Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[DrZoidberg]

I'm not ignorant of it. I just think its irrelevant.

Of course you do. It's the only way for your moralizing to work.

Its for this shit I've called people here antisemites

With the same logic we can start demanding that any non-native American decendants leave USA. This sort of nationalistic twaddle will only lead to perpetual wars.

Or we could have treated the native Americans as equals with rights to their own lands and properties. Sound familiar?

You displaying your ignorance of how Israel was formed. Well done

You thought the history was irrelevant. Apparently now it's not.

If you are trying to make a case based on the history of a matter its always good to not embarass yourself through ignorance when you do.

Was there something I said that was incorrect?

Its cherry picked information. The context is way bigger and more complex. But anti-israeli propagandists have been doing what you are doing since Israel was founded

Perhaps, stop drinking the antisemitic coolaid? Perhaps ask yourself why demands are made of Israelis that are not made of any other country. The skewed bias against Israel in what is being focused on is pretty extreme.

HAMAS are assholes who pay no attention to the west. The Netanyahu administration are assholes the west is funding. Do you not understand that difference?

I think Hamas pays attention to the west. Using Palestinian civilians as human shields is precisely to manipulate western opinion against Israel. And its working. A lot of people in the west are unfortunately complete fucking idiots..

USA is supporting Israel. Not specifically the Netanyahu regime. Netanyahu is in power because Israelis are sick and tired of Palestinian aggression. If someone has been pushed around a lot they will eventually push back.

The narrative that Palestinians are second class citizens in Israel, is insane. Its just lies. Inside Israel the rights of Muslims and Christians is protected more than the rights of Jews.

While in Gaza non-Muslims aren't allowed to have any power. No women's rights. Homosexuality is illegal. These are the people who you seem to think have the moral upper hand?

Enlightenment ideals is a superior way to run a country. Medieval theocracy is not

 

[Derec]

I'm satisfied with your answer, though. That you would in fact resort to bloody vigilante justice,

In the world of individuals, there is 911, there is police, there is the criminal justice system that is supposed to deal with people who attack you. In the world of countries, there isn't such a system. When attacked on 10/7, Israel could not call 911 and had world police come and deal with Hamas. No, they had to defend themselves, something you dismiss as "bloody vigilante justice", forgetting that it is Hamas who made it bloody.

and burn children alive

War is hell, its glory is all moonshine. Children die in modern wars, unfortunately, which is why we should condemn those who start them, not make excuses. And those who work to increase civilian casualties by operating from civilian areas, as Palestinian terror groups do.
But please also be cautious of the numbers. In stats, both a 6 year old innocent child and a 16 year old combatant are counted in the same group as "children". That makes the number of "child" casualties virtually useless.

Not commit (or attempt, or intend) genocide. Yes, that means the conflict will continue. But so does Netanyahu's campaign of death. No matter how many Palestinians he kills, the war will continue to rage imn perpetui. f violence is its only outlet.

It is not Netanyahu's campaign of death. It is Hamas', Islamic Jihad's etc. campaign of death. They are already plotting another 10/7, I am sure. They saw success in getting hundreds of hardened terrorists released already, and are rejoicing in the fact that their strategy worked.
Israel should not have agreed to this ceasefire. They should have continued the war until Hamas et al are weakened enough not to demand 100s of terrorists in exchange for a handful of hostages. And weakened enough not to be able to continue being a threat.
This ceasefire will ultimately lead to more deaths on both sides, as it emboldens the terrorists while replenishing their numbers with experienced terror leaders who were hitherto safely ensconced in Israeli prisons.

There is no such thing as a "final solution", emotionally sataisying though they may seem to the simple-minded. An entire people cannot be killed.

The entire German people were not killed. And yet, their society was transformed after WWII. But it was not transformed by entering into a premature ceasefire and releasing Nazi war criminals to be triumphantly received back in Berlin.

Paint me a picture. How would a "tolerant" person respond to a call for genocide?

By not excusing them just because they are Palestinian.

