Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Derec]

No, of course "we" recognize that. Labels don't make it genocide.
What makes it genocide is a starvation campaign following a murderous indiscriminate campaign of violence mostly targeting civilians including women and children.
THAT is genocide.

Bullshit. Most of the aid that comes in is being diverted by Hamas or gangs who sell it at exorbitant prices.

"A recent analysis of Israeli military data and Health Ministry figures revealed that at least 83% of the people killed in Gaza were civilians; if only confirmed militant deaths are counted, the percentage may be even higher, above 86%. That would mean over 51,000 Gazan civilians have been killed so far—a number supported by both health ministry reporting and independent expert assessments."
IDF Data

That "analysis" is bullshit. It takes IDF data that published Hamas fighters who could be identified by name and pretends no other fatalities are Hamas (or allied) fighters. That's why this "analysis" claims only 8,900 dead Hamas fighters, while IDF estimated it at around 20k back in January.
Note that both +972 Mag and Granuiad are publications that are very biased against Israel.

Now sure, civilian causalities are high. That does not mean that IDF is targeting civilians. High civilian casualties are expected in warfare in dense, urban environments. And doubly so when your enemy deliberately acts from within civilian areas. For example, this rocket launcher placed among the tents in Al Mawasi.

Hamas does this because they see dead civilians on their own side as a propaganda prop. A prop that too many useful idiots in the West are falling for. So, again, you should blame Hamas.

And of course that doesn't include the ongoing body count from starvation and malnutrition, which - according to you - cannot include any Hamas because they're rolling in food they appropriated from aid distributions.

So, again, who is at fault here? Hamas for misappropriating aid in a war they started. surely.
Also, while there is malnutrition, stories of starvation are greatly exaggerated.

 

[Derec]

Every accusation is a confession,

Is that wokespeak for "I know you are, but what am I?"

Not really surprising though. Kindergarten-level discourse is what I have come to expect from you.

 

[Derec]

Netanyahu has used the same kind excuses as Putyin with Ukarine.

Bullshit. Hamas invaded Israel and their stated goal is to conquer Israel. Just like Putin wants to conquer Ukraine.

Palestinians do not really exist.

As a distinct ethnic group, "Palestinians" are an invention of the PLO. That does not mean that the people do not exist, but that the so-called Palestinian national identity is a sham.

That's why they use a colonial Roman name for themselves that starts with a phoneme that does not even exist in their language (i.e. Arabic).

They don;t rely own the land a family has been on for centuries.

Even UNRWA only specifies a 2 year residency between 1946 and 1948 to claim "Palestinian refugee" status in perpetuity. And Hamas leader Fathi Hammad admits that many "Palestinians" are really from Egypt. Others are from the Arabian Peninsula, or Syria, or Lebanon. There was a lot of Arab immigration into the area during Ottoman and British Mandate times.

Israel has an historical right to the land.

True. The last time the Land of Israel was ruled by members of the native population was during the Hasmonean Kingdom of ... [checks notes] ... Israel. That was from 2nd century BCE to 1st century CE. Since then, it has been governed by foreign empires. One of them being the Romans, who are the ones who named the land "Palestine" after the Philistines (think Goliath), who were likely Aegean Greek and definitely have no connection to modern day "Palestinians".
The land came back into local control only in 1948 when the modern State of Israel was established.

In occupied West Bank which is under Israeli military control Palestinian land is condemned, bulldozed, and building permits issued to Israelis.

True, there are some shenanigans going on there by the settlers. But at the same time, there are valid Jewish historical claims to Judea and Samaria. "Palestinians" do not even have a real name for the land, and instead synthetic neologisms like "West Bank" and "Cisjordania" are used. That land will have to be divided somehow.

Now today without any pretense armed Israeli citizens are occupying Palestine land.

Disputed land more like.

Years back I watched a show on the issue. A Jewish immigrant form Australia talked about going to Israel because he would get free land in the West Bank.

All kidding aside, it is "Palestinians" who are trying to deny any Jewish connection to Land of Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas for example claimed that Jesus was a "Palestinian" and that the Jewish Temple was in Yemen.
Abbas says Jesus was a ‘Palestinian messenger’
PA’s Abbas claims ancient Jewish temples were in Yemen, not Jerusalem

And that's supposed to be a "moderate" and a "partner for peace".

 

[Arctish]

Netanyahu has used the same kind excuses as Putyin with Ukarine.

Bullshit. Hamas invaded Israel and their stated goal is to conquer Israel. Just like Putin wants to conquer Ukraine.

