Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[TomC]

Let's face it, 24 hour notice is 24 hours more than Hamas gave Israel.

Palestinians and Hamas are not the same thing.

Get Hamas to agree to that and you'll be making progress towards peace.
Tom

 

[Harry Bosch]

Interesting that Biden is sending in a second carrier group into the area. Obviously must be a warning to Iran. I'd also assume that we have our best special forces people ready to go if any American hostages are found alive.

 

[lpetrich]

UN Special Procedures on X: "Palestinians in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing warns UN expert @FranceskAlbs, urging the international community to mediate an immediate ceasefire between #Hamas & #Israeli forces – “Time is of the essence.” #Gaza (links)" / X
noting
UN expert warns of new instance of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, calls for immediate ceasefire | OHCHR - Francesca Albanese

“The United Nations and its Member States must intensify efforts to mediate an immediate ceasefire between the parties, before we reach a point of no return,” said Albanese. “The international community has the responsibility to prevent and protect populations from atrocity crimes. Accountability for international crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces and Hamas must also be immediately pursued,” she said.

Since 7 October 2023, more than 1,900 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 600 children, more than 7,600 injured, and over 423,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Israeli strikes. This fate befell a population which has already experienced five major wars since 2008 in the context of an unlawful blockade imposed by Israel since 2007, which Albanese said has been widely condemned by the international community as collective punishment.

That's more than the 1,300 people that Hamas killed on October 7.

Comparing this disaster to the Nakba of 1947-49, where some 750,000 Palestinians fled the State of Israel as it fought off Arab armies in its War of Independence. Also to the Naksa of 1967, where some 350,000 Palestinians fled the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as Israel conquered those territories in the Six Day War.

 

[lpetrich]

Tommy Vietor on X: "This is incredibly dangerous rhetoric. Half of Gaza's population is kids. Your position can't be that Hamas is worse than ISIS, but also that there are no innocent civilians because a bunch of women and children should have risen up and defeated them. That is madness." / X
noting
Henry Mance on X: "Israel's president is denying the concept of innocent civilians, on the brink of a major military offensive. A very bad sign. (links)" / X

In comments on Friday, Israel's president Isaac Herzog said Palestinians in Gaza were collectively responsible for the attack. "It's not true this rhetoric about civilians [being] not aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true," he said. "They could have risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a

noting
Residents flee Gaza City as Israel tells 1.1mn to leave | Financial Times - "PM Netanyahu in address says ‘this is only the beginning’ in war with Hamas"

The Israeli military is now widely expected to launch a major ground invasion into Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.
On Friday evening, the Israel Defense Forces said they had carried out small-scale localised raids into the territory “to eliminate the threat of terrorists and weapons in the area and locate hostages”.

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, said the war with Hamas would “take time” as Israeli forces conducted further strikes on Gaza.

“We’re striking our enemies with unprecedented power,” Netanyahu said in a rare Shabbat address. “This is only the beginning. Our enemies are only starting to pay the price.”

 

[lpetrich]

ian bremmer on X: "did you know that thanks to political dysfunction in washington, the united states currently has no ambassador for israel (or egypt, kuwait, lebanon, or oman)? #themoreyouknow" / X
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on X: "Correct, the US does not have key ambassadors - with one caveat: it is not due to vague “dysfunction.”
It is because GOP Senators have methodically blocked US embassy and military appointments across the world, straining US diplomacy from the migrant crisis to the Middle East." / X

Senator Tommy Tuberville R-AL:
Tuberville to continue his block on Pentagon nominations which impacts military appointments in the Middle East | CNN Politics

Blinken urges Senate to confirm stalled diplomatic nominees - "Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has blocked the consideration of dozens of diplomatic nominees, citing his long-standing request for additional information about the origins of Covid."

 

[lpetrich]

Some Israel apologists are claiming that Israel's leaders are trying not to kill Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. While in a strict sense, that seems to be correct, those leaders are doing a very poor job of that. In fact, that apologetic implies that Israel's behavior falls into this legal category:

•  Negligence
•  Gross negligence
•  Criminal negligence
• How Negligence and 'Duty of Care' Determine Injury Liability | Nolo - "Liability for an accident or injury usually comes down to who was careful and who was careless."
• What Is the Definition of Criminal Negligence? | Nolo - "Understand how the law defines criminal negligence."

