Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[DrZoidberg]

How many hundred IDF dead as part of the military response?

There are many different types of reality checks. For instance, the reality check that just because Netanyahu orders it, doesn't mean it is making Israel safer. The globe gave him a blank check and looked the other way... he didn't get anything done of value in that time... other than potentially set the path to taking Gaza in whole. Hamas has been weakened a little. Their infrastructure has been disturbed. But the losses for Hamas seemed disproportionately small relative to the damage in general. I don't see how Israel is significantly better off now than they were.

Reality check: Even Hamas admits 6,000 of it's people are dead. That's 20%. Are 20% of all Gazans dead? Even using Hamas numbers we are at about 1% of civilians dead. Last I saw Israel was saying 30% of Hamas was dead, but there do not seem to be decent reporting on the numbers anymore. In what world is 20% small relative to 1%??

You seem to want to only do an apples to apples thing here. The destruction of Gaza goes far beyond the Gazan death toll.

Additionally, 20 to 30%? That means 70% to 80% aren't dead. Meaning the reduction in violence capacity has been reduced a relatively small amount, as far as its potential to impact Israelis. Which is supposed to be the whole purpose of the response, right?

So excessive damage to an area that can't rebuild for the benefit of a small impact on Hamas numbers and infrastructure. And this is ignoring that Hamas likely shifted stuff before the attack.

So, I don't take those polls to mean that the participants necessarily are in favor of terrorism. Some or all may be, but they may be expressing their displeasure of what they perceive as grave injustice towards their group.

Sticking your head in the sand doesn't make it go away. And note that very few consider such attacks wrongful.

You make that claim, but I feel as if you don't actually know the positions (you have made a great deal of presumptions based on anecdotes and flawed analogies), as they were, are, and will be. Excluding and including the IDF assault.

Poll after poll has shown that they consider terrorism to be legitimate combat. Since the terrorists have controlled the educational system for a lifetime this is not a surprising result.

Poll after poll... so there were statistically significant polls (one after the other) asking Gazans whether they felt the brutal murder of over 1000 Israeli civilians was "legitimate combat"?

Why do you think Hamas aren't freeing the hostages? Could it be that what is happening is what Hamas was hoping would happen?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But I don't find that much difference between the two. What Israel lacks in intent, it more than makes up in disproportionate effects in destruction and death.

I don't understand why you think that.
Israel is responding to yet another violent attack. Those go back for many centuries.

WTF are you going on about? Israel has not been around for centuries. And bringing in ancient history is truly pointless.

Israel hasn't, the Jews have. The victim finally fought back, the bullies hate that.

But unlike previous centuries, Jewish folks don't have to just take it, in Israel, at this time. They used to, but that was then and this is now.

And I don't see the current Israeli response as disproportionate. It's quite measured, given the circumstances.
Tom

Depending on the estimates, the Gazan civilian to Israeli civilian toll falls between 5 and 10. And that ignores the destruction of homes and displacement of people.

I admire your view of "proportionate" but I reject.

If that's how you measure right and wrong you're going to end up on the side of evil.

 

[TomC]

Do you have any real solution? Other than "destroy Hamas".

I don't think that is the whole solution, but it's the best start that's viable. After that, Israel will probably have to keep blasting Islamic terrorists and their military installations until there hasn't been a violent attack for a generation or so.
Islamic terrorists will doubtless keep giving Zionists reason to do so with more violence.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Depending on the estimates, the Gazan civilian to Israeli civilian toll falls between 5 and 10. And that ignores the destruction of homes and displacement of people.

I admire your view of "proportionate" but I reject

Could you explain a broad strokes version of a plan to eliminate the ongoing threat of Islamic terrorism from Gaza with a lower death toll? I don't know of one.
Tom

Remember, he's part of the educational system. The system that reacts to bullies by punishing both bully and victim equally. How dare the victim speak out and prevent sweeping the problem under the rug??

 

[Loren Pechtel]

OK. Thanks. It seemed like some were unwilling to state the obvious ramifications of their stances.

That's a big problem across the board and on this thread.
Lots of people seem to think that Israelis just need to learn to get along with their Islamic neighbors. Stop responding to violent Islamic terrorist attacks. Without quite being willing to acknowledge the obvious ramifications of that stance.
Tom

Who here has suggested Israel stop responding to violent Islamic terrorist attacks?

You, amongst others. You pretend they should be allowed to defend themselves, but if they actually hurt anybody that's unacceptable.

