Hamas-Israel News Thread

[JosephZ]

So your idea is - don't trim your fingernails because they'll only grow back. Don't mow your grass because it will only grow back.

So if you think the IDF is making a grave mistake, tell me what you think the IDF should do.

I answered this for you in post #198.

Okay so even if everything you say is true, what's your alternative? Israel does nothing? Just takes this one on the chin and goes about normal life? Sits around and waits for next years possibly more massive attack from their genocidal neighbors?

Israel needs to focus exclusively on hunting down all of the terrorists responsible for the attack, including the leadership of Hamas, and holding them accountable. Israel also needs to stop the influx of outside funding from countries like Iran. Bombing Gaza and punishing everyone living there for the actions of Hamas isn't going to destroy Hamas or end future terror attacks against Israel. As I said in the post you quoted, the current approach is only going to exacerbate long-standing grievances between the Palestinians and Israel, and until those grievances are addressed, terrorist attacks against Israel will continue.

To defeat Hamas, Israel has to make supporting and joining them less attractive to Palestinians and potential recruits. This can be done by Israel recognizing and respecting a Palestinian state and improving the lives of the Palestinian people. Israel will need to play a direct role in rebuilding Gaza and improving infrastructure once the dust settles from this most recent bombardment. This, along with supporting economic development and offering livelihood opportunities, would go a long way in changing the attitude and mindset of those who live in Gaza. If Israel can show that they care more about the Palestinian people than Hamas, then Hamas will lose the support of the Palestinian people and their primary recruiting tool. This is the only way to destroy Hamas. To make this happen, it will take a concerted effort by the Israeli government, the UN, NGO's, and the Palestinians themselves.

You seem to be well-educated about terrorism, but you don't seem well-educated about Islam.

I also have a rather thorough understanding of Islam.

Yet you repeatedly repeat yourself every time you swallow media lies about what Israel is doing wrong.

I consider myself to be quite capable of discerning between what's true and what's not, and I can tell you with certainty that there are lies coming from both sides in this conflict, and each side is guilty of doing a lot of things wrong.

 

[JosephZ]

Biden calls for ‘concentrated effort’ toward future two-state solution for Israel, Palestinians

Biden on Wednesday said there is no returning to the “status-quo” before Hamas’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on Oct. 7...

“That means ensuring Hamas can no longer terrorize Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields... It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next … It means a concentrated effort for all the parties, Israelis, Palestinians, regional partners, global leaders, to put us on a path toward peace.”

Biden reiterated U.S. support for an independent Palestinian state next to a secure Israel — the so-called two-state solution — and said he had spoken with leaders of Jordan and Egypt, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman on “making sure there’s real hope in the region for a better future.”

Biden calls for ‘concentrated effort’ toward future two-state solution for Israel, Palestinians

President Biden on Wednesday called for a “concentrated effort” on the part of world leaders to work towards a two-state solution to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, as Israel’s war with Hamas…

thehill.com

 

[Chesterton]

I answered this for you in post #198.

Your answer seems confused. You say Israel should do ____, which is what it is doing, and with which you and I agree, but then you turn around and say the "current approach", which I assume is ____, is "only" going to exacerbate the problem. October 7 was the population equivalent of over 40,000 Americans murdered, in addition to the wounded and kidnapped. This, in consideration of all the past terrorist violence, leaves little room for exacerbation. As I said, they would kill all of us if they had the means. If Israel shows strength, that will encourage more future terror. Yes. If Israel shows weakness, that will encourage more future terror. Yes. None of that alters the fact that Hamas delenda est.

I consider myself to be quite capable of discerning between what's true and what's not, and I can tell you with certainty that there are lies coming from both sides in this conflict, and each side is guilty of doing a lot of things wrong.

What lies are coming from the Israeli side?

 

[JosephZ]

Your answer seems confused. You say Israel should do ____, which is what it is doing, and with which you and I agree, but then you turn around and say the "current approach", which I assume is ____, is "only" going to exacerbate the problem.

It's not confusing at all. I said Israel needs to focus exclusively on hunting down all of the terrorists responsible for the attack, including the leadership of Hamas, and holding them accountable. This can be done with special ops teams, conducting boots-on-the-ground operations inside Gaza, offering substantial rewards for information on where to locate militant members of Hamas and detaining their leaders that live outside Gaza.

October 7 was the population equivalent of over 40,000 Americans murdered, in addition to the wounded and kidnapped. This, in consideration of all the past terrorist violence, leaves little room for exacerbation.

