Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Arctish]

How about a few hundred words saying this is what needs to be done to stop Hamas doing another Oct 7th?

Do you really think you could stop another October 7th? It was done with small arms and motorcycles. It could easily be repeated.

The problem is that Israel is held to a standard that Hamas/Hezbollah et. al are not.
When Hamas/Hezbollah do what they do there is sighing, clutching of pearls, attack of vapours etc. but nothing is done.
When Israel responds we get calls of possible war crimes, disproportionate response, 'haul them to the Hague', sanctions etc. Why the difference?

So, the difference is Israel is on the receiving end of harsh language while Hamas and Hezbollah get less scolding and more disgust?

Or is it that Israel is a member of the international community and gets treated like one while Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations with no international recognition as the legitimate government of a State and get treated as such?

 

[Patooka]

The problem is that Israel is held to a standard that Hamas/Hezbollah et. al are not.

Israel has a voice on the UN. amas/Hezbollah etc does not.
Israel is not labelled as a terrorist organisation. amas/Hezbollah et are considered worse than the fucking IRD despite destroying less schools/hospitals etc than the fucking IDF
The Israeli head of secruity actually called out for collective punishment. (google "Ben Gvir" and "for every") Hamas has not.

I think you see my point but I'll spell it out to you in crayon; Israel has a right to exist but they don't have a right to commit the genocide they are doing right now.

So fuck 'em till they get their act together.

 

[Patooka]

Citation please.

here you go - this is what Tigers! was talking about:




What an atnisemetic bitch cunt. amirite?

 

[Arctish]

Seriously?

Tigers!, is that true? That Instagram post is what you were calling the equivalent of telling Israel to "lie back and think of England"?

 

[TV and credit cards]

IDF, going after tomorrow's terrorists today.
Israel targeted Gaza children resulting in genocide

GENEVA, June 23 (Reuters) - Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank, an independent U.N. inquiry said ‌on Tuesday.

The report by the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Around 30% of those killed in the Gaza war were children, the report found.

A previous report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incited these acts — accusations that Israel called scandalous.

When proportionate response is defined as not how a civilized society responds to an act of terrorism but how one terrorist organization responds to another.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

I keep seeing the meme of “Hamas is not held accountable” but it is a fiction. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Canada, and many other nations. There are sanctions, and continual assassinations. The US subsidizes Israel’s military.

What more is the world supposed to do? Stay mute regardless whatever the gov’t of Israel chooses to do?

Your last line is the problem. Its all about Israel isn't it?

Well, the topic is Israel, so Israel should be expected to come up. Laughing Dog makes a viable opinion indicating that there is a tremendous amount of support for Israel and that criticism a decision by the Israeli military or Government isn't defaulting to anti-Semitism. People love to use terms of bigotry to shut other people up. The people doing this blame blacks for doing the same thing, calling all things "racism" when it is just "disparate outcomes".

You do not have to stay mute but you have spent 1000's of words castigating Israel and the Israeli response.

I wrote after 9/11 that in the future the misery must be remembered as the attack on 9/11, not our response to it. Israel's response to Hamas became somewhat repetitive and pointless after 18+ months. The West gave Israel a blank check. Even Canada looked the other way after 10/7. But Netanyahu's military response was clearly leading to a no where goal. And after one or two years, at some point, need to stop because what has been achieved? Mossad's attack on Hezbollah was substantial and relatively clean. And yet Hezbollah still exists. Israel has failed in eradicating Hezbollah and Hamas with bombs, missiles, and bullets.

How about a few hundred words saying this is what needs to be done to stop Hamas doing another Oct 7th? Or what needs to be done to stop Hezbollah shelling northern Israel?

Getting Iran to stop funding it. And oddly enough, there is an agreement that could have involved that. Of which the GOP and Trump have not put a dyne of pressure on Iran to do that! laughing dog is a red herring. What laughing dog says here is irrelevant. The GOP and Trump have a moment in which they could press for this, and they aren't touching it with a 1000 meter long pole. All this bullshit about how the liberals are anti-Semites, and we see where the GOP actually stands on Israel!

 

[ZiprHead]

How about a few hundred words saying this is what needs to be done to stop Hamas doing another Oct 7th?

Do you really think you could stop another October 7th? It was done with small arms and motorcycles. It could easily be repeated.

