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Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

To denote when two or more threads have been merged
Rep. Jamie Raskin on X: "Justin, I’m terribly sorry for your horrible loss. We must do everything in our power to protect the lives of innocent civilians throughout the region. Sending sympathy and love to your family." / X

Ro Khanna on X: "I am so sorry for your loss, Justin. I know you as a man of principle and are hurting. We need your voice to help us find a way forward towards peace." / X

Justin Amash on X: "My family and I ..." / X
"My family and I would like to express our heartfelt appreciation for the many kind and gracious messages of condolence for our beloved cousins in Gaza. Please remember the thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians, in unbearable circumstances, who simply want a life of peace. So many of the people suffering are just children. They don’t deserve violence and death.

knife-wielding hemophiliac on X: "fucking insane ..." / X
fucking insane that a former Republican congressman mournfully announced an Israeli airstrike on a church that was sheltering refugees killed his family and the headlines are like, "Amash says family made casualties of Hamas war" while Israel is like "we bombed the church :)"

the passive voice is actively misinforming your readers! Israel copped to this one! we know who bombed St. Porphyrios!

increasingly convinced that a police press release that came right out and said "one of our officers shot an unarmed citizen this evening" would get reported as Police Say Officer-Involved Shooting Leaves 1 Dead

Ryan Grim on X: "The silence ..." / X
The silence around the bombing at the church is dangerous. It's getting very little attention, despite the scale of the tragedy.

The lack of coverage has led, if you look at the replies, to many people believing it simply didn’t happen. I so wish that was true.

Among those whose lives were cut short were relatives of Justin Amash, who had been sheltering there

Newsweek on X: "Rep. Ilhan Omar slammed President Joe Biden over the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. "Where is your humanity? Where is your outrage?" (vid link)" / X
 
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Waleed Shahid 🪬 on X: "Excerpted remarks from @IlhanMN at yesterday's anti-war, ceasefire now press conference. Rep. Omar spoke at length about her own experience of being a survivor of war. (pix link)" / X

IO survived a civil war in her homeland, Somalia
Waleed Shahid 🪬 on X: "ILHAN OMAR speaks ..." / X
ILHAN OMAR speaks on her experience surviving the horrors of war, as she calls for a ceasefire in Gaza: "Imagine sitting in your house and hearing the noise that announces that you might vanish at any given moment.

Holding on to yourself, your family members, trying to get as close to the furthest wall as you can, because all you are hoping for is, if a bomb drops in your house, you can at least crawl out.

I did that every night, every week, every month, repeatedly. Twelve rockets fell on the house I lived in. I am 41 years old.

To this day, my bed, the side I sleep on, is right next to the wall because that trauma has not left me."
With video

Referring to Rep. Ritchie Torres NY-15
Ryan Grim on X: "🚨⁦@Ilhan⁩ Omar, asked about her colleague ⁦@RitchieTorres⁩, one of the most outspoken, unconditional supporters of Israel’s war, responds: “How many more killings is enough for you? Is it a thousand more? Two thousand more? Three thousand more?” (vid link)" / X
 
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Waleed Shahid 🪬 on X: "At yesterday's anti-war, ceasefire now rally in Washington, @RashidaTlaib said her constituents in Michigan are saying they don't see a difference between Trump who wants to ban Arabs, and Biden who greenlights Netanyahu bombing Arabs in 2024. (vid link)" / X
and
Alex Seitz-Wald on X: "NEW: “I will never vote Biden:” Muslim and Arab Americans rage at Biden in a key swing state.
With @shaqbrewster⁩ and ⁦@kailanikm⁩ (link)" / X


Some Muslim Americans furious at Biden in Michigan, a key swing state - "Muslim and Arab Americans say their support was critical to Biden’s winning Michigan in 2020. Some warn they won’t back him again over his blanket support for Israel."

Waleed Shahid 🪬 on X: "“Michigan is a competitive state and it’s purple to begin with. With these complicated dynamics, it’s going to make it one of the most challenging states in the country,” said @RepDebDingell, D-Mich., who lived in Dearborn for 40 years." / X

The US elections and pandering to Israel | Reuters
When President Harry Truman and his top advisers discussed plans for the partition of Palestine in 1945, the experts warned against it. Truman is said to have responded: “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.”
But with a few hundreds of thousands of Arabs in a swing state, that may make President Biden change his mind.
 
