dimitrig said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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Cal88 said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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KPG said:

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Do you even believe that peace is feasible with the path forward of perpetual war crimes against civilians? If so, that's more idealistic and fantastical than my worldview. If not, how do you see this unfolding in a 10-20 year span? I'm truly curious.

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The better question is Do you believe that peace is feasible with the path forward of Palestinian's and neighboring Arab's perpetual refusal to accept a 2 state solution and Israel's right to exist?

Because Israel's existence is the root cause of the violence. So you can either remove the root cause (The Iran, Hezbellah, Hamas path) or you can accept their right to exist and compromise to have your own nation. Until one of those 2 things happen the cycle of violence never ends, IMO. [I suppose a 3rd path of a single state with proportional representation is a theoretical option but not really for obvious reasons].

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It's the other way around, pretty much all Arab states and Iran, as well as the great majority of Palestinians are for a 2 state solution with Gaza and the West Bank as Palestine, along the 1967 borders. Israel has been opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank ever since the assassination of Rabin, continuing land seizures and colonization in the WB, and even designing their land grabs, road and wall construction to hinder the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

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Clearly it could have happened and I just am not aware of it but I choke I on this idea that Iran is in favor of a 2 state solution. Every public statement from them calls for the literal elimination of Israel from the face of the map, if not also the killing of all Jews. They provide weapons to 2 terrorist organizations who have a literal mission statement of killing Jews and eliminating Israel. I'm trying not to be rude but that statement seems farcically and obviously false.

I'll claim ignorance on the qualifier "ever since the assassination of Rabin". But note the Oslo accords offered Palestinians (pre assasination) everything you say they'd accept. They never came close to accepting (even Bill Clinton says Arafat only said No and never offered a counter proposal). And of course Palestinians have had at least 4 other opportunities to accept 2 state solutions even earlier.

Most Palestinian-centric sources I read talk about the core problems of right to return and self determination, and how 2 state solutions are unacceptable because they fail to address those issues. It is impossible for Palestinians to live on the same land as Israel, to have the right of self determination AND for Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Thus, those 2 issues seem to equate to eliminating Israel to me (either 5th column stuff or explicitly that Israel's existence is contrary in purpose to a land where Palestinians live in large numbers).

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I would be a lot more supportive of Israel if they attacked Iran as a result of this act of terrorism in the same way the US attacked Iraq. It wasn't the right thing for the US to do since Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 but if people agree that all this terrorism is being sponsored by Iran then Israel should have at them instead of bullying 2 million unarmed Palestinian civilians. Maybe they can form a coalition of countries including Saudi Arabia, the US, and others to go depose the clerics in Iran and bring it back into the modern world.

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I would be a lot more supportive of Israel if it returned to some of the early zionist roots in 1947 and embraced the idea of a secular state in which all residents could live as citizens _WITH_ a constitutionally guaranteed right of return from jews impacted by the Diaspora.

Israel just bombed a hospital in Gaza City, and the AP is reporting over 500 were killed in the bombing, while other sources show over 1,000.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-biden-rafah-e062825a375d9eb62e95509cab95b80c

Hundreds of sick, injured, elderly refugees killed in an attack on a hospital. There is no moral equivocation or justification of this act. This has no place in modern society, and this will bring the region and us closer to war.

The Prime Minister of Israel is using dehumanization and broad othering language to differentiate Israel from "its enemies", tweeting out: "This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle". This language, reminiscent of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians of the New Testament, has been used to justify anti-Semitic attacks against Jews throughout ancient and contemporary history. This is the language you use to justify genocide, to justify racial and religious superiority and persecution. This language has no business coming from the Prime Minister of a Jewish state, and this language does not make me feel safer as a Jew.

If you value peace, your interests are not protected by the current far-right Israeli regime, and the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can tack towards peace.

Israel's Minister of Security, Ben Gvir, issued the following statement:

"The only thing that should be brought into Gaza is hundreds of tons of air force explosives, not a single gram of humanitarian aid".

