Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Tigers!]

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.

This is true. And so obvious that I've been left believing that getting the hostages back isn't a particularly high priority.

How about the old-fashioned way of negotiating?

You say this like it's simple. Or at least feasible. I don't think it's even possible.
I don't think that there's anyone in Gaza who has the authority to negotiate much less willingness much less credibility.

Then how did 1st ceasefire and hostage exchange happen?

Do remind us how Hamas got the hostages in the first place that they then exchanged in said ceasefire.

Shift the goalposts much?

Unwillingness to say how Hamas got the hostages in the first place is duly noted.

Blather duly noted.

If Israel is serious about getting hostages back alive, they will have to either deal with Hamas or risk killing hostages while trying to eradicate Hamas and inadvertently killing 100s if not 1000s of noncombatants.

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?

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.

You make it sound like they are haggling over a crop of potatoes. Israel cannot let Hamas take its people ad infinitum. Eventually it must try to stop it.

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.

Long term how can you deal with an entity who wishes/exists to destroy you? Whilst Hamas exists it will strive to eliminate Israel. Eventually Israel must decide what is to be done with Hamas. They cannot co-exist with them, leaving only destroy them if they can. Perhaps that time has been reached.

 

[Arctish]

Long term how can you deal with an entity who wishes/exists to destroy you? Whilst Hamas exists it will strive to eliminate Israel. Eventually Israel must decide what is to be done with Hamas. They cannot co-exist with them, leaving only destroy them if they can. Perhaps that time has been reached.

There are more than two options.

1) Co-exist with the Gazans in a mutually beneficial partnership
2) Slay all that breathe in Gaza and move Zionist settlers into the newly available real estate
3) Disengage entirely. Let the Gazans manage their own affairs and resources.

The choice isn't between Kill or Die.

'Let's find a way to work together' and MYOB are perfectly valid options, too.

 

[laughing dog]

You make it sound like they are haggling over a crop of potatoes. Israel cannot let Hamas take its people ad infinitum. Eventually it must try to stop it.

We were discussing getting the hostages back alive.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Palestinians were getting along just fine. You can look into the history of Palestine yourself. Don't expect it to be a very exciting read. Apart from the usual problems with bandits and bad weather, not much happened there. And don't expect to read about a frigid standoff between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. The neighbors got along and interfaith marriages were commonplace.

Continuing to pretend that Jim Crow was proper practice doesn't make it so.

Support your claims, Loren.

Show us the resource(s) you used to inform your opinion of how well Palestinian Jews, Christians, Muslims, and followers of other faiths got along in Palestine before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate years.

You have already been shown some of the pogroms and stuck your head in the sand.

 

[Arctish]

The Palestinians were getting along just fine. You can look into the history of Palestine yourself. Don't expect it to be a very exciting read. Apart from the usual problems with bandits and bad weather, not much happened there. And don't expect to read about a frigid standoff between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. The neighbors got along and interfaith marriages were commonplace.

Continuing to pretend that Jim Crow was proper practice doesn't make it so.

Support your claims, Loren.

Show us the resource(s) you used to inform your opinion of how well Palestinian Jews, Christians, Muslims, and followers of other faiths got along in Palestine before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate years.

You have already been shown some of the pogroms and stuck your head in the sand.

Link to the posts, please. I remember you posting about French colonial Algeria, but nothing about Ottoman Turks or the provinces in their Empire.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

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.

Neither does quoting idiotic memes cover up bigotry.

Twisting everyone out of recognition does nothing to foster discussion.

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.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Accord to Israeli friends the Israelis are very angry with Netanyahu for not bringing the hostages back faster. They're also angry over an impopular judicial reform last year. Those are the two big things the people are the most pissed off about. They're not particularly upset about the suffering of the Palestinians now.

It is a problem when neither side sees the other as human.

It's not that they don't see them as human. It's that they don't really care what happens to their attackers.

Most Israelis are so psychologicaly exhausted by the continual suicide bombings by Palestinians (and other terror attacks) that they just don't care anymore about the suffering of the Palestinians.

Suicide bombings? That was 20 years ago.

Because Israel constructed their barrier which stopped most suicide bombers. Wikipedia lists 10 since the Gaza pullout. And they have found vests in Gaza.

Most Israelis think its a waste of time negotiating or making any deals with the Palestinians. Based on precedents they think Palestinians won't honor their side of the bargain, and it'll just be the Israelis who gave something away for nothing. That's how dealing with Palestinians tends to work out.

It's a pretty bleak outlook.

Anyway... that's what they said

We'll file that under non-statistically significant hearsay. Is that under N or H?

Just because you don't like it doesn't make it not true.

Radical Islam considers all agreements with non-Muslims to be temporary things for convenience and not binding. Hamas is a radical Islamist group. Why should we expect them to act against their faith?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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%??