Murtaza Hussain on X: "Former IDF General: “We have lost the ability to field an effective army and have become a one-dimensional aerial power that cannot win a war on its own.”
This mirrors developments in other Western militaries which are wholly dependent on air superiority (link)" / X

One needs boots on the ground.
Brick warned that the Israel Defense Forces have turned into a primarily air-based military, and criticized the army leadership for its sensitivity to human losses on the ground. “The current situation of the land forces is tragic, they are not ready for war. Emergency supplies are not available, exercises have stopped and the battalions have not trained in years. There is also no weapons training and education, and the army is not capable of carrying out an attack.” The former ombudsman added that technology alone is not enough to win wars. “The truth is that an imaginary reality has been created by the general staff and spread throughout the army. The soldiers have lost their motivation and fighting spirit in recent years, and many are not ready to go into battle.”
I think that they may be victims of their success -- they aren't obviously with their backs up against the wall like Palestinians are.
 
Ryan Grim on X: "Strong interview ..." / X
Strong interview, Hamas leader grilled over civilian killings and for launching an operation without input from the Palestinian people or other Arab countries, dragging them into it, then demanding support

Hamas is sticking with its line that the civilian casualties were not intended and not their responsibility which simply isn’t credible as they continue to hold civilian hostages.
noting
Arash Azizi آرش عزیزی on X: "Great Al Arabiya journalist grilling Hamas’s Khalid Mashaal from an Arab perspective (vid link)" / X
Interviewed by Rasha Nabil In Arabic, with English subtitles.

RN said that the people of Gaza and the West Bank and elsewhere weren't consulted about Hamas's Oct-7 attack. KM said that it had to be kept secret.

RN then noted that Hamas's attack made it seem much like ISIS (Islamic State) in the West. KM dismissed that as an accusation "fabricated" by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. KM then noted that Russia lost 30 million people in WWII fighting Nazi Germany, Vietnam 3.5 million people fighting the Americans, Afghanistan some big number fighting both the USSR and the US, Algeria some 6 million people over 130 years. RN then returned to the issue of how bad Hamas looks, with its killing hundreds of Israeli citizens. KM then said that Hamas only targets military stuff, and that Hamas is not responsible for civilian casualties.

RN asked KM about lack of outside support, like Hezbollah not doing very much. KM then said that Hezbollah does a little, and that he appreciates that. RN then returned to the lack of surprise, and KM brought up the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

RN then brought up Iran, and KM seemed to say that Iran is not doing enough, despite its rhetoric. About the hostages, KM turned to all the Palestinians that Israel has imprisoned, and said that Hamas's hostages are to be exchanged for them.

What ruth al-thawr, or (stronger) khara al-thawr.

"Bullshit"
 
Tainted water and viruses put Gaza residents, especially kids, at further risk

Blowback: How Israel Went From Helping Create Hamas to Bombing It
Listen to former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. Segev later told a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a “counterweight” to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel.”)

“The Israeli government gave me a budget,” the retired brigadier general confessed, “and the military government gives to the mosques.”

“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009.
 
U.S. State Department official resigns over Israel military aid, Biden support
A U.S. State Department official who worked on global arms transfers resigned Wednesday due to his opposition to the Biden administration's additional military aid to Israel amid the war with Hamas.

Why it matters: Josh Paul, who was director of congressional and public affairs at the department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, announced his resignation on LinkedIn in a rare act of public dissent against the Biden administration as the president prepares to ask Congress for an unprecedented military aid package for Israel following his visit to Tel Aviv Wednesday.

More Than 400 Capitol Hill Staffers Call For Cease-Fire In Gaza
Muslim and Jewish congressional staffers signed a letter Thursday urging Congress to back a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in light of “antisemitism, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian sentiment on the rise nationwide.”

The letter, which HuffPost has learned has been signed by 411 staffers, comes as a small handful of members speak out against the Biden administration’s approach to the conflict.