 

[TomC]

Some Israel apologists are claiming that Israel's leaders are trying not to kill Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. While in a strict sense, that seems to be correct, those leaders are doing a very poor job of that.

Do you remember any other details about earlier this week? Like last Saturday? Or is that just history, better forgotten?
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

The carriers may be a warning to Hezbollah. They have amassed stockpiles of rockets and missiles on the Lebanon border.

In some ways I think Lebanon is an occupied country.

 

[Copernicus]

But, Tom, answer me this. Israel, unlike Hamas, is not a terrorist organization, is it? If not, what is the difference?

There's plenty of blame to spread around concerning this vat of simmering bad blood laced with bodies.

As created, the State of Israel was a huge disaster that reeks of Euro-Colonialism. The assault of 1948 kinda sealed the deal.

The tensions that led up to Plan Dalet in 1948 began with mass protests and an uprising against British occupation and rule by Palestinian Arabs in 1936-1939. The Palestinians wanted an end to the stream of Jewish immigrants into Palestine, so that set the stage for the more systematic plan of ethnic cleansing that took place in 1948. But that was a long time ago. We can just unwind the cycle of ethnic animosity and score-settling back to those times. Europe saw Palestine as a partial solution to its "Jewish problem". Even Hitler was originally thinking of deporting all the Jews to Palestine before he conquered Poland in 1939 and discovered a population too huge to simply deport. After that, the Jews in Palestine were looking at a much more urgent need for a safe haven from the greater ethnic cleansing going on in Europe. I don't see it as just European colonialism, but also the aftermath of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe.

But no, the ugliness of this week's humanitarian disaster is not on Israel, mostly. Hamas picked it. Israel responded. Like it or not, Gazans wouldn't be without power and water if Hamas hadn't attacked last Saturday.
Tom

Like it or not, most Palestinians in Gaza did not ask for or plan that humanitarian atrocity perpetrated by the terrorists running their unelected government. The last elections there were in 1994. How were they supposed to stop Hamas from attacking Israel? Like it or not, they had no choice but to be Palestinians born into that situation. More than half the population of Gaza is under 18, and all of them are essentially condemned to live out their lives in Gaza under a quarantine put in place by Israel. BTW, water is back on, but not because the Israeli government had a change of heart. It was put under intense pressure by its US allies to restore the water. Shutting it off was an act against the civilian population of Gaza, not just Hamas.

My view of the situation is that Hamas holds two groups as hostages--the Israeli and foreign citizens it just took from Israel and the civilian population of Gaza that did not volunteer to participate in the attack on Israel. There is no way that Israel can take its revenge on just Hamas, so it must decide whether it cares about the hostages more than it cares about getting back at Hamas and perhaps punishing Gazans for the actions of a government whose actions they neither controlled nor endorsed. Right now, the Israeli government seems to consider both groups of hostages as a secondary priority. The main priority is striking back so hard that Palestinians will never think about another attack, even though all historical evidence suggests that this punishing retaliation will do nothing more than stoke the fires for future acts of revenge.

 

[lpetrich]

Some Israel apologists are claiming that Israel's leaders are trying not to kill Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. While in a strict sense, that seems to be correct, those leaders are doing a very poor job of that.

Do you remember any other details about earlier this week? Like last Saturday? Or is that just history, better forgotten?
Tom

Review my posts in this thread and see for yourself.

 

[Harry Bosch]

But, Tom, answer me this. Israel, unlike Hamas, is not a terrorist organization, is it? If not, what is the difference?

There's plenty of blame to spread around concerning this vat of simmering bad blood laced with bodies.

As created, the State of Israel was a huge disaster that reeks of Euro-Colonialism. The assault of 1948 kinda sealed the deal.

The tensions that led up to Plan Dalet in 1948 began with mass protests and an uprising against British occupation and rule by Palestinian Arabs in 1936-1939. The Palestinians wanted an end to the stream of Jewish immigrants into Palestine, so that set the stage for the more systematic plan of ethnic cleansing that took place in 1948. But that was a long time ago. We can just unwind the cycle of ethnic animosity and score-settling back to those times. Europe saw Palestine as a partial solution to its "Jewish problem". Even Hitler was originally thinking of deporting all the Jews to Palestine before he conquered Poland in 1939 and discovered a population too huge to simply deport. After that, the Jews in Palestine were looking at a much more urgent need for a safe haven from the greater ethnic cleansing going on in Europe. I don't see it as just European colonialism, but also the aftermath of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe.

