is to be expected.
However, the numbers being THIS high in this short a time is alarming and tragic.
> Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians.
I despise Hamas, but this claim is disingenuous propaganda (by the leaders who make it, not the parent who repeats it):
First, Hamas is 'notorious' for it because it's endlessly repeated by their enemies. That rhetoric doesn't make anything true. (Haven't we had the Internet long enough that people know it well by now?)
Second, Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians (or hide in wilderness); it's just the nature of being that kind of force:
They have personal weapons, mostly. They cannot bring their rifles and RPGs to fight a fully capable modern state military's tanks and planes on an open battlefield - would you? The modern state military would kill them all immediately; it would be pointless. Might as well surrender.
Therefore the assymetric force cannot hold ground, and therefore cannot build bases separate from civilians: If they had identifiable bases, the state military would erradicate them in minutes.
The laws of war require militaries to distinguish soldiers from civilians, but I wonder if that is written by 'symmetric' forces and to their advantage. For assymetric forces, they might as well have bullseyes on their uniforms.
I agree with the premise that Hamas wouldn't be able to fight open battles. But it doesn't make using human shields (directly by putting military infrastructure in civilian ones or indirectly by not distinguishing themselves) not their fault. The death of human shields is their responsibility, and their alone (without getting into details of which part of dead civilians is actually due to being human shields). Of course, that is a sacrifice they are willing to make, but why would you justify it?
> using human shields (directly by putting military infrastructure in civilian ones or indirectly by not distinguishing themselves)
That doesn't mean they are using human shields (and it doesn't mean they are not): Asymetric forces need to blend into the environment - the mountains, the city, etc. In the city, that means blending into the civilian population - it doesn't require any intent to use them as shields (but they still could intend it - they even could intend to cause civilian deaths to drive world opinion).
> The death of human shields is their responsibility, and their alone
The asymetric force is at least partly to blame for the deaths of civilians, but that doesn't excuse the 'symmetric' force (is there a better term?) from all laws of war and basic human morality. They can still minimize civilian death and still follow rules of proportionality - Israel can't justify nuking the Gaza strip because Hamas is hiding among civilians.
Being indistinguishable from civilians (blending in) is exactly using civilian as a shield -- the opponent can't identify you and can't kill everyone who looks like you
> They can still minimize civilian death
Arguably Israel does it with fairly low civilian: combatant death ratio
> Arguably Israel does it with fairly low civilian: combatant death ratio
Fairly low compared to what? The USSR invasion of Afghanistan? Assad engaged in a civil war? WW2 carpet bombings?
No recent war has seen anywhere near the deplorable civilian:combatant death ratio that we see here.
And if you also take into account that the IDF basically defines adult male as combatant, so that a lot of the "combatants" killed were actually just adult male civilians, then the picture gets even grimmer.
Not to mention, we keep talking about direct casualties, but Israel is going beyond this - they are not allowing some kinds of critical aid into Gaza at all (water treatment pills are forbidden, for one egregious example), and they are generally only allowing a trickle of aid of any kind in - in effect starving the population.
No rate is acceptable. The debate is not about abiding to any modern war KPIs but rather the intent to minimize civilian casualties. Israel definitely does NOT do that by actively engaging with their current strategy of retaliation and that's already enough to say that, from a human perspective, Israel needs to stop right now and enable any sort of progression into a longer holding peace in that area.
I'll rephrase. What rate do you expect in city fights against the enemy mixed with civilians and actively using them as human shields, assuming that the attacking side makes reasonable effort to minimize civilian casualties.
> intent to minimize civilian casualties
Intent is very hard to argue about. Especially when talking about proportionality which is not rigorously defined. Numbers are easier to argue about. It is reasonable to expect that civilian casualty rate will be higher in cases where there is no intent to minimize civilian casualties compared to cases where it is; comparing numbers with conflict in similar conditions where you believe there was such intent is a good starting point
> enable any sort of progression into a longer holding peace in that area
Getting rid of terrorist government who promised to repeat 7th of October looks like necessary condition for peace.
No, the responsibility is always on who is shooting at civilians. If you can't beat the Hamas in Gaza without shooting civilians, don't shoot, retreat in Israel and focus on protecting Israel.
And that's the breaking point of the whole debate whether Israel's current way of defense is justified. This is literally THE point where most of the general population has split opinions and chooses to condemn or not Israel's actions.
Most people think killing thousands of people to eliminate a terrorist group is a trade-off that should be made which baffles my mind. Where do we live? No human life can be weighted upon anything else.
Do you imply that if you're attacked by an army mixed with civilians you're just supposed to surrender and not make a single shot? Luckily people who wrote the Geneva and other conventions understood that it made zero sense.
Um, the things Israel has done to Palestinian citizens in Gaza over the past 15 years (e.g. [0] - [3]) have been pretty horrific, as are the things Hamas has done to Israeli citizens. This situation didn't randomly start on October 7, 2023.
I found this interview pretty thought provoking. I think it is still pro-Israel, but it provides a view of Hamas's strategy that I haven't seen anywhere else.