I'm reminded of the woman in Iran who faced the death penalty (never heard a follow-up of whether she was executed) because she defended herself against a rapist by stabbing him in the hand with a fairly minor object. Her rapist died of an infection from the wound, she was guilty of murder.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you go back 4 months, to July 2023, then our discussion should include the rampage by Zionist settlers near Ramallah. But that, too, did not come out of nothing and nowhere. There are reasons it happened.

Let's look at that piece of garbage:

During the raid, a Palestinian resident and 27-year-old father of two, Omar Qattin, was shot and killed.

Nothing else is enumerated. Just one person dead.

Let's look a bit further:

Palestinian killed in unclear circumstances as settlers rampage in West Bank town

12 wounded in attack on Turmus Ayya; police say officers shot suspect who allegedly fired at troops; dozens also storm Palestinian village of Urif; no reports of arrests

www.timesofisrael.com

12 wounded in attack on Turmus Ayya; police say officers shot suspect who allegedly fired at troops; dozens also storm Palestinian village of Urif; no reports of arrests

and

Hundreds of Israeli settlers tore through the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya on Wednesday afternoon, setting homes, cars, and fields on fire and terrorizing residents shortly after Israeli victims of a Palestinian terror shooting in the West Bank were buried.

In other words, this wasn't out of the blue but Israelis responding when the government failed to take action against those attacking Israel.

As always, Palestinian attacks on Israel are ignored, Israeli responses are criticized.

Here's the thing. Israel and Zionists are a product of the centuries of anti-jewish bigotry, especially the mid 20th century. That aspect of their culture isn't going away just because you now think that they're European intruders. Zionists aren't a representative sample of Jewish people, much less humans over all. They're, by and large, the fight or die because surrender or flight aren't options anymore types.
Tom

Then the path to peace leads through Israel having defensible borders and NOT continuing to put its people in harm's way in those illegal settlements. If the goal is security, then ffs Israel needs to keep its civilians inside the boundaries the Palestinians and Israelis agreed were the borders of the State of Israel, and get onboard with a Two State solution.

Reality check: The attack came from Gaza.

In as much as it means anything these days Israel has a defensible border with Gaza, although it was watered down when Hamas kept sending civilians into the no-go zone and getting them shot. Note that said border is completely ineffective against attacks by air. Likewise, the "defensible border" with Lebanon doesn't mean that Israel hasn't had to evacuate an area of miles from the border.

The path to peace takes everyone to a more secure and prosperous future. If you want peace, you have to be willing to share the prosperity, not just grab all the shit you can get your hands on. And you have to oppose those who seek to deny security and prosperity to others.

If you want peace, don't let the extremists and the assholes control the agenda.

Extremists in Tehran control the agenda. The war will continue so long as that is the case.

And Hamas does everything it can to ensure there is no prosperity in Gaza because they know the people won't be cannon fodder if they have any better options. Before the second intifada Palestine had the highest GDP of any non-oil Arab nation. Now they have thrown that away on the altar of terrorism and it's a hellhole.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How will they get them (the hostages) back otherwise?

Honestly, I'm no tactical expert but it seems obvious to me that bombing reduces the likelihood of hostages surviving or returning.

I just don't think that they're a particularly high priority to IDF or the Israeli government. They've got bigger priorities.
Tom

Bombing is about getting Hamas to cry uncle. It's already gotten back a bunch of hostages.

 

[laughing dog]

That the people support 10/7.

Just because we don't have unobtainable information doesn't mean we should ignore what we do have.

The fact people support 10/7 ex poste does not mean they supported it ex ante or would support another one.

But why should we think they wouldn't??

Human nature. I do not support 10/7. But if I saw my friends or family getting bombed to hell and children getting killed, I can see how someone might react with "Hamas did not do enough to the fucking Israelis". It is part of many people's nature to react that way to perceived injustice. It doesn't mean they are actually in favor of murder and destruction. As anyone who participates in an online forum should know by now, talk is cheap.

Reality check: They perfectly well know that there was no way 10/7 could have done enough to the Israelis to avoid retaliation. And furthermore, unless they are idiots they realize the bigger the poke the more Israel is going to go stomp. Thus supporting 10/7 means they consider it worth it. It's worth sacrificing 30,000 Palestinians to kill 1,100 Jews.

Your argument assumes a level of dispassionate rationality that is inconsistent with human psychology. After seeing the horrendous destruction and carnage that the IDF is inflicting on their friends and family, it is a realistic human reaction to express after the fact approval of the 10/7 terrorist attack.

Reality check: The support in Gaza is less than it is elsewhere. Seeing the destruction does the exact opposite of what you claim.