Palestinians do not really exist.

As a distinct ethnic group, "Palestinians" are an invention of the PLO. That does not mean that the people do not exist, but that the so-called Palestinian national identity is a sham.

Well then, you must think an "Israeli" national identity is a sham. The Supreme Court of Israel agrees with you.

All kidding aside, it is "Palestinians" who are trying to deny any Jewish connection to Land of Israel.

Do you have actual quotes of someone doing that, or just distorted interpretations of what someone actually said? The AP article you quoted here about Abbas saying Jesus was a Palestinian messenger doesn't indicate he denies Jesus was a Jew, it says he said Jesus was from Palestine and it notes that Bethlehem is in Palestine.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Dr. Zoidberg has deliberately made this thread into a sewer to deflect from his apologia for genocide and starvation of children.

I just have a problem with racism and bigotry. When the degree of racist hatred is this bad, it makes having adult conversations hard. The racism just seems to hamper the ability to think straight

Just stop that bullshit. Being critical of government policy in Israel is not racism or bigotry. No one has ever in this thread criticized any Israeli just for being Jewish.

That's your interpretation. Those I think are consumed by racist hate against Jews I've put on ignore. That helps my piece of mind

I see no point in interaction with racists who are this far gone

 

[Arctish]

BTW, the name Palestine as a place name for the region goes all the way back to the 5th century BCE when Heredotus recorded that name in his work Histories. There are older inscriptions that reference very similar sounding names for the same place.

Also, before the 7th century CE, the most common language spoken by the people of Palestine was Aramaic, which has both the hard 'p' sound and the soft 'f' sound. Both 'Palestine' and 'Philistine' can be spelled out and pronounced in that language. Interestingly, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Christian Palestinian Aramaic are considered distinct dialects, and the language persists in a few communities in the region.

Anyway, a discussion of what sounds can be spelled out in Arabic says nothing about what name the Palestinian people call their homeland, whether its the one that has been in use for the past 2,500 years or some other word.

 

[Elixir]

Dr. Zoidberg has deliberately made this thread into a sewer to deflect from his apologia for genocide and starvation of children.

I just have a problem with racism and bigotry. When the degree of racist hatred is this bad, it makes having adult conversations hard. The racism just seems to hamper the ability to think straight

Have you considered letting go of racism and bigotry?

 

[pood]

Dr. Zoidberg has deliberately made this thread into a sewer to deflect from his apologia for genocide and starvation of children.

I just have a problem with racism and bigotry. When the degree of racist hatred is this bad, it makes having adult conversations hard. The racism just seems to hamper the ability to think straight

Just stop that bullshit. Being critical of government policy in Israel is not racism or bigotry. No one has ever in this thread criticized any Israeli just for being Jewish.

That's your interpretation. Those I think are consumed by racist hate against Jews I've put on ignore. That helps my piece of mind

I see no point in interaction with racists who are this far gone

Nobody here is consumed by racist hate against Jews. You, OTOH, are a racist and a bigot.

 

[Derec]

Hamas has billions in the bank. Hamas isn't going anywhere without Iran making it so.

By all means the Tehran regime needs to be opposed at every turn as well.
As to billions "in the bank", their terror infrastructure also suffered billions in damages.
And their Daddy Warbucks in Tehran has its own massive problems.
Battling Power Outages and Heat Wave, Iran Orders More Shutdowns

My plan is to go to the source. How to get Iran to drop this seems impossible. People likely thought as such before Jordan and Egypt were taken out of the anti-Israel warpath, via a treaty... and a good amount of cash.

The current regime in Iran is far more doctrinaire than the leaders of Egypt and Jordan have been, so I don't think a treaty would be possible. And giving cash to them will just mean they have more money to fund their terrorist vassals like Hamas and Hezbollah. That was the problem with the 2015 nuclear deal. It gave sanction relief to Iran with which it doubled up funding of terrorism.

So bomb Gaza more, galvanize a generation of future Hamas fighters...

I do not see much of an alternative right now. A ceasefire that leaves Hamas in place, with much of their tunnel network still intact is not conducive to long term peace.
As to "galvanizing" the population, and especially the young, Hamas (with ample help from UNRWA schools!) has done a great job of it before they started this war. That's why Hamas and allied terror groups (Islamic Jihad, PFLP etc.) were able to recruit a significant fraction of the military age male population.

and still not get the hostages. All those hostages can be released if the agreement is right.