 

[Politesse]

War is hell, its glory is all moonshine.

The noted quotation of another genocidal maniac, as I recall.

In stats, both a 6 year old innocent child and a 16 year old combatant are counted in the same group as "children".

As is quite reasonable. A twelve year old feels no more empowered than an eight year old to refuse when their father holds them a gun and tells them to guard a door. And since Netanyahu and his troops make no distinction between civilian and soldier anyway, it would make no difference if they did. They live in the same house as a terrorist, they die, whether. They desire to fight for Hamas or not. Their spilled entrails are "collateral damage"; that crying child struggling to move through the shock of their abruptly severed leg is a "soldier". You glorify war, but its glories truly are moonshine; they are a horror to witness and diplomatically worse than useless.

They are already plotting another 10/7, I am sure.

Of course they fucking are. This whole action has been pointless, and did absolutely nothing to halt the next outpouring of violence. You will not be able to murder every single Palestinian, and even if you did, some other nation and people would rise in their place. The chauvinism of the gun has no practical benefits.

The entire German people were not killed. And yet, their society was transformed after WWII.

In short, it wasn't the indiscriminate slaughter of German civilians that transformed German culture.

By not excusing them just because they are Palestinian.

"Excuse" them? From what? Calls for genocide? I don't excuse the Palestinians from the execution of genocide, I excuse all humans from the execution of genocide, as our natural right. Or if you do not believe in natural rights, than a right every human being should desire to claim.

 

[Derec]

The noted quotation of another genocidal maniac, as I recall.

Is everything a "genocide" to you?

As is quite reasonable.

No, it is not. Teenagers are at a very different level of development and agency than actual children. And combatants are combatants, no matter if they are below or above 18.

A twelve year old feels no more empowered than an eight year old to refuse when their father holds them a gun and tells them to guard a door.

I am not talking about 12 year olds "guarding a door" (where did you even get that scenario?) I am talking about teenagers recruited into Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

And since Netanyahu and his troops make no distinction between civilian and soldier anyway,

That's a baseless accusation.

it would make no difference if they did. They live in the same house as a terrorist, they die, whether. They desire to fight for Hamas or not. Their spilled entrails are "collateral damage"; that crying child struggling to move through the shock of their abruptly severed leg is a "soldier".

As I said, some actual children get maimed or killed in urban warfare. And some innocent civiliasn of all ages do too. That does not mean that all of those designated as "children" in stats are non-combatants since the definition is just "age<18" and Hamas and Islamic Jihad recruit many 15-17 year olds.

You glorify war

I do not. But war against Hamas is like taking a course of antibiotics. Stopping halfway through is not enough to heal the infection, and often does more harm than good.

Of course they fucking are. This whole action has been pointless, and did absolutely nothing to halt the next outpouring of violence.

It wasn't pointless. ~20k Hamas and allies have been killed, including dozens of senior officers (deputy battalion commander and above). Perhaps ~10k others have been permanently maimed. That halved their pre-war numbers. In addition, a lot of infrastructure such as tunnels has been destroyed.
Israel should not have been pressured to stop now. Hamas et al were given what they wanted - release of terrorists from Israeli prisons. That is a huge PR victory for them and will encourage them to try the same again and again.
No, Israel should have pushed on. It would be more bloody in the short term, but would make a more lasting peace possible long term.

In short, it wasn't the indiscriminate slaughter of German civilians that transformed German culture.

Nevertheless, many German civilians died, and many more suffered the destruction of their cities.

"Excuse" them? From what?

From starting this war. For wanting to "erase the border with Israel and tear Israelis' hearts from their chests" as their leader Yahya Sinwar proclaimed in 2018 during the supposedly "peaceful" March of Retrun.

 

[Derec]

The computed guesstimate of 150,000+ may be high, but the abuse of Palestinians is certainly severe.

Abuse by whom? Hamas et al started this war. Nothing will change as long as Palestinians support these groups en masse.

