Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Derec]

It was not attacked by Gaza. It was attacked by Hamas. You and other apologists for Israeli genocide are somehow unable to keep them distinct.

It was not just Hamas that participated in the attack, although, as the de facto government of Gaza, they led it.
How Hamas built a force to attack Israel on 7 October

Five armed Palestinian groups joined Hamas in the deadly 7 October attack on Israel after training together in military-style exercises from 2020 onwards, BBC News analysis shows.
The groups carried out joint drills in Gaza which closely resembled the tactics used during the deadly assault - including at a site less than 1km (0.6 miles) from the barrier with Israel - and posted them on social media.
They practised hostage-taking, raiding compounds and breaching Israel's defences during these exercises, the last of which was held just 25 days before the attack.
BBC Arabic and BBC Verify have collated evidence which shows how Hamas brought together Gaza's factions to hone their combat methods - and ultimately execute a raid into Israel which has plunged the region into war.

'A sign of unity'​

On 29 December 2020, Hamas's overall leader Ismail Haniyeh declared the first of four drills codenamed Strong Pillar a "strong message and a sign of unity" between Gaza's various armed factions.
As the most powerful of Gaza's armed groups, Hamas was the dominant force in a coalition which brought together 10 other Palestinian factions in a war games-style exercise overseen by a "joint operation room".
The structure was set up in 2018 to coordinate Gaza's armed factions under a central command.
[...]
The BBC has visually identified 10 groups, including PIJ, by their distinctive headbands and emblems training alongside Hamas during the Strong Pillar drills in footage posted on the messaging app Telegram.
Following the 7 October attack, five of the groups went on to post videos claiming to show them taking part in the assault. Three others issued written statements on Telegram claiming to have participated.
The role of these groups has come into sharp focus as pressure builds on Hamas to find dozens of women and children believed to have been taken as captives from Israel into Gaza by other factions on 7 October.
Three groups - PIJ, the Mujahideen Brigades and Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades - claim to have seized Israeli hostages, alongside Hamas, on that day.
[...]
While these groups are drawn from a broad ideological spectrum ranging from hard-line Islamist to relatively secular, all shared a willingness to use violence against Israel.
Hamas statements repeatedly stressed the theme of unity between Gaza's disparate armed groups. The group suggested they were equal partners in the joint drills, whilst it continued to play a leading role in the plans to attack Israel.

This notion that this was just Hamas and that the overall Gazan body politic was uninvolved in starting the war of aggression on 10/7 is ludicrous. Even more ludicrous than the usual nonsense spewed by the "Free, free Palestine" crowd.

In any case, we say "Germany invaded Poland", not "NSDAP invaded Poland".

 

[pood]

Leading by violence is not leading, it's tyranny.

I agree. Too bad it's the standard issue Muslim form of leadership. Do you honestly think that the citizens of Iran or Saudi Arabia could insist on a democratic government, or any other major Muslim countries? I don't, because I am confident that Muslims are generally opposed to such governments.

You are woefully ignorant.

Indonesia is overwhelmingly Muslim — the largest concentration of Muslims in the world.

It is secular.

It is a democracy with a multi-party system.

Stop embarrassing yourself.

This is not hard, unless you are a violent Muslim apologist.
Tom

Please stop slurring all Muslims and stop slurring your interlocutors as “violent Muslim apologists.”

 

[pood]

You’re trying to draw a moral boundary between an “aggressor” and a “defender,”

Yeah, sorry but I do draw a moral boundary between aggression and defense.

Fuck you. If a woman punched out a dude trying to rape her, would you agree that she should have first tried to understand his history and why he did it?

I wouldn't.
Punch the fuck out of the aggressor, and tough shit if they feel like victims.
Like the Gazans.
Tom

You are falling apart here.

 

[Derec]

Whether or not the Gazan leadership is native Gazans isn't the point. Destroying the attacks means fighting in Gaza.

Pood can't even claim that the Hamas leadership is not "native Gazan".
 Ismail Hanniyeh - born in the Al Shati camp, Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip
 Yahya Sinwar - born in Khan Yunis, Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip
 Mohammed Deif - born in the Khan Yunis camp, Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip
 Mohammed Sinwar - born in the Khan Yunis camp, Israeli occupied Gaza Strip

Whom am I missing?

 

[pood]

Yeah, sorry but I do draw a moral boundary between aggression and defense.

Fuck you. If a woman punched out a dude trying to rape her, would you agree that she should have first tried to understand his history and why he did it?

I wouldn't.
Punch the fuck out of the aggressor, and tough shit if they feel like victims.
Like the Gazans.