Basically, what I think Hamas leadership was thinking was to mirror the Hezbollah-Israel conflict from, what, 10 years ago, on a much bigger scale. According to this CIA officer, Hamas had 30,000 soldiers ready to engage in fighting with Israel in an urban environment, and the initial terror attack was trying to sucker the Israelis into rushing in and suffering huge casualties. Not 30,000 soldiers in uniforms and formations to your point, but nonetheless a large force. (This part starts at about 7:30 into the video).
According to the intel officer in the interview, Israel did NOT rush in, and is engaging in effective counterattacks per the Intelligence officer. I understand everyone thinks the press is owned by Israel, but in the failed conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon there was plenty of stories about the Israeli army failing.
I have not heard those stories. Just desperate stories from the Palestinian side, which tells me the Israelis are being quite effective.
Hamas is embedded with civilians by default: the Gaza strip is stuffed full of people, it has very high population density due to the insane 8 children-per-woman population expansion of the Palestinians over the last 60-70 years.
> Israel did NOT rush in, and is engaging in effective counterattacks
According to all the experts I read, Israel rushed in without a political outcome planned. All warfare is a tool to achieve political outcomes (unless the outcome was to drive Palestinians out of Gaza or just destroy as many people and buildings as possible). All warfare ends only with a stable political solution; otherwise it continues indefinitely; an example is Afghanistan, where the US failed to achieve a stable political solution and so the war never ended - unfortunately the Taliban have acheived a stable political solution, to some degree.
> I have not heard those stories. Just desperate stories from the Palestinian side, which tells me the Israelis are being quite effective.
I agree that the Israeli military has spared itself the hubris and casualities they experienced when they attacked Hezbollah around 20 years ago.
But we still see stories criticizing the Israeli military, and we don't hear desperate stories from Hamas, only from civilians. A military killing civilians isn't accomplishing anything. The question is, are they being effective against Hamas and in establishing some desireable political outcome?
> it has very high population density due to the insane 8 children-per-woman population expansion of the Palestinians over the last 60-70 years.
The political aim was to cause a LOT of casualties. I'm not going to disagree that this is ugly stuff, but Hamas must have known this was the result. Also I do think the Israelis think they can get a large amount of Hamas leadership.
Gaza is a mafia state under control by Hamas, who likely control all aid coming into the country and certainly the Iranian military funding.
Israel seems to apply a 10x minimum response to any Israeli casualties over the years. This attack is well above the 10x number already.
And remember, the Israelis do not completely surround Gaza. Egypt is complicit in closing the walls of the prison on Gaza, and Egypt I'm told hates the Palestinians more than Israel does. I wonder why this is, Egypt did manage/oversee Gaza for 25 years and I guess said "no thanks".
AFAIK, it's not like the Sinai peninsula is some valuable land, I think Egypt has room to take in Palestinian refugees. They simply refuse to do it. I have not gotten any good reason why they hate them. I guess the Lebanese hate their Palestinian enclave. It is clear the Arab world doesn't care about the Palestinians, and a common brotherhood of Islam doesn't carry weight.
Egypt has said that if people are displaced it will put the peace agreement with Israel at risk. It's understandable that they do want 2 million more people to feed and the problems will just move to Sinai as among those 2 millions many will also support Hamas.
Its also not true that Egyptians hate Palestines. In fact I would say its rather unison that they feel great sympathy with the Palestines in the occupied areas, and the boycott of companies that support Israel is strong. McDonald's and Burger Kings are mostly empty and there are Palestine flags at shops, stickers attached to products you buy and people are sad about the situation.
> I think Egypt has room to take in Palestinian refugees. They simply refuse to do it. I have not gotten any good reason why they hate them. I guess the Lebanese hate their Palestinian enclave. It is clear the Arab world doesn't care about the Palestinians, and a common brotherhood of Islam doesn't carry weight.
This is a bad take. Egypt, and others, refuse to take "Palestinian refugees" because doing so would make them complicit in Israel's ethic cleansing. Why should Palestinians be forced off their own land?
Palestinian refugees have started civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon. Neither country is keen to repeat that experience and Egypt is not keen to join that list.
Russia doesn't allow ukrainians back to the occupied territories, they deport the non-complicit ones and the remaining ones are heavily oppressed. That should be the excuse for Poland or the rest of EU to not let the refugees in?
If Egypt were to abandon leave with Isreal, they would take in refugees and then allow them to return back across their border to Gaza. Maybe they fear that Isreal would bomb them, but it would be harder to politically justify if Egypt wasn't agressing AND the returning Palestinians were returning to create a peaceful state.
The problem seems to be that Palestinians don't want peace, or are unable to separate themselves from the terrorists government.
Yea, it will probably never end as Palestines have a right according to international law to attack Israel as they are occupied by them. Even if Hamas disappear as an organisation the resistance part will continue and there will probably never be peace until Palestines get the country they were promised and the illegal settlements are removed.
>> Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians.