Oh, there's plenty of room for exacerbation: terrorist attacks increasing in frequency and becoming more widespread not only in the Middle East but also in the West; a regional war; a war on a global scale; and, while it's only a remote possibility, the very survival of the state of Israel.

Hamas delenda est.

I agree.

What lies are coming from the Israeli side?

I'll give you an example from today. The IDF says it doesn't target civilians, yet after claiming that Al Jazeera is a propaganda mouthpiece for Hamas, the house where Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh's family was taking refuge in the Nuseirat refugee camp (a "safe" area) in Central Gaza was hit during an Israeli air strike, killing his wife, son, and daughter along with other family members.

Family of Al Jazeera journalist killed in Israeli strike, network says

Al Jazeera said the wife, son and daughter of one of its correspondents in Gaza were killed on Wednesday night in an Israeli air strike that the Hamas-run enclave's health ministry said killed at least 25 people.

www.reuters.com

 

[Wings like Eagles]

Israel has demanded that the UN's secretary general retract comments he made about the Gaza war and apologise.

Israel demands UN chief resign over Hamas attack comments

António Guterres denies he justified Hamas's attacks by saying they "did not happen in a vacuum".

www.bbc.com

 

[Wings like Eagles]

 

[Valletta]

This worrying disregard for the lives of any and every Palestinian indicates that you do actually regard the life of an individual Palestinian of less value than the life of an individual Israeli although you did not address my question directly.

No, it does not mean that about the value of each life, nor your outrageous accusation that it is a "disregard for the lives of any and every Palestinian." Hamas terrorists conducted the savagery and butchery. Their goal is to exterminate every Jew from the face of the earth. They will kill more if not stopped, and I agree with the statement "so what if more Palestinians are killed than Israelis." It is tragic that some who only want peace and not the extermination of Jews, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian, have died. It is not a misfortune for Palestinians who are Hamas and supportive of Hamas to die. They need to be stopped no matter what their numbers.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Replace "Palestinian athorities" with Hamas and I'll agree.

Well...there's multiple groups within Palestine. Last I heard, Hamas had about 40% of the vote (when legitimate votes were still held). Fatah I think had the rest, there's a rift or schism between the two.

I don't know the legitimacy of Fatah's claimed goals. Fatah literally translates to "to conquer" and while they claim to want a 2 state secular democracy that recognizes Israel as a nation (a legitimate nation one presumes) I have doubts about whether or not these are serious goals or merely political rhetoric designed to gain international aid and support.

Note, the hosptial was not destroyed. The explosions impacted a parking lot in the hospital complex.

Ty. I haven't been following the story since the UN claims regarding who was responsible. I was under the impression that it was destroyed with hundreds dead.

 

[rjs330]

"The U.S. can paint a vivid picture of civilian slaughter. During the eight-month siege to liberate Mosul from Islamic insurgents, as many as 10,000 people were killed, including at least 3,200 civilians from airstrikes, artillery fire or mortar rounds between October 2016 and the fall of the Islamic State group in July 2017, according to an Associated Press investigation. About the same number of civilians were killed or taken hostage by militants and used as human shields as they fled the city.

Austin, Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Eric Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, and other senior military commanders all spent time in the region around then and watched the violence unfold. They were keenly aware of efforts to set up humanitarian corridors and decisions to pause operations while civilians were warned to move away. So as they are speaking to their Israeli counterparts on an almost daily basis, they are sharing advice on the challenges of urban warfare, the threats of booby traps and roadside bombs and the drive to protect the innocent while rooting out insurgents hidden in schools, mosques and homes.
“Sharing our 20 years of lessons learned is occurring up and down the chain,” said Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey, the spokesman for Brown.

Underscoring that priority, the U.S. has sent a team of military advisers to Israel, including Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Glynn, who helped lead special operations forces against the Islamic State group. Glynn, who also served in Fallujah during some of the most heated urban combat there at the height of the Iraq War, will be able to advise the Israelis on how to mitigate civilian casualties in urban warfare.
“These officials, to include Gen. Glynn, have experience when it comes to urban combat,” Ryder told reporters Tuesday. “They’re in there temporarily with their military expertise to just go through and discuss some of the hard questions that the IDF should consider as they plan various scenarios.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/24/israel-hamas-gaza-lessons-us/bf241b26-72b4-11ee-936d-7a16ee667359_story.html

That doesn't change anything, except to show how hard Israel doesn't want to kill civilians. Too bad Hamas doesn't feel the same way. Yet somehow Israel is equal to Hamas for far too many.

 

[Ana the Ist]

In order to "Deploy a complete military blockade of the Southern and Eastern borders of Afghanistan, which are their primary logistical pathways of reinforcement and retreat.