The rape analogy is emotionally explosive, but also completely wrong. Hamas committing atrocities is not in dispute. But you are taking what Hamas did and using it to justify the mass killing of children, the bombing of hospitals, the starvation of 2 million civilians, and the destruction of an entire society. That’s not punching a rapist. That’s burning down an apartment complex because the rapist might be inside.

You say “tough shit if they feel like victims.” The 6-year-old pulled from rubble with no family left isn’t “feeling like a victim”—she is a victim. Under your logic, there is no line between justice and vengeance, between targeting and annihilation. You’ve replaced self-defense with dehumanization.

Let’s be brutally honest: you don’t believe in defense—you believe in punishment. Not of Hamas. Of Palestinians. You’ve collapsed 2.2 million people—half of them children—into a single enemy to be destroyed, and you call that morality. It’s not. It’s barbarism dressed up as principle.

If your ethics depend on excusing mass slaughter so long as the victims are dehumanized first, then you’ve lost the moral high ground you think you’re standing on. You didn’t draw a moral boundary—you erased it.

NHC

You have been called out, TomC.

 

[TomC]

The problem with your analogy, is that most of Gazan victims did nothing aggressive.

How do you know that?

The Gazan leadership has been building a military strike capability for years. Most of Gazans knew that. They had to know, they dug the tunnels underneath Gazan hospitals.

Did enough Gazans oppose the violent Muslim terrorists that were using them as human shields for the international community to notice?

I don't think so. The international community didn't care about the Gazans Who Don't Matter enough to stop the Gazan military strike capabilities. So the Gazans Who Matter keep attacking Israel and and the international community keeps blaming Israel for responding.
Tom

 

[pood]

Leading by violence is not leading, it's tyranny.

I agree. Too bad it's the standard issue Muslim form of leadership. Do you honestly think that the citizens of Iran or Saudi Arabia could insist on a democratic government, or any other major Muslim countries? I don't, because I am confident that Muslims are generally opposed to such governments.

Indonesia.

 

[pood]

Whether or not the Gazan leadership is native Gazans isn't the point. Destroying the attacks means fighting in Gaza.

Pood can't even claim that the Hamas leadership is not "native Gazan".
 Ismail Hanniyeh - born in the Al Shati camp, Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip
 Yahya Sinwar - born in Khan Yunis, Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip
 Mohammed Deif - born in the Khan Yunis camp, Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip
 Mohammed Sinwar - born in the Khan Yunis camp, Israeli occupied Gaza Strip

Whom am I missing?

I never said they weren’t. What’s your usual stupid point here?

 

[pood]

You have been called out, TomC.

By a violent Muslim apologist.

Well done. I feel privileged to be one of the people who calls out violent terrorism, in the modern world, by name.

So all Muslim are terrorist, eh?

From someone who never even hard of Indonesia.

 

[laughing dog]

The problem with your analogy, is that most of Gazan victims did nothing aggressive.

How do you know that?

The Gazan leadership has been building a military strike capability for years. Most of Gazans knew that. They had to know, they dug the tunnels underneath Gazan hospitals.

How do you know that?

Did enough Gazans oppose the violent Muslim terrorists that were using them as human shields for the international community to notice?

Are you under the illusion that the international community was not paying attention? Notice what and what do you think could have been done?

Hamas took power in 2007, so they’ve been in power for 18 years. Roughly 45% of the population in 2023 was 18 years or younger. It is irrational to hold them responsible for resisting Hamas. 70% are under 30 ( and couldn’t vote in 2007).

Hamas holds the weapons. What should any insurrectionists done in that situation? Hell, you live in country that allows weapon ownership, but you haven’t successively resisted the election of Pence as governor or Trump as President.

 

[Derec]

Since Israel is invading Gaza and bombing it, Whatever death and destruction Hamas inflicts pales in comparison to Israel's response. One could just as easily argue that Hamas is now defending itself from Israel using your rationale.

Do you think Nazi Germany was "defending itself" from Allies as they bombed and invaded das Vaterland?

I mean, this looks like overwhelming military force being used against those poor, poor Germans. Probably starving too.

In the end, your argument is basically that "the ends just the means" which is exactly Hamas's justifications for its terrorism.

There is no moral, or other equivalence there. The only reason Germany did not have to be utterly destroyed is that Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered, and most imprortantly, that there wasn't a guerilla/terrorism campaign against the Allies after this surrender. That's how Germany was able to be rebuilt and emerge on the other side as a sovereign, and soon prosperous state. At least Western Germany did, but that's another topic altogether.
In any case, Gaza/Palestine must do something similar. Gaza, represented by Hamas, must unconditionally surrender and Palestinians in general must give up both the idea of conquering and destroying Israel, and also terrorism as a tactic.
Otherwise, this will not end. Even if there is a ceasefire soon, as long as Palestinians cling to their current goals and tactics, carnage will be repeated over and over again.