...
“Nationwide and in Congress, the voices calling for de-escalation and peace have been drowned out by those beating the drums of war. As Muslims and Jews, we are tired of reliving generational fears of genocide and ethnic cleansing,” they wrote in the letter.

...
“I grew up in a Jewish family carrying the story of my grandparents, Holocaust survivors who escaped genocide only because of the solidarity of complete strangers in foreign lands,” said one staffer. “The horrifying genocide in Palestine helped me say yes to my courageous Muslim colleague who felt a profound call to speak out when too many of our bosses have yet to call for peace.”

“As the child of the Palestinian diaspora, I sign this letter because it places peace first and doesn’t enable and encourage genocide and human rights violations. If we are not seeking peace then what are we seeking?” wrote another staffer.
Group of Muslim and Jewish Hill staffers call for cease-fire in Israel-Hamas war - Live Updates - POLITICO

John Fetterman PA-Senator
Fetterman’s Former Campaign Staffers Urge Him to Support Gaza Ceasefire

Senator John Fetterman on X: "Today I was proud to join with @SenOssoff and 34 other Senators to urge the swift implementation of sustained access for humanitarian aid, including water and medical supplies, to save innocent civilian lives in Gaza. We can’t allow Hamas’s barbarism to rob us of our humanity." / X
Though he rejects a ceasefire in Gaza.
 

Note that they are not really anti-war. They are against Israel defending itself (aka "bombing Arabs") but have had no problem with those same Arabs slaughtering and kidnapping over a 1000 Israeli civilians. Let's not lose sight how this all started, and which side started it. It's like calling for a ceasefire with Japan on December 8th 1941.

Who are they going to vote for? Cornell West? RFK Jr.? At least Ross Perot was somewhat credible.

Some Muslim Americans furious at Biden in Michigan, a key swing state - "Muslim and Arab Americans say their support was critical to Biden’s winning Michigan in 2020. Some warn they won’t back him again over his blanket support for Israel."
Hamas overplayed their hand. When they were just shooting rockets, moderate Dems could do their "both sides should show restraint" routine. This war is different. The death toll of the 10/7 Massacre exceeded 9/11 on the proportional basis. There are clear bad guys in this war. And unfortunately some on the fauxgressive Left are siding with them. Like Rashida Tlaib when she believes Hamas statements about the hospital bombing and dismisses US intelligence findings.

URL='https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1715784778039890167']Waleed Shahid 🪬 on X: "“Michigan is a competitive state and it’s purple to begin with. With these complicated dynamics, it’s going to make it one of the most challenging states in the country,” said @RepDebDingell, D-Mich., who lived in Dearborn for 40 years." / X[/URL]
Dearbornistan is almost lost to the Islamic colonists. Hamtramckabad is even further along.

‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags
But with a few hundreds of thousands of Arabs in a swing state, that may make President Biden change his mind.
Hopefully not. But it shows just how dangerous it is to allow mass migration of Islamists. Europe is showing what lies in the future, as their Muslim population is higher. Riots in major cities (scores of police injured in Berlin), synagogues vandalized, etc. Areas like Neukölln in Berlin are basically occupied territory at this point.

Why are Michigan Muslims so extreme anyway?
Detroit synagogue president found fatally stabbed outside her home
 
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One does not need to be related to Holocaust victims to comprehend that killing civilian children and innocents is not only wrong, but doesn't work in the long run.
It is impossible to engage in warfare in a densely populated territory without some civilian casualties. Your solution seems to be that Israel should not be attacking Hamas in Gaza. That they should meekly let themselves be slaughtered. And to that Israel says "never again!"

What do you think would work "in the long run"? Giving concessions has not worked. The major concession of disengagement from Gaza made things worse as it allowed Hamas to take over.

Again, what would be your plan?

Unfortunately, there are too many people who have slurped down the Koolaid of the old alt right and genocidal maniacs who feel that eliminating people in massive quantities is the only solution.
That is not the solution. Solution is eliminating Hamas fighters in massive quantities so that their reign of terror can be ended.
Early on in this thread someone posted a gender breakdown of the fatalities in Gaza. It was something like 3:1 men:women. Since almost all terrorist fighters are men, and population is roughly 1:1, that indicates that it is largely combatants being killed. Of course, Hamas propaganda is going to show photos of photogenic young dead or wounded children, even if there are relatively few of those.