> this claim is disingenuous propaganda
> Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians
Is the hangup on the word "notorious"? Because you appear to first claim the notion of colocation to be propaganda before explaining why it's also a logistical inevitability.
My point is that the Israeli / pro-Israeli leaders - the ones who understand asymmetric warfare - calling Hamas somehow evil for doing it are spreading disingenuous propaganda. They know very well that an asymmetric force must blend into its surroundings. The Taliban blended into the mountains; Hamas blends into densely populated Gaza.
Hamas does a lot of bad things; they still are 'notorious'; but this thing is just fundamental asymmetric operations, at least generally speaking.
> Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians.
> this claim is disingenuous propaganda
> Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians
Are you listening to yourself here? Pure cognitive dissonance
Still, you got it wrong: It wasn't cognitive dissonance, but miscommunication. I'm not trying to score a point; I'm trying to say that jumping to conclusions - despite it's popularity these days - often yields wrongness, and we all are especially prone to it when we are emotionally charged. Curiosity, as a policy and rule, is an effective prophylactic against screwing yourself. :)
Yes? Use your basic reasoning. Hamas fights in civilian clothing, they hide in civilian buildings, they hide in hospitals. They use regular civilians as shields. This is not your average fight; Hamas hates their enemy more than they love their own country.
If you can't tell innocent people from legit targets... rethink the approach?
Here is my reasoning: they hide in civilian clothes, okay let's not shoot civilians. They hide in hospitals, okay let's not bomb hospitals. They use civilian buildings, okay let's not bomb civilian buildings.
They use civilians as shields... let's not shoot the shields.
Essentially that implies Israel will get shot at and not be allowed to shoot back. I suspect most Israelis would find that unreasonable. Israeli civilians don't like being killed anymore than Palestinian civilians do.
The thing that usually prevents war is that both sides lose in the end. If only one side is allowed to shoot, why would the side being allowed to shoot ever stop? They would be getting all the benefits of war with none of the drawbacks.
> Israel will get shot at and not be allowed to shoot back.
The logic doesn't really follow
What shots exactly? the missiles? Attack the launch sites. They're pretty clear as they expose themselves. Israel has 24/7 surveillance it shouldn't be a challenge. Can you support your claim by showing evidence that a hospital was used to launch missiles?
You likely don't have evidence that Israel is targeting anything. It seems every street in the city was indiscriminately bombed, every hospital was distroyed, and tens of thousands of civilians were murdered. That's a massacre not a "response".
I would be referring to all forms of military violence, whether that be guns, rockets or something else.
I also believe if the facility was being used to conduct the war in a significant capacity, e.g. as an ammunition store or as a command and control center then it becomes fair game. Just waiting around for someone to open fire, shoot back only when they are firing, and letting them escape back to their base of operations is not a way to prevent future attacks and puts the defender at an unreasonable disadvantage.
This should still be subject to the doctrine of porportionality and discrimination of course.
> Can you support your claim by showing evidence that a hospital was used to launch missiles?
I never claimed that. It is especially impossible to show since hamas has not been using missiles in this conflict as far as i know. Perhaps you mean rockets?
My main claim is that if the hospital is being used in any significant capacity to conduct military operations it is reasonable that it could be targeted. Whether any specific instance in this war is justified - i don't know, i don't have the full picture of what happened and i don't know what Israel knew at the time of targeting (intent matters). More to the point, i do not believe that allowing hamas impunity so long as they co-locate their activity near civilians is reasonable.
> You likely don't have evidence that Israel is targeting anything.
Only circumstantial based on the civilian death ratio being much lower in this conflict than in other wars where the military bombed indiscriminately.
Generally crimes have an innocent until proven guiltly element. The onus is on evidence is the other way around.
> That's a massacre not a "response".
Whether or not it is ever justified to bomb a hospital is a very different conversation than whether the actions in this specific conflict are justified. For the latter the details matter a lot.
> What if those launch sites are top of hospitals or media buildings?
Is that a claim or just a hypothetical scenario? If it's a claim, please provide evidance that supports hospitals were used to launch rockets.
You know what is not hypothetical? the fact that Israel bombed hospitals, UN schools, churches, mosques, civilian shelters, ambulances, and killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians: women, children, journalists, UN staff, Red Crescent members. You know what else isn't hypothetical? Israeli minister's call to wipe out a Palestinian village. It's not about a hospital here or there. Just me typing that sentence makes me sick. The fact that we're past the point where a hospital bombing makes a difference in illustrating the crimes committed. Sadly, the attrocities are far greater.
Here are some not hypothetical Massacres and war crimes committed by Israel:
Same as Hamas is fighting an asymmetrical warfare at a disadvantage by IDF, IDF is at the same disadvantage on the journalistic side. They have the monopoly on reporting their side while Hamas is every person with a camera creating whatever narrative they want.
So yeah I can see why you choose not to take their word when they say that they have evidence.
But trust me bro :-)
But seriously now, I don't really understand why it would be shocking to discover Hamas is operating from hospitals, mosques and schools. They are fighting a war and will do anything they can to gain an advantage.
It's very convenient to deploy your base under a hospital, for so many seasons, that I really don't understand why people find it hard to believe...
What is the something else? There is an extensive tunnel network that likely allows insurgents to travel from the hospital to elsewhere. So you can't lay siege to it.
You could send troops in, but now you're in disadvantaged close quarters combat, which is horrific and guaranteed to get many of your troops killed.
The only reasonable strategy is to bomb the hospital. It saves the loves of your troops. Will there be civilian casualties? Yes. Is that preferred to losing your own citizens? Absolutely.
A lot of evidence, if you choose to believe videos coming out of IDF.
But to take a step back, why would Hamas operating from hospitals, schools and mosques surprise you in any way ? Would you then think anything different of them ? This is asymmetrical warfare. Of course they would use anything they can to create an advantage. Let's not kid ourselves. It's the same as using human shields. That's just how this type of war works.
You work with what you have to survive and gain an advantage
> Why did 500 Israeli soldiers die in Gaza from your perspective?
Are saying you committed massacres and
bombed hospitals, UN schools, mosques, churches, and ambulances, as some sort of retaliation?
leveling the entire place, displacing a million, and killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians most of whom were women, children, medical staff and red cross members because...? enlighten me please
When the IRA was periodically attacking UK institutions and killing civilians, did the UK feel entitled to level Belfast and say that the IRA is to blame?
This war in Palestine is much closer to a civil war than to any country-to-country combat, especially since Palestine is simply not an independent country. Since Israel is in control of the Gaza strip for 50+ years (explicit military control till the 2005, still in full control of their borders today), it is on them to treat this as authorities in any country are expected to treat insurgencies on territory they control, not as if they were attacked by a foreign country.
The british controlled the police in northern ireland, Israel does not control the police or other government functions insude Gaza. (As an aside it should be noted that that conflict is orders of magnitude less violent. If the IRA did what Hamas did, i suspect belfast would be leveled) At most israel control their border with gaza (but not egypt's border with gaza) the sea access and air access. A blockade no doubt, but not donestic government functions.
Whether or not gaza is independent is complicated, since they have some features of independence but not others and don't quite squarely fit in either camp. Nonetheless if your suggestion is that israel should have called in whatever their equivalent of a police swat team is - that's impossible because hamas controlled all domestic government functions in gaza. You can't use domestic police techniques on land where you only control the border but not the land itself.
Northern Ireland/UK was not similar to Gaza/Israel at all. The UK was always Northern Ireland's government and controlled all state functions. A better comparison is Mainland China/Taiwan: according to various outsiders, the two are the same country supposedly, but in reality they function as two different states, with entirely separate governments. The main difference between these situations (aside from Taiwan being an island) is that China actually wants Taiwan, whereas Israel really doesn't want Gaza.
Like, if Israel doesn't want the Gaza strip/west bank, then why hasn't there been a two state solution?
> The UK was always Northern Ireland's government and controlled all state functions.
This is 100% not true, Ulster (the majority of which is in Northern Ireland) was historically the part of Ireland that resisted British/English invasions the most, such that the British brought in lots of scottish settlers to try and make the area more favourable to them.
Honestly though, Northern Ireland is more similar to the West Bank, rather than Gaza due to the settlers.
Like, fundamentally, oppressing the nationalist aspirations of the Palestinian people is never, never going to work, and October 7th will happen again and again until the Israeli people realise this, and make attempts towards peace (which the Palestinians should also do, but right now the Israeli's have a lot more power in the situation).
> Like, if Israel doesn't want the Gaza strip/west bank, then why hasn't there been a two state solution?
My understanding is support for a 2 state solution is relatively low on both sides. Especially now that things have deteriorated, but even before oct 7 it seemed unlikely.
Even if Israel doesn't want Gaza, they still have an interest in not getting shot at. I don't think they believe that they would be safe from attacks if they left Gaza alone, and based on both history as well as current rhetoric from Palestinian leaders, it doesn't seem like an irrational fear.
> Like, fundamentally, oppressing the nationalist aspirations of the Palestinian people is never, never going to work, and October 7th will happen again and again until the Israeli people realise this, and make attempts towards peace (which the Palestinians should also do, but right now the Israeli's have a lot more power in the situation).
I think a fundamental problem here is historically, israeli overtures towards peace (imperfect as they may have been) have often been met with an increase in violence. Its hard to sell peace to someone when they don't have a lot of reason to believe it will actually result in peace and not increased violence.
How about some history, let's go back to 1993 and the Clinton presidency. There was a nice little deal called the Oslo Accords. Not the best deal for the Palestinians, but it created a lasting peace and established a Palestinian state.
Israel has never lived up to their side of the agreement. How do you expect anyone to trust them at this point. So yes, confidence is low and will continue to be low as long as Israel is not beholden to international law and continues to be protected by the USA.
There are many murmurs that Netanyahu orchestrated the death of the accords starting with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Both sides claim the other did not live up to their end of the deal, and i think both have a point to a certain extent. However it does not exactly give strong evidence of peace deals actually leading to peace.
> My understanding is support for a 2 state solution is relatively low on both sides. Especially now that things have deteriorated, but even before oct 7 it seemed unlikely.
I find that pretty hard to believe (particularly from the Palestinian side). I agree that Israel's government doesn't want this (Netanyahu has been against since forever), but the options are occupation and the consequent destruction of Israel as a liberal democratic state, or a two state solution. Fundamentally, nothing else will work.
> Even if Israel doesn't want Gaza, they still have an interest in not getting shot at. I don't think they believe that they would be safe from attacks if they left Gaza alone, and based on both history as well as current rhetoric from Palestinian leaders, it doesn't seem like an irrational fear.
I completely understand the fears that many Israelis have, but fundamentally if they stopped settling the west bank and moved towards actually working towards a two state solution, there would be a lot less violence.
> I think a fundamental problem here is historically, israeli overtures towards peace (imperfect as they may have been) have often been met with an increase in violence. Its hard to sell peace to someone when they don't have a lot of reason to believe it will actually result in peace and not increased violence.
Can you give me some examples here? I'm open to being convinced, but I haven't noted much of this over the twenty years I've been following this conflict.
> I completely understand the fears that many Israelis have, but fundamentally if they stopped settling the west bank and moved towards actually working towards a two state solution, there would be a lot less violence.
To be clear, i 100% agree with this, for moral reasons if nothing else. However i imagine its not lost on israelis that the violence seems to be coming from Gaza not the west bank.
> Can you give me some examples here? I'm open to being convinced, but I haven't noted much of this over the twenty years I've been following this conflict.
I was referring to the second intifada, as well as the rise of hamas and their general kill israel rhetoric. Which both came after Oslo (or arguably its semi-failure) To be clear, i am aware that both of these have complex causes, and perhaps my simplification is unfair, but i also don't think that matters to the optics of the situation.
> Because Hamas wants Israel destroyed, and a state actor doing that is a much bigger problem for Israel than a non-state actor.
Hamas is fundamentally a response to the co-option of the PA by (perceived) western/israeli governments. It's rather like the provisional IRA versus the constitutional nationalists in Ireland.
If people see that only violence has any impact, there will be more violence. The events post October 7th (i.e. what's happened in Gaza) have basically created the next Hamas, even in the vanishingly unlikely case that the IDF can wipe them out now.
Israel has had a long-standing policy of propping up Hamas in order to divide Palestinians and thwart the creation of a Palestinian state. Here's an actual quote from Netanyahu on this from 2019 :
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
To the contrary, they want Gaza for the 500 billion dollar natural gas field which is in it's international waters - this would turn Palestine into another Qatar.
> Essentially that implies Israel will get shot at and not be allowed to shoot back. I suspect most Israelis would find that unreasonable. Israeli civilians don't like being killed anymore than Palestinian civilians do.
We are talking about Gaza. The only Israelis being shot there are Israeli militari attacking the Gaza strip.
If you are talking missiles, well Israel should abandon the colonies and create a no man's land where no civilian, be it Israeli or Palestinian, can go, and only shoot those that trespass.
If you are talking missiles, Israel has air defense systems.
> We are talking about Gaza. The only Israelis being shot there are Israeli militari attacking the Gaza strip.
What exactly do you think happened on oct 7?
> If you are talking missiles, well Israel should abandon the colonies and create a no man's land where no civilian, be it Israeli or Palestinian, can go, and only shoot those that trespass.
They did do that to Gaza in 2005. That is how we arrived at the current situation.
> They did do that to Gaza in 2005. That is how we arrived at the current situation.
No, they didn't "do that to Gaza" - Israel has kept Gaza under a brutal blockade, by air, land and sea. Israel kept the place like an open air prison, and had it surrounded by military outposts and remotely operated guns. Hundreds of civilians were shot in 2023 prior to Oct 7th, including peaceful protesters.
The person i was responding to didn't say israel should stop the blockade. They said israel should dismantle their colonies. Which they did in Gaza in 2005. There are no colonies currently in gaza.
It should also be noted that the blockade happened in 2007, so there was a 2 year period there. In any case, the israeli withdrawl is one of the key historical facts that lead to the current geopolitical context.
What would be useful is a historic example where another approach has worked. I don't approve of Israel's methods. I'd prefer an egalitarian solution. But, I'm all out of ideas. Find me an instance of 2 co-habiting or neighboring groups that hate each other, have huge disputes and ended up in relative peace.
I can give you my recent examples of previous instances that are now mostly peaceful, and all of them violate the geneva convention or UN human rights declaration.
Xinjiang = permament open air prison and extreme brain washing
Srilanka LTTE = violent genocide of all suspected participants and their innocent family. 100k civilians killed
Bosnia - Sijekovac killings = violent genocide of thousands of innocent Bosnians in the Bosnian war
Kosovo - thousands of killings, massive population displacement (1+ million) & US military intervention
So what is it ? Do we want the US to intervene and guarantee safety to Israel ? Do we want real open air prisons and complete cultural eradication ? Do we want population displacement of every Gazan to a 3rd location ? Hopefully we are not in support of genocide ?
