Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why do Palestinian deaths matter but Jewish deaths don't matter?

Who said this???

Indirectly, multiple people on here.

10/7 won't kill Israel, thus Israel isn't justified in shooting back in a fashion that can harm civilians.

WTF?! That post should be labeled a fire hazard, it is so stuffed with strawmen.

If it's full of strawmen point to one.

But when the shoe is on the other foot the civilian deaths matter.

That is just a pile of crap. There is only one member here who'd feel that way about Israeli deaths. So cut that shit out. There is an ability to feeling terrible grief for the losses on October 7th without handing a blank check to a fucking idiotic dumbass wannabe dictator who dropped the ball so badly on Israeli defense that over 1000 Israelis were slaughtered and hundred more kidnapped while he was busy trying to centralize power in Israel.

You're also suffering from the standard liberal fallacy that there is always a good path. That's not how the real world works, this is a case where there are no good choices, only varying degrees of bad choices. Thus showing a path to be bad is irrelevant, what matters is how it compares to other paths.

And there's a problem with your theory, anyway--this was apparently planned for earlier but Iran changed the planning so we would be duped into releasing that $6 billion that was frozen. Knowing they were planning something big isn't actionable if you don't know when. Consider 9/11--the warnings Bush got were useless. There was a gaping hole in the security but it was much lower down--the report from the flight school about pilots who only cared about flying, not landing. If that got the attention it deserved it would have stopped 9/11.

You have accused people here of some shitty things. Please put up or recant your accusations.

Secondly, I don't think there is a "good path". That is more shit you keep shoving other posters' mouths. The problem I have been repeating is that Israeli military actions are likely breeding more Hamas than they are eliminating. And that doesn't make Israel safer.

 

[laughing dog]

Why do Palestinian deaths matter but Jewish deaths don't matter?

Who said this???

Indirectly, multiple people on here.

10/7 won't kill Israel, thus Israel isn't justified in shooting back in a fashion that can harm civilians.

But when the shoe is on the other foot the civilian deaths matter.

My parents brought me up that bad behavior on the part of others did not justify bad behavior on my part.

Let me make this clear. Killing civilians is wrong. Doesn't matter who does the killing nor does it matter who the victims are.

Unlike you, there are those who believe it doesn't matter if you think the cause is just or legal. It is still wrong.

So you can shove that "Israeli deaths don't matter" back up the orifice from which it originated.

This isn't a Dungeons and Dragons world where there's always a clear path to good.

Yet you continue to act like there is.

And by saying Israel shouldn't act you are saying they should simply accept more massacres. Jewish lives don't matter.

Since I haven't said Israel shouldn't act, what are you on about. Nor did anyone say they should accept more massacres. And acknowledging that killing civilians is wrong has nothing whatsoever to do with the accepting or not accepting massacres.

You can shove your vile straw man "Jewish lives don't matter" back up its originating orifice. Just because you appear to feel that civilian Palestinian lives do not matter, it does not mean others have the feelings about Jewish lives. That is pure projection on your part and it reveals much more about the mindset of those who utter such accusations than it does about those to whom it is aimed.

 

[laughing dog]

Murdering a murderer is still murder.

But killing a terrorist isn't.
It was not murder for US to kill ObL or Al Baghdadi or Al Alwaki. And neither is it murder for Israel to kill Hamas leaders.

It was murder. There was no trial. Trials are useful because one of the outcomes of the process is that mistaken identities can be avoided. As history has shown us, intelligence services are not infallible.

 

[laughing dog]

I care far more about the side that didn't choose war than the side that chose war crimes.

Both sides chose war.

Both sides are choosing war crimes.

Both sides chose war? No, Israel chose to not sit there and be slaughtered.

By engaging in war or are you saying Israel is responding with terrorism?

Can you ever actually address the matter rather than find something to nitpick?

That is your standard evasion whenever someone hits the point on the head. Either Israel's choice to not sit there and be slaughtered was to declare war or to engage in terrorism. You still have yet to answer the question. Which is truly revealing.

You seem to think Israel has engaged in terrorism.

. Duh. You still evade the question.

And you still haven't addressed the original question: What should Israel have done?

First, act like sane responsible adults instead vengeful genocidal maniacs to reassure the public that they would hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators, and work to free/ rescue the hostages. Second, start gathering the intelligence and making plans to either seize or assassinate the perpetrators and free/ rescue the hostages .Third, carry out the plans. Yes, it would take time and be less viscerally satisfying to the racists, and revenge seekers.

 

[TomC]

First, act like sane responsible adults instead vengeful genocidal maniacs to reassure the public that they would hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators, and work to free/ rescue the hostages. Second, start gathering the intelligence and making plans to either seize or assassinate the perpetrators and free/ rescue the hostages .Third, carry out the plans. Yes, it would take time and be less viscerally satisfying to the racists, and revenge seekers.

Dang that's pitifully naive.

Think Hamas and their supporters would be willing to do the same? I don't. I think that any time Israel shows weakness by making concessions to violent militants they'll get the same results they got on October 7th.
Tom

 

[bilby]

First, act like sane responsible adults instead vengeful genocidal maniacs to reassure the public that they would hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators, and work to free/ rescue the hostages. Second, start gathering the intelligence and making plans to either seize or assassinate the perpetrators and free/ rescue the hostages .Third, carry out the plans. Yes, it would take time and be less viscerally satisfying to the racists, and revenge seekers.

Dang that's pitifully naive.

Think Hamas and their supporters would be willing to do the same? I don't.

Why would that matter?

Doing the right thing can perfectly well be a unilateral action; Doing the wrong thing because your enemies also do the wrong thing is inexcusable and illogical.

I think that any time Israel shows weakness by making concessions to violent militants they'll get the same results they got on October 7th.
Tom

October 7th was a response to Israel electing a genocidal "hard man" who wanted to make a show of strength, and to cease what few concessions were being made.

I think that what you think is demonstrably and clearly wrong, and that even a cursory comparison between Israeli "shows of strength" and subsequent levels of Palestinian violence over the entire history of the state of Israel indicates that.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Well, obviously, I'd

I was asking a serious question. Can you even formulate a strategy you think Israel should have pursued instead of hitting Hamas in Gaza hard? Or do you just think they should have done nothing in response to 10/7?

[*]Turn everyone's water off

Israel doesn't supply that much water to Gaza anyway. And what do you think of Hamas digging up water pipes to turn into rocket bodies?

[*]Tell everyone to flee south and then bomb the south

The intensity of operations in the North is obviously far higher than in the South. So the directive was to save lives.
IDF never said they would not bomb at all in the South, since there is Hamas there too. Duh!

[*]Tell people to go to Egypt and then bomb the crossing to Egypt

I think multiple sites close to the Rafah crossing were hit. I don't know what was there, and neither do you.

[*]Bomb a refugee camp and multiple hospitals

"Refugee camp" is a misnomer. It was a refugee camp in 1948, 75 years ago, but now these "refugee camps" are just cities in their own right. And Hamas is putting infrastructure inside or underneath civilian buildings. It is necessary to hit Hamas tunnels.
The Baptist hospital was hit by Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired. IDF was bombing close to various hospitals, yes, because Hamas was in those locations. But they did not hit hospitals directly.

[*]Kill 10,000 people, mostly civilians

How do you know that? Because Hamas health ministry says so?
Also, note the propaganda with "children". "Children" in this context just means <18. But Hamas and Islamic Jihad routinely use teenage combatants under 18.
So you can't even claim that all the "children" are non-combatants.
Some examples of this from the West Bank:
In Jenin, a family mourns teenage son as militants hail 'martyr'
These are the 3 teens the Jenin terrorists sent to die

[*]Bomb the tunnels where the hostages are

It is unknown where the hostages are. I hope IDF can rescue as many as possible, but it is a difficult task. What should be a total non-starter is releasing >5000 Palestinian terrorists for the hostages.

On the other hand, maybe Israel could reduce some of these things. We should consider that for a moment. Hmmm... naw, fuck it. Israel should also send a nuke to Gaza.

Yeah, that's just a politician bloviating, not a serious proposal.

But seriously, what is your proposal? What would you do?

You are presenting false dichotomies and an unreasonable amount of skepticism about other choices, shifting the burden after an assumed this-is-the-only-path apology. Even if that extremist politician had his way and they ended up nuking Gaza, you'd still be supporting the decision saying, "well, show me what else they could have done!" You cannot accept that there can be less Gazan civilian deaths and less violence directed at Gaza by a currently very extreme right-wing faction that took control of the Israeli government. There cannot exist anything in a spectrum between what they are currently doing and nothing at all that would somehow be more moral and practical in your view. That is an unrealistic, apologetic view that the right-wing faction that took control of Israel is perfect.

No doubt your weird worldview has some roots in your bias against POC--to include instances when race is used as a social construct like when it applies to Muslims. Even if we ignored the pattern over decades in the forum of your posts, we could still observe your bias in the thread, starting from the op post in which you claimed the Squad was rejoicing. The only one in the thread at all over many pages who rejoiced was you--rejoiced at an instance of a Hamas commander being killed, which in and of itself might actually not be a terrible thing, but it's the surrounding cost to get there to take him out that ought to make one wonder, any cost to achieve ends is not a good moral position. The ends do not necessarily justify the means, but this is what you have been advocating. You, Hamas, and at least some in the right-wing faction that took control of Israel. While we can observe the bias over and over again with refusal to critically look at anything being done, it may be hard to prove and it is much more clear when we observe you jump to the conclusion that a Muslim killed the Jewish woman in Detroit, even when we know that when an American woman is killed, it is often due to domestic reasons. That possibility never entered your brain as a plausible alternative. It had to be an evil dark Muslim from Detroit to you.