We are witnessing a dark day in Israel's history and in our history. This isn't a proportional response, this isn't about hostages, this isn't about destroying Hamas for security. I'm not sensationalizing or editorializing any of this. This isn't my opinion. This is a quote from a Minister of the government of Israel. Listen to the people in charge at Israel, they will tell you who they are and what they want.

KPG said:

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Israel just bombed a hospital in Gaza City, and the AP is reporting over 500 were killed in the bombing, while other sources show over 1,000.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-biden-rafah-e062825a375d9eb62e95509cab95b80c

Hundreds of sick, injured, elderly refugees killed in an attack on a hospital. There is no moral equivocation or justification of this act. This has no place in modern society, and this will bring the region and us closer to war.

The Prime Minister of Israel is using dehumanization and broad othering language to differentiate Israel from "its enemies", tweeting out: "This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle". This language, reminiscent of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians of the New Testament, has been used to justify anti-Semitic attacks against Jews throughout ancient and contemporary history. This is the language you use to justify genocide, to justify racial and religious superiority and persecution. This language has no business coming from the Prime Minister of a Jewish state, and this language does not make me feel safer as a Jew.

If you value peace, your interests are not protected by the current far-right Israeli regime, and the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can tack towards peace.

---

It is a big bad world out there, but only the most clueless don't understand there always is retaliation. The aim of massive retaliation is to deter being attacked again. You can argue history and pick your time over the last 5,000 years that should matter, but you are where you are, and Israel has no real other options. For such a strategy to work, it must be made public knowledge to all possible aggressors (destruction of Gaza is for the eyes of other enemies and terror groups). The aggressor also must believe that the state announcing the policy has the ability to maintain multiple-strike capability. Hamas obviously knew that, and it is the legitimately elected representatives of the people in Gaza, so this was an attack by a government actor, not just a random group, and the dancing in the streets all over Gaza meant we approve and bring it on. Israel didn't just say we will be tit for tat, they declared war against a territory, and like the US and its allies in other wars, this war is aimed at regime change.


The U.S. response to 9/11 included the American invasion of Afghanistan in league with the so-called Northern Alliance. Officially around 70,000K civilians lost their lives (probably more the 100K since counts in those regions historically are under measured). The rules of engagement for air strikes were amazingly relaxed resulting in bombing of civilian areas. The CIA armed and funded Afghan militia groups who have been implicated in grave human rights abuses and killings of civilians with the CIA's knowledge. The war has exacerbated the effects of poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care, and environmental degradation on Afghans' health. All this was okay, because we had an outraged group of citizens at home. Sound familiar? The immediate goals were to force the Taliban from power and destroy al-Qaida.

When Japanese bombed Peal Harbor, the US engaged in war with Japan. It was known policy that the allies would not take Japanese prisoners, which was completely buried by the US media. We dropped two atomic bombs on cites, and fire bombed many other Japanese cities. The civilian death toll in Japan was probably around 900,000 lives just from the bombings and you can add another 100,000 plus died from the atomic bombs.

Your continuous holy than thou act on moral equivocation and justification is wearing a little thin. As a Jew, you might want to reflect judgment of the German Nazi experience. Like Hamas, the Nazi party is advocating clear messages tailored to a broad range of people and their problems. Germany's standard of living was in a free fall due to sanctions placed on its economy by the World War 1 allies. The economic failure and a decline in living standards was associated with the Weimar democracy imposed by the Allies. By 1932, Germany had reached breaking point. The economic crisis and limits placed on the German economy, in turn led to widespread social and political unrest in Germany, and meant that Germany could no longer afford to pay reparations. Germany suffered the tyranny of the winning military power of France, England, the US, etc. The Nazi's took advantage poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, unrest, and all the other things that are in Gaza to win an election when Hitler pledged to restore prosperity, create civil order (by crushing those who opposed him such as communists and socialists), and to eliminate the influence of Jewish. Just like Hamas, Hitler began dismantling democratic institutions and imprisoning or murdering his chief opponents. Just like Hamas, he then forced Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland, where Germans lived in an "occupied territory" and were subject to [inset your wording on the "innocents" of Gaza under Israeli control} Next was atrocities committed against Jews Any of this sounding familiar? So yes, the world waited and waited like you want to do.