Right.

Maintain a constant aerial surveillance and control of the Northern and Eastern borders which have significantly less cover from aerial attacks." you need to be a much mightier military power.

Actually, you don't. At the height of the Afghanistan war we had roughly 100k troops deployed. The Afghanistan/Pakistan border is about 300-400 miles shorter than the US Mexico border....which we manage to do a surprisingly good job of apprehending people crossing despite their vast numbers and a US border patrol manpower of less than 20k along the southern border. Realistically....we probably have closer to 3000-5000 patrolling at any given time and they have vastly less resources and technological capabilities than the military which has massive aerial surveillance capabilities, thermal imaging capabilities, and satellites at their disposal. 100k would likely be more than sufficient.

And who decides who was right between, for instance, Vietnam and the US? How is that decided?

Who was "right"? In what way?

I've already told you I don't think war is a moral endeavor. It's fundamentally not about who is "right" or "wrong".

 

[rjs330]

After all of those deaths and trillions of dollars spent in fighting the war on terror, al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Taliban still exist; al Qaeda is expanding its global presence, the Islamic State continues to be the deadliest terror group in the world, and the Taliban is probably stronger today than it was prior to the U.S. invasion in 2001.


What's astounding to me is how many people continue to believe that using military force and all out war to defeat a terrorist group is the answer, when history has shown that it's not. Not only does it fail, it increases terrorism. Look at the increase in terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq for example. Prior to the war on terror, attacks in these two countries averaged well under 100 per year.

View attachment 338282

That's cause they were controlled either by terrorists or dictators who didn't put up with terrorists.

I guess we should just leave terrorist alone.

 

[rjs330]

You are still assuming you have a position of superiority over me which means that you get to ask all the questions and I have to answer them, whereas you don't need to answer any of my questions. "I asked you the questions first" is playground talk. Your further questions did not clarify what you meant by "blanketly condemn Hamas for all their actions before and during this conflict?"

Yes they did. Your certainly ducking and dodging. A classic dodge is to not answer a question and instead pose a question of your own thus deflecting from the original so you do t have to answer.

You asked for specificity and I gave it to you. The fact that you didn't answer again is proof that you never had any intention of answering no matter what or how it is asked. Which m and no you are not going to condemn.

This worrying disregard for the lives of any and every Palestinian indicates that you do actually regard the life of an individual Palestinian of less value than the life of an individual Israeli although you did not address my question directly.

Every life is important. But not every life has equal right to exist. Those who murder innocents and those who support the murder of innocents and call for the murder of innocents, train their children to murder innocents are not as valuable as those who do not.

Evil does not deserve to exist over others who are not.

If you are worried about that, well that's on you. It's funny how you are concerned about me not answering your question directly while at the same time ducking and dodging mine.

 

[wing2000]

That doesn't change anything, except to show how hard Israel doesn't want to kill civilians.

Israel may be taking steps, but the article I cited makes no such claim.

Too bad Hamas doesn't feel the same way. Yet somehow Israel is equal to Hamas for far too many.

I have yet to see that expressed here.

 

[Ana the Ist]

According to B'tselem between the 2nd Intifada and now Palestinians have killed 449 "Israeli forces"
Database on fatalities and house demolitions

From your own source...

Over the same time period, basically double the number of civilians killed.

Here's a list of all known rocket and mortar attacks on Israel in 2018. A typical year in Israel.

List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel in 2018 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Now, how do I know these are attacks on civilians and not the IDF? Pretty simple.

Here's a picture of the border wall that separates Gaza from Israel.

This is quite literally what Hamas and their Palestinian sympathizers have to fire their rockets and mortars over to kill civilians. They literally avoid hitting the wall or the soldiers guarding it....to attack civilians. Why? Because they're terrorists...and believe that killing civilians and women and babies is a more effective use of the millions of dollars their sympathizers send them worldwide.

Although it is true that many Hamas attacks are against civilian targets

My claim wasn't that they never attack military targets....but rather they prefer to and primarily attack civilian targets.

The average year in Israel involves hundreds, if not thousands of indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Each one is a war crime. It's hard to think of a more compassionate, gentler, or patient military response to this sustained terrorism threat than that of the Israeli military. If our neighbors, like Mexico for example, were to do this to us for just one year....we would destroy and annex the entire nation of Mexico in response.

 

[wing2000]

The average year in Israel involves hundreds, if not thousands of indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Each one is a war crime. It's hard to think of a more compassionate, gentler, or patient military response to this sustained terrorism threat than that of the Israeli military. If our neighbors, like Mexico for example, were to do this to us for just one year....we would destroy and annex the entire nation of Mexico in response.