The problem is that Israel is held to a standard that Hamas/Hezbollah et. al are not.
When Hamas/Hezbollah do what they do there is sighing, clutching of pearls, attack of vapours etc. but nothing is done.
When Israel responds we get calls of possible war crimes, disproportionate response, 'haul them to the Hague', sanctions etc. Why the difference?

Hamas is dog bites man. Israel is man bites dog.

Israel does need to be more careful and clinical. The amount of ordnance they have flung into Gaza is just ridiculous (and deadly).

You complain about it but actually agree with it?

 

[Gospel]

Israel does need to be more careful and clinical. The amount of ordnance they have flung into Gaza is just ridiculous (and deadly).

You complain about it but actually agree with it? How very antisemitic of you to hold a government to the same standards you'd apply to every other government.

FTFY

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And yet if Israel reponds to terrorism in any way they are accused of disappropriate response or war crimes etc.

This is bullshit.

Israel has responded to terrorism in the past under many different Prime Ministers and Administrations. It wasn't accused of committing acts of genocide when it didn't kill tens of thousands of civilians sheltering in places where Israel told them to go. It wasn't accused of committing war crimes when IDF soldiers weren't killing unarmed people trying to surrender, or tying civilians to the front of their trucks and driving around Mad Max style, or murdering paramedics and ambulance drivers traveling in a convoy to rescue wounded civilians with permission from Israeli authorities, or shooting people waiting in line for food, or targeting journalists, or other actual, genuine war crimes.

You haven't been paying attention. Israel is always accused of wrongdoing every time they hit anyone.

And they didn't kill tens of thousands of civilians who went where Israel told them to go. Israel specified areas that didn't have buried targets they were planning to hit. That doesn't keep Hamas from setting up in those areas. And the big incident in the news was not actually a strike on the specified area, but near it. They were targeting command, the building turned out to have a lot of boom in it. And a bit of that boom caused a fire that killed people.

Unarmed people trying to surrender--unfortunately, it's going to happen when false surrender is a common tactic.

Tying civilians to the front of a truck--soldiers improvised when they had no proper answer.

Paramedics and ambulance drivers--you are blindly assuming that's all they were.

Shooting people waiting in line for food--you blindly believe this, but that doesn't make it true. Israel distributing aid was a existential threat to Hamas (Hamas relies on controlling the aid to maintain power), Hamas was shooting people waiting in line.

Targeting journalists--you mean "journalists" like this?

IDF strikes Hamas terrorist working for Al Jazeera | The Jerusalem Post

The terrorist, Ahmed Samir Muhammad Washah, served as a sniper operative in Hamas' military wing, the IDF said.

www.jpost.com

Yet another Al Jazeera "journalist" who was Hamas. Like is brother who was killed previously. And these aren't even propaganda people, but active combatants.

Israel is currently being governed by the most racist pro-ethnic cleansing war crime endorsing Administration since the Founding. That's why its current policies are drawing criticism.

The current policies are drawing fire because the world couldn't use dead Gazan civilians as a weapon to stop them this time.

Pray tell what should Israel do?

Get serious about peace with its neighbors. Get over that whole Eretz Israel thing. Live inside its agreed upon borders (per the Oslo Accords) and stop planting illegal settlements outside them. Reward the Palestinian factions that have renounced terrorism and embraced the diplomatic approach at the UN by allowing Palestinians to manage their own affairs, accept aid, and to prosper right there in Palestine.

The war predates any disputed territory other than Israel itself. Why should we believe it would make peace?

What we have are many decades of Israel being safer when they are harsh and Israel being hurt when they are gentile. Of course they're harsh! You want Israel to behave "better", don't keep punching them in the face every time they do.

Israel can also stop fucking with the water supply and electricity in Gaza, stop interfering with Palestinians fishing in Palestinian waters, stop stealing Palestinian resources, etc.

Let's look more carefully.

Who is fucking with the water supply? Hamas. They've crowed about digging up water pipes to use for rockets. Israel had permitted extensive import of dual-use materials in a supposedly supervised fashion to ensure they were used for civilian purposes--but this war has shown a substantial percent of it was diverted.

Fucking with the electricity? Hamas doesn't permit the powerplants enough fuel. And Hamas has been known to attack the electrical connection that lets them import power from Israel.

Fishing? Most fish will be in the shallow water near the coast. Israel prohibits access to the more distant water because it's routinely used for smuggling.