But no, the ugliness of this week's humanitarian disaster is not on Israel, mostly. Hamas picked it. Israel responded. Like it or not, Gazans wouldn't be without power and water if Hamas hadn't attacked last Saturday.
Tom

Like it or not, most Palestinians in Gaza did not ask for or plan that humanitarian atrocity perpetrated by the terrorists running their unelected government. The last elections there were in 1994. How were they supposed to stop Hamas from attacking Israel? Like it or not, they had no choice but to be Palestinians born into that situation. More than half the population of Gaza is under 18, and all of them are essentially condemned to live out their lives in Gaza under a quarantine put in place by Israel. BTW, water is back on, but not because the Israeli government had a change of heart. It was put under intense pressure by its US allies to restore the water. Shutting it off was an act against the civilian population of Gaza, not just Hamas.

My view of the situation is that Hamas holds two groups as hostages--the Israeli and foreign citizens it just took from Israel and the civilian population of Gaza that did not volunteer to participate in the attack on Israel. There is no way that Israel can take its revenge on just Hamas, so it must decide whether it cares about the hostages more than it cares about getting back at Hamas and perhaps punishing Gazans for the actions of a government whose actions they neither controlled nor endorsed. Right now, the Israeli government seems to consider both groups of hostages as a secondary priority. The main priority is striking back so hard that Palestinians will never think about another attack, even though all historical evidence suggests that this punishing retaliation will do nothing more than stoke the fires for future acts of revenge.

I wouldn't call it revenge. They want to destroy Hamas and possibly get the hostage back. They want to do to Hamas what the US did to Al-quada after 9-11.

 

[Copernicus]

But, Tom, answer me this. Israel, unlike Hamas, is not a terrorist organization, is it? If not, what is the difference?

There's plenty of blame to spread around concerning this vat of simmering bad blood laced with bodies.

As created, the State of Israel was a huge disaster that reeks of Euro-Colonialism. The assault of 1948 kinda sealed the deal.

The tensions that led up to Plan Dalet in 1948 began with mass protests and an uprising against British occupation and rule by Palestinian Arabs in 1936-1939. The Palestinians wanted an end to the stream of Jewish immigrants into Palestine, so that set the stage for the more systematic plan of ethnic cleansing that took place in 1948. But that was a long time ago. We can just unwind the cycle of ethnic animosity and score-settling back to those times. Europe saw Palestine as a partial solution to its "Jewish problem". Even Hitler was originally thinking of deporting all the Jews to Palestine before he conquered Poland in 1939 and discovered a population too huge to simply deport. After that, the Jews in Palestine were looking at a much more urgent need for a safe haven from the greater ethnic cleansing going on in Europe. I don't see it as just European colonialism, but also the aftermath of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe.

But no, the ugliness of this week's humanitarian disaster is not on Israel, mostly. Hamas picked it. Israel responded. Like it or not, Gazans wouldn't be without power and water if Hamas hadn't attacked last Saturday.
Tom

Like it or not, most Palestinians in Gaza did not ask for or plan that humanitarian atrocity perpetrated by the terrorists running their unelected government. The last elections there were in 1994. How were they supposed to stop Hamas from attacking Israel? Like it or not, they had no choice but to be Palestinians born into that situation. More than half the population of Gaza is under 18, and all of them are essentially condemned to live out their lives in Gaza under a quarantine put in place by Israel. BTW, water is back on, but not because the Israeli government had a change of heart. It was put under intense pressure by its US allies to restore the water. Shutting it off was an act against the civilian population of Gaza, not just Hamas.

My view of the situation is that Hamas holds two groups as hostages--the Israeli and foreign citizens it just took from Israel and the civilian population of Gaza that did not volunteer to participate in the attack on Israel. There is no way that Israel can take its revenge on just Hamas, so it must decide whether it cares about the hostages more than it cares about getting back at Hamas and perhaps punishing Gazans for the actions of a government whose actions they neither controlled nor endorsed. Right now, the Israeli government seems to consider both groups of hostages as a secondary priority. The main priority is striking back so hard that Palestinians will never think about another attack, even though all historical evidence suggests that this punishing retaliation will do nothing more than stoke the fires for future acts of revenge.

I wouldn't call it revenge. They want to destroy Hamas and possibly get the hostage back. They want to do to Hamas what the US did to Al-quada after 9-11.