Yes, I don't think we can begin to appreciate the threat's Israeli's live with nor what it would be like growing up in Gaza with very limited rights.

 

[Vanellus]

Saying you recognize something doesn't make it true. I could say that I recognize Trump as the president, doesn't mean Trump is actually the president.

Words are meaningless unless backed by reality. There is no state of Palestine. If there were why does everyone want a two state solution? Call it moving the goal posts if you will, but based upon your comments it was obvious I needed to clarify. No one has truly recognized Palestine as a state. Because you can't recognize something that doesn't exist.

The Montevideo Convention of 1933 sets out the classic attributes that a state must meet to be considered as such: it must have effective sovereignty over a defined territory, a stable population, a set of institutions capable of responding to the needs of its citizens, and be recognized as an equal by other states. “In the case of Palestine, it could be included in the series of so-called ‘quasi-states,’ or states with limited sovereignty,” explains Isaías Barreñada, PhD in political science and co-author of Palestine: From the Oslo Accords to Apartheid (2023).

It does not have effective sovereignty over its territory, but over a kind of archipelago of small portions of its territory,” says Barreñada, who also teaches international relations at the Complutense University in Madrid. The reason is that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority govern in a West Bank increasingly flooded with Israeli settlers, while Hamas governs de facto in Gaza. Nor does it have jurisdiction over the Palestinian population as a whole, insofar as some areas, those designated B and C under the 1993 Oslo Accords, are under Israeli control: the former only under military control and the latter under military and civilian control.

Firstly you wrote "No one has recognized a Palestinian state". That assumes there is a Palestinian state for people (states) not to recognize.
In a later post you wrote: "There is no real state of Palestine to recognize." which is a clear moving of the goal posts and is contradicted by the UN. Maybe your word "real" here means as defined by you rather than the UN. Who has the greater authority to pronounce on this matter: you or the UN?

 

[Vanellus]

No, it does not mean that about the value of each life, nor your outrageous accusation that it is a "disregard for the lives of any and every Palestinian." Hamas terrorists conducted the savagery and butchery. Their goal is to exterminate every Jew from the face of the earth. They will kill more if not stopped, and I agree with the statement "so what if more Palestinians are killed than Israelis." It is tragic that some who only want peace and not the extermination of Jews, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian, have died. It is not a misfortune for Palestinians who are Hamas and supportive of Hamas to die. They need to be stopped no matter what their numbers.

rjs330 wrote a longwinded post where he did not answer my single simple question. "so what if more Palestinians are killed than Israelis" is a horribly callous statement.
How many of the Palestinian children and babies who have died in the bombardment wanted the "extermination of Jews"?

 

[Vanellus]

Right.





Actually, you don't. At the height of the Afghanistan war we had roughly 100k troops deployed. The Afghanistan/Pakistan border is about 300-400 miles shorter than the US Mexico border....which we manage to do a surprisingly good job of apprehending people crossing despite their vast numbers and a US border patrol manpower of less than 20k along the southern border. Realistically....we probably have closer to 3000-5000 patrolling at any given time and they have vastly less resources and technological capabilities than the military which has massive aerial surveillance capabilities, thermal imaging capabilities, and satellites at their disposal. 100k would likely be more than sufficient.





Who was "right"? In what way?

I've already told you I don't think war is a moral endeavor. It's fundamentally not about who is "right" or "wrong".

The US was and is a much more powerful military force than Afghanistan.

 

[Vanellus]

An appropriate response to Hamas' deliberate targeting of women, children, civilians, and taking of hostages.

We can say that it's far more likely that Israel is killing civilians because Hamas uses them as human shields. They create their bases in the basements of hospitals, schools, and even news organizations.

Why? Because Israel, like the US, attempts to fight using limited warfare. They hope that when Israel kills their human shields...they can generate sympathy through their anti-Semitic propaganda.

These actions aren't the same though. Hamas and their sympathizers avoid valid combat targets....they try to avoid engaging in combat with the IDF. They deliberately target civilians, babies, and take non-military hostages as further human shields. Israel targets terrorists and combatants. If your argument is about the morality of one side or the other....only Israel can be described as moral.

As for your admonishing of total warfare....consider this. The reason Hamas uses human shields is literally because Israel attempts to avoid civilian casualties. They hope that by cowardly hiding behind these human shields...Israel will decide not to attack. What would happen if Israel made it clear they were adopting a total war method and any target which brings about the end of the conflict is, in their eyes, a valid target....