 

[TomC]

You have been called out, TomC.

By a violent Muslim apologist.

Well done. I feel privileged to be one of the people who calls out violent terrorism, in the modern world, by name.

Next I'll go get myself called out by some Trumpistas. Then some transists. Then some wokesters.

I post on the Internet to get called out by dumbasses. And it's easy to do. And fun.
Tom

Post will be reported for another libel by you.

Cool.

You make me feel like Comey being reported to the Trumpistas.
Tom

 

[pood]

It should further be noted that Pakistan is also a parliamentary democracy and — ye gads! — even elected a woman as prime minister — something yet to be achieved in the good ol’ USA when it comes to president.

TomC is clueless whereof he speaks. But do keep on slurring all Muslims as terrorists and against democracy.

 

[TomC]

How do you know that?

Even I knew about the tunnels Gazans were building years ago.
You didn't?
Tom

 

[Derec]

I won’t stop telling the truth. Killing tens of thousands. of people, starving them, driving them from their homes, are war crimes —all under the wonderful banner Operation Gideon’s Chariots. Go follow the link I posted to what that means.

Killing people in war is not necessarily a war crime. What is a war crime is operating from civilian areas. Like Mohammed Deif, who was operating from the Al Mawasi humanitarian area. Like the squad that operated that rocket launcher that was set up in the middle of tents that I posted a photo of upthread. Like Mohammed Sinwar who was operating from a tunnel underneath a hospital in Khan Yunis.
People being driven from areas where there is heavy fighting is also normal in warfare.
As far as "starving them", blame Hamas for diverting aid for their own purposes - whether to feed their fighters like kings or to sell supplies to the people at inflated prices and thereby improve their finances.

 

[laughing dog]

Since Israel is invading Gaza and bombing it, Whatever death and destruction Hamas inflicts pales in comparison to Israel's response. One could just as easily argue that Hamas is now defending itself from Israel using your rationale.

Do you think Nazi Germany was "defending itself" from Allies as they bombed and invaded das Vaterland?

I mean, this looks like overwhelming military force being used against those poor, poor Germans. Probably starving too.

In the end, your argument is basically that "the ends just the means" which is exactly Hamas's justifications for its terrorism.

There is no moral, or other equivalence there. The only reason Germany did not have to be utterly destroyed is that Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered, and most imprortantly, that there wasn't a guerilla/terrorism campaign against the Allies after this surrender. That's how Germany was able to be rebuilt and emerge on the other side as a sovereign, and soon prosperous state. At least Western Germany did, but that's another topic altogether.
In any case, Gaza/Palestine must do something similar. Gaza, represented by Hamas, must unconditionally surrender and Palestinians in general must give up both the idea of conquering and destroying Israel, and also terrorism as a tactic.
Otherwise, this will not end. Even if there is a ceasefire soon, as long as Palestinians cling to their current goals and tactics, carnage will be repeated over and over again.

Your obsession with comparing WWI - a world war between countries- with the conflict
In the Middle East is inane.

 

[Derec]

You are woefully ignorant.
Indonesia is overwhelmingly Muslim — the largest concentration of Muslims in the world.
It is secular.

It may be secular compared with the likes of Iran or Afghanistan, but nevertheless:
Sharia police destroy hundreds of bottles of alcohol in Indonesia’s Aceh
A place can't be too secular if it has a "Sharia police".

Stop embarrassing yourself.

Ditto.

 

[laughing dog]

How do you know that?

Even I knew about the tunnels Gazans were building years ago.
You didn't?
Tom

Clipping a portion of a response to change its meaning is disingenuous.

How do you know Gazan civilians dug the tunnels and, if they did, that they knew they were to be used for?

 

[Derec]

Your obsession with comparing WWI - a world war between countries- with the conflict
In the Middle East is inane.

WWII actually.
And while there are obviously differences, there are also similarities.

 

[pood]

The problem is the Middle East has never been with Muslims. The problem is, as Chris Hedges explains in the article I linked, that the Middle East is the fault line and flash point, the intersection, between the industrialized West, which grew wealthy from colonization and imperialism, and the largely still underdeveloped East, which was historically colonized and exploited by the industrial West.

After World War I, the victorious allies carved up the defeated Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence for their own benefit, without the slightest regard for the indigenous populations. After World War II, the Western powers decided to make a homeland for displaced Jews after the Holocaust. The intention might have been noble, but the motives perhaps not so much — President Harry Truman, who was instrumental in this campaign, said he pushed it because in the U.S., there were more Jewish voters than Arabs. Truman himself, of course, was both an anti-Semite and a racist, and killed a lot of innocent people by dropping two atomic bombs.

That is how we got the nakbah, details of which I have already linked.