You would not call what the US did to Afghanistan after 9-11 an act of revenge? We occupied Afghanistan and fought our longest war ever there. Al-Qaeda was not running any government. It was the Taliban we were getting our revenge on. For hosting the guy who had planes flown into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. We didn't really get the revenge we wanted, because the Taliban is back in charge after over two decades of fighting. But that war would not have lasted that long if revenge were not a factor in keeping it going.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I think the best analogy is really still consideration of US expansion west with settlers breaking grounds, stealing lands, making sham deals, getting raided by indigenous people, including "scalped," calling them barbaric and constantly using superior technology and power to push them ever back more and more over decades and centuries. You can point to individual characters and actions and say, those were evil people who kidnapped settlers or killed children or the Battle at Wounded Knee and yes, that is evil, but if you don't also look at the bigger picture and decide how to push for de-escalation and peace, then that is also wrong.

 

[Derec]

Full stop. Gaza has been tightly controlled borders included and input and output of goods, too, for many years.

They have borders with Israel and Egypt. And yes, officially they are controlled. But there are underground tunnels used for smuggling, including smuggling weapons. That's how Hamas could amass 1000s of rockets they were shooting at Israeli civilians since last Saturday.

They've had electricity and water issues,

True. But that is mostly due to exponential growth Gaza population has experienced for the last 60-70 years, where population doubled every 20 years.
That has led to the coastal aquifer getting heavily overdrawn. That, together with modern conveniences using more power, has also led to huge increase in electricity demand as well.

a high mortality rate,

That is unequivocally wrong. In fact, with just 2.88 deaths/1000, Gaza Strip has one of the lowest death rates in the world (225th out of 229).
Country Comparisons - Death rate

low gdp per capita for many years with this.

True, but that is due to Hamas taking over and attacking Israel regularly since 2005.

Carter went there and called it apartheid.

Jimmy Carter was wrong about many things, this being one.

In 2018, Palestinians went en masse to the border to protest and were met with sniper fire.

They did not just "protest".They were not met with sniper fire for "protesting". They had the aim to break through the border and enter Israel en masse. Something like what happened on 10/7.
This is a decent BBC documentary (still somewhat biased, it's BBC after all) about the deadliest day of the riots - May 14th, Israel's independence day and also the day the US Embassy in Jerusalem was officially opened.

While the "March of Return" may have been started as peaceful protests (albeit one with unrealistic demands), they were quickly hijacked by Hamas et al who used the protests as a backdrop to try to break through the border with Israel. If you watch the whole thing, you will see some of those injured in the riots admit to that.
There is also a lot of premonition, like when Col. Heller talks about how some villages are only 250m from the fence and that terrorists can reach it in 2-3 minutes. That's exactly what Hamas terrorists did on 10/7. As you can see, that is what they intended to do in 2018 as well.

That's why most of the dead were members of Hamas and other terror groups.

Hamas says most of protesters killed by Israel in Gaza were members

They've been targeted up to hundreds including women and children in the past as well.

What evidence do you have that non-combatants were targeted. Btw, women can be combatants. And older minors (counted as "children" in official statistics as if a 6 year old was the same as a 16 year old) are often already fighters for Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

I know Hamas is evil but I don't think there are any easy solutions, mostly because conservative regimes block empowerment and opportunity.

There is no easy solution. But it's better to end the Hamas dictatorship than to endure it any longer. As you notice yourself, they are oppressing Gazans as much as they are a genocidal threat to Israel. They are not beneficial to either side here.

Liberals seemed to have had answers in the past but due to actions by conservatives (Hamas, Israel, US) those answers cannot be recovered. It's only going to get worse.

If it gets worse before it gets better, that may be a favorable tradeoff. Certainly preferable for things to be bad indefinitely with Hamas still in power.

Gaza's "Great March of Return," six months on

Since the start of the protests, over 150 Palestinians have been killed in the demonstrations and at least 10,000 others have been injured.

www.amnesty.org

Amnesty International is biased against Israel. I would not trust them here. Note that they ignore the violence coming from the rioting Gazans. And they also think the demand for millions of Palestinians to be allowed to settle inside Israel (so-called "right of return") is a righteous one.

 

[Derec]

According to UNICEF, Isreal has now killed 750 Palestinian children and wounded about 2,450.

Several issues here.