Wars that are based on revenge can be effective in punishing an enemy and for other reasons such as regime change, but they can also create a power vacuum that sparks a long, deadly conflict that fails to deliver sustainable stability. Europe and Japan became allies due to how the post-war was handled, to wit: put the areas under military control (thereby depriving the population of rights for some time), and ultimately to help rebuild.
The only successful conflict against a terrorist group in the past two decades, against the Islamic State group between 2014 and 2017, ended with both Raqqa and Mosul reduced to rubble and thousands of men, women, and children consigned to detention camps.

There are people in speak in platitudes and outrage and accomplish nothing, and those that make the hard often necessary decisions, such as those fighting the Islamic State. Israel with the support of the western world and other allies (and with winks from other neighbors such as the Egypt) is making what it thinks is the only decision it has (partly due to Israel's policies), and the consequences will be devastating to the civilian population, if Israel really intends to take out Hamas. The Gaza leadership, which is Hamas, didn't agree to an ethical fight. If you put in Hamas fighters behind humans shields, in Mosques, in schools, in hospitals, etc. you should expect casualties. But as they say on the school yard and in the UN, they are getting what they asked for.

In another post you said you pontificated " I desire to live in a safe, peaceful world, and if my country actively and routinely normalizes flaunting international laws, that is only going to put me and other civilians like me at further risk and jeopardy." That is a tough one: have you thought about moving to say Switzerland?

KPG said:

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Israel just bombed a hospital in Gaza City, and the AP is reporting over 500 were killed in the bombing, while other sources show over 1,000.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-biden-rafah-e062825a375d9eb62e95509cab95b80c

Hundreds of sick, injured, elderly refugees killed in an attack on a hospital. There is no moral equivocation or justification of this act. This has no place in modern society, and this will bring the region and us closer to war.

The Prime Minister of Israel is using dehumanization and broad othering language to differentiate Israel from "its enemies", tweeting out: "This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle". This language, reminiscent of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians of the New Testament, has been used to justify anti-Semitic attacks against Jews throughout ancient and contemporary history. This is the language you use to justify genocide, to justify racial and religious superiority and persecution. This language has no business coming from the Prime Minister of a Jewish state, and this language does not make me feel safer as a Jew.

If you value peace, your interests are not protected by the current far-right Israeli regime, and the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can tack towards peace.

---

The linked article says both sides are trading blame for the bombing, not that Israel bombed the hospital.

wifeisafurd said:

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KPG said:

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Israel just bombed a hospital in Gaza City, and the AP is reporting over 500 were killed in the bombing, while other sources show over 1,000.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-biden-rafah-e062825a375d9eb62e95509cab95b80c

Hundreds of sick, injured, elderly refugees killed in an attack on a hospital. There is no moral equivocation or justification of this act. This has no place in modern society, and this will bring the region and us closer to war.

The Prime Minister of Israel is using dehumanization and broad othering language to differentiate Israel from "its enemies", tweeting out: "This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle". This language, reminiscent of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians of the New Testament, has been used to justify anti-Semitic attacks against Jews throughout ancient and contemporary history. This is the language you use to justify genocide, to justify racial and religious superiority and persecution. This language has no business coming from the Prime Minister of a Jewish state, and this language does not make me feel safer as a Jew.

If you value peace, your interests are not protected by the current far-right Israeli regime, and the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can tack towards peace.