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.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Take this paragraph. Substitute "IDF" for Hamas and "Gazans" for Israelis.
It not only still makes sense from the human nature standpoint, it far better reflects the well established reality of the current situation.

The mess in Gaza is a direct result of the attack launched from Gaza on October 7. The pretence that there is some sort of moral parity between the two sides is painful to see.
Tom

To claim a moral parity is a lot easier than admitting the Jews might have been right.

And admitting that this is a situation with no remotely good answers. Leftist faith is that there are always good answers and the side with the power is in the wrong for not finding them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And many people here feel the death and destruction in Gaza is an acceptable result when considering the current and future safety of Israelis. We can all get numbed to some degree of violence we ourselves are not subject to or partaking in.

Note that it was Gaza that chose to initiate the exchange of fire. They chose to take on a mechanized infantry platoon with a flintlock.

So you agree?

Agree with what? I'm simply pointing out that they chose to attack despite a tremendous disparity of force. They knew what would happen.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Acceptable isn't quite the right word, understandable and predictable is closer. But the bottom line remains, Hamas and their supporters chose this for Gaza.

I don't understand why, but they clearly did.
Tom

Because Hamas doesn't care about the fate of Gaza, just about their own power. And that comes from doing what their overlords in Tehran want. The rank and file are getting blown to bits but the leaders are safe in Qatar.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If the level of response by IDF is the best option, since there is clearly no other option ever presented by anyone anywhere, why isn’t the death toll acceptable? The opposite would be “unacceptable” and that clearly isn’t what you and Loren are portraying.

If this is what it takes for Israel to defend itself and to destroy Hamas then we must accept the level of death and destruction as a necessary, even if tragic, consequence, right?

Because people don't like it when the only answers are bad. It's a lot easier to pretend the facts are wrong than to accept what they say.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If this is what it takes for Israel to defend itself and to destroy Hamas then we must accept the level of death and destruction as a necessary, even if tragic, consequence, right?

Yes.
Rather like the horrors of Dresden and Tokyo.
Utterly terrible, in a better world such things wouldn't happen. But we don't live in that world.
Tom

I have my doubts about Dresden. Tokyo, the targets were simply too dispersed for WWII level bombing to target, they were simply dismantling the city. Horrible but there was no better option.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

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"?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If the level of response by IDF is the best option, since there is clearly no other option ever presented by anyone anywhere, why isn’t the death toll acceptable? The opposite would be “unacceptable” and that clearly isn’t what you and Loren are portraying.

If this is what it takes for Israel to defend itself and to destroy Hamas then we must accept the level of death and destruction as a necessary, even if tragic, consequence, right?

Because people don't like it when the only answers are bad. It's a lot easier to pretend the facts are wrong than to accept what they say.

But this doesn't doesn't mean all options are equivalently bad. There are options that are bad ideas, there are options that are better ideas. The goal is Israeli security. Killing a few thousands Hamas isn't going to secure Israel. Killing 20,000 Hamas won't either. Destroying some tunnels will slow Hamas down, it won't end the conflict.

Now the other side of the equation is what level of radicalization is being influenced by the Israeli military response.

What is the Net gain? Your responses hinge on Israeli Response = Only Viable Response.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Take this paragraph. Substitute "IDF" for Hamas and "Gazans" for Israelis.
It not only still makes sense from the human nature standpoint, it far better reflects the well established reality of the current situation.

Ah, a tacit admission there is much more than simple defense of Israel in the war in Gaza. Revenge is an integral part of the human nature component.

The mess in Gaza is a direct result of the attack launched from Gaza on October 7. The pretence that there is some sort of moral parity between the two sides is painful to see.
Tom

The willingness to excuse the unnecessary massive civilian deaths and destruction in Gaza is nauseating.

And have you stopped beating your wife?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Got a better solution, that you're willing to discuss the ramifications of?

Been there, done that in this thread.

You presented a pie-in-the-sky non-answer and are pretending you presented a solution.

Do you have any real solution? One that can pass the laugh test? Or is this just another misdirection to avoid discussing unpleasant reality?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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?

Been there, done that in this thread.

I don't remember that. Could you refresh my memory?
I do remember vague possibilities put forward. But none were feasible or at all likely to be tried again by Israel, given the history. The current history in particular.
Tom

I could, but what would be the point. Handwaved dismissals as "infeasible" are boring.

They were not handwaved. You gave some Trump-level "solutions" and we pointed out the fundamental flaws. Just because it was trivially easy to do doesn't make it handwaved.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Got a better solution, that you're willing to discuss the ramifications of?

Been there, done that in this thread.

You presented a pie-in-the-sky non-answer and are pretending you presented a solution.

Do you have any real solution? One that can pass the laugh test? Or is this just another misdirection to avoid discussing unpleasant reality?

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

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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 therein lies the problem. They won't accept their proper lot as punching bag any longer. What's with those uppity Jews thinking they are as good as a real person?