And speaking of children, I did say earlier in the thread that there perhaps should be an evacuation of children under 14 (older minors are often already fighters) and maybe one adult caretaker per family to a tent city in the Sinai. That would ease requirements on aid inside the strip and remove the risk of children being killed during airstrikes and ground operations. But Egypt refuses to consider any such plan.

One last thing? Are you aware that many Palestinian rockets land inside the Strip and kill people on the ground? Are you blaming Israel for that too like Hamas supporters and useful idiots in the West do?
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One does not need to be related to Holocaust victims to comprehend that killing civilian children and innocents is not only wrong, but doesn't work in the long run.
It is impossible to engage in warfare in a densely populated territory without some civilian casualties. Your solution seems to be that Israel should not be attacking Hamas in Gaza. That they should meekly let themselves be slaughtered. And to that Israel says "never again!"
I get why someone who sees the deliberate killing of innocent children and adults is the only solution would draw such a straw man.

You are right- Israel is choosing to be a cut above the evil of Hamas. That doesn’t make them right, just better than Hamas.
Derec said:
What do you think would work "in the long run"? Giving concessions has not worked. The major concession of disengagement from Gaza made things worse as it allowed Hamas to take over.

Again, what would be your plan?
. Been there, done that. Frankly, I have no expectation of peace in that region during the lifetime of this or the next generation - there is too much hate and distrust along with a thirst for vengeance for the population to slog through the difficult road to peace.

Those who propose more slaughter are just repeating the past policies which have not lead to peace.
Laughing Dog said:
Unfortunately, there are too many people who have slurped down the Koolaid of the old alt right and genocidal maniacs who feel that eliminating people in massive quantities is the only solution.
That is not the solution. Solution is eliminating Hamas fighters in massive quantities so that their reign of terror can be ended.
You literally contradicted yourself because Hamas fighters are people.
 
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on X: "As a woman of faith, I see this plainly:
Saving civilian lives—including Israeli & American hostages and the Palestinians trapped in Gaza—must be the priority.
We need a #CeasefireNOW. (vid link)" / X

then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on X: "
Release the hostages.
Protect the innocent.
De-escalate.
#CeasefireNOW" / X


The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center on X: "Statement from The King Center ..." / X
Statement from The King Center Calling for Cease-fire in Israel-Gaza Strip

The King Center calls on our national and global leaders to recognize that a cease-fire and peaceful resolution form the only pathway to prevent the killing of more Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

We believe that, in this interconnected World House, we possess the capacity, through judicious humane thinking, to develop a strategy for rescuing Israeli hostages and avoiding the death and destruction of more Palestinian civilians.

These words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. about the Vietnam War still ring true today, “If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction..

In a day when sputniks dash through outer space and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, nobody can win a war. The choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”

#MLK
Also seems Pollyannaish.

As to driving Hamas into the sea, that may take some diplomatic arm-twisting.

How tiny Qatar hosts the leaders of Hamas without consequences | CBC News
The embassy told CBC News that Qatar condemns "all forms of targeting civilians" and that "killing innocent civilians, especially women and children, and practising the policy of collective punishment are unacceptable.

"Since the first day of the confrontations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, the State of Qatar has been keen to reduce escalation and calm down with aim to reach a complete cessation of the fighting in order to stop the bloodshed and prevent the region from sliding into a wider cycle of violence."
Like accepting Hamas members by sending out some ships to pick them up after Israel drives them into the sea.

Also sending troops to protect the Gaza Strip.

Something like the PLO's withdrawal from West Beirut back in 1982.
 
...
That's pure nonsense. I blame both sides for their actions, including Israel. They are two warring tribes that have been fighting a turf battle for decades. From my perspective, you are bending over backwards not to blame Israel for its own actions and for ignoring the difference between Gaza Palestinians and its terrorist government.
And what exactly do you propose Israel do differently? We have already seen that any attempt to make things better for the Palestinians ups the violence.