You quoted somebody here, but whom? No link, no nothing:

The UN is estimating that the population of Gaza has decreased by nearly 200,000 people [about half of whom have fled Gaza] in just the last nine months amid Israel’s siege — a number reflective of the speed and brutality of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.

Yeah, language like this is not biased at all.

[A] death toll is likely an undercount, as officials are unable to tally deaths of (21000-children-are-missing-in-gaza-on-top-of-over-15000-killed-by-israel) those missing under the rubble and deaths due to causes like starvation that are happening outside of medical facilities.

21k "children" missing? Source?
And how many of them are actual children and how many are teenage combatants? Same goes for the 15k figure.
Speaking of rubble, I also wonder how many combatants are not under rubble of buildings but buried in collapsed tunnels. Especially early in the war, there were many air strikes on tunnels, often triggering secondary explosions of stored explosives and munitions.

The UN also recently raised its estimate of the number of Palestinians who Israel has forcibly displaced since October, from 1.7 million to 1.9 million. This amounts to roughly 9 in 10 people in Gaza, many of whom have been displaced multiple times.

They make it sound like a bad thing, but it is good to move civilians from areas where fierce combat is expected to less dangerous areas.

Humanitarian officials have warned that aid distribution has become virtually impossible as Israel not only blocks aid from entering, but also obstructs aid convoys as they travel around the region and relentlessly target aid workers. It has become so dire that the UN has reportedly warned that it will have to suspend operations in Gaza if Israeli forces don’t take steps to stop killing aid workers.

More propaganda and blaming Israel. In reality UN refuses to let Israel guard the aid shipments.

Organized Looting Throws Gaza Deeper Into Chaos

The United Nations does not allow Israeli soldiers to protect aid convoys, fearing that would compromise its neutrality, and its officials have called on Israel to allow the Gaza police, which are under Hamas’s authority, to secure their convoys.

UN has become a sick joke. Allowing Israel to protect convoys is bad because it would compromise the supposed "neutrality" of the UN, but they let Hamas police do it. SMH.

 

[Derec]

Reality check indeed. The 50,000 refers to people reported as directly killed by the IDF. It does not include deaths from other causes. Excess deaths are an attempt to capture deaths from noncombatant causes that occurred due to the conditions in Gaza caused by the bombing. For example, if someone died from drinking contaminated water or exposure due to destroyed infrastructure, that would count as an "excess death".

We all know what excess deaths are. But for that there have to be deaths in the first place. The estimate in the letter to the editor of Lancet (not something claimed by Lancet itself, as often erroneously stated) threw out this estimate without ever counting the deaths.

Excess deaths are estimates.

Yes, but they require deaths to be counted. Remember COVID? They were estimating excess deaths, but people really died from various causes. It was just that excess death number was a way to estimate how many are attributable to COVID directly and indirectly. The problem is that the baseline mortality is an estimate with large degree of uncertainty, and thus [deaths - baseline deaths] will have an uncertainty determined mostly by the baseline death uncertainty.

The letter to the editor of Lancet is like not counting actual deaths but estimating excess deaths based on past Pandemics. That is far more inaccurate than the excess death estimate based on an accurate measurement of all cause mortality.
So, where are the dead? If we are to estimate how many deaths are in excess, we must first know how many people died in the first place, and then subtract the estimate of the number of deaths we expect without the war.

Estimates depend on assumptions and the accuracy of the underlying data. I am not claiming any excess deaths but pointing out your responses appear to completely ignore what an excess death is. It is one thing to claim an estimate is vastly exaggerated, it is another to make stupid claims about dead being resurrected.

Again, for an actual excess death estimate you need the number of all cause deaths and the estimate of what you expect the death rate to be based on past numbers. That will vary.

But, again, where are the deaths? Where are the bodies? How many people actually died in 2024? You can't even begin to estimate excess deaths without knowing that number, which the authors of the letter to Lancet did not even begin to know.

