Israel-Gaza war

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If anything, Hamas' figures are probably an underestimate as they're not in control of the vast majority of Gaza anymore.

And don't account for now-dead people under rubble they haven't accounted for.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Benjamin Netanyahu snaps and threatens Lula: “Crossed a Red Line”

https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/1759221711403188718

The words of the president of Brazil are shameful and serious. This is about trivializing the Holocaust and trying to harm the Jewish people and Israel's right to defend itself.

Comparing Israel to the Nazi Holocaust and Hitler is crossing a red line. Israel fights for its defense and securing its future until complete victory and it does so while upholding international law.

I decided with Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador to Israel for a stern reprimand conversation immediately.

Fed through Google translate

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1759918321720312055?t=JnW3C5n09zyPCRWt...

Lula isn't backing down. I agree, he shouldn't retract it. Was it hyperbolic? Sure. Pot meet kettle, Israel.

Disgusting but obviously unsurprising.

It seems quite a few Brazilians are happy that what's going on in Gaza is being condemned. Evangelicals not so much, but they're still a minority in the country.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1759918321720312055?t=JnW3C5n09zyPCRWt...
Lula isn't backing down. I agree, he shouldn't retract it. Was it hyperbolic? Sure. Pot meet kettle, Israel.

Netanyahu has previously claimed that the then Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini persuaded Hitler to exterminate the Jews: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-netanyahu-hitler/israels-netanyahu-stirs-trouble-by-linking-late-muslim-leader-to-holocaust-idUSKCN0SF15120151021/

Netanyahu has a history of minimizing the evils of Nazi Germany in order to find a way to call the Palestinians worse in comparison.

Netanyahu definitely isn't a trustworthy man when it comes to Holocaust history...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Some Palestinians now appear to be espousing Vosem thought:

https://www.twitter.com/joetruzman/status/1760071819355464182

Protests against Hamas appear to be spreading to the northern Gaza Strip. "O Sinwar O Haniyeh. The people are the victims. Down with Hamas."

Interesting.

People were protesting Hamas before 10/7 as well.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://noticias.uol.com.br/internacional/ultimas-noticias/2024/02/21/estou-orgulhosa-das-ruinas-em-gaza-diz-ministra-da-igualdade-de-israel.htm

I am personally proud of the ruins in Gaza. May 80 years from now all babies be able to tell their grandchildren what the Jews did when they murdered their families, raped them and kidnapped their citizens!

May Golan, Israel's Minister of Social Equality (google translate PT->EN)

All is well in the Israeli government.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://noticias.uol.com.br/internacional/ultimas-noticias/2024/02/21/estou-orgulhosa-das-ruinas-em-gaza-diz-ministra-da-igualdade-de-israel.htm

I am personally proud of the ruins in Gaza. May 80 years from now all babies be able to tell their grandchildren what the Jews did when they murdered their families, raped them and kidnapped their citizens!

May Golan, Israel's Minister of Social Equality (google translate PT->EN)

All is well in the Israeli government.

Sick stuff. Always remember, it is in the interest of the Israeli state to increase antisemitism outside of their borders as much as possible.

Agreed. It’s not the fault of anti semites that the good Jews are being targeted, the blame lies with the bad Jews provoking them

I would not go as far as Horus, but I would definitely give Israel partial blame for the current toxic situation.
Rhetoric from Israeli government officials is out of control. Especially as the death toll could top 100,000 thanks to people being trapped under rubble, this flippantness and ugliness towards Jews not favorable towards what's happening in Gaza (the Knesset expelled the only Meretz MK who was Jewish for holding that position). The Israeli government is garbage. And it deserves partial blame for rises in anti-Semitic violence, for sheer negligence at best, and downright maliciousness at worst.
BTW there's also violence against anti-war Jewish Israelis who dare demonstrate against Gaza being made into a demolition site. Done by radical Jews who are being given arms by the Israeli government.
The Israeli government is not a good actor. It's taking risks and enflaming tensions purposefully, when what it needs to do first and foremost is cool down tensions and treat Gaza better to convince the majority who don't like Hamas that Israel is actually a credible partner, at least for the moment.
It's not doing that. Biden is right to be pushing for Bibi to go.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Seems like an entirely reasonable sentiment?  Why would the country winning the war not be proud of what they've done?

Israel was viciously attacked by barbaric monsters who kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered innocent civilians.  Those same monsters still refuse to let the hostages go even as they shed crocodile tears about the consequences of their actions.  The whole world is arrayed against Israel and demands that the Jews, as they have time and time throughout history, must once again lie down and accept their submissive status, accept their place as a punching bag for the world's most diabolical cretins.  Instead of being weak and obedient, the Jews stood up for themselves and destroyed their enemy.  Of course they are proud of this!

I swear it's like people pretend 10/7 never happened.  Or like Hamas are just some innocent victims.

If you actually care about the Gazans, and aren't just engaged in either anti-semitism or performative anti-Israel activism that you don't realize is rooted in anti-semitic notions, then you should celebrate the destruction of Hamas and demand that any peace deal include the eradication of Hamas.  After all, if you're so concerned for the tired, poor, huddled masses of Palestine, why do you want to sentence them to a life of misery, poverty and endless war under the regime of a wannabe-ISIS?  What a terrible thing to wish upon anyone, much less those you claim to have sympathy for.

What Israel is presently doing is effectively recruiting for Hamas more than 10/7 ever could. Despite the popular dislike for all sides present in Gaza's popular majority, if people are losing their mom, dad, elder sister, younger sister, and uncle to Israeli bombs, how do you think people are actually going to respond to that? Either you end the problem through hard action (some of which would generate, for certain, still more problems for Israel on a PR front), or you show you can be trusted.
Israel isn't trusted, and deservedly so. Gaza has been put through hell and Israel's policies are creating needless human suffering and boosting recruitment for groups like Hamas and PIJ.
Israel crafