War. It’s a conflict in a highly urbanised area with one side (hint: not Israel) actively using civilians as human shields. Of course there’s civilian casualties, that simply can’t be prevented in war, they can’t even be minimised if one side actively prevents it.
If you care about Palestinian lives then you want Hamas to surrender or to be destroyed. If you don’t then all you really want is to prolong the conflict, because Hamas has made it abundantly clear that they will not stop attacking Israeli civilians, forcing retaliation, and that they do not care one bit how many Palestinians die in that retaliation. They cannot be negotiated with.
Edit - it’s remarkable how hard y’all are ignoring who started this escalation with an utterly and inexcusably barbaric attack on innocent civilians.
that’s a very careful phrase, that. “this escalation” as though everything was fine back when millions of people were living in an open air prison and the flow of food, water and people was controlled by an adversarial foreign power that was denying them basic human rights, and the problem only started when someone who isn’t any of them committed a terrorist attack. “Look what they made me do to you” is the language of a narcissistic abuser.
“Who started it” might work in kindergarten. Might.
Israel response is disproportional. It is also a single leaked document or an accidentally honest statement away from showing a clear genocidal intent. For now you could argue that it’s a sparkling ethnic cleansing.
Hamas being open about its genocidal intentions doesn’t render Israel indisputably good.
No. It’s a conflict in a highly urbanised area with one side (hint: Israel) deliberately bombing targets to cause as many civilian casualties as they can
You aren’t very up-to-date on modern warfare if you think Israel is trying to cause as many civilian casualties as possible.
Fareed Zakaria reported this past weekend that Israel has the dropped the equivalent tonnage of two nuclear bombs on Gaza and 18,000 people have died. Yes, of course that’s bad, but two actual nuclear bombs, or the equivalent tonnage dropped indiscriminately, would probably have killed hundreds of thousands. They obviously aren’t trying to kill as many civilians as possible. The hyperbole isn’t helpful.
Because if you do it slow, people like you won’t notice, until it’s too late, and then you’ll just say that we should forgive them because it’s in the past
Because if you do it slow, people like you won’t notice, until it’s too late, and then you’ll just say that we should forgive them because it’s in the past
Genocide. Can you provide any other explanation for cutting off food and water to the civilian population? This is indefensible. There is no purpose other than to kill or harm the innocent, and they cannot claim this was “unintentional” in any way. Even before we get into the various statements from Israeli officials.
Here is the relevant part of the definition of genocide:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
You only need to do one of these things with the intent to destroy for it to be genocide. Israel has done these 3 out of 5 total. Support them if you want but let’s be clear about what is actually happening here.
Out of curiosity, what do you think is the right thing to do? Ignore the terrorist attack by the legitimately elected Gaza government? Why wouldn’t they keep doing it if you did that?
They’ve done that for a long time with rockets fired at (and killing civilians) in terrorist attacks that NO other country on earth would tolerate.
Eww mines are such a horrible problem worldwide. I get the intent, though.
They’ve done permiter security at crazy levels already. Hamas with the help of Quatar, Iran, Iraq, Hezbolla, etc… they have failed. To a spectacular degree. October’s attack makes trying to build a better wall or mined areas not likely as an effective solution.
Plus, then you get all the recriminations Bout racist apartheid, and nothing gets better.
There have been negotiations. But negotiating with terrorists is a debatable strategy, at the very least, right? Don’t have to disagree or agree, I’m just saying we are both aware that’s a strategy that has proponents and opponents for a reason.
The UN has had decades to inject a peacekeeping force. But the sad truth is that UN peacekeeping missions have a terrible failure rate, for many reasons, and I’m not just throwing stones at the UN here. But the reality is the outcomes from their deployment have been wanting.
That said, I’d love Israel to pull put and have an UN force in there instead. Even with the UN schools having taught anti-Israel sentiments and militarism in the UN printed text books.
Even with the UNs hostility towards Israel, I definitely would prefer them there. With the responsibility for preventing further attacks on Israel and Gaza and real repercussions for failure.
But no more mines. I wish mines were banned. I know they won’t ever be… but so awful.
I’ll say I appreciate your sincerity and taking the time to answer. And just because I disagree that this would help, doesn’t mean I don’t respect your position. We just disagree. I do sincerely want to find a convincing alternative to the current state of affairs as well. And know that my position is what it is because I don’t see a clear alternative atm. I’d love for that to change.
I agree on the mines, that’s why I put it under the maybe qualifier.
I think if you laid them out in only that area, and then just surround the whole thing with steel plate reinforced concrete walls, like a giant hollow Tetris L piece, we could all live with it.
The problem with mine fields is when they are unmarked or in an area with unrestricted access.
No one is going to accidentally stumble through a 20 ft tall and 4?( I don’t know the physics of how wide it would have to be compared to tall to be an effective wall here. Leverage is a bitch like that) ft wide wall.
That would have to be an intentional incursion.
That stops all of 10/7, except the paragliders, and they wouldn’t stand a chance without ground troops.
Air support can not hold ground, that requires boots on the ground.
Shit, we could even get a UN fund to build the wall, and the U.S. to supply the land mines, I think it is just us and North Korea that even have a good stockpile after russia used all of theirs.
I’m much more worried about a future where we would not be willing to repeat doing whatever is required to stop a fundamentally evil empire that is actively committing actual genocide.
What would have been a better course of action for the Allies that wouldn’t result in greater death and suffering? I can’t think of anything myself… but perhaps you have some ideas beyond surrendering?
For today, with fucking sword missiles? A little more precision guided weaponry, a lot less dumb bombs.
But what with Israeli soldiers, burning food and water, destroying toys, cutting off food and water, and killing the Israeli hostages, and straight up admitting that they are keeping Gaza and that a two state solution will not happen?
I figure there will be a lot more innocent children killed.
If you don’t respond to my point why should I respond to yours?
Oh yeah, because I have self respect: not sure about the specifics, but maybe don’t cut off food and water to civilians? You know, if you lock down an area and control the water supply, maybe don’t use this as leverage? There are also many aid trucks Israel could simply allow in from Rafah. I really don’t see your point here, other than a pathetic attempt to avoid admitting this is obviously genocide.
Charming. And no, Isreal cannot simply allow in supplies because it would also be suppling Hamas, and it would potentially open a route for the smuggling of actual military supplies.
But if you are unable to understand that, bye, blocked ya, since that’s apparently what you want. Hope you can sleep with the knowledge that you’re supporting a group that proudly parades stripped, raped and broken women through the streets.
Not really. I wanted you to explain to me why you think that cutting off food and water to 2.3 million people doesn’t meet the definition of genocide. But you just want to talk about Hamas. I didn’t even mention them.
I shouldn’t have said you aren’t capable of it. You are, I’m sure. You just don’t want to for some reason.
wargenocideWar. It’s a conflict in a highly urbanised area with one side (hint: not Israel) actively using civilians as human shields. Of course there’s civilian casualties, that simply can’t be prevented in war, they can’t even be minimised if one side actively prevents it.
If you care about Palestinian lives then you want Hamas to surrender or to be destroyed. If you don’t then all you really want is to prolong the conflict, because Hamas has made it abundantly clear that they will not stop attacking Israeli civilians, forcing retaliation, and that they do not care one bit how many Palestinians die in that retaliation. They cannot be negotiated with.
Edit - it’s remarkable how hard y’all are ignoring who started this escalation with an utterly and inexcusably barbaric attack on innocent civilians.
that’s a very careful phrase, that. “this escalation” as though everything was fine back when millions of people were living in an open air prison and the flow of food, water and people was controlled by an adversarial foreign power that was denying them basic human rights, and the problem only started when someone who isn’t any of them committed a terrorist attack. “Look what they made me do to you” is the language of a narcissistic abuser.
“Who started it” might work in kindergarten. Might.
Israel response is disproportional. It is also a single leaked document or an accidentally honest statement away from showing a clear genocidal intent. For now you could argue that it’s a sparkling ethnic cleansing.
Hamas being open about its genocidal intentions doesn’t render Israel indisputably good.
No. It’s a conflict in a highly urbanised area with one side (hint: Israel) deliberately bombing targets to cause as many civilian casualties as they can
https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/
You aren’t very up-to-date on modern warfare if you think Israel is trying to cause as many civilian casualties as possible.
Fareed Zakaria reported this past weekend that Israel has the dropped the equivalent tonnage of two nuclear bombs on Gaza and 18,000 people have died. Yes, of course that’s bad, but two actual nuclear bombs, or the equivalent tonnage dropped indiscriminately, would probably have killed hundreds of thousands. They obviously aren’t trying to kill as many civilians as possible. The hyperbole isn’t helpful.
Because if you do it slow, people like you won’t notice, until it’s too late, and then you’ll just say that we should forgive them because it’s in the past
They said they’re keeping Gaza.
No, he’s saying they could have removed ALL of Gaza without any invasion, IF they didn’t care about avoiding civilian casualties.
Pretending they’re intentionally trying to murder civilians like the elected government of Gaza did in October is disingenuous.
If Israel were intentionally targeting civilians, they’d have killed WAY more than 18,000–by literally magnitudes.
Because if you do it slow, people like you won’t notice, until it’s too late, and then you’ll just say that we should forgive them because it’s in the past
The faster we can kill every member of Hamas, the better. The sooner we can ease the suffering of the Palestinians being used by Hamas, the better.
Would you say the same if your mother or child was one of those people killed in collateral damage to something they had nothing to do with?
Doesn’t seem vastly different from the firebombing of German cities by the Allies.
War is horrible. But it isn’t always genocide.
Those are all war crimes by today’s standards. We looked at what we’d done and realised it was wrong.
So then the bombing of Dresden was genocide?
Certainly a war crime. Yes.
So then it isn’t vastly different. Yes?
Genocide. Can you provide any other explanation for cutting off food and water to the civilian population? This is indefensible. There is no purpose other than to kill or harm the innocent, and they cannot claim this was “unintentional” in any way. Even before we get into the various statements from Israeli officials.
Here is the relevant part of the definition of genocide:
You only need to do one of these things with the intent to destroy for it to be genocide. Israel has done these 3 out of 5 total. Support them if you want but let’s be clear about what is actually happening here.
By this definition nearly everything the Allies did in WWII was genocide. To name just a few:
-firebombing of German cities (such as Dresden)
-unrestricted submarine warfare
-bombing of Tokyo
-Hiroshima/Nagasaki
So maybe, just maybe, as ridiculous as this sounds, maybe we should learn from the past, instead of repeating it.
Out of curiosity, what do you think is the right thing to do? Ignore the terrorist attack by the legitimately elected Gaza government? Why wouldn’t they keep doing it if you did that?
They’ve done that for a long time with rockets fired at (and killing civilians) in terrorist attacks that NO other country on earth would tolerate.
Negotiate for your hostages, cede a mile or two of Israel in a perimeter around Gaza as a DMZ, and ask for a UN peackeeping service.
Maybe mine the everloving fucking hell out of the DMZ as well
Eww mines are such a horrible problem worldwide. I get the intent, though.
They’ve done permiter security at crazy levels already. Hamas with the help of Quatar, Iran, Iraq, Hezbolla, etc… they have failed. To a spectacular degree. October’s attack makes trying to build a better wall or mined areas not likely as an effective solution.
Plus, then you get all the recriminations Bout racist apartheid, and nothing gets better.
There have been negotiations. But negotiating with terrorists is a debatable strategy, at the very least, right? Don’t have to disagree or agree, I’m just saying we are both aware that’s a strategy that has proponents and opponents for a reason.
The UN has had decades to inject a peacekeeping force. But the sad truth is that UN peacekeeping missions have a terrible failure rate, for many reasons, and I’m not just throwing stones at the UN here. But the reality is the outcomes from their deployment have been wanting.
That said, I’d love Israel to pull put and have an UN force in there instead. Even with the UN schools having taught anti-Israel sentiments and militarism in the UN printed text books.
Even with the UNs hostility towards Israel, I definitely would prefer them there. With the responsibility for preventing further attacks on Israel and Gaza and real repercussions for failure.
But no more mines. I wish mines were banned. I know they won’t ever be… but so awful.
I’ll say I appreciate your sincerity and taking the time to answer. And just because I disagree that this would help, doesn’t mean I don’t respect your position. We just disagree. I do sincerely want to find a convincing alternative to the current state of affairs as well. And know that my position is what it is because I don’t see a clear alternative atm. I’d love for that to change.
I agree on the mines, that’s why I put it under the maybe qualifier.
I think if you laid them out in only that area, and then just surround the whole thing with steel plate reinforced concrete walls, like a giant hollow Tetris L piece, we could all live with it.
The problem with mine fields is when they are unmarked or in an area with unrestricted access.
No one is going to accidentally stumble through a 20 ft tall and 4?( I don’t know the physics of how wide it would have to be compared to tall to be an effective wall here. Leverage is a bitch like that) ft wide wall.
That would have to be an intentional incursion.
That stops all of 10/7, except the paragliders, and they wouldn’t stand a chance without ground troops.
Air support can not hold ground, that requires boots on the ground.
Shit, we could even get a UN fund to build the wall, and the U.S. to supply the land mines, I think it is just us and North Korea that even have a good stockpile after russia used all of theirs.
I’m much more worried about a future where we would not be willing to repeat doing whatever is required to stop a fundamentally evil empire that is actively committing actual genocide.
What would have been a better course of action for the Allies that wouldn’t result in greater death and suffering? I can’t think of anything myself… but perhaps you have some ideas beyond surrendering?
For them? Idk.
For today, with fucking sword missiles? A little more precision guided weaponry, a lot less dumb bombs.
But what with Israeli soldiers, burning food and water, destroying toys, cutting off food and water, and killing the Israeli hostages, and straight up admitting that they are keeping Gaza and that a two state solution will not happen?
I figure there will be a lot more innocent children killed.
BOYCOTT, DIVEST, SANCTION!
Fuck Hamas and fuck Israel!
How do you propose the logistics of providing supplies to Hamas-controlled areas should work?
If you don’t respond to my point why should I respond to yours?
Oh yeah, because I have self respect: not sure about the specifics, but maybe don’t cut off food and water to civilians? You know, if you lock down an area and control the water supply, maybe don’t use this as leverage? There are also many aid trucks Israel could simply allow in from Rafah. I really don’t see your point here, other than a pathetic attempt to avoid admitting this is obviously genocide.
Charming. And no, Isreal cannot simply allow in supplies because it would also be suppling Hamas, and it would potentially open a route for the smuggling of actual military supplies.
You are totally ignoring my point because you don’t want to admit to what is obviously a genocide.
Good luck with that! But clearly you aren’t capable of having an honest conversation so I’m out. Hope you feel good about starving innocent civilians.
I’m not, I simply disagree with you.
But if you are unable to understand that, bye, blocked ya, since that’s apparently what you want. Hope you can sleep with the knowledge that you’re supporting a group that proudly parades stripped, raped and broken women through the streets.
Not really. I wanted you to explain to me why you think that cutting off food and water to 2.3 million people doesn’t meet the definition of genocide. But you just want to talk about Hamas. I didn’t even mention them.
I shouldn’t have said you aren’t capable of it. You are, I’m sure. You just don’t want to for some reason.
Can you really be happy with yourself supporting someone who is the cause of the tens of thousands of innocent dead who have nothing to do with 10/7?
In 2023 we have missiles that are so accurate we can arm them with swords instead of explosives.
Almost half of the missiles Israel has used were unguided
Yes, it’s too bad they don’t have more of the high tech ones. I guess we’ll have to give them more military aid so they can afford them.
Man you really worked to miss the point there.
Impressive!