 

[Derec]

Your history omits crucial facts. Gaza was part of Egypt. It wasn't until 1956 when Israel invaded Gaza that it became part of the nation of Israel.

1967, surely? When Egypt and some other Arabs were fixing to attack Israel, but Israel - like Han Solo - managed to shoot first.
Egypt also blockaded the port city of Eilat at the time.

 

[Politesse]

Is everything a "genocide" to you?

I'd actually consider the present situation in Gaza and Syria a religious ethnocide, if you want to get technical, but that tends to confuse people. Simple times need simple words. As for Sherman ordering the death of every last "man woman, and child of the Sioux"? If that wasn't genocide, I am baffled as to what would qualify.

I am not talking about 12 year olds "guarding a door" (where did you even get that scenario?) I am talking about teenagers recruited into Hamas and Islamic Jihad

Because that's the kind of task you hand off to an underaged "soldier". But whatever. In any case, you wish us to believe that when a house or a hospital is bombed, only sixteen year old jihadiis perish. And that every child casualty in this war has been a maximally unsympathetic imaginary teenager? Even if I approved of the slaughter of sixteen year olds, which I do not, that just isn't the story the "statistics" are telling. What happens to the actual children in the neighborhoods Israel levels to the ground for blocks around? Do sweet angels swoop in to protect them with their holy wings? Grow up. Innocence is not a cute look on an adult, especially not when child murder is what you're trying to remain innocent about.

No, Israel should have pushed on. It would be more bloody in the short term, but would make a more lasting peace possible long term.

There is no historical evidence to support the idea that outbreaks of unrestrained violence lead to peaceful outcomes. Quite the opposite is true.

From starting this war. For wanting to "erase the border with Israel and tear Israelis' hearts from their chests" as their leader Yahya Sinwar proclaimed in 2018 during the supposedly "peaceful" March of Retrun

I'm not even going to bother with this one, except to say that I know that you know, because it has been pointed out to you countless times, that are blaming an entire ethnic group for the positions of a faction within the autocratic government thst rules some of their people, and that this is the very attitude that produces war crimes, no matter who is espousing it.

 

[ZiprHead]

The narrative that Palestinians are second class citizens in Israel, is insane. Its just lies. Inside Israel the rights of Muslims and Christians is protected more than the rights of Jews.

I guess that make it alright to slaughter Palestinians in the Wast Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Forced displacement​

OCHA recorded demolitions without military justification of 1,128 buildings, forcibly displacing 2,249 Palestinians in the West Bank including East Jerusalem. Additionally, the Israeli High Court of Justice approved the demolition of six homes of relatives of suspected attackers, despite Israeli civil rights organization HaMoked’s objection that this constituted collective punishment. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities approved the construction of 18,500 settler homes in East Jerusalem alone, according to Israeli urban planners Ir Amim. Settlements in the rest of the West Bank, illegal under international law, also continued to expand.

Settler violence spread with the accession of politicians who incited racial violence, and significantly increased after 7 October. Israeli settlers killed 18 Palestinians and injured 367, while Palestinian attackers killed 18 settlers and injured 107, according to OCHA.

Military and settler actions created coercive environments that displaced all 1,009 inhabitants of 16 herding communities, according to human rights organization B’Tselem. On 11 October, Israeli settlers killed three Palestinians in a family home in Qusra, near Huwara. A fourth was shot dead when Israeli soldiers came to protect the settlers. On 30 October, dozens of settlers set fire to two homes in Isfay al-Tahta in Masafer Yatta, southern West Bank. Many settlers were armed, some wore army uniforms, and most violent settlers enjoyed impunity for their crimes.<a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location...the-occupied-palestinian-territory/#endnote-7">6</a>

The authorities continued to deny recognition to Palestinian citizens of Israel in 35 Bedouin villages in the Negev/Naqab in southern Israel, and to conduct home demolitions there. In July, courts approved the forced eviction of all 500 residents of Ras Jrabah. The residents had asked to be incorporated as a neighbourhood into the nearby Jewish city of Dimona but the local authorities dismissed that request without due consultation. On 27 September, Israeli forces demolished the village of al-‘Araqib for the 222nd time.

