Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Tigers!]

A sudden attack out of the blue was Pearl Harbour, just like the Hamas 7th October attack.

Except Hamas isn't a nation state.

Why is that important?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A sudden attack out of the blue was Pearl Harbour, just like the Hamas 7th October attack.

Except Hamas isn't a nation state.

Why is that important?

Because the rules of war are somewhat governed when between nation states. Insurgencies can't be won by taking the other guy's flag, because there isn't one.

So when Japan declared war, that meant something specific and the consequences of said actions can be quite severe. Government's hung, reparations, having to let your crap Aunt stay there instead. Hamas isn't a state, it can't be conquered.

So there is nothing in common with Pearl Harbor and October 7th, other than violence. The US got its seven or so pounds of flesh, Israel will not. Because there is no flesh to be had against an insurgency that is as disconnected as we generally see with Middle Eastern groups. This isn't Che Guevara or some other independence fighter. You kill twenty of them, twenty more will follow. We kill the Japan Emperor, that means something real.

And let's not forgot you awful juxtaposition in the first place, ie, Israel's reaction to the Hamas atrocity verses US's against Japan's surprise attack (on a military base), while also declaring war on the US.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Are you denying the money to the terrorist groups is for purposes other than terror?

Whether you like it or not, Hamas does more than terroristic activities.

Pretty much everything is does is terror or in support of terror. We'll help you rebuild--but we get to store stuff in your house.

Now, do you have any proof?

And I'm not aware of any incident of Israel engaging in terrorist activity, although there has been some individual actions that would qualify as terrorism.

Your inability to admit reality reveals more about your mindset than what is going on in Gaza or the gov't of Israel's terrorist activities and enabling of terrorism on its behalf by its citizens.


Before you respond without thinking, I am not equating Israel with Hamas.

What terrorist incident are you blaming Israel for?

I do agree there is some terrorism by the settlers--but much of it appears to be blaming the settlers for things they didn't do. The standard approach is to report bad things as having been due to Israel without regard for whether Israel had anything to do with them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So how many possible targets exist against Hamas in Gaza? It has been a quite a while and a lot of munitions have been plopped in Gaza.

Israel has a every right to justice, but justice isn't being applied here, retaliation is. To be clear, while planning is good, this siege should have existed for a period of time to allow a very specific coordinated attack. That isn't what we are seeing here.

Israel is exposing the Palestinians to a great deal of suffering (well above that of normal life) for nearly no tactical gain. Israel, for lack of a better phrase, is running out of time.

The atrocities committed against Israel by Hamas didn't buy them a blind check for eternity and Netanyahu is getting exposed for being the shit leader he is, and he has about completely squandered the grace period the globe provided them.

The problem is the targets are dispersed through the civilian areas. As are the tunnels.

Israel has reported they have dropped 6000 bombs (as of 17 days ago!). I get that trying to bomb out tunnels and legitimate Hamas targets that are purposefully snuggled with the civilian population is hard and sometimes requires accepting some collateral damage. But Israel is dropping a ridiculous number of bombs. That can't all be serious Hamas targets, unless they are dropping bombs like we swipe at flies.

It's trivially obvious that there are at least 6,000 valid targets in Gaza. There are 300 miles of tunnels, if every bomb were aimed at tunnels that would be one bomb every 264 feet. Since the goal is destroying them, not merely clearing them I would expect it would need more bombs than that.

And remember, they launched 5,000 rockets in the massacre and they have lots, lots more. It isn't one big ammo dump, it's a few rockets here, a few rockets there.

I remember from a previous conflict reports of bombed-out apartment buildings, conveniently ignoring the fact that the bombs had actually been used to collapse a tunnel running along the street. Any media that wants to operate in that area would have to ignore the elephant that was readily visible--bombs do not carve long, thin craters. A long, thin crater is because a long, thin underground void collapsed--a tunnel. (And that applies wherever you are--there's a long, thin crater on the moon believed to be due to the collapse of an ancient lava tube.)