On the flip side, there is no one in the thread who has taken the view that whatever Hamas has done is perfect or their only moral and practical choice. Everyone here thinks what happened to Israelis was terrible perpetrated by evil thoughts and actions.

When you ask, "...what is your proposal? What would you do?" I am reminded of a joke about a guy visiting the doctor's office.

Patient: "Doctor, every time I drop this 50 lb weight on my foot, it hurts my foot for a whole week. And I am limping around."
Doctor: "Well, stop dropping the weight on your foot."
Patient: "Tell me what I should do instead!"

You are not the patient in this analogy. You are not the doctor either. You're the patient's friend. You believe you are giving your friend 100% support by telling him he is 100% right 100% of the time, morally, practically, and logically. BUT you are doing more harm to your friend than helping him.

The citizens of Israel have diverse religious and ideological views, even if some are considered "right" and some "left" or some "reform" and some "orthodox" or some "settlers" or whatever else. Outside Israel, there are even anti-Zionist Jews. That's how diverse opinions are. In Israel, there is a right-wing faction in charge now, but others have different opinions and the direction was clearly different before this faction took control. It is ignorance and apologetics to imagine a world where whatever the extremist right-wing govt does is the only path and that if a different group or party were in charge, they'd be handling the situation in exactly the same way or doing so less effectively and less morally.

Even if far too many Gazan civilians have been killed, I am hoping that the IDF gets into the tunnels to combat Hamas directly and can actually rescue the hostages. Hamas is already claiming that 60 hostages have gone missing due to Israeli airstrikes which is a foreshadowing of my earlier expressed concern before the ground invasion began. Being far too aggressive and far too careless may not only endanger the lives of more Gazan civilians, but also Israeli hostages.

 

[Derec]

Cowardly WaPo removed a very accurate cartoon about Hamas use of human shields.



Washington Post deletes editorial cartoon criticized as racist
For shame! There is nothing "racist" about the cartoon. WaPo caving to pro-Hamas voices is very spineless.

 

[laughing dog]

First, act like sane responsible adults instead vengeful genocidal maniacs to reassure the public that they would hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators, and work to free/ rescue the hostages. Second, start gathering the intelligence and making plans to either seize or assassinate the perpetrators and free/ rescue the hostages .Third, carry out the plans. Yes, it would take time and be less viscerally satisfying to the racists, and revenge seekers.

Dang that's pitifully naive.

It is how they an acted after the Munich murders.

Think Hamas and their supporters would be willing to do the same? I don't. I think that any time Israel shows weakness by making concessions to violent militants they'll get the same results they got on October 7th.
Tom

What concession are you babbling about?

Avoidance of resembling Hamas is a good policy. Right now Israel is doing Hamas’s recruitment by reacting as Hamas wants.

 

[Copernicus]

For shame! There is nothing "racist" about the cartoon. WaPo caving to pro-Hamas voices is very spineless.

No, especially not the ugly stereotypical caricature of Palestinians. How could anyone think that?

I once had a Jewish professor that I had worked with in graduate school. He took up a new job with the University of Salzburg and moved to Austria. He confided to me later that, on the first day of his job, the local newspaper ran a political cartoon depicting a Jew as a caricature with a big nose and exaggerated features typically used to depict Jews during WWII, in which he had served as a British airman. For some reason, that cartoon in a popular Austrian newspaper made him feel very uncomfortable.

 

[Toni]

First, act like sane responsible adults instead vengeful genocidal maniacs to reassure the public that they would hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators, and work to free/ rescue the hostages. Second, start gathering the intelligence and making plans to either seize or assassinate the perpetrators and free/ rescue the hostages .Third, carry out the plans. Yes, it would take time and be less viscerally satisfying to the racists, and revenge seekers.

Dang that's pitifully naive.

Think Hamas and their supporters would be willing to do the same? I don't.

Why would that matter?

Doing the right thing can perfectly well be a unilateral action; Doing the wrong thing because your enemies also do the wrong thing is inexcusable and illogical.

I think that any time Israel shows weakness by making concessions to violent militants they'll get the same results they got on October 7th.
Tom

October 7th was a response to Israel electing a genocidal "hard man" who wanted to make a show of strength, and to cease what few concessions were being made.