---

It is a big bad world out there, but only the most clueless don't understand there always is retaliation. The aim of massive retaliation is to deter being attacked again. You can argue history and pick your time over the last 5,000 years that should matter, but you are where you are, and Israel has no real other options. For such a strategy to work, it must be made public knowledge to all possible aggressors (destruction of Gaza is for the eyes of other enemies and terror groups). The aggressor also must believe that the state announcing the policy has the ability to maintain multiple-strike capability. Hamas obviously knew that, and it is the legitimately elected representatives of the people in Gaza, so this was an attack by a government actor, not just a random group, and the dancing in the streets all over Gaza meant we approve and bring it on. Israel didn't just say we will be tit for tat, they declared war against a territory, and like the US and its allies in other wars, this war is aimed at regime change.


The U.S. response to 9/11 included the American invasion of Afghanistan in league with the so-called Northern Alliance. Officially around 70,000K civilians lost their lives (probably more the 100K since counts in those regions historically are under measured). The rules of engagement for air strikes were amazingly relaxed resulting in bombing of civilian areas. The CIA armed and funded Afghan militia groups who have been implicated in grave human rights abuses and killings of civilians with the CIA's knowledge. The war has exacerbated the effects of poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care, and environmental degradation on Afghans' health. The immediate goals were to force the Taliban from power and destroy al-Qaida.

When Japanese bombed Peal Harbor, the US engaged in war with Japan. It was known policy that the allies would not take Japanese prisoners, which was completely buried by the US media. We dropped two atomic bombs on cites, and fire bombed many other Japanese cities. The civilian death toll in Japan was probably around 900,000 lives just from the bombings and you can add another 100,000 plus died from the atomic bombs.

Your continuous holy than thou act on moral equivocation and justification is wearing a little thin. As a Jew, you might want to take on judgment of the German Nazi experience. Like Hamas, the Nazi party advocating clear messages tailored to a broad range of people and their problems. Germany's standard of living was in a free fall due to sanctions placed on its economy by the World War 1 allies. The economic failure and a decline in living standards was associated with the Weimar democracy imposed by the Allies. By 1932, Germany had reached breaking point. The economic crisis and limits placed on the German economy, in turn led to widespread social and political unrest in Germany, and meant that Germany could no longer afford to pay reparations. Germany suffered the tyranny of the winning military power of France, England, the US, etc. The Nazi's took advantage poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, unrest, and all the other things that are in Gaza to win an election when Hitler pledged to restore prosperity, create civil order (by crushing those who opposed him such as communists and socialists), and to eliminate the influence of Jewish. Just like Hamas, Hitler began dismantling democratic institutions and imprisoning or murdering his chief opponents. Just like Hamas. He then forced Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland, where Germans lived in an occupied territory and were subject to [inset your wording on the "innocents" of Gaza under Israeli control} Next was atrocities committed against Jews Any of this sounding familiar? So yes, the world waited and waited like you want to do.


Wars that are based on revenge can be effective in punishing an enemy and for other reasons such as regime change, but they can also create a power vacuum that sparks a long, deadly conflict that fails to deliver sustainable stability. Europe and Japan became allies due to how the post-war was handled, to wit: put the areas under military control (thereby depriving the population of rights for some time), and ultimately to help rebuild.
The only successful conflict against a terrorist group in the past two decades, against the Islamic State group between 2014 and 2017, ended with both Raqqa in Syria and Mosul reduced to rubble and thousands of men, women, and children consigned to detention camps. There are people in speak in platitudes and outrage and accomplish nothing, and those that make the hard often necessary decisions. Israel with the support of the western world and other allies (and with winks from other neighbors such as the Egypt) is making what it thinks is the only decision it has (partly due to Israel's policies), and the consequences will be devastating to the civilian population, if Israel really intends to take out Hamas. The Gaza leadership, which is Hamas, didn't agree to an ethical fight. If you put in Hamas fighters behind humans shields, in Mosques, in schools, in hospitals, etc. you should expect casualties. But as they say on the school yard and in the UN, they are getting what they asked for.