I've got to wonder about the subsidence at the surface from a collapsed tunnel, relative to the crater of a bomb.

We've seen pictures from where Israel collapsed tunnels before. You can see where the bombs hit and you can see the roof fell in in between. Unfortunately, the recent conflict has so filled image search with Hamas photo ops that I'm not finding the older pictures.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

...

No, her words were not remotely comparable to justifying the violence committed by Hamas, but she did not mention Hamas or the Israeli government directly in her statement, although she did refer to an "apartheid government". She is after all, a Palestinian Arab, and that does reflect the opinion of most Palestinian Arabs. It's just that she opened herself up by not directly condemning Hamas directly by name for its terrorist attack, choosing instead to talk about the conflict as if it were a blood feud in which both sides were committing atrocities against each other. So I stand by what I said about spreading the lie that she has somehow endorsed Hamas in its horrific attack.

Dog whistles.
...

That's your argument to defend the claim that Tlaib supports Hamas? No point in pursuing this further. If they vote to censure or expel her, it will be because of who she is, not what she said.

Not mentioning Hamas or the massacre means a lot.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Except Hamas isn't a nation state.

It waddles and quacks.

 

[TomC]

Except Hamas isn't a nation state.

It waddles and quacks.

Fires missiles and takes hostages and collects support from other governments and...
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

[

Pretty much everything is does is terror or in support of terror. We'll help you rebuild--but we get to store stuff in your house.

Your opiniom is neither evidence not prof that Hamas only engages im terror.

What terrorist incident are you blaming Israel for?

I do agree there is some terrorism by the settlers--but much of it appears to be blaming the settlers for things they didn't do. The standard approach is to report bad things as having been due to Israel without regard for whether Israel had anything to do with them.

Enabling settlers to kill or terrorze Israeli Arabs and the IDF to kill citizens is terrorism.

 

[Copernicus]

I agree. Derec is just spreading the lie that Tlaib has endorsed Hamas.

I did not say she explicitly endorsed Hamas. But she does believe Hamas statements over US statements. Shows her where her sympatyhies lie.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib draws fire for not apologizing for saying Israel caused Gaza hospital blast

She was likely wrong about the hospital explosion, but it is hardly a criticism of a Palestinian Arab representative to point out that her sympathies lie with Palestinian Arabs rather than the Israeli government. She is a Palestinian Arab, and she does appear to express the opinions of the majority of her constituents. The US is a free country, and she is perfectly entitled to do that without being censured or expelled from Congress.

I have only seen statements from her that endorse the Palestinian cause

She is also on record wanting to abolish Israel.

I cannot find any statement from her to corroborate your claim, but you don't bother to support it. What I have seen is that she supports a one-state solution. To me, that seems extremely unlikely to happen, although it would be the one I would favor ideologically, if it were practical and possible. That is not a desire to abolish Israel, but to transform it into a multiethnic nation in the same sense that the United States is a multiethnic country.

and treat Hamas as a symptom of Israeli apartheid. That is quite different from endorsing the unelected terrorist organization that rules over Gaza.

And yet she accepts Hamas statements about the war without question.

I have seen no evidence of that, and you assert it without support. So I disagree with your unsupported opinion.

Hamas doesn't represent the Palestinian cause, and it is evident that they haven't just raped, murdered, and taken Israelis as hostage in their terrorist attack.

It is evident that they have done all those things in their terrorist attack.

Yes, but read on to the part where I said what else they did.

They deliberately provoked Israel into launching a genocidal attack that has killed, wounded, and maimed thousands of Palestinians, who have nowhere to flee.

It is Hamas that is geocidal here.

Do you mean "genocidal"? If so, I would say that at least some Israelis consider their government policy in responding to the October 7 attack is genocidal--to target anyone in Gaza regardless of whether they had anything to do with that attack or even supported Hamas in any way. And that point has even been made by a few critical PMs in the Knesset. I stand by my statement.

Hamas will use Israel's excessive retaliation as a means of recruiting future terrorists and spreading more hatred and violence in the Middle East.