I think that what you think is demonstrably and clearly wrong, and that even a cursory comparison between Israeli "shows of strength" and subsequent levels of Palestinian violence over the entire history of the state of Israel indicates that.

October 7 was unjustifiable, period. Full stop.

Killing 1400 civilians in a sneak attack is not justifiable no matter who the perpetrator or who the victims.

 

[Copernicus]

First, act like sane responsible adults instead vengeful genocidal maniacs to reassure the public that they would hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators, and work to free/ rescue the hostages. Second, start gathering the intelligence and making plans to either seize or assassinate the perpetrators and free/ rescue the hostages .Third, carry out the plans. Yes, it would take time and be less viscerally satisfying to the racists, and revenge seekers.

Dang that's pitifully naive.

Think Hamas and their supporters would be willing to do the same? I don't.

Why would that matter?

Doing the right thing can perfectly well be a unilateral action; Doing the wrong thing because your enemies also do the wrong thing is inexcusable and illogical.

I think that any time Israel shows weakness by making concessions to violent militants they'll get the same results they got on October 7th.
Tom

October 7th was a response to Israel electing a genocidal "hard man" who wanted to make a show of strength, and to cease what few concessions were being made.

I think that what you think is demonstrably and clearly wrong, and that even a cursory comparison between Israeli "shows of strength" and subsequent levels of Palestinian violence over the entire history of the state of Israel indicates that.

October 7 was unjustifiable, period. Full stop.

Killing 1400 civilians in a sneak attack is not justifiable no matter who the perpetrator or who the victims.

I don't see October 7 as a response to any particular election, but it is wrong to imply that bilby was trying to justify the attack in any way. I do think that Likud policy regarding West Bank settlements had something to do with it, because Netanyahu himself is on record as admitting that his intention was to use the radical Hamas government as a way of keeping Palestinians divided and unable to push for the two-state solution or any unified homeland for Palestinians. So he allowed Qatar and other Arab governments to fund and strengthen the Hamas government. And then he ignored the growing threat that he had created, focusing more on trying to undermine the court system trying him for corruption. It is reasonable to blame the Israeli right wing governments for building up tensions in the Palestinian population, gradually annexing territory in their West Bank enclave, and fostering ethnic apartheid rule in Israel.

 

[Derec]

No, especially not the ugly stereotypical caricature of Palestinians. How could anyone think that?

All caricatures exaggerierte facial features. I see nothing "ugly stereotypical" here. It is no different than a caricature of any American or western European politician.
Your (and cowardly WaPo's) position here seems to be that one should not caricature Muslims, not even Hamas leaders. And that's just defeatism for wokeness' sake. It's like refusing cartoons of Mohammed because it upsets the Islamists.

 

[Derec]

It was murder.

So you want to prosecute Obama and everyone else in this room for murder? First or second degree?

Or is this rule of yours (and bilby's) only for when Jews dare defend themselves from genocidal terrorists?

 

[Derec]

Why are men in US such violent extremists?

Generalize much?

Also, Detroit police haven't released the identity of the suspect. So how can you even be sure he is an American? Or a man?

 

[Derec]

Yes, it is; And yes, it was; And yes, it is.

I disagree.

None of these people had trials; None had the opportunity to defend themselves. How does anyone know in law that they got the right people?

Is there any doubt we got the right people in any of these cases?

As to the trial - I do not advocate killing a suspect in custody or when he or she can feasibly be brought into custody.
But in the field, that is usually not possible. So taking them out is a solid alternative.

We either have civilisation and rule of law for everyone, or we don't have it at all.

Your version of civilisation[sic], one which is unwilling to adequately defend itself against threats, is a suicide pact.

 

[jonatha]

civilisation[sic],

bilby spelled it the way all Australians do...

 

[Derec]

It is how they an acted after the Munich murders.

Going after terrorists who orchestrated the Munich massacre is not "genocidal". And since those people were protected where they lived, and bringing them to trial was not feasible, it is not even murder. It's righteous retribution.

I hope Mossad finds a way to do likewise with Ismail Hanniyeh and other Hamas leaders living high on the hog in places like Qatar or Lebanon, since neither country is likely to arrest and extradite them to face justice. Therefore, more direct forms of justice are necessary. Like a 9mm brain hemorrhage.

 

[Derec]

bilby spelled it the way all Australians do...

Just kidding. I forgot they use "s" across either pond.

 

[Arctish]

For shame! There is nothing "racist" about the cartoon. WaPo caving to pro-Hamas voices is very spineless.

No, especially not the ugly stereotypical caricature of Palestinians. How could anyone think that?

Don't forget the Eye of Sauron in the portrait on the wall.

Frankly, I think the cartoon could have passed as legitimate political commentary if it hadn't gone the extra distance to equate mosques with Mordor.