In another post you said you pontificated " I desire to live in a safe, peaceful world, and if my country actively and routinely normalizes flaunting international laws, that is only going to put me and other civilians like me at further risk and jeopardy." That is a tough one: have you thought about moving to say Switzerland?

---

The old "Love it or leave it" schtick, is it 2001 or 2023?

I'm well versed in the history of the Holocaust. If you truly believe that Hamas and the blockaded, impoverished, ~2 million Palestinians living in squalor in a 140 square mile strip of land without a navy, without an air force, without ports, without a hope for a future represent the same existential threat to Jews as the 65 million Germans in a country ripe with natural resources spanning over180,999 square miles then I truly don't think any words I type will change your opinion of anything, you live in a world of pure imagination.

You posit that I'm clueless, holier than thou, and speak in platitudes while accomplishing nothing, and paint yourself as the pragmatist making hard choices, and go on to assert the necessity of bombing hospitals, dropping atomic bombs, and murdering civilians, while footnoting that the death and destruction is necessary "(partly due to Israel's policies)".

So pragmatism is waking up, putting on your big-boy pants, and bombing hospitals and killing civilians, while us wacky, clueless, holier than thou people pontificate about something as crazy as... changing those policies. Got it.

(edited to move my comment out of the quote text)

I don't get why anyone wants to make the parallel to the United States' "War on Terror" as justification for all of Israel's response, because hadn't we mostly agreed that the previous nebulous US war was a massive failure and cost sink? Wars against terrorist organizations can't be fought along the same clear lines as World War 2.

And heck, at least the Bush Administration paid some lip service to making their strikes surgical and limited. Israel isn't even putting up that pretense.

(And yeah, I get that the terrorist attack was horrific and that some kind of response is warranted. The question is, what kind? And is it proportional?)

The headline has been edited since I linked to it.

Yes, there is currently conflicting information. I'm not an expert, but the video I have seen (which I can't personally verify is the video of the event, obviously) shows a loud, large, single explosion, with a missile approaching that sounds identical to Boeing manufactured JDAM Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits that convert unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions.

An IDF spokesman Hananya Naftali who is working for the IDF's digital response front initially tweeted out, then quickly deleted the following: "BREAKING: Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza. A multiple number of terrorists are dead. It's heartbreaking that Hamas is launching rockets from hospitals, Mosques, schools, and using civilians as human shields #Hamas_Is_ISIS"

The official twitter account of @Israel tweeted out "Breaking: IDF Spokesperson: From the analysis of the operational systems of the IDF, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed through the vicinity of the hospital when it was hit. According to intelligence information, from several sources we have, the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital"

Initially, this tweet included two videos showing the purported rocket fire, but the video timestamps were incongruent both from eachother and from the time of the attack. The videos have since been deleted but the tweet remains. There is also some talk from certain military spokespersons that an errant missile hit a Hamas weapons cache, but all videos and discussion I've heard (I wasn't there, obviously, so I can't verify) show that it was one large explosion. And yes, from what I know of Hamas' missiles, this missile would be much lager than anything that they've launched to date, if it were a Hamas missile.

sycasey said:

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I don't get why anyone wants to make the parallel to the United States' "War on Terror" as justification for all of Israel's response, because hadn't we mostly agreed that the previous nebulous US war was a massive failure and cost sink? Wars against terrorist organizations can't be fought along the same clear lines as World War 2.

And heck, at least the Bush Administration paid some lip service to making their strikes surgical and limited. Israel isn't even putting up that pretense.

(And yeah, I get that the terrorist attack was horrific and that some kind of response is warranted. The question is, what kind? And is it proportional?)

---

This is a war. Using the word proportional is a non-starter. You don't fight wars to be proportional. You fight them to win. Proportional is like "We need to kill just the same number of kids...rape the same number of women, and take the same number of hostages, but generally make sure its the same number of dead!" Come on man. Hamas is a state actor, and they started a war they can't win. Sounds like there's a lot of regret going on.