Well, so what is 'another method' ?
Every single instance of haphazardly drawn post-WW2 line, has led to some kind of insurgency, war, genocide or forced population displacement. Peaceful borders are drawn in the blood of ancestors. The west is simply fortunate enough to have concluded it's killing mid-way through the 20th century. Israel is currently going through one such process. It is especially rich to see the criticism come from western nations who first created the problem. They encouraged the conditions that led to Oct 2023: 2005 withdrawl of Israel and rise of Hamas, and its unilateral control on aid. They refuse to propose any middle ground solution. It's ridiculous.
We actually have very clear examples from history of how to turn an enemy into a friend: the Marshall plan and the similar levels of aid that the USA poured into post-nazi Germany, post-fascist Italy, post-imperial Japan. That turned War-torn bitter enemies into some of the staunchest US allies today.
Given Israel's position of power, they can and should be doing this. However, Israeli politicians just don't want this. Netanyahu has publicly boasted numerous times that he has personally been actively fighting to prevent a two-state solution. A one-state solution is unthinkable to even the moderates in Israel (the Supreme Court has repeatedly iterated that the government MUST protect both the Jewish and the Democratic character of Israel, so integrating the populations of Gaza and the West Bank as full Israeli citizens like this would be unconstitutional, but integrating them as second class citizens would also be unconstitutional).
So what is Israel's solution? Destroying Hamas is a pipe dream - the famine, death, and destruction they are pereptrating in Gaza today will, inevitably, create a new wave of terrorism, whether it's called "Hamas" or something else, as it always has throughout all of history.
The only real solution is massive economic investments in Gaza and the West Bank, and relying on police-like peacekeeping to prevent attacks as much as possible. This is the obvious long-term solution, anything else will worsen, not improve, Israel's security.
> Destroying Hamas is a pipe dream - the famine, death, and destruction they are pereptrating in Gaza today will, inevitably, create a new wave of terrorism, whether it's called "Hamas" or something else, as it always has throughout all of history.
I've seen it argued that is exactly what Israel want - to whip up a new frenzy of Islamophobia, both encouraging immigration to Israel and also making it easier to attack their neighbours and advance their plan for "Greater Israel".
I thought it sounded unlikely at first, but with everything going on in the UK right now... I'm inclined to believe it.
>We actually have very clear examples from history of how to turn an enemy into a friend: the Marshall plan
Japan, Germany, and Italy's people didn't practice a religion that required them to hate Americans. For Germany and Italy in particular, they followed (basically) the same religion as most Americans. Japan never really had much religion. And none of these WWII powers were theocratic states in any way, or governed by religious extremists.
The idea that Israel and Gaza are somehow going to become staunch allies seems like a pipe dream.
However, if you really do want to follow the WWII example, you're totally forgetting that the Allies completely flattened major cities and killed millions of civilians, intentionally, before finally getting unconditional surrenders from their enemies. Basically, one side had to hit rock-bottom before it could be built up again into an ally by the victor. Being so completely devastated and defeated in a major war caused the losing powers to collectively change, on a societal level, the way they viewed the world.
You do know that the vast majority of Muslim people live in countries that don't have any higher hatred of the USA than the average person, right? The largest Muslim country is Indonesia, followed by Bangladesh and Pakistan. So religion has nothing to do with this.
The fact that Palestine is ruled by extremists is not a happenstance, it is a direct consequence of how the Palestinian people have been treated after the war. They lived under full military occupation until 2005, for close to 30 years. Is it any wonder that they became extremists?
What we are seeing are the exact same consequences of the Versailles agreement after WW1, with Germany becoming more and more radicalized because of the extreme economic conditions until a deranged lunatic came to power. This didn't repeat after WW2 exactly because, instead of occupying the defeated countries or imposing harsh economic penalties (both of which Israel did to Palestine after the war) we helped them build up.
Were there terrorists and radicalized groups in the Palestinian territories immediately after the war as well? Of course. But they were fringe groups, and were to be expected when so many had been displaced from their homes. They would have quieted down if the next 30 years had been full of economic growth, instead of military occupation and deprivation.
>What we are seeing are the exact same consequences of the Versailles agreement after WW1, with Germany becoming more and more radicalized because of the extreme economic conditions until a deranged lunatic came to power. This didn't repeat after WW2 exactly because, instead of occupying the defeated countries or imposing harsh economic penalties (both of which Israel did to Palestine after the war) we helped them build up.
You're missing some stuff. In Germany, the Allies didn't just build them up economically and hope for the best, they carried out a strong de-Nazification campaign to basically brainwash everyone out of the Nazi ideology that they had brainwashed themselves into. It wasn't like the Germans suddenly all realized they were wrong and horrible and their racist ideology was bad. This is the same reason the US tried similar de-Baathification after defeating Iraq.