Which is why it is important to crush Hamas once and for all. Otherwise, they will rebuild their rocket stockpiles, recruit more teenagers, and attack Israel again in a few years, like they have been doing for decades.

Very definitely, but half the population of the Gaza Strip is children or teenagers, many of whom are being slaughtered in the Israeli bombardment. Has it not occurred to you that the survivors of this debacle will feel motivated to join terrorist campaigns against Israel in the future? Do you not understand that this is a blood feud in which each side feels a need to settle scores? Israel has already killed far more Palestinians than Israelis who were killed and abducted on October 7. And that disparity will only grow wider as Israel presses its ground incursion into the Strip. If hostages are killed in the process, I will be surprised to hear that the Israeli government admits that any of them died by friendly fire. This ground invasion is definitely going to result in more hostages being killed, possibly the majority of those remaining alive today.

Tlaib has called for an end to the root causes of the blood feud between Palestinians and Israelis that have led up to the current violence.

According to her, existence of Israel is the "root cause". Not Islamism or antisemitism. Just Israel.

Yes, she is pro-Palestinian all the way. Not pro-Hamas. I have seen nothing from her that suggests she thinks Hamas are good guys, that their use of terrorism is acceptable, or that she supports their control of the government in the Gaza Strip. And it is a fact that Israel itself has partially funded Hamas in the past.

How the West—and Israel Itself—Inadvertently Funded Hamas​

Moreover, the Netanyahu government has been particularly supportive of a policy of weakening the control of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank in order to strengthen the Hamas government of the Gaza Strip as a way of playing each side off against the other. It is now coming out that the Netanyahu government has been extremely complacent and lax in recognizing the danger that Hamas extremists posed, and that is now coming back to haunt Netanyahu.

Here position sounds extremely unrealistic, given the level of mutual animosity between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, but so is the position that the two communities can end the violence with more violence.

In WWII we ended the violence through a decisive victory on the battlefield. Hamas is no less evil than NSDAP and quite a bit more evil than Imperial Japan.

The WWII whataboutery analogy is being promoted by the Israeli government, because it is just a false analogy fallacy. One can always find a few similarities to build an analogy on, but it breaks down rapidly. The Japanese sneak attack was on a military target, and Japan had already secretly declared war on the US. It was not asymmetric warfare of the type that Hamas has been conducting, and the objective of Japan was apparently to neutralize the ability of the US military to resist its expanding empire in the South Pacific, not to free Japanese hostiles in US prisons. Japan took no hostages for ransom and did not seriously threaten the US mainland. I could go on, but the analogy is simply absurd.

 

[Copernicus]

Not mentioning Hamas or the massacre means a lot.

She didn't actually mention Israel, either, but everyone already knew the parties engaged in combat. Tlaib expressed her opinion that the terrorist attack had been long in coming and that Israel could have avoided it, if it had tried to resolve issues earlier instead of essentially quarantining and ignoring the Palestinian populations in Gaza and the West Bank. That is not the same as endorsing the terrorist regime in Gaza, which Israel itself knew was a terrorist regime. And it is also an opinion held by a significant minority of Non-Palestinian Israelis.

 

[lpetrich]

Rep. Rashida Tlaib's Press Releases

Tlaib Statement on Ongoing Violence in Israel and Palestine - Rashida Tlaib - Oct 8

I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day. I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity. The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer. No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence. We cannot ignore the humanity in each other. As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.

Tlaib Calls on Biden Administration to Do More to Save Civilian Lives - Rashida Tlaib - Oct 13

I am calling for immediate de-escalation and ceasefire to save countless civilian lives, no matter their faith or ethnicity. Our government must lead with compassion for all civilians. I believe in my heart that the majority of Americans want the killing and violence to stop. War crimes cannot be answered with war crimes.

...