In Gaza on 12 October, the Israeli army issued a vague collective “evacuation order” to all 1.1 million residents in northern Gaza. In November and December, Israeli forces ordered the displacement of civilians in southern areas, including Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. By early December, 1.9 million Palestinians were forcibly displaced in Gaza.

Unlawful killings​

West Bank including East Jerusalem​

The year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, as Israeli policing operations became increasingly lethal amid impunity for police killings and incitement from leaders.

According to OCHA, Israeli forces killed 493 Palestinians, mostly civilians, during operations against armed groups in Jenin and Nablus. Over 12,500 were injured.

Defence for Children International-Palestine reported that Israeli forces killed 110 children in the West Bank including Jerusalem in 2023. On 5 June, Mohammed al-Tamimi, aged three, succumbed to his wounds after being shot by Israeli forces in Nabi Saleh north of Ramallah as his father drove him to a birthday party. No criminal investigation was opened.

Throughout the year, Jenin refugee camp in the north endured Israeli law enforcement operations that killed at least 23 Palestinians between January and July. Revenge attacks by armed Palestinians against Israeli civilians killed four near the settlement of Eli on 20 June. On 21 June, hundreds of settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Turmusayya south of Eli, killing one resident and setting 15 houses on fire. From October, Israeli forces raided Jenin repeatedly, killing at least 116 people, according to the Palestinian ministry of health, including in an air strike on Al-Ansar mosque on 22 October.

Right to truth, justice and reparations​

Israeli authorities failed to promptly, thoroughly and independently investigate crimes and violations committed by the Israeli army, including unlawful killings in the West Bank and war crimes in Gaza. Israel continued to refuse to cooperate with the UN commission of inquiry and to deny entry to the UN Special Rapporteur on the OPT. At the end of October, the ICC prosecutor visited Israel, the West Bank, and the Rafah Crossing on Egypt’s border with Gaza. On 29 December, South Africa applied to the ICJ for proceedings to be initiated against Israel regarding its breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in Gaza.

Human rights in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Stay up to date on the state of human rights in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory with the latest research, campaigns and education material from Amnesty International.

www.amnesty.org

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Calling it "genocide" is Hamas propaganda. Civilians dying in war is not genocide. And we have a couple of recent leaks to show that the Hamas numbers are bogus, it's mostly military age men that are dying.

If this is true, then calling a terrorist act, however heinous, is similarly "mere propoganda". I would argue that intent should matter. Mass murder is obviously the intent of some factions in both Israel and Palestine, and their "solutions" should be universally rejected and they shunned. The extermination of whole people, faiths, communities is not an acceptable or effective means of resolving international conflicts, and it cannot be tolerated.

Chanting "genocide, genocide, genocide" doesn't make it so. Ireland even recognized this--their filing with the ICC asks that genocide be redefined so as to make Israel's actions genocide.

Are there some in Israel that would like to see genocide? Certainly. They're not in power, though. In Gaza they are in power.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

2) Even if true the Israeli action that started the war was it's existence. Thus the only "solution" along those lines is Hitler's Final Solution. Is that what you want?

So in your universe, one must support genocide, because they only alternative to genocide is genocide? As opposed to, say, not genocide?

That's not what Loren is saying, and you should be able to infer that on your own, Poli.

Israel has tried repeatedly for decades to keep some sort of peace with muslims living within Israel's borders - and whether you like it or not, Palestine is not a separate country, it is part of the nation of Israel, where Israel has essentially ceded a degree of independence within it's own border to the people who live there. But the residents of that stretch of land have repeated initiated altercations with Israel, including this most recent situation.

The only solution that Hamas, Palestine, and the entire Muslim region will accept is the extermination of Jews. They've proven that over and over again.

People are rarely capable of actually comprehending blasphemy. And since my position is blasphemous to the faith in the side with the power being at fault it's routinely misunderstood.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But don't expect society to bail you out when you dig yourself into a hole.