MinotStateBeav said:

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sycasey said:

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I don't get why anyone wants to make the parallel to the United States' "War on Terror" as justification for all of Israel's response, because hadn't we mostly agreed that the previous nebulous US war was a massive failure and cost sink? Wars against terrorist organizations can't be fought along the same clear lines as World War 2.

And heck, at least the Bush Administration paid some lip service to making their strikes surgical and limited. Israel isn't even putting up that pretense.

(And yeah, I get that the terrorist attack was horrific and that some kind of response is warranted. The question is, what kind? And is it proportional?)

---

This is a war. Using the word proportional is a non-starter. You don't fight wars to be proportional. You fight them to win. Proportional is like "We need to kill just the same number of kids...rape the same number of women, and take the same number of hostages, but generally make sure its the same number of dead!" Come on man. Hamas is a state actor, and they started a war they can't win. Sounds like there's a lot of regret going on.

---

There is such a thing as the Geneva Conventions, a code of conduct that civilized countries must abide by, because they are civilized...

As well, smarter war tacticians and political leaders will understand Von Clausewitz' concept of "war being a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means, war is politics conducted'. In that sense, Israelis bombing tens of thousands of defenseless civilians is going to be a huge political disaster for them in the long run, and will only fuel further further retaliations from Palestinians and hostility from most non-NATO countries.

This is important in the current context of the end of American global military and economic dominance, which in the past half century has provided security for Israel. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, Israel needs to adapt to this new reality.

MinotStateBeav said:

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sycasey said:

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I don't get why anyone wants to make the parallel to the United States' "War on Terror" as justification for all of Israel's response, because hadn't we mostly agreed that the previous nebulous US war was a massive failure and cost sink? Wars against terrorist organizations can't be fought along the same clear lines as World War 2.

And heck, at least the Bush Administration paid some lip service to making their strikes surgical and limited. Israel isn't even putting up that pretense.

(And yeah, I get that the terrorist attack was horrific and that some kind of response is warranted. The question is, what kind? And is it proportional?)

---

This is a war. Using the word proportional is a non-starter. You don't fight wars to be proportional. You fight them to win. Proportional is like "We need to kill just the same number of kids...rape the same number of women, and take the same number of hostages, but generally make sure its the same number of dead!" Come on man. Hamas is a state actor, and they started a war they can't win. Sounds like there's a lot of regret going on.

---

Wars are fought between countries. Gaza is occupied territory. Israel occupies the territory since 1967, and continues de facto occupation. In war, typically civilians have the ability to flee the battlefield. Israel continues to trap civilians in the Gaza Strip, as does Egypt. There is no where to go to remove yourself as a civilian.

Since you are such a fan of war, perhaps you should familiarize yourself with proportionality and international humanitarian law.

https://lieber.westpoint.edu/proportionality-international-humanitarian-law-principle-rule/

You make it sound like being against war crimes and being pro-international law is just hippy histrionics.

These are real things that really exist, regardless of how often we flaunt them in the US and Israel flaunts them. They aren't just opinions I'm expressing or things I'm making up.

You may be fine with breaking international law and committing war crimes as a means to an end. But that doesn't mean they're not war crimes and broken international laws.

dajo9 said:

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Nobody admits to being in favor of starting the Iraq War anymore. But we all know it was the majority of the country. What are those people doing today?

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Getting hired in the Biden Administration, appearing on CNN and MSNBC, and writing for the New York Times and Washington Post.

Slava Palestini said:

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dajo9 said:

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Nobody admits to being in favor of starting the Iraq War anymore. But we all know it was the majority of the country. What are those people doing today?

---

Getting hired in the Biden Administration, appearing on CNN and MSNBC, and writing for the New York Times and Washington Post.