Tlaib Statement on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital - Rashida Tlaib - Oct 23

Media outlets and third-party analysts have raised doubts about claims and evidence offered by both Israel and the Gaza Ministry of Health, and I agree with the United Nations that an independent investigation is necessary. I cannot uncritically accept Israel’s denials of responsibility as fact, especially in light of confirmation from the World Health Organization that Israel has bombed numerous medical facilities in Gaza and reports from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society of ongoing threats from the Israeli military to evacuate hospitals.

Both the Israeli and United States governments have long, documented histories of misleading the public about wars and war crimes—like last year’s Israeli military assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh and the false claims of weapons of mass destruction that led our country into the Iraq War—and cannot clear themselves of responsibility without an independent international investigation. This debate should not distract us from the urgent need for a ceasefire to save innocent civilian lives.

Tlaib Statement on Resolution That Doesn’t Mourn Palestinian Lives - Rashida Tlaib - Oct 25

I have and continue to denounce the killing of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity. Targeting civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it. Do not confuse my vote against this one-sided resolution with a lack of empathy for all those who are grieving. I voted against this resolution because it is a deeply incomplete and biased account of what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and what has been happening for decades. This resolution rightly mourns the thousands of Israeli civilians killed and wounded in the horrific attacks but explicitly does not mourn the thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 2,000 children, killed and wounded in the collective punishment of Palestine. How does treating Palestinian civilians as less than fully human, as legitimate targets for retribution, bring us closer to a just and lasting peace?

...

Tlaib Statement on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Censure Resolution - Rashida Tlaib - Oct 26

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s unhinged resolution is deeply Islamophobic and attacks peaceful Jewish anti-war advocates. I am proud to stand in solidarity with Jewish peace advocates calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence. I will not be bullied, I will not be dehumanized, and I will not be silenced. I will continue to call for ceasefire, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for every American to be brought home. I will continue to work for a just and lasting peace that upholds the human rights and dignity of all people, and ensures that no person, no child has to suffer or live in fear of violence.

 

[lpetrich]

I find it telling that some people consider Rashida Tlaib's statements a much worse outrage than even the worst of Marjorie Taylor Greene's statements. Like threatening violence against fellow Congressmembers.

 

[Arctish]

That's your argument to defend the claim that Tlaib supports Hamas? No point in pursuing this further. If they vote to censure or expel her, it will be because of who she is, not what she said.

She never came out directly and supported Hamas. But she took the Hamas side in the hospital blast dispute, disbelieving the analysis not only by US intelligence but also by several media outlets.
And even before this conflict, she has been a proponent of a "one state solution". That "solution" envisions Israel getting abolished and replaced by a single state of "Palestine" where Jews would either leave or live under the yoke of Muslims and Arabs.

Says who?

You?

The One State solution couldn't possibly be the Union of Israel and Palestine? It couldn't be a secular state with equal rights guaranteed in its Constitution and enforced by its courts? It has to be winner-take-all ethnic cleansing and genocide?

Perhaps in your worldview, but not in everyone else's.

 

[Arctish]

A sudden attack out of the blue was Pearl Harbour, just like the Hamas 7th October attack.

The United States and Japan had not been exchanging fire for years, with hundreds of fighters and thousands of civilians killed in the decade preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Israel and Hamas were.

The only thing surprising about Hamas' attack in October was its effectiveness.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The US doesn't have a parallel to the Hamas attack in it's history.

I'm not taking sides in the current, narrow argument about Japan, but I wanted to write something in response to this. I still think that it is valuable to examine the spread west by the US and its relation to indigenous people. We can see individual and group acts that were flat-out wrong, sometimes one or the other side being an "initial aggressor" and there are even many parallels like attacking civilians/settlers on the frontier, hostage-taking, kidnapping, scalping, etc. So, I believe with the many, many instances of aggression across both sides we probably could find some kind of parallel by combing through history, perhaps even multiple examples. It's not really my area of expertise and I can only search on the Internet for such things and could possibly take some potential instances out of context.