No, we haven't. Israel has actually been threatening and bombing Palestinians. Thousands have already been wounded and killed. There is no mercy for them. What Israel should do differently is turn water and power supplies back on for the civilian population, provide humanitarian aid, stop trying to drive them from their homes, and appeal to them to help locate hostages. In general, they should express the same concern for Palestinian lives that they do for Israeli lives and brand Hamas and its allies as the true enemy, not Palestinians.
Look at what's been going on for 75 years, not merely now. There is a long pattern of any positive move made by Israel making things worse for them.

There is no physical reason those people can't flee. Israel didn't tell them to go very far.

It doesn't matter, because Israel is also targeting the south and even locations they've designated as safe corridors. Those who could tried to flee, but Hamas is ordering them to stay. I've seen interviews with some who fled south but are now returning to the north, since they would rather die in their homes than elsewhere. Food, water, and supplies are scarce everywhere. Israel has agreed to allow a miniscule amount of humanitarian aid, but it has even delayed the 20-truck convoy that was supposed to be allowed until the bombed out road can be repaired.
They say what Hamas says to say. There is no honest reporting out of Gaza.

(Old, but still totally relevant.)

As for that bank--if a hostage dies in the assault the legal blame falls on the hostage taker, not the police. Yet you want to blame the police and say the bank robbers should simply be left free to rob again.

You don't seem to understand what the standard procedure is for hostage negotiations. The police don't order hostages to flee, since they obviously can't, and then charge in with guns blazing while the hostages are still there. They bring in professional hostage negotiators. The priority is to save lives, not take revenge on the criminals.
And if negotiations don't work they go in guns blazing. It often doesn't end well for the hostages.

The Palestinians are victims. What you refuse to accept is that they are victims of Arab and Iranian actions. They're a stick of wood being used to beat on the Israeli concrete. Blame the beater, not the concrete.

That is utterly false. I have been saying the opposite--that they are victims of Hamas/Iranian actions and Israeli actions. You have refused to accept that they are also victims of Israeli actions. They are not a "stick of wood". They are human beings--the same as the Israeli hostages. But Israel often only sees them as a "stick of wood".
But your only answer is for Israel to do something different, you're searching for the keys under the streetlight.

My answer is to treat the Palestinians like human beings--the same as Israelis. Stop treating them like terrorists and people whose lives don't matter.
Tell Iran that. They're the one oppressing the Palestinians.

Paranoid assumption?? No, that's simply how it works over there.

But that does not give Israel the right to target such locations for bombing attacks. I hope you realize that. The Palestinians are claiming that that hospital had been briefly shelled and then ordered to evacuate the hospital or face bombing prior to the attack. That could be a fabricated claim, but I wouldn't expect Israel to admit that they had made such a threat. However, Israel did order everyone in northern Gaza to get out, the implication being that those who failed to flee had no one but themselves to blame if Israeli invaders saw them as threats and legitimate targets. If the hospital had been evacuated, it would likely have been blown up. What actually happened, according to Al Jazeera, was a lot of civilians were sheltering in hospitals and other locations (e.g. schools and churches), hoping that they would be spared bombs and shells. Hamas was telling everyone to stay put.
Geneva disagrees with you. If it's used for military purposes it's a valid target. It matters not if it also has a civilian purpose.

If there are civilians sheltering in those locations, they are not legitimate military targets. We are not seeing anything like conformance with the basic principles of International Humanitarian Law from Israel. You don't cut off basic human needs--food, water, power, medical supplies--from civilian populations. That is clearly a war crime. Israel appears to be deliberately ignoring these principles now, although it did make efforts to comply in the past.
A major case of cart before the horse. They are treating it as if civilian trumps military when even Geneva says the opposite--military trumps civilian. The only part that's relevant is proportionality and that only requires prosecuting the war with an eye to minimizing civilian casualties. If the enemy ensures high civilian casualties that's their fault, not yours.

I do not believe the people would be sheltering in schools and churches (what churches? They've driven out most of the Christians!) because they know that's a dangerous place to be because Hamas uses protected buildings for weapon storage.

