ousdahl wrote: ↑Thu Nov 02, 2023 7:28 pm
RainbowsandUnicorns wrote: ↑Thu Nov 02, 2023 9:05 am
I see 3 options. None of which are great.
1. Israel does nothing.
2. Israel commits "war crimes".
3. Israel wipes Gaza off the face of the Earth.
I'm left wondering what option people truly feel the Israelis should choose.
I'd go with #2.
gutter, I value your opinion here prob more than anyone else.
And, forgive me if I come across as ignorant about anything. It's not my intent, and feel free to educate me.
re: 1., it's not like Israel was doing nothing in the first place. Somehow, over 2 million people ended up in a 140 square mile cage. And plenty of they/them human rights types (who also put plenty of effort into condemning anti-semitism) have for years also been putting plenty of effort toward condemning the Israeli treatment of Palestinians prior to this most recent conflict.
(I've since unfollowed most of them tho - the ones who were just too much about this shit. Admittedly, I still follow a few more innocuous commie meme pages just cuz they're funny.)
2. and 3., to me, seem very related. While I think Israel has some right to self-defense, I don't think the reaction we're seeing to the (rightfully condemnable) Hamas attack is self-defense. I think the end game is not simply to weed out the Hamas boogeymen, but to commit war crime after war crime - destroy entire neighborhoods, schools, mosques, hospitals, refugee camps - in a way that is literally wiping Gaza off the Earth.
on "war crimes," too, that almost implies an actual war. And, is this one? Is it between two nations? Not really, cuz Gaza/Palestine ain't one, apparently. Is it between a nation and its own civilians? I honestly don't know. What I DO know is that in most other wars, one side doesn't have the ability to restrict the food, water, energy, travel, communication, and other resources, like Israel is apparently able to do to Gaza right now.
I've seen a lot of comparisons to 9/11. In hindsight, the US used 9/11 as a pretext to start decades-long wars in places that ultimately had little if anything to do with 9/11...almost as if the end game was something besides weeding out the Bin Laden boogeyman.
I'm not saying Gaza had little to do with the 10/7 attacks, obviously. I'm just saying, I wonder how history's gonna remember this?
You probably are more knowledgeable than I am on the subject but clearly there are some things you are understandably (and not understandably) clueless about.
My worthless response will come more in the manner of opinions than facts. I believe everything I will say to be true but it's 100% possible I could be mistaken/wrong.
My number 1 was in reference to AFTER October 7th.
Israel was doing nothing different in the first place on October 7th that they were doing on October 6th. I I know it doesn't seem like Israel did Gazans any favors before October 7th but they allowed them to live in peace, while to a degree helping provide them with food, water, electricity, etc.
I'm wondering why you criticize Israel for keeping Gazans in "a 140 mile cage" when there was a time in the not so distant past that Gazans were able to move in and out of Gaza. Why not blame Egypt too?
I question when people complain about the conditions the Gazans live in and blame Israel. Does Gaza not have their own government? As my co-worker who was in Israel and Gaza just over a month ago told me, "It's shocking how poorly most of the residents live and yet the conditions and infrastructure that is important to Hamas is pristine". In other words, THEY (HAMAS - their "leaders" don't give a fuck about the citizens.
MY response to my number 1 is OF COURSE Israel shouldn't do nothing.
Name a country that is been in a full fledge war that hasn't committed war crimes. I'm not saying that should excuse anything. A crime is a crime and rule is a rule. My guess is the "rules of war" are typically made by countries that aren't being attacked and fighting for their survival. There are going to be civilian casualties in a major war.
Here is where my ignorance comes in. When Israel cut off water, food, electricity, etc. How and why did that happen?
The self defense conundrum is complicated but if a country has the right to defend itself, the goal is to eliminate ALL of the enemy that is attacking. I think it is self defense - to try and wipe out ALL of Hamas.
You say, "I think the end game is not simply to weed out the Hamas boogeymen, but to commit war crime after war crime - destroy entire neighborhoods, schools, mosques, hospitals, refugee camps - in a way that is literally wiping Gaza off the Earth".
- My response is... For you to call Hamas the "boogeymen", come on. They exist and are very real and are sick fucking assholes. Of course Israel is trying to weed them out. Israel is also trying to destroy any and all structures that allow them to exist and carry out terrorist acts. Of course it's extremely excessive what Israel is doing but if you are going to do a job trying to wipe out an "army" you can't do it half assed. It's been a proven fact that Hamas uses schools, mosques, hospitals, refugee camps for their benefit. It's also a proven fact that because of it innocent people are killed. It 100% sucks too.
Like I said yesterday, I don't like that IDF leaders come off as being crass but I feel they aren't wrong when they say Hamas is to blame as much if not more for civilian deaths in that regard. NO civilians that don't support Hamas deserve to die. It's a very unfortunate consequence.
Yes, Israel is wiping out PARTS of Gaza. What did Hamas think Israel would do? Sit back and do nothing?
MY response to my number 2 was - yes, commit unfortunate "war crimes".
I'm not going to define war but I do think Israel is in a war with Hamas. So no, it's not a war between two nations but both "nations" governments are involved. I asked earlier in this post, how and why was Israel able to restrict water, food, electricity, etc. Doesn't Hamas have the responsibility to answer that?
I am not comparing this to 9/11 or anything else in past history. I will compare it to a massacre happening, those who were massacred responding harshly in a manner in which impossible and/or unrealistic or not, the end goal is to prevent another massacre from the same perpetrators from occurring again.
I feel "Gaza" has little to do with 10/7. I feel the "leadership" of Gaza does.
How will history remember this?
I don't know. It's far from over. Unfortunately it may be just beginning.
My hope is history remembers this as the moral of the story is if you fuck around you better be prepared to find out. That and a few Israeli military (and national) mottos. "We will not lose / losing is not an option" - and "never again". Then both the Gazans and Israelis moved on and tried to live peacefully ever after.
My guess is history remembers this as the Israelis were the bad guys because they had put Gazans in a cage, the leaders of Gaza tried to kill as many Israelis as possible, and then the Israelis killed innocent people in the cage because of it. Then the children of Gaza who survive this will forever have a hatred for Israel that is greater than their hatred of Hamas and the vicious circle goes round and round and round.
My greatest fear is history remembers this as the Israelis fucked around and then found out when "Arab nations" came to the aid of Hamas and destroyed Israel.