For something similar to happen in Gaza, Israel needs to completely and utterly defeat the ruling government there, then use military forces to occupy the land and create a military government for a while until a civilian government, completely controlled by Israel, can be set up. Meanwhile, they have to control education and teach the Gazans, forcefully (i.e., no free-speech allowed), that their ideology is wrong (along with their interpretation of their Islamic religion). Anyone who publicly supports the atrocities of Hamas get to go to prison. (In Germany, denying the Holocaust or supporting the Nazi government is a criminal offense, remember.)
Is this really what you want?
>You do know that the vast majority of Muslim people live in countries that don't have any higher hatred of the USA than the average person, right? The largest Muslim country is ... So religion has nothing to do with this.
First, this isn't about the USA, it's about Israel vs. Gaza. The people in Gaza hate Israel.
Secondly, talking about Indonesia is like equating Catholics and Protestants, when they've historically hated each other and had wars. They might all be "Muslims" to you, but they're not the same and their beliefs aren't the same. Looking at the last century, it's pretty obvious that Middle Eastern Muslims are not happy about having a Jewish-dominated country in their midst. They aren't even happy about having different kinds of Muslims living around them, which is why they've had so many Sunni vs Shia wars, or ISIS who hated everyone who wasn't as ridiculously extremist as themselves.
> Japan, Germany, and Italy's people didn't practice a religion that required them to hate Americans.
I'm not sure if you're equating Islam with hatred of the USA, or if you mean because so many Israelis believe Palestinians are "amalek", no better than bugs?
> Allies completely flattened major cities and killed millions of civilians, intentionally
And out of these horrors came international agreement on what actions are allowed during wartime, with the aim of ensuring such atrocities weren't repeated. Israel does not respect international law, and should be sanctioned.
>I'm not sure if you're equating Islam with hatred of the USA
I don't know where people are getting this. I'm equating Islam and Judaism with hatred of each other. It's what religions do. We have two effective countries, each one basically a theocracy (less so on the Israeli side, but the fact is, it was founded to be a Jewish state), and their religions are incompatible.
>And out of these horrors came international agreement on what actions are allowed during wartime, with the aim of ensuring such atrocities weren't repeated.
Sure, and the nation-building successes that came after those horrors have never been repeated.
> Japan, Germany, and Italy's people didn't practice a religion that required them to hate Americans.
I mean historically Jews were treated much better by Islam than they were by Christians, so I'm not sure that argument holds up.
Now, given that Israel has been occupying the land of the Palestinians for over fifty years now, there's definitely gonna be a lot of anger there. But flattening Gaza is definitely not gonna help with that.
Palestine has been under de facto Israeli control for more than 50 years. Israel won this war a long, long time ago.
And instead of helping to build a place for Palestinians to live, they kept them under direct military occupation until 2005, then under blockade plus air raids (in retaliation for Palestinian attacks, but usually ending up with a 10:1 ratio of dead Palestinians for each killed Israeli citizen).
What they're seeing now is exactly what the French and British discovered after WW1: if you try to humiliate and subjugate a whole country, even after you have just decisively won a war against them, you'll only radicalize them, ending in a bigger war (thankfully, Palestine doesn't have the resources to become Nazi Germany even if they want to).
The only solutions to have long lasting peace are either (a) investment and openness, or (b) complete annihilation or something close to it. I'm advocating as much as I can for (a).
> And instead of helping to build a place for Palestinians to live, they kept them under direct military occupation until 2005, then under blockade plus air raids (in retaliation for Palestinian attacks, but usually ending up with a 10:1 ratio of dead Palestinians for each killed Israeli citizen).
Gaza got billions of aid since 2005. Water pipes were built, material was delivered. What happened with it? They built one of the biggest underground tunnel systems in the world (as we can see right now), they dug out the pipes to use them for rockets, same with the material. And all the time they attacked Israel and then said "we cannot live in peace, Israel blockades us", leaving the 'after we attacked them again and again' part out.
Palestinians had all the help in the world to live a peaceful life in the Gaza strip with more freedoms over time if they can show that that freedoms don't lead to more dead Israelis. Each time they chose violence instead.
Seriously speaking, what they got is subsistence level help, essentially. The Marshall plan was about building up businesses, industry, banks - everything. Not some token support to just about prevent them from dying.
And, with the 30 years of military occupation and the 20 years of blockade, no real commerce could be made, so Gaza was kept entirely dependent on foreign aid.
> What would be useful is a historic example where another approach has worked. I don't approve of Israel's methods. I'd prefer an egalitarian solution. But, I'm all out of ideas. Find me an instance of 2 co-habiting or neighboring groups that hate each other, have huge disputes and ended up in relative peace.
I mean, they're basically gangs now, rather than terrorists. I remember growing up in the 80s/90s in the south and every single weekend there was either bombings or killings. That's almost entirely ended now.
Another method would be the IDF accepting their responsibility for failing to protect the kibbutzim on 7 October, and making damn sure that this doesn't happen again on their watch. Stop killing the Arabs and start defending the jews.