Do you think Hamas would still adopt the strategy of hiding in schools, hospitals, news buildings, and other groups of non-combatants? If so....why? I would suggest that if all Palestinians knew that Israel no longer cared if Hamas used human shields and no longer deliberately tried to use its own innocent people for defensive cover....Hamas would have to drop the strategy of using human shields entirely or risk losing all popular support from the public.

Because Israeli spokespeople and certain media outlets repeat the "human shields" narrative incessantly doesn't make it more true. The actual evidence for this is scanty and also ignores the reality of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas doesn't live in recognizable separate barracks because they don't have such things. They live and sleep in their homes which are spread over a wide area of Gaza (those that are still standing that is). Also this idea that Hamas is a fixed subset of the people of Gaza is wrong. That doesn't mean all adult Palestinians in Gaza are in Hamas or support Hamas. The Israeli avowed intent to "destroy Hamas" is not feasible and I believe they know this to be the case. Netanyahu will do or say anything to cling on to power including killing very many Palestinian civilians, old people and children - to be seen to be doing something.

Quite a few of the Hamas leadership are in Qatar and possibly in Iran as well (and Lebanon). Is Israel going to send special forces into every country where parts of Hamas are and kill them? Well if they want a Middle East conflagration yes!

This article from 2014 is well worth reading on this. It's remarkable how little has changed. A key line on the Israeli claims about human shields is: "These claims have not been backed up by independent reporting from international journalists covering the war from Gaza."
from In Gaza, Hamas fighters are among civilians. There is nowhere else for them to go

But we do know that the IDF has used Palestinians as human shields although they prefer the term: "neighbour procedure".

This was made irrefutably clear in an incident that took place in 2002. On 14 August, soldiers sent Nidal Abu Mukhsan, a 19-year-old from the village of Tubas, to the home of Nasser Jarar, a Hamas activist, and ordered him to get Jarar out of the house. When Abu Mukhsan approached the house, Jarar, apparently thinking that the person knocking at the door was a soldier, shot and killed him.

For example, over the course of Operation Cast Lead, which took place in Gaza from December 2008 to January 2009, B'Tselem and other organizations were informed of incidents in which soldiers used Palestinians as human shields. The vast majority of these reports were never investigated, and those that did resulted in no further action. Soldiers were prosecuted in one case only. The two soldiers in question had ordered a nine-year-old boy, at gunpoint, to open a bag they suspected was booby-trapped. Despite the gravity of their conduct – putting a young child at risk – the two were given a three-month conditional sentence and demoted from staff sergeant to private, some two years after the incident took place. None of their commanding officers were tried.

Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, Israeli security forces have repeatedly used Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as human shields, ordering them to perform military tasks that risked their lives. As part of this policy, soldiers have ordered Palestinian civilians to remove suspicious objects from roads, to tell people to come out of their homes so the military can arrest them, to stand in front of soldiers while the latter shoot from behind them, and more. The Palestinian civilians were chosen at random for these tasks, and could not refuse the demand placed on them by armed soldiers. This use of civilians is not an independent initiative by soldiers in the field, but the result of a decision made by senior military authorities. During the second intifada, and particularly during military incursions into Palestinian population centres, such as Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, use of Palestinians as human shields became open military policy.

from https://www.btselem.org/human_shields

One should also bear in mind that Netanyahu has been an enabler of Hamas since it divides the Palestinian leadership and gives him a reason not to negotiate for a lasting solution.

That notion might seem counterintuitive and yet, when it comes to Netanyahu himself, it is unexpectedly on-brand. Prime minister for most of the last 15 years, Netanyahu has been an enabler of Hamas, building up the organisation, letting it rule Gaza unhindered – save for brief, periodic military operations against it – and allowing funds from its Gulf patrons to keep it flush. Netanyahu liked the idea of the Palestinians as a house divided – Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas in Gaza – because it allowed him to insist that there was no Palestinian partner he could do business with. That meant no peace process, no prospect of a Palestinian state, and no demand for Israeli territorial concessions.

None of this was a secret. In March 2019, Netanyahu told his Likud colleagues: “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.”

from Warning: Benjamin Netanyahu is walking right into Hamas’s trap | Jonathan Freedland.

 

[JosephZ]

That's cause they were controlled either by terrorists or dictators who didn't put up with terrorists.

Incidents of Islamic-related terrorism didn't increase only in Afghanistan and Iraq; the increase was seen globally, including in the West. In the United States, incidents of Islamic-related terrorism increased by 280% in the years following the start of the war on terror, and in Western Europe, there was a 640% increase.

I guess we should just leave terrorist alone.

No, they need to be held accountable for their actions and neutralized.