• Did UNICEF get this info from Hamas sources in Gaza? If so, can those numbers be trusted?
• 750 out of how many? 2,450 out of how many? We know ~50% of Gaza are minors. So comparing the percentage of minors among casualties with the overall population figures is important information.
• When "children" are mentioned here, it means minors. But we know Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups use fighters under 18. An example from Jenin, Samaria:
  
  
  
  It would be interesting to see a more granular age breakdown. I would expect the distribution to heavily favor prime fighting ages, perhaps 15-35 or so.
• Related to the above, what is the gender breakdown? Since by far the combatants are men and teenage boys, one would expect a gender imbalance if it is mostly combatants getting killed and injured and more even breakdown if there are many civilians among the victims.

Oh, but, hey, they weren’t targeted! They’re simply collateral damage — hey, “sometimes children get injured or killed.” Shit happens, amirite?

Unironically this. There is a difference between targeting civilians (including children) and collateral damage. There is also a difference between an innocent child and a teenage fighter for Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

 

[pood]

Unironically this. There is a difference between targeting civilians (including children) and collateral damage. There is also a difference between an innocent child and a teenage fighter for Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Yes go ahead and show that the children killed so far in Palestine are teenage fighters for Hamas. You can’t do that, and you know it. Do you think Israel is omniscient? They haven’t even launched their ground invasion yet, and hey, presto, their skyborne missiles and bombs of death inerringly home in on teenage fighters for Hamas! It’s such BS. Innocents are getting slughtered right and left by Israel right now and far more such deaths are to come. The forcible relocation of 1.2 million Palestinians under Israeli duress is itself a clear war crime.

 

[laughing dog]

Unironically this. There is a difference between targeting civilians (including children) and collateral damage.

Historically, the difference is in numbers; IDF caused “ collateral damage” dwarfs that of Hamas’s targeted damage.

The dismissal of civilian deaths of one group or the other based on intent is an example of a deep moral deficit.

 

[Derec]

Yes go ahead and show that the children killed so far in Palestine are teenage fighters for Hamas.

I did not say all of them are. Obviously there is collateral damage in any military action, and especially when your enemy does not follow the laws of war and launches missiles from residential areas for example.
I was merely pointing out that you cannot assume that all the minors killed or injured were innocent civilians just because they are under 18.

You can’t do that, and you know it.

Neither can you say the opposite, given that the data is very insufficient. The label "children" to refer to anyone under 18 is incredibly manipulative though since we know Hamas and Islamic Jihad use underage fighters.

Do you think Israel is omniscient?

Nobody claimed that, so stop with the straw men.

It’s such BS. Innocents are getting slughtered right and left by Israel right now and far more such deaths are to come.

It is Palestinians that have slughtered[sic] >1000 Israelis on 10/7.
And one more thing about Palestinian casualties. Hamas has launched 1000s of rockets against Israel. Many of those fall short and land in Israel. That means that many Palestinian casualties in Gaza are actually from Hamas rockets, not IDF missiles.
Misfired rockets may have killed over a dozen in Gaza battle
This is from last year, when a much smaller total number of rockets was launched. But one can easily extrapolate to the current situation.

The forcible relocation of 1.2 million Palestinians under Israeli duress is itself a clear war crime.

It's not a "forcible relocation". It's merely saying that civilians should evacuate the north of the Strip because of upcoming ground action there. There is nothing in that order that implies a permanent relocation or that the population would not be allowed to return after the end of the operation.

And remember, none of this would have happened had Hamas not committed its genocidal massacre against Israeli civilians on 10/7. Everything that happened over this past week, and everything that is to happen in the weeks to come, is the direct result of the so-called "Al Aqsa Flood", as the terrorist call their massacre.

 

[lpetrich]

Unironically this. There is a difference between targeting civilians (including children) and collateral damage.

Historically, the difference is in numbers; IDF caused “ collateral damage” dwarfs that of Hamas’s targeted damage.

The dismissal of civilian deaths of one group or the other based on intent is an example of a deep moral deficit.

Derec's position seems to be that it's necessary to break eggs to make an omelet, that the end justifies the means.

New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty | The New York Times Company
About the Soviet Union's collectivization of agriculture in the early 1930's and the resulting famine,

Even then, Duranty dismissed more diligent writers’ reports that people were starving. “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine,” he wrote in a dispatch from Moscow in March of 1933 describing the “mess” of collectivization. “But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

 

[Harry Bosch]

Never mind