Quit blaming Israel for things Hamas does.

Israel can also stop putting racist asshats into high office. That would be good even without a conflict with the neighbors.

Don't want hardliners, don't make Israel suffer if they let down their guard one bit.

(We could be like Penny Wong, the Aust. Foreign Minister who basically told Israel to lie back and think of England after 7th Oct.)

Citation please.

No idea on what specifically he's talking about, but that's what the world wanted. 10/7 became a much bigger war than usual because Israel wasn't willing to bow to world pressure to lie back and think of England.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I feel like you're looking at this through a pretty extreme lens. A lot of people fiercely oppose Hamas, felt sickened by October 7, and stand with Iranian protestors, yet they still believe Palestinians have a right to their own future and that Israel's government isn't above criticism. You seem to be reducing this to a binary choice between supporting human rights and condemning terrorism, when it's entirely possible to do both.

No. You are looking at a fantasy of peaceful coexistence, but the Palestinian cause is and always has been one of genocide.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Palestinians attacked, raped, and mutilated Israeli civilians without provocation. It was the single deadliest day in Israel's history. But hey, cutting off women's breasts, putting nails in their vaginas, raping them, and taking hundreds of hostages is a-okay as long as theocratic authoritarians did it because the U.S. government supported the Shah in the 1970s.

Only 8% of Gaza voted for Hamas in the last election. Blaming all Palestinians is collective punishment at its finest.

Okay. But then all of war is collective punishment.

Israel is the only country I'm aware of in modern history that responds to acts of terrorism by committing acts of genocide themselves.

First you need to prove genocide.

Apparently "Genocide" now means "My side is losing badly and I'm angry about it."

Meanwhile, "From the River to the Sea" means anything other than what it really does.

Self defense = genocide.

The clearly stated goal of genocide by Hamas and Iran = ... well, we're just going to ignore that.

 

[Gospel]

I feel like you're looking at this through a pretty extreme lens. A lot of people fiercely oppose Hamas, felt sickened by October 7, and stand with Iranian protestors, yet they still believe Palestinians have a right to their own future and that Israel's government isn't above criticism. You seem to be reducing this to a binary choice between supporting human rights and condemning terrorism, when it's entirely possible to do both.

No. You are looking at a fantasy of peaceful coexistence, but the Palestinian cause is and always has been one of genocide.

This is exactly the kind of bullshit I'm talking about.

Where did I mention peaceful coexistence? Nowhere. You completely made that up and argued against something I never said.

What's bizarre is that people on this forum can post complete fiction with zero evidence, invent positions for other people, and somehow that's considered acceptable. But the moment someone points out that it's a flat-out lie, suddenly that's the problem?

If you're going to disagree with me, at least respond to what I actually wrote instead of arguing with a version you invented. Again.

How many times do I have to repeat this?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

I keep seeing the meme of “Hamas is not held accountable” but it is a fiction. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Canada, and many other nations. There are sanctions, and continual assassinations. The US subsidizes Israel’s military.

What more is the world supposed to do? Stay mute regardless whatever the gov’t of Israel chooses to do?

You're moving the goalposts. My statements have to do with the opinions of American liberals and/or leftists. Hamas has indeed been found to be be a terrorist organization yet it finds strong support among those that should abhor it.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

I

Unlike most circumstances, I don't see this one as having many shades of grey. To me it's not a matter of Israel's government being above criticism. Rather, it's the right of a nation to exercise its right to defend itself against a relentless enemy that exercises the most hateful and violent policies over its own people and then extends that violence and hate towards a liberal democracy.

October 7 was unprovoked and shocking in its scope and execution. The response of the American left was and still is shocking. Everything that the left and atheists in particular are supposed to stand for has been ground down to hypocritical dust.

Women's rights, LGBTQ rights, free speech rights, freedom of and from religion, etc. These are values that American liberals are supposed to uncompromisingly support. However, when it comes to this situation, all of that falls by the wayside via the acceptance of Hamas's violence and Israel's response to such.

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying. There are absolutely people who have tied themselves into knots over October 7, apply obvious double standards, or seem willing to excuse things they would condemn in virtually any other context. None of them that I've encountered in real life are members of this forum to my knowledge. Where I take issue is when said opinions get attributed to just about anyone. In my case, it's similar to what DrZoidberg does, he's decided that I'm a willfully ignorant Hamas supporter on the left and assigned a whole collection of beliefs and behaviors without ever establishing that I actually hold those views.