Yeah, those careless women who didn't take all of the responsibility and had the arrogance to assume that the male who helped impregnate them would bear some of the burden. You're not really making your point any better, you get that right?

Why are you making this about the woman? It works both ways--nobody should choose parenthood until they are in a position to provide for the child. Both sides are responsible--in this case it's actually the guy's fault because he created a child he wasn't prepared to provide for if something happened.

It didn't work both ways in your post that kicked this off. You made it all about the woman when you said this:

Why does mom have two kids before she was able to take care of herself reasonably?

She chose to have children she wasn't in a position to raise and without having life insurance on the person she was counting on to help.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel has tried repeatedly for decades to keep some sort of peace with muslims living within Israel's borders - and c, it is part of the nation of Israel, where Israel has essentially ceded a degree of independence within it's own border to the people who live there. But the residents of that stretch of land have repeated initiated altercations with Israel, including this most recent situation.

"Tried to keep some sort of peace" is a desription unattached to the reality of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, but even were that not the case, my recommendation to them would be to continue doing so, not to wage bloody ethnocidal war against children. If I believed that peace were ever Netanyahu's conviction, I would applaud him for that, and encourage him to explore ever more effective means of guaranteeing it.

Normal rules of engagement would have been far more deadly than what we saw. Israel was already several times better than others have done and now we have a couple of cases of Hamas accidentally saying the truth that shows that Israel actually did considerably better than the supposed numbers indicate. The majority of the dead are military age males and even that's an undercount because they often use those under 18 in their operations.

You keep expecting Israel to do better but providing nothing but generalities as to how they are to accomplish that.

Hearts and minds are not an answer. Hamas is simply the force they are fighting, not the driver of the force. That's Iran and associates. Hamas is a puppet and you can't make peace with a puppet! Show me a peace talk between the actual powers involved. Hint: none exist.

Tell me, Emily, if your neighbor threatened to kill you, would you walk over to his house and shoot him in the head? What about his wife? What about his children? What about his friends? Where would your personal desire for weregild end? Would your answer be different if he had in fact killed someone you knew? Would you then attempt to kill him back? What about his wife? His children? His friends?

Nobody is targeting the wife and child. But if he's coming to kill me while pushing his wife and child in front of him I will aim the best I can but I miss it's his fault for putting them in the way.

whether you like it or not, Palestine is not a separate country

Do you offer that clarification because you think I am more likely to approve of a nation that slaughters its own citizens, who should have the rights of any other citizen, than of one that wars against its neighbor? If so, I am afraid I must disappoint. No, I do not think a nation has a right to murder its citizens en masse simply because they are citizens, or indeed at all, for any reason.

I disagree with her about their status--they waddle and quack even if they don't formally become a nation. Gaza is for practical purposes a nation. A nation that chose to attack a far more powerful neighbor and then hide amongst it's own civilian population. Are you going to blame the Allies for bombing Germany and Japan?? We should have handed the world to Hitler because to do otherwise would get some civilian killed? You want a better answer--sorry, there isn't one.

the entire Muslim region

In context, this is also a terrifying statement. Do you truly believe that waqe should be waged, not just against Palestinian civilians, but every Muslim community in the world? You realize there are significant Muslim populations in your own country, right? Would you support the murder of your own countrymen as well?

I do agree she's going too far. Not everybody's in Iran's power. But most of the Middle East is. War will happen, the only question is on whose terms.

 

[laughing dog]

Reality check indeed. The 50,000 refers to people reported as directly killed by the IDF. It does not include deaths from other causes. Excess deaths are an attempt to capture deaths from noncombatant causes that occurred due to the conditions in Gaza caused by the bombing. For example, if someone died from drinking contaminated water or exposure due to destroyed infrastructure, that would count as an "excess death".

We all know what excess deaths are….

There is no evidence to support that claim.