That said, just looking, I did find an interesting example of a group of Native Americans attacking Texas and taking hostages. Multiple villages were attacked. One was burnt down. That was a raid in 1840. There's a much more extensive list here:

List of Indian massacres in North America - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Harry Bosch]

Is it worth reminding people that the USA declared war on Japan for 2403 dead at Pearl Habour? What should the USA's proportional response really have been?
Perhaps just sinking the the Hiryu and Soryu?

WTF?!

Japan formerly declared war on the US.

Japan attacked USA just like Hamas attacked Israel on 7th Oct.
I am sure that many today would have cautioned the US not to respond precetitiously and or that their resposne in "proportion" hence my comment about the Hiryu and Soryu. They had a combined crew of about 2300.

Japan formally declared war on the United States. They didn't merely attack Pearl Harbor, they sent a declaration to DC.

Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The US doesn't have a parallel to the Hamas attack in it's history.

Yea, I don't think that Pear Harbor is a good parallel to Hamas. To me, the Hamas attack on the Israel peace concert and kibbutz is similar to 9-11. Hammas and Al-quada are death cults.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Is it worth reminding people that the USA declared war on Japan for 2403 dead at Pearl Habour? What should the USA's proportional response really have been?
Perhaps just sinking the the Hiryu and Soryu?

WTF?!

Japan formerly declared war on the US.

Japan attacked USA just like Hamas attacked Israel on 7th Oct.
I am sure that many today would have cautioned the US not to respond precetitiously and or that their resposne in "proportion" hence my comment about the Hiryu and Soryu. They had a combined crew of about 2300.

Japan formally declared war on the United States. They didn't merely attack Pearl Harbor, they sent a declaration to DC.

Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The US doesn't have a parallel to the Hamas attack in it's history.

Yea, I don't think that Pear Harbor is a good parallel to Hamas. To me, the Hamas attack on the Israel peace concert and kibbutz is similar to 9-11. Hammas and Al-quada are death cults.

9/11 wasn't waged on the US by a quasi domestic source. The closest we had was Oklahoma City.

I don't think Hamas or al-Qaeda are death cults. That'd be ISIS. Hamas has an agenda that doesn't involve global annihilation. The problem is, their goal is utterly unachievable and terribly unethical.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Israel to perform Christ miracle by providing aid to 2 million Gazans using only 80 trucks. Housing, food, medical, water needs using only 80 trucks for 2 million Gazans would easily surpass Christ serving over one thousand people using just two loaves of bread and a couple boxes of frozen fish sticks!

 

[Copernicus]

I find it telling that some people consider Rashida Tlaib's statements a much worse outrage than even the worst of Marjorie Taylor Greene's statements. Like threatening violence against fellow Congressmembers.

Derec and Loren Pechtel clearly want to believe that she is a supporter of Hamas, even though there is no evidence of it in her statements. There seems to be no middle ground for them. Either she supports Israel, or she supports Hamas. If she opposes treating Palestinians as unavoidable collateral damage in order to destroy Hamas, then she must favor treating murdered and abducted Israelis in Hamas's war against Israel as their side's "collateral damage". All I can find in her statements is the opinion that no collateral damage can be justified in the pursuit of either side's violent goals. How many innocent lives must be destroyed for either side to reach what it considers a final solution? The violence cannot solve the problem. It is the problem.

Israeli strike on Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp causes many casualties, officials say​

Collateral damage?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Sure, Hamas most likely was there, taking advantage of the protection a refugee camp is supposed to provide refugees (you know... refuge). But it is still a refugee camp! I can't imagine attacking a refugee camp being anything but a war crime. The term war crime sometimes can be exaggerated, but a refugee camp can't possibly be on the list of acceptable military targets as far as treaties are concerned.

Sure, the Gazan officials will exaggerate the death toll, but is 50 to 100 dead REFUGEES a "tragedy of war" or a complete and utter disregard for civilian life? Civilians displaced in the camp by the actions of the Israeli military. Was targeting another "senior" Hamas official worth the lives of many refugees lost? How in the heck can anyone expect such an attack not to breed extremism and a dozen more future "senior" Hamas officials?