If someone is defending Hamas, minimizing October 7, or applying a double standard, then call that person out. Quote them. Challenge what they actually said. What I've mostly seen, though, are broad statements without any actual examples attached to them. Nobody has pointed me to the specific people making these arguments, so I haven't exactly been shown where to hold my pitchfork.

I'd much rather spend my time discussing the actual issue than arguing with caricatures of people who may or may not exist. "The left" isn't a registered user on this forum. I can't ask "the left" what it believes any more than I can ask "the right." If we're going to discuss someone's views, I'd rather discuss the actual people expressing them than a political abstraction.

I'm talking about the well reported news and protests supporting Palestine, which in turn must logically support Hamas.Also, I've argued with individuals here about these specific issues many times over and directly called them out over it. To address each and every person is not feasible.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think that you're trying to find the middle road. Which I agree. The problem is that the people running Israel; the people running Gaza; the people running Iran are all right wingers who do not want peace. I do think that Israel's government will moderate in their next election. But I see no chance of that in Iran or Gaza. So war will continue. Will we ever have a time similar to October 23, 1998 when two sides (Arafat and a moderate Israeli government) came so close to a peace agreement? Probably not.

Arafat couldn't make peace. That's why he walked away.

 

[Gospel]

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

I keep seeing the meme of “Hamas is not held accountable” but it is a fiction. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Canada, and many other nations. There are sanctions, and continual assassinations. The US subsidizes Israel’s military.

What more is the world supposed to do? Stay mute regardless whatever the gov’t of Israel chooses to do?

You're moving the goalposts. My statements have to do with the opinions of American liberals and/or leftists. Hamas has indeed been found to be be a terrorist organization yet it finds strong support among those that should abhor it.

I think part of the communication breakdown is that many of the people protesting Israel in the United States, particularly those waving the Palestinian flag rather than a Hamas flag, believe they are protesting what they see as a humanitarian catastrophe or genocide. They are not necessarily advocating for the destruction of Israel, the death of Jews, or the objectives espoused by Hamas or Hezbollah.

If I understand your position correctly, you're arguing that the practical end result of these protests could be to weaken Israel's ability to fight Hamas, ultimately benefiting an organization that openly seeks Israel's destruction. That's a legitimate concern to raise, even if not everyone agrees with the conclusion.

My question is what comes next. Let's assume Israel succeeds in eliminating Hamas as a governing and military force in Gaza. How does Israel prevent another Hamas from emerging in five, ten, or twenty years? Military victories can remove organizations, but they don't necessarily eliminate the conditions that allow new ones to form.

Whatever the answer is, it probably can't be a return to previous approaches. If the goal is long-term security, there has to be a strategy beyond defeating Hamas today and hoping something similar doesn't rise in its place tomorrow.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

If the keys (peace) aren't under the streetlight (Israel) then there's no hope of finding them. And people will engage in considerable contortions to avoid accepting something is a no-win situation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

I keep seeing the meme of “Hamas is not held accountable” but it is a fiction. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the EU, Canada, and many other nations. There are sanctions, and continual assassinations. The US subsidizes Israel’s military.

What more is the world supposed to do? Stay mute regardless whatever the gov’t of Israel chooses to do?

But none of that meaningfully curtails Hamas. The only meaningful pressure is applied to Israel.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

View attachment 54569

Surprisingly antisemitic coming from you.

Such gross Antisemitism coming from the far left has been present for a long time now. It's disgusting.

It is not about antisemitism. It has to do with the actions of the the state of Israel which happens to be Jewish.

As to Israel apologists. Before and during WWII there were those who supported what the Nazis did. There were the Nazi synthesizers in the British aristocracy.

Looked the other way over extermination of not just Jews, anyone deemed unworthy or inferior.

Palestinians have been systemically dehumanized. American media rarely covered what was being done to Palestinians.

Result, years of military destruction and death with no end in sight.

Now Trump is threatening to resume attacks on Iran.

And again, if you want to understand why Iran hates the USA you only have to look at what the dictator Shah Of Iran supported by the USA did.

Oh, it's absolutely about anti-semitism.