It disproves nothing I wrote to anyone who can reason properly. I was trying to show your "fact" has multiple reasonable interpretations, not the single bigoted one that you trumpet. Your response does not rebut my observation. In fact, in order your response to have any relevance whatsoever to your point, you'd have to show the support before 10/7 and after 10/7 in Gaza. As usual, you have handwaved your assertion of fact.

And note that very few consider such attacks wrongful.

So what? I wouldn’t consider kicking Trump in the nuts wrongful but I wouldn’t condone it.

And once again you come up with a total irrelevancy.

The point is that they do not consider slaughtering civilians to be wrong.

As usual, your response misses the point. Whether or not someone does not consider X wrong does not mean they condone X. You are engaging in yet another one of your many logical fallacies. Stop it. It hinders discussion.

 

[laughing dog]

But there is a big difference between "wanting" and "doing". Yet there are posters here who villify Palestinians when they voice their desire for revenge while they defend the massive killing of civilians in Gazan.

I don't remember that.
Pointing out that wanting revenge against Israel, when Hamas is responsible for the disaster, is psychotic isn't the same.

Hamas engaged in terrorism which prompted the gov't of Israel to make a choice on how to react. None is forcing the gov't of Israel to enact their revenge in this method. The IDF is killing magnitudes more civilians than Hamas and engaging in magnitudes more destruction than Hamas. It is psychotic to claim that Hamas is responsible for this tragedy - Hamas and Israel share responsibility, but equally.

So the side willing to act in the most evil way should automatically be given victory because opposing them will result in more deaths.

Do you realize how evil your position is?

I realize how fucking stupid your straw man is.

 

[laughing dog]

So, I don't take those polls to mean that the participants necessarily are in favor of terrorism. Some or all may be, but they may be expressing their displeasure of what they perceive as grave injustice towards their group.

Sticking your head in the sand doesn't make it go away. And note that very few consider such attacks wrongful.

You make that claim, but I feel as if you don't actually know the positions (you have made a great deal of presumptions based on anecdotes and flawed analogies), as they were, are, and will be. Excluding and including the IDF assault.

Poll after poll has shown that they consider terrorism to be legitimate combat.

"Legitimate combat" is a moral figment of your imagination used to dehumanize one side and defend another side. Claiming that bombing noncombatants is "legitimate combat" makes the term meaningless.

 

[TomC]

"Legitimate combat" is a moral figment of your imagination used to dehumanize one side and defend another side.

Bullshit.
Ukrainian people fighting Russian invaders is "legitimate combat", even if you believe that it dehumanizes one side.

Claiming that bombing noncombatants is "legitimate combat" makes the term meaningless.

All combat is bad.
But defensive combat, like Israel is doing, and aggressive combat, like Gaza did on October 7 and before, aren't in the same moral categories. The term does not become meaningless because you think that both sides are wrong and therefore moral parity.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Depending on the estimates, the Gazan civilian to Israeli civilian toll falls between 5 and 10. And that ignores the destruction of homes and displacement of people.

I admire your view of "proportionate" but I reject

Could you explain a broad strokes version of a plan to eliminate the ongoing threat of Islamic terrorism from Gaza with a lower death toll? I don't know of one.
Tom

Not bombing the shit out of Gaza in order to get hostages back.

How will they get them (the hostages) back otherwise?

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating? Bombing the shit out of the very place where the hostages are located is just as likely to get them killed as getting them released.

How about coming down out of your ivory tower and paying a little attention to what actually is going on in the real world?

The price Hamas would demand for the hostages would no doubt end up killing more Israelis than there are hostages. The news reports of the time even mentioned that negotiation wasn't a realistic option.

Israel embarked on the only reasonable course--kick their ass to try to get them to return the hostages. It got back a bunch of them. Then Hamas reneged on the deal and Israel went back to ass-kicking.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can safely draw any wrong conclusions you wish. Hamas has made trades before.

If you bomb the shit out of the area where the hostages are held, can we safely assume you don't give a shit about getting the hostages back alive?

Hamas has made incredibly lopsided deals before. To make a deal 200x as big would destroy Israel.

Even now, look at what's being proposed as "peace"--basically, total Israeli capitulation. That's what Tehran thinks the hostages are worth.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Poll after poll... so there were statistically significant polls (one after the other) asking Gazans whether they felt the brutal murder of over 1000 Israeli civilians was "legitimate combat"?

Why do you think Hamas aren't freeing the hostages?

Because that is the only thing holding Mossad back from clinical strikes against the top tier of Hamas in Qatar.

Could it be that what is happening is what Hamas was hoping would happen?