Were you not aware that Christians were living in Gaza City? The Church of Porphyrius was bombed, and Christians were sheltered with Muslims inside of it. They have video footage of a child being carried out of the rubble. The IDF admits that they damaged the church but claims they didn't target it. Reports say 16-18 Christians were killed, including children. The IDF claims they didn't target the church, that they are investigating the incident, and that there was a military command center somewhere near the church. It wasn't being used to store weapons.
There are a few, not many. You have an example of one church but you said "churches" as if they were numerous.

And if the church was full of people sheltering yet only 16-18 were killed then clearly Israel did not hit it. If they had it wouldn't be there and the death toll would be much higher.

Besides, Israel overheard Islamic Jihad admitting it was their oops.

Israel released an unverified audio tape that they allege is from Islamic Jihad. Palestinians are claiming that the Arab accents were not native to Gaza.
Non-native accents prove nothing.

...
I honestly don't know what Israel is using, but I've read that they are also firing artillery shells, which are not guided bombs. In any case, you must believe then that Israel deliberately targeted the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where hundreds of Christians and Muslims were sheltering. Let's not forget that the terrorists position their missile launchers and ammo dumps in and around such locations. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has called it a war crime.
You realize guided artillery exists??

Anyway, note that your article says the church was damaged by a strike on a nearby target, not that the church was targeted. And, yes, positioning the launchers by the church is a war crime. Hitting the launcher is not a war crime even if they are by a church.

There were civilians everywhere in the area. No, the article says the IDF claims it was a military command center, not a launcher. And, if they use such precision targeting, why did they hit a major church? That's a location where civilians flock to take shelter, hoping that Israel will not bomb it. The IDF doesn't really know what happened, because they admit that they are investigating it.
They are investigating to make sure their initial evaluation was correct--which is what they should do if it's called into question.

However, if it's a command center instead of ammo that doesn't change anything, it's still a valid target.

...I think that Israel is quite capable lying about something like that, given the outrage across the Muslim world. That's why there are such fierce disputes over who is responsible for the Al-Ahli hospital tragedy.
History shows that in the end the Israeli claims are normally pretty close to the truth and the Palestinian claims are wildly inaccurate. And all of those killed by rockets falling short or the like are reported as Israeli deaths.

This is about what is happening now, not the past. History also shows that Israel provided humanitarian aid in past conflicts. Now, it is deliberately cutting that aid off. And we already have video footage that shows victims who are clearly civilians--children, women, old people. These are not terrorists. And they need water, food, and medial supplies that Israel is deliberately denying them.
They wouldn't be getting the supplies anyway. Hamas takes what they want, the civilians only get what's left. It's another thing Hamas doesn't let be talked about. (And it's a general problem with aid to war-torn areas, most of it is diverted. Gaza is only different in the degree of press control.)

...No, I don't take their word on anything. Israel itself used their footage as evidence. The Al Jazeera report also used Israeli footage to rebut their claim. Their news reports don't actually read like propaganda. They want to claim that their story shows Israel targeted the hospital. Having watched their report, I can say that I saw no evidence to support that claim. I think that the most likely scenario is debris from a launched terrorist rocket hit by Iron Dome or else a misfired rocket on the ground. It is also possible that the terrorists themselves deliberately blew up the hospital as a false flag operation, but that is paranoid speculation. I wouldn't dismiss such a possibility out of hand. The fact is that there is no way that hospital could be blown up and Israel not get blamed. It did end up torpedoing Biden's attempt at shuttle diplomacy.
You admit that whoever did it Israel will be blamed--and then you go fall for that and blame Israel.

That's just false. I blame both Israel and the terrorist attackers for their own actions, and I'm actually reserving judgment on which side caused the hospital destruction. In the case of other civilian targets such as churches and schools, it is clear that Israeli ordnance is to blame. What Israel doesn't seem to get is that it needs to show more restraint than the terrorists who attacked on October 6. Hamas deliberately planned this, and Israel appears to be doing everything they expected. They use Palestinian civilians as human shields for a reason. The IDF can blow them to bits, but that is what precisely what the terrorists are intentionally goading them to do. Israel is making itself look no better than the terrorists who attacked it. They took the bait.
Showing restraint would just get more attacks. In one day Israel took more casualties than since the end of the 1973 war. I would expect them to hit back at least as hard as everything they have done since 1973.