Whether the 150,000 excess death estimate is unreasonable or not is a separate question. Debate its believability to your hearts content.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

2) Even if true the Israeli action that started the war was it's existence. Thus the only "solution" along those lines is Hitler's Final Solution. Is that what you want?

So in your universe, one must support genocide, because they only alternative to genocide is genocide? As opposed to, say, not genocide?

That's not what Loren is saying, and you should be able to infer that on your own, Poli.

Israel has tried repeatedly for decades to keep some sort of peace with muslims living within Israel's borders - and whether you like it or not, Palestine is not a separate country, it is part of the nation of Israel, where Israel has essentially ceded a degree of independence within it's own border to the people who live there. But the residents of that stretch of land have repeated initiated altercations with Israel, including this most recent situation.

Your history omits crucial facts. Gaza was part of Egypt. It wasn't until 1956 when Israel invaded Gaza that it became part of the nation of Israel.

I think your timeline is wrong but I'm not going to check as it's irrelevant. What's important is that Israel invaded because of continual attacks from Gaza. Gaza picked a fight with Israel, not Israel picking a fight with Gaza.

The only solution that Hamas, Palestine, and the entire Muslim region will accept is the extermination of Jews. They've proven that over and over again.

It takes a whole lot of ignorance to come up with that claim. The entire Muslim region encompasses many areas that don't really care one way or the other about Israel.

Simple test: In what countries does a Israeli passport ban you from entry? In what countries does having any evidence of having been to Israel (the stamps from any land border crossing) in your passport ban you from entry? I would say that any country that meets either of these tests cares. They're far more obsessive about it than Africa was about South Africa. There two stamps in our passports from land borders didn't matter. While I do not recall and can't check I strongly suspect our cholera boosters were in South Africa (timing's right and that was the best medical system we saw for months in either direction)--and listed in the yellow book that we presented at every border crossing. We spent a day unpacking absolutely everything and taking a sharpie to anything that said "product of South Africa", but the English/Afrikaans labels didn't matter even though Afrikaans is spoken in only one country. And the fact that we were on the Johannesburg-London overland route would hardly be secret. Many companies operated such "tours", they had to know. But so long as the words "South Africa" didn't appear they didn't object. Kampala, Uganda even provided security troops for the standard camping area--they didn't want to scare away the dollars we brought. At that time Kampala at night was not a place you wanted to be, but the troops were there to ensure the trouble stayed outside.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The only solution that Hamas, Palestine, and the entire Muslim region will accept is the extermination of Jews. They've proven that over and over again.

If you swapped every Jewish person in Israel with Texans, I'm going to think the same problems will subsist. This isn't nearly as much about religion as being sold.

Iran is using religion as a means to power. They have subverted multiple countries to this end, although they just lost Syria.

Saudi Arabia used to be a supporter of terror, not because they actually wanted it but as a way of getting the fundies to go be a problem somewhere else. They have learned it doesn't work (the fundies come home to roost.) Pakistan did the same thing and is getting a lesson on it not working but that one remains undecided for now.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel isn't the Borg

Somehow the loudest voices in this are unwilling or unable to accept that. There is a compulsion to “exonerate Israel” every time someone accurately describes the actions of the Netanyahu government.
Why not accept the genocidal nature of Netanyahu’s pursuit of vengeance for the Hamas massacre? Why not acknowledge its expedience for Bibi personally, and the possibility that such benefit might enter into his decision making?
Elephants of that size barely fit into rooms this small.

Chanting "genocide" isn't proof it's happening. War is hell, Hamas is playing the world's media like a violin to blame Israel for what Hamas caused.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem here is that you have swallowed the Hamas propaganda that the conflict is about Israeli actions.

1) As I keep pointing out and everyone keeps ignoring: it's the money that's driving it.

So, you're saying that the conflict is about US actions, as the source of Israeli funding? If so, I expect you are right.

Though my guess is that you were unaware that you were making that argument.