And I don't mean that they should make sure there's no more Palestinians left to attack them, because that is a horror that the world must never see again (but still sees all too often).
Note that what I'm describing is essentially the status quo before 7 October, including the periodic "mowings of the lawn" by Israel to keep Gaza uprisings in check.
Alternatively of course, Israel could choose to make peace. And that's an option that is available only to Israel, who is the occupying power, and the overwhelmingly more militarily powerful party, not to the Palestinians who can only keep growing resistance groups as long as they are occupied. Israel can choose to end the atrocities and the bloodshed tomorrow. But I guess that would be too much loss of face for all the belligerent fascist assholes in its government.
Serious question: Do you think that Isreal would cease to be attacked by Palestinians tomorrow if they stopped military operations, left Palestine, lifted all blockades, and only operated a no-cross policy for the shared border?
My hypothesis is that without a blockade, external munitions would be shipped in and used to try and obliterate Isreal.
I see no evidence of a stop-and-immediate-peace outcome.
You are probably right. I think it will certainly take a very long time for the feelings of hatred and vengeance to subside, on both sides, after all the horror, death and destruction. But I think that the majority of the Palestinians, even many who have lost people in all the wars in Gaza in the last 17 years, would prefer peace to war. They have gained nothing from war and have lost way too much. Why wouldn't they want it to stop, at last?
Within Hamas itself there are moderates, that were sidelined in 2007, after the attempted coup by a US-armed Fatah faction that led to Hamas taking control of Gaza. These moderates have been severely weakened in the wars that followed, but Hamas has made a few entreaties for peace with Israel (all rebuffed) so they are still there and still have some influence. If Israel shows that it is serious about peace, these moderates will be empowered and will find support in the population, I believe.
I believe peace is possible. I'm Greek. After the Catastrophe of 1922 (you'll find information about it on Wikipedia), we have had 102 years of peace with the Turkish, our blood enemies for many centuries. A peace troubled, at times, but a peace nonetheless, that has endured. Like the Jewish, we too have lost the land where our ancestors lived for thousands of years, lost our greatest city, lost our greatest temple that was turned into a mosque by the Turkish. If we and the Turkish can make it work, the Israelis and the Palestinians can make it work. Not immediately, like you suggest. But someone has to make the first step. The Palestinians can't, because they're the weakest side and they cannot negotiate from a position of power. The Israelis must make the first move. And endure through any turbulence that follows.
>> My hypothesis is that without a blockade, external munitions would be shipped in and used to try and obliterate Isreal.
That doesn't have to happen but I think 7 October was the worst Hamas will ever be able to do. It's not like they'll suddenly grow a modern army with F-16s and armor. The IDF will always be able to deal with whatever Hamas manage to throw at them, there is no question about that in my mind.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I'm with you in that I want the same peaceful outcome to stabilize. It's just that I think Isreal is unwilling to allow even a lesser version of Oct 7 to happen in the future, and therefore I'm suspect that Isreal will let Hamas continue to exist, even if it flipped to majority-moderate led.
We will see how this plays out, but I hope Palestine can use this as an opportunity to rebuild and find some industry, such as tourism, to boost them economically and allow them to thrive.
They didn't 'rob them of their land.' The word "Palestinian" used to refer to jews.
Obviously it's all a bit complicated but a lot of people seem to have the idea that Israel was created out of whole cloth. They were pushed out of literally every other country in the region - https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fh... - so they're clearly hated for reasons other than what you stated.
Jewish people take on no special moral obligations by being victims of the Holocaust. I can't tell if you were implying that they were, but just for clarity's sake.
Because then you let people committing literal war crimes murder you while doing little to nothing to stop it (IIRC, using human shields is a war crime).
Israel uses AI to detect targets with all of their intelligence gathering. It uses precision weaponry. It drops pamphlets (which the US did in Iraq), calls apartments before bombing, has 4 hours of quiet the same time each day for civilian evacuations -- these are Israeli innovations.
Meanwhile Hamas hides in tunnels that are under hospitals, schools, mosques, residences making them military targets. They don't wear uniforms. They captured hostages.
Rooting terrorists out of tunnels is a very complicated task. Most cases of Urban combat such as Mosul don't involve tunnels, yet have much greater civilian to combatant ratio of casualties (3:1 in the case of Mosul).
Hamas never built bomb shelters for its civilians, unlike Israel. They had plenty of concrete to build tunnels for themselves.
The war would have been over by now except other nations have been slowing Israel down. These nations claim that they want the conflict to end but it won't unless Hamas surrenders or Israel finishes the job.
Funny thing is, since this all kicked off I've seen several photos and videos clearly showing Israeli soldiers using civilians, including children, as human shields. I haven't seen any evidence of Hamas doing anything like this; it seems Hamas are mostly accused of this by Israel, simply because Hamas exists in a dense, urban environment.
Irrespective of which side you support, Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians. An elevated civilian death count, including journalists is to be expected.
However, the numbers being THIS high in this short a time is alarming and tragic.