I wouldn't use the word "hope". But pretty certain they expected a lot of reprisals. Hence, why they took hostages in the first place, because the scope of the October 7th attack was so over the top, they knew the response would be without mercy against the upper powers of Hamas, unless they had leverage. That is why all this killing by the IDF against Hamas is almost smack one's forehead frustrating. The IDF is eliminating the easiest part of the Hamas system to replace.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

"Legitimate combat" is a moral figment of your imagination used to dehumanize one side and defend another side.

Bullshit.
Ukrainian people fighting Russian invaders is "legitimate combat", even if you believe that it dehumanizes one side.

Claiming that bombing noncombatants is "legitimate combat" makes the term meaningless.

All combat is bad.
But defensive combat, like Israel is doing, and aggressive combat, like Gaza did on October 7 and before, aren't in the same moral categories. The term does not become meaningless because you think that both sides are wrong and therefore moral parity.
Tom

But all of the attacks being "defensive" are only so because you labeled them "defensive". Again, there is a fallacy here of people justifying the action because the action happened, it must be justified.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I usually start at the beginning of the 20th century. Things were quiet under Ottoman rule. Sure, there had been murderers, thieves, land swindlers, corrupt officials, bigoted assholes, organized crime, etc., but for four centuries the society was as peaceful as we human beings can usually manage. The millet system the Ottomans employed made their empire very egalitarian. The problems associated with it, namely that it fostered separatism, had been addressed by the reforms of the 19th century. All subjects of the Empire were equal in status, and all were equally protected. And since Palestine had been peaceful for centuries up to that point, I think it's sensible to start with the question "what changed?", and to seek the answer to the question " what can we learn from that time to help people living in Palestine find peace again?".

Start wherever you like. But if you find that the things you are discussing appear to have come out of nothing and nowhere, you are probably ignoring something important about the initial conditions.

Jim Crow as also basically peaceful.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How will they get them (the hostages) back otherwise?

Honestly, I'm no tactical expert but it seems obvious to me that bombing reduces the likelihood of hostages surviving or returning.

I just don't think that they're a particularly high priority to IDF or the Israeli government. They've got bigger priorities.
Tom

Bombing is about getting Hamas to cry uncle. It's already gotten back a bunch of hostages.

And they got people out of it too. So, many the bombing hasn't been effective method of getting hostages back.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hamas cares nothing for those 1000s of non-combatants (i will remind you that nearly all of the >1200 Israelis killed and hostages were non-combatants too). If Hamas were truly concerned about the hostages they would release the hostages anyway. The inhabitants in Gaza are a means to an end. Why should Israel deal willingly with those who wish their destruction?

And the IDF has found medicine that was sent to the hostages but not delivered.

Doesn't matter what the label says, anything that enters Gaza is considered property of Hamas.

 

[laughing dog]

"Legitimate combat" is a moral figment of your imagination used to dehumanize one side and defend another side.

Bullshit.
Ukrainian people fighting Russian invaders is "legitimate combat", even if you believe that it dehumanizes one side.

Taking a comment out of context changes its meaning. It is a disingenuous habit of ours. Stop it.

Claiming that bombing noncombatants is "legitimate combat" makes the term meaningless.

All combat is bad.
But defensive combat, like Israel is doing, and aggressive combat, like Gaza did on October 7 and before, aren't in the same moral categories. The term does not become meaningless because you think that both sides are wrong and therefore moral parity.
Tom

The IDF is not engaging in defensive combat.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am not privy to Hamas decision-making and neither are you. Your response makes no sense. Historically, Hamas takes hostages to trade for people they wish released from Israeli custody. It makes no sense for them to release them without getting anything that they value. Hamas does not value the lives of their citizens. Hamas only values the lives of their hostages in so far as those hostages are tradable. And in the past, Israel has made such trades.

Yeah--at ratios of like 5000:1. Israel has learned better--dealing with Hamas just gets more Israelis killed. (Some of the people released last time were part of the 10/7 attack.) Bombing, however, got a lot of hostages released.

Why in the world should you expect Israel to engage in a strategy shown to have negative value rather than a strategy shown to have positive value?

You seem unable to grasp reality here. If Israel wants to get hostages back alive, they need to deal with Hamas. Otherwise, they risk the hostages either being killed by Hamas or by IDF bombardment. Of course, if Israel does not really care about the hostages, then there is no incentive for Israel to deal with Hamas.

You seem unable to grasp reality here. Your "solution" is simply slow death for Israel.

And Hamas is not going to intentionally kill hostages. That's a negative-value strategy for them.