---

Voting for Republicans and supporting more bloodshed

dajo9 said:

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Slava Palestini said:

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dajo9 said:

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Nobody admits to being in favor of starting the Iraq War anymore. But we all know it was the majority of the country. What are those people doing today?

---

Getting hired in the Biden Administration, appearing on CNN and MSNBC, and writing for the New York Times and Washington Post.

---

Voting for Republicans and supporting more bloodshed

---

Biden's reign has brought wars to the world.

KPG said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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KPG said:

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Israel just bombed a hospital in Gaza City, and the AP is reporting over 500 were killed in the bombing, while other sources show over 1,000.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-war-biden-rafah-e062825a375d9eb62e95509cab95b80c

Hundreds of sick, injured, elderly refugees killed in an attack on a hospital. There is no moral equivocation or justification of this act. This has no place in modern society, and this will bring the region and us closer to war.

The Prime Minister of Israel is using dehumanization and broad othering language to differentiate Israel from "its enemies", tweeting out: "This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle". This language, reminiscent of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians of the New Testament, has been used to justify anti-Semitic attacks against Jews throughout ancient and contemporary history. This is the language you use to justify genocide, to justify racial and religious superiority and persecution. This language has no business coming from the Prime Minister of a Jewish state, and this language does not make me feel safer as a Jew.

If you value peace, your interests are not protected by the current far-right Israeli regime, and the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can tack towards peace.

---

It is a big bad world out there, but only the most clueless don't understand there always is retaliation. The aim of massive retaliation is to deter being attacked again. You can argue history and pick your time over the last 5,000 years that should matter, but you are where you are, and Israel has no real other options. For such a strategy to work, it must be made public knowledge to all possible aggressors (destruction of Gaza is for the eyes of other enemies and terror groups). The aggressor also must believe that the state announcing the policy has the ability to maintain multiple-strike capability. Hamas obviously knew that, and it is the legitimately elected representatives of the people in Gaza, so this was an attack by a government actor, not just a random group, and the dancing in the streets all over Gaza meant we approve and bring it on. Israel didn't just say we will be tit for tat, they declared war against a territory, and like the US and its allies in other wars, this war is aimed at regime change.


The U.S. response to 9/11 included the American invasion of Afghanistan in league with the so-called Northern Alliance. Officially around 70,000K civilians lost their lives (probably more the 100K since counts in those regions historically are under measured). The rules of engagement for air strikes were amazingly relaxed resulting in bombing of civilian areas. The CIA armed and funded Afghan militia groups who have been implicated in grave human rights abuses and killings of civilians with the CIA's knowledge. The war has exacerbated the effects of poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care, and environmental degradation on Afghans' health. The immediate goals were to force the Taliban from power and destroy al-Qaida.

When Japanese bombed Peal Harbor, the US engaged in war with Japan. It was known policy that the allies would not take Japanese prisoners, which was completely buried by the US media. We dropped two atomic bombs on cites, and fire bombed many other Japanese cities. The civilian death toll in Japan was probably around 900,000 lives just from the bombings and you can add another 100,000 plus died from the atomic bombs.

Your continuous holy than thou act on moral equivocation and justification is wearing a little thin. As a Jew, you might want to take on judgment of the German Nazi experience. Like Hamas, the Nazi party advocating clear messages tailored to a broad range of people and their problems. Germany's standard of living was in a free fall due to sanctions placed on its economy by the World War 1 allies. The economic failure and a decline in living standards was associated with the Weimar democracy imposed by the Allies. By 1932, Germany had reached breaking point. The economic crisis and limits placed on the German economy, in turn led to widespread social and political unrest in Germany, and meant that Germany could no longer afford to pay reparations. Germany suffered the tyranny of the winning military power of France, England, the US, etc. The Nazi's took advantage poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, unrest, and all the other things that are in Gaza to win an election when Hitler pledged to restore prosperity, create civil order (by crushing those who opposed him such as communists and socialists), and to eliminate the influence of Jewish. Just like Hamas, Hitler began dismantling democratic institutions and imprisoning or murdering his chief opponents. Just like Hamas. He then forced Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland, where Germans lived in an occupied territory and were subject to [inset your wording on the "innocents" of Gaza under Israeli control} Next was atrocities committed against Jews Any of this sounding familiar? So yes, the world waited and waited like you want to do.