But Hamas has never offered an agreement that was right. Even the agreement from early this year was rotten to the core and required Israel to release many prisoners, including very unsavory terrorists.
Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?
To release the remaining ~20 hostages, Hamas demands the release of the most dangerous terrorists, such as Abdullah Barghouti.

It might suck, but after 10/7, do you think for a second Mossad is going to let any of the people released disappear from their site?

Far easier said than done, unless Gaza is fully reoccupied. Besides, rewarding taking hostages merely encourages more hostage-taking. One of the reason 10/7 focused so much on taking hostages was that Hamas managed to get >1000 terrorists released in the Shalit deal. Including, by the way, Yahya Sinwar.

These hostages could have been released one year ago.

Not without releasing all the prisoners, which has been the demand.
Hamas seeks Palestinian prisoners' release, calls non-Israeli captives 'guests'

Hamas, which like other factions has long called for the release of the roughly 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, "has what it needs to empty the prisons of all prisoners," Meshaal, a former Hamas chief who now heads its diaspora office in Doha, told AlAraby TV.

Your plan isn't working. How much longer should hostages suffer to keep to this plan? There are options for managing the cost of their release. I'm certain Mossad has servers full of plans.

I am sure there are many plans. And in one operation, Israel managed to free several hostages held by a doctor and a journalist. So much for everybody with a white coat or a "press" vest being a "civilian".

I hate the fact that the hostages have been suffering for 20 months now. But buckling down to Hamas' ridiculous demands will only invite more of the same in the future, endangering even more civilians. As long as hostage-taking gives them results, they will do it.

 

[Derec]

Well then, you must think an "Israeli" national identity is a sham. The Supreme Court of Israel agrees with you.

What do you mean?

Do you have actual quotes of someone doing that, or just distorted interpretations of what someone actually said?

I posted two articles where the supposedly moderate PA president does that.

The AP article you quoted here about Abbas saying Jesus was a Palestinian messenger doesn't indicate he denies Jesus was a Jew, it says he said Jesus was from Palestine and it notes that Bethlehem is in Palestine.

You really can't be that naive? And connect it with his idiotic statement about the Jewish Temple, and it is clear that he is denying Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. No matter how much effort you want to expend on apologetics.

 

[southernhybrid]

This is kind of interesting. You can read the entire article if you wish to learn more, but it sounds as if the citizens of Israel aren't very happy about Nettie's attack on Gaza and the fact, yes it's a fact, that about 60,000 Gaza's have been killed by the IDF. Enough pretending what Nettie is doing is right. Even Israel's own Jewish citizens are tired of this awful war, sort of reminds me of the days when we protested the Viet Nam War, being saddened not only by seeing our own being killed but watching children and innocent civilians being slaughtered as. well. Anyone else old enough to recall the girl running down the street after being hit with Napalm?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/...e_code=1.gk8.tADC.tH2eYj66_fBs&smid=url-share

Ultra-Orthodox Israelis, exempt for decades from military service, are now being drafted. Their rage is dividing Israel and threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.

Listen to this article · 12:03 min Learn more

The journalists reported from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Bat Yam, Israel.

• Aug. 24, 2025Updated 11:13 a.m. ET

It was 11 p.m. in Jerusalem, and one of the city’s most insular ultra-Orthodox communities was in a furor.

Hundreds of men in black suits and black hats of the Edah Haredit sect grew agitated as a top rabbi, shouting in Yiddish from a balcony, denounced the Israeli government for drafting the ultra-Orthodox. They had been exempt from military service to focus on religious study since the founding of Israel, but now they were needed for the war in Gaza.

A large fire blazed in the street, set by ultra-Orthodox protesters who had ignited a dumpster. Police officers on horseback tried to keep order as water cannons on trucks sprayed “skunk water,” a vile-smelling liquid, to disperse the crowd.

Outside the nearby Mir Yeshiva, one of the largest and most prestigious religious schools in the country, Haim Bamberger, 23, said he was studying the Torah, as, he said, God wanted. It was Mr. Bamberger’s way of defending Israel, rather than through military service. “When we do what he wants, he protects us,” he said.

A Political Crisis​

Military service is compulsory for most Jewish Israelis, both men and women. The exemption for the ultra-Orthodox, known in Hebrew as Haredim, has long been resented by the rest of the Jewish population. But the nearly two-year war in Gaza has turned an irritant into a political crisis that is deepening divisions in Israeli society and imperiling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition.

The military says it urgently needs 12,000 new recruits for a force exhausted by Gaza. More than 450 Israeli soldiers have died in the enclave, suicides are on the rise and fewer Israeli reservists, the bulk of the fighters, are reporting for duty. Many have spent more than 400 days in service since the war began.