The conflict is a proxy war between the USA and Iran. But not all (or even most) Gazans are pawns of Iran, via Hamas; And not all Israelis are pawns of the USA, via Likud.

No. This isn't a proxy war on our side. It's Israel vs Iran. We aid Israel as a means of keeping the death toll down.

The difference being that persuading enough Israelis to oppose Likud is a practical path to a change of national policy, while persuading Gazans to oppose Hamas is futile, as Gazans won't get to vote for any other ruling party any time soon.

What you see as people unfairly blaming Jews but not Muslims is, for the most part, not people blaming anyone at all; Rather it is a recognition that changing anything is far easier to initiate on the democratic side of the conflict, coupled with an understanding that something's gotta change.

And, once again, you're looking under the streetlight. Yes, it's much easier to change the behavior of a democracy, but that doesn't mean you can solve the problem that way. Israel is hated for it's very existence, not it's actions. So long as it exists and the radical Muslims have power anywhere the war will continue. You can want a better answer but that doesn't mean one exists.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In context, this is also a terrifying statement. Do you truly believe that waqe should be waged, not just against Palestinian civilians, but every Muslim community in the world? You realize there are significant Muslim populations in your own country, right? Would you support the murder of your own countrymen as well?

Again, this is some grade-a dumb mischaracterization on your part Poli, and you fucking know it. Nothing in my post suggests such a thing, so stop making shit up to bolster your poor arguments.

You did not answer my question, but you complain that I don't know the answer. A rather self-defeating position from which to make a complaint, I think.

She pointed out that you set up a strawman. There is no need to address a strawman.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This has got to be one of the most thoughtless bad analogies I've seen in a while.

It's not an analogy. It's a question of ethics.

Let's make this a wee bit more realistic: If my neighbor had been consistently threatening to kill me for decades, had physically attacked me multiple times, had killed my dog and tried to kill my cat, had kidnapped and tortured my spouse and my kid, and had continued doing so after me having tried multiple times to get them to stop... Yeah, I don't think I'd have a problem setting his house on fire. I'd warn his spouse and children to take the pets and leave (assuming they weren't actively helping him attack me on a regular basis), but my willingness to tolerate abuse and violence from my neighbor does actually have a limit.

I'm satisfied with your answer, though. That you would in fact resort to bloody vigilante justice, and burn children alive for the sake of your vendetta if they refused to leave when warned. I think you're full of shit, and that you would in fact be far too much of a coward to commit acts like yourself, but it is very revealing of the kind of world you expect us all to live in. I have no use for such savagery, personally.

The choices are kill or die. In choosing to refuse to kill you are choosing to die.

You can make that choice for yourself, you don't get to make it for a nation.

Seriously, what the hell do you think should happen here? Should Israel be expected to just continue tolerating violence, attacks, and persistent vilification forever with no end in sight? Aren't you one of those that likes to trot out the "paradox of tolerance" as a means to justify attacking those whose beliefs and positions you disagree with?

Not commit (or attempt, or intend) genocide. Yes, that means the conflict will continue. But so does Netanyahu's campaign of death. No matter how many Palestinians he kills, the war will continue to rage imn perpetui. f violence is its only outlet. There is no such thing as a "final solution", emotionally sataisying though they may seem to the simple-minded. An entire people cannot be killed. Even if you have no moral objections, it's jsut not logistically possible. In the real world, it doesn't happen. And survivors and their alliesburn with vengeance. Committing atrocities has never led to peace, and it never will. The only question is which acts of violence you are willing to sanction.

I have no idea what you mean by "paradox of tolerance". I oppose genocide, in all contexts. I never promised to "tolerate" mass killings of civilians, nor ever would promise such a thing. Indeed, I don't know what "tolerance" of a pro-genocide position would even mean. Do you want me to just... look the other way while it happens? With my tax dollars? In the name of "tolerance"? The very idea is absurd.

Paint me a picture. How would a "tolerant" person respond to a call for genocide?

The problem is you oppose anything Israel does to try to avoid becoming the victim of genocide.