Palestinians attacked, raped, and mutilated Israeli civilians without provocation. It was the single deadliest day in Israel's history. But hey, cutting off women's breasts, putting nails in their vaginas, raping them, and taking hundreds of hostages is a-okay as long as theocratic authoritarians did it because the U.S. government supported the Shah in the 1970s.

"Free Palestine!" clownery is as hateful as it gets. As if they've been free under the PLO and now Hamas. And free from what? Dignity and democracy???

Also, some 30,000 Iranians were massacred by their own government just months ago, but Israel and the U.S. are to blame for that because the Iranian people hate America???

I don't know why I bother to address such irreconcilable, hypocritical, and immoral points of view. They're every bit as foul and disgusting as Trump is.

I feel like you're looking at this through a pretty extreme lens. A lot of people fiercely oppose Hamas, felt sickened by October 7, and stand with Iranian protestors, yet they still believe Palestinians have a right to their own future and that Israel's government isn't above criticism. You seem to be reducing this to a binary choice between supporting human rights and condemning terrorism, when it's entirely possible to do both.

Unlike most circumstances, I don't see this one as having many shades of grey. To me it's not a matter of Israel's government being above criticism. Rather, it's the right of a nation to exercise its right to defend itself against a relentless enemy that exercises the most hateful and violent policies over its own people and then extends that violence and hate towards a liberal democracy.

October 7 was unprovoked and shocking in its scope and execution. The response of the American left was and still is shocking. Everything that the left and atheists in particular are supposed to stand for has been ground down to hypocritical dust.

While I can appreciate truth in that there were some on the left that support Palestine and feel they have a right to self-defense, that was not the broad conclusion of The Left. My niece made some uncomfortable statements online and I did my best to correct her point of view, which is tainted by the fact that she isn't old enough to remember the Arab Wars, the suicide bombings. All she knows is what has happened recently, and that is a Palestine that has effectively gone feral politically in part due to Israeli and Iranian decisions. So I did my best to provide that broader understanding.

But her position clearly wasn't mine and I am quite to the left as it is.

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

Hamas wasn't allowed to be a government, by anyone. I was suppose the only person that thought the UN, Israel, US, etc... messed up royally with Hamas winning the election. That was an opportunity and forcing Hamas to become inclusive with politics. Instead, everyone said 'feck off' and that was that.

The most important thing would be categorize who supports the rights of the Palestinians "to live" v. who supports the Palestinians right to "defend themselves" v. who support the actions of Hamas. This thing is an onion, and trying to lump this all into one group is ignorant. And then there is the history and understanding the history. The older someone is, the more they understand a broader story arc here. People who are 20... weren't even alive when the suicide bombings were happening in Israel. For the life of me, I don't know why you jump to anti-Semitism when ignorance of history is a more clear thing happening now. You label them all as anti-Semites, instead of trying to help them understand what in the heck has been going on.

So I'm supposed to teach 20th century history to young people online?

Sorry, but it's incumbent on the individual to educate themselves; to ask the basic questions of when, where, who, and why.

With respect to anti-semitism, there are hundreds of examples of Jewish students being harassed, threatened, and even assaulted on American college campuses directly due to the conflicts in the ME. Professors have conducted themselves similarly. Some students have gone so far as to hide their Jewish identity in order to avoid being singled out.

That sounds historically familiar to me. I don't know how else to see this thing as anything but anti-semitism being endorsed by a significant portion of the left. With respect to the DNC, they deserve credit for speaking out against this, but extremist dissent has unfortunately watered down any unified policy damning what's happening. The DNC needs to exorcise these voices from the party.

 

[Gospel]

It is indeed reasonable to hold governments responsible, so why is Hamas held to no standard while Israel is held to impossible standards? I cannot help but see hypocrisy and antisemitism as core elements of this support.

If the keys (peace) aren't under the streetlight (Israel) then there's no hope of finding them. And people will engage in considerable contortions to avoid accepting something is a no-win situation.

The situation may very well be a no-win scenario in the sense that there is no perfect outcome. But "no perfect outcome" and "no possible improvement" aren't the same thing.

History is full of conflicts that weren't solved so much as managed, contained, or gradually improved through imperfect compromises. How do you think those improvements happened? In many cases, the stronger side, or the side that emerged victorious, eventually took steps to improve conditions after the conflict. But just as importantly, the other side had to be willing to participate in a new reality rather than continue the fight indefinitely.