And I don't think Israel is doing much about blowing Hamas to bits. They're blowing Hamas stuff to bits so it can't be used against Israel.

All they are showing is that Israel shot down some rockets. This doesn't even address what hit the hospital. I don't know how this is supposed to prove that it was a failed launch, all it proves is that rockets were being launched from near the hospital. And whatever the initial trigger the lag before the big boom shows that the big boom was stuff on the ground going up, not whatever caused it.

I thought I had said as much, but I certainly agree with what you say here.
Note that that means that if Israel did it they hit a valid target.

It only means that that is one possible scenario. We don't actually know what caused the explosion, so the best we can do now is suspend judgment.
No. There's nothing that legitimately should be there that could cause that kind of boom. And the boom was caused by the initial boom, it didn't fall from the sky. (A plane can drop from above MANPAD range and there are no bigger threats. Thus there is zero risk to the plane and thus they will only drop one bomb per target unless they see the first one failed to do the job.) Thus it's clear that the second boom was ordnance (presumably rockets) going up--which inherently makes it a valid target. Military trumps civilian!

Update: Just ran into something I would have realized if I had thought about it: The claim that the initial boom was due to a rocket being intercepted is certainly false. The problem is that Iron Dome is a terminal intercept system--it engages rockets coming back down (predictable targets that are much easier to hit), not rockets in boost phase. Anything Iron Dome shoots down will fall in Israel, not Gaza. (They only engage high-threat inbounds in the first place--a round going into Gaza isn't a threat at all.)
 
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One does not need to be related to Holocaust victims to comprehend that killing civilian children and innocents is not only wrong, but doesn't work in the long run.

Unfortunately, there are too many people who have slurped down the Koolaid of the old alt right and genocidal maniacs who feel that eliminating people in massive quantities is the only solution.
And there are too many that have slurped down the Koolaid of believing the underdog is always in the right.

I saw multiple posts on here from people who had a hard time believing the brutality of the massacre--that shows blindness to what has been going on for ages.
 
Calling for a cease-fire is taking Hamas' side.

Not really, no. Calling for the death of Israeli Jews in another Holocaust is taking Hamas' side. Calling for the indiscriminate deaths of ordinary Gazans in a revenge plot is taking the fair-right Israeli government's side. Somewhere near to the middle is seeking peace and a cease-fire so and depending on how the hypothetical person may have particular nuanced views about how a hostage negotiation may proceed may put them very slightly more in favor of Hamas, Palestinians at large, and/or of Israel.
You fail to understand what's going on over there.

Hamas relies on a strategy of hitting Israel and then hiding behind the world press to protect themselves from the result.

Hamas is the kid who hits and then runs and hides behind momma's skirt.

It's more complicated than that: Hamas is the kid whose friend got punched in the mouth by Person X and so he goes and punches Person Y because Person X and Y are friends but Y is much weaker. Then Hamas goes to run and hide behind mommy's skirt. Meanwhile Person X runs around screaming "come on out," and goes punching Person A, B, and C who are friends with Person X.
No. Hamas is Hamas.

Something like the kids next door when I was growing up--the parents would absolutely not believe their children had done wrong unless they directly witnessed it.

You mean like beheading babies?
I think that's going to turn out to be a case of telephone. We have beheading and we have babies, I think the most likely reality is that the terms were used separately and somebody then put them together.
 
Note that they are not really anti-war. They are against Israel defending itself (aka "bombing Arabs") but have had no problem with those same Arabs slaughtering and kidnapping over a 1000 Israeli civilians. Let's not lose sight how this all started, and which side started it. It's like calling for a ceasefire with Japan on December 8th 1941.
Perfect description.
 
One does not need to be related to Holocaust victims to comprehend that killing civilian children and innocents is not only wrong, but doesn't work in the long run.

Unfortunately, there are too many people who have slurped down the Koolaid of the old alt right and genocidal maniacs who feel that eliminating people in massive quantities is the only solution.
And there are too many that have slurped down the Koolaid of believing the underdog is always in the right.

I saw multiple posts on here from people who had a hard time believing the brutality of the massacre--that shows blindness to what has been going on for ages.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just open eyes and stop thinking one side is always in the right and the other is always in the wrong.
 
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