Others are questioning the government’s goals in a campaign that has killed more than 60,000 people in Gaza, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. A group of experts who monitor food security declared on Friday that Gaza City and the surrounding territory are suffering from famine, a situation that has drawn global condemnation. The Israeli security agency that oversees aid deliveries in the enclave rejected the finding.

 

[Derec]

BTW, the name Palestine as a place name for the region goes all the way back to the 5th century BCE when Heredotus recorded that name in his work Histories. There are older inscriptions that reference very similar sounding names for the same place.

As far as I know, Herodotus referred only to the coastal strip by that name. Which would be consistent with the land where the Philistines settled during the Bronze Age collapse.

Anyway, a discussion of what sounds can be spelled out in Arabic says nothing about what name the Palestinian people call their homeland, whether its the one that has been in use for the past 2,500 years or some other word.

Except that the Land of Israel is not the homeland of the Arabs. Not even Philiistia is, as Philistines have nothing whatsoever to do with people calling themselves "Palestinian" today. Maybe give Gaza back to Greece? #landBack
And it's not just "Palestine" that trips them up. Take the city of Shechem. Romans built a new city at that site and called it "Flavia Neapolis". Arabs came and corrupted it to "Nablus".

 

[Derec]

This is kind of interesting. You can read the entire article if you wish to learn more, but it sounds as if the citizens of Israel aren't very happy about Nettie's attack on Gaza

In a democracy there will always be people who disagree, and those who agree, with government's position.

and the fact, yes it's a fact, that about 60,000 Gaza's have been killed by the IDF. Enough pretending what Nettie is doing is right.

Not everything Bibi does it right, but I think going harder after remaining Hamas forces, and dismantling the remaining terror infrastructure (especially the tunnels) is paramount. And people die in war. Maybe Gazans should not have started one.

Anyone else old enough to recall the girl running down the street after being hit with Napalm?

Definitely not old enough to have seen the coverage in real time, but I am familiar with the famous photo. That was a friendly fire incident by South Vietnamese planes. It was not something done by US forces. Also, the girl, Phan Thị Kim Phúc, is still alive by the way, and lives in Canada.

Ultra-Orthodox Israelis, exempt for decades from military service, are now being drafted. Their rage is dividing Israel and threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.

So they don't really object to the war on its merits. They are just mad they are being treated as everyone else. A typical affliction for religious zealots.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you feel that military force against Hamas and Gazans in general is a good thing, then that's an opinion I don't share, but which you can probably justify. But if you feel that such force is in any way helpful to the hostages, you are utterly delusional.

The problem here is "good". It's not good. It's the least bad. It is entirely reasonable for Israel to set up the situation such that the fighting is not on their territory--Israel has no way to make there be no fighting. And note that it has gotten the majority of them out.

You missed my point. The question is not whether it is "good", it is whether it is "in any way helpful to the hostages".

It's not.

Not? Without the hammering Israel would not have gotten any of them back.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Call me a cynical old pragmatist, but I don't think a change of names at the top is going to be a game changer.
Tom

That's where I stand, also. Iran has no interest in peace, so Hamas will keep shooting. Israel knows that letting this be a win for Hamas will bring more such attacks and thus can't accept peace. The GHF might succeed in gutting Hamas, though, which would bring a temporary period of peace.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We don't have perfect knowledge. The choices are between write them off and continue to fight.

No, that is a false dichotomy.

Nobody has come up with a viable third path.

I don't think Israel can break Hamas. All they can do is dismantle as much of it as possible. And they seem to have hit on a good tactic with the GHF--it was the aid that was supporting Hamas. And that's why Hamas is going bonkers over the GHF.

Hamas has billions in the bank. Hamas isn't going anywhere without Iran making it so.

That money in the bank isn't in Gaza. It doesn't pay their people. And the GHF removing food as a means of control might break them. (Wouldn't do anything to the top people, but if the local command collapses it would be a big help.)

It's not whether you can. What's important is nobody has a better plan.

My plan is to go to the source. How to get Iran to drop this seems impossible. People likely thought as such before Jordan and Egypt were taken out of the anti-Israel warpath, via a treaty... and a good amount of cash.

Because they were not interested in conquest in first place.

Islamist violence is a means to Iranian control. Why in the world would you expect them to abandon a strategy that has been working quite well for them?