Wars that are based on revenge can be effective in punishing an enemy and for other reasons such as regime change, but they can also create a power vacuum that sparks a long, deadly conflict that fails to deliver sustainable stability. Europe and Japan became allies due to how the post-war was handled, to wit: put the areas under military control (thereby depriving the population of rights for some time), and ultimately to help rebuild.
The only successful conflict against a terrorist group in the past two decades, against the Islamic State group between 2014 and 2017, ended with both Raqqa in Syria and Mosul reduced to rubble and thousands of men, women, and children consigned to detention camps. There are people in speak in platitudes and outrage and accomplish nothing, and those that make the hard often necessary decisions. Israel with the support of the western world and other allies (and with winks from other neighbors such as the Egypt) is making what it thinks is the only decision it has (partly due to Israel's policies), and the consequences will be devastating to the civilian population, if Israel really intends to take out Hamas. The Gaza leadership, which is Hamas, didn't agree to an ethical fight. If you put in Hamas fighters behind humans shields, in Mosques, in schools, in hospitals, etc. you should expect casualties. But as they say on the school yard and in the UN, they are getting what they asked for.

In another post you said you pontificated " I desire to live in a safe, peaceful world, and if my country actively and routinely normalizes flaunting international laws, that is only going to put me and other civilians like me at further risk and jeopardy." That is a tough one: have you thought about moving to say Switzerland?

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The old "Love it or leave it" schtick, is it 2001 or 2023?

I'm well versed in the history of the Holocaust. If you truly believe that Hamas and the blockaded, impoverished, ~2 million Palestinians living in squalor in a 140 square mile strip of land without a navy, without an air force, without ports, without a hope for a future represent the same existential threat to Jews as the 65 million Germans in a country ripe with natural resources spanning over180,999 square miles then I truly don't think any words I type will change your opinion of anything, you live in a world of pure imagination.

You posit that I'm clueless, holier than thou, and speak in platitudes while accomplishing nothing, and paint yourself as the pragmatist making hard choices, and go on to assert the necessity of bombing hospitals, dropping atomic bombs, and murdering civilians, while footnoting that the death and destruction is necessary "(partly due to Israel's policies)".

So pragmatism is waking up, putting on your big-boy pants, and bombing hospitals and killing civilians, while us wacky, clueless, holier than thou people pontificate about something as crazy as... changing those policies. Got it.

(edited to move my comment out of the quote text)

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Maybe the adults in the room are waiting for the evidence on who blew up the hospital, or is that so 2001? You're so blinded by your ideology you didn't even notice that there is a dispute as to whose missile hit the hospital. I might add the NYT withdrew its lead in about 2 hours, and now has a very different discussion of events as the US is reviewing Israel evidence that shows where the missile came from. But you, just double down. How Trump of you.

But yea, you don't seem to mind being a shill for Hamas and announcing what your county must be like, while ignoring the decisions your country made. Maybe I should add hypocrite to the list of words. Also, lose the term big boy pants - it is so 2010. As far as getting it, your idealism is overruling your common sense.

dajo9 said:

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Slava Palestini said:

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dajo9 said:

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Nobody admits to being in favor of starting the Iraq War anymore. But we all know it was the majority of the country. What are those people doing today?

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Getting hired in the Biden Administration, appearing on CNN and MSNBC, and writing for the New York Times and Washington Post.

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Voting for Republicans and supporting more bloodshed

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Except in Ukraine where they think Ukraine should surrender already.