Patriot Act certainly shouldn't have happened by it's the same sort of thing I'm talking about with blaming Israel: Problem: 9/11. "Solution": Patriot Act. And people jumped at it. Problem: lots of dead people in front of the cameras. "Solution": Blame Israel.

Enough of your anti-Israel screed. Israel has been pounding on Gaza for 20 months. At some point it has to stop. You've already stated, repeatedly, that Hamas won't be broken. So there is no end to this. Israel isn't going away, Hamas isn't going away via military force. Why are we still doing this?

It will stop when they recover the hostages. Why do you think it's acceptable to let the hostages be tortured?

Keywords: "if that could be established". Realistically, Israel would go along. Hamas, not a chance.

So bomb Gaza more, galvanize a generation of future Hamas fighters... and still not get the hostages. All those hostages can be released if the agreement is right. It might suck, but after 10/7, do you think for a second Mossad is going to let any of the people released disappear from their site? These hostages could have been released one year ago.

No, it's not about galvanizing a new generation of fighters. The Iranian money and the control of the educational system does that regardless of what Israel does. And you are suffering from the standard leftist delusion of thinking an agreement is possible. You don't like what you see so you imagine there must be another path--we've already seen Hamas breaking the agreements that have been reached.

Your plan isn't working. How much longer should hostages suffer to keep to this plan? There are options for managing the cost of their release. I'm certain Mossad has servers full of plans.

You are the one sentencing them to a life of torture.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Basic math will give you the percentage.

Tells you nothing about how much Hamas gets.

The idea that any substantial amount goes anywhere else is laughable.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Getting Iran to change is about as likely as Israel stopping occupation of Palestinian land.

It is an ethnic, racial, and religious conflict that goes far back in history, like the other conflicts around the world.

No. You're still looking at trees, back up further.

This isn't Iran vs the Jews. This is Iran attempting to conquer everyone around.

Gaza is only unique in that they use human shield tactics and face a modern army. But we see even worse horrors in Sudan, in Ethiopia, in Yemen, in Syria. That's not because of Jews.

When it defeated the Arabs in he first war Israel could have been magnanimous in victory to Palestinians.

Israel offered to let them return if they would swear loyalty to Israel and agree to forego further attempts to destroy it.

The old standby to criticism is to call it antisemitism..

No. He is using the label antisemitism to describe the extremely different standards being used.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We have aid workers coming back saying this is not being done by "snipers" who work from the shadows so they cannot be identified but by Israelis soldiers doing so out in the open.

And you don't see the double standard?

The shooters work from the shadows and can't be identified. Thus it's Israel, why???

Did your train of thought derail before you got to the second half of the last sentence???

And your faith is blinding you.

Your "evidence" is shots from unidentified people. Unidentified is unidentified, I'm questioning why you assume it's Israel. The outcome of such shots is highly negative for Israel, highly positive for Hamas. Shouldn't that put Hamas on the suspect list?

Because western eyewitnesses have said it was Israeli soldiers who were doing the shooting. That was the second part you ignored.

The cases that captured the attention were all from unidentified shooters.

You're mixing it up what's happening now where Hamas is trying to disrupt the GHF.

Look for things blamed on "IDF snipers". The shooter was never identified in any of those, why should we figure it's Israel (which gained nothing) vs Hamas (which gained a lot)?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We have aid workers coming back saying this is not being done by "snipers" who work from the shadows so they cannot be identified but by Israelis soldiers doing so out in the open.

And you don't see the double standard?

The shooters work from the shadows and can't be identified. Thus it's Israel, why???

Did your train of thought derail before you got to the second half of the last sentence???

And your faith is blinding you.

Your "evidence" is shots from unidentified people. Unidentified is unidentified, I'm questioning why you assume it's Israel. The outcome of such shots is highly negative for Israel, highly positive for Hamas. Shouldn't that put Hamas on the suspect list?

Because western eyewitnesses have said it was Israeli soldiers who were doing the shooting. That was the second part you ignored.

It doesn't matter if there's eye witnesses. It doesn't make Israel guilty. As long as Hamas fighters look like civilians, then civilians will keep accidentally get shot. Soldiers primary objective is to stay alive and not take unnecessary risks. This is why it's so extremely irresponsible by Hamas not to wear uniforms. Its pretty basic to modern warfare.

Other Arab nations know this. Which informs their current attitude towards Hamas.

Another army that behaved almost as bad as Hamas was ISIS. All other Arab nation lost all love for ISIS, really fast

Think of the sniper cases. Those weren't fog of war, they clearly were targeted. But we have zero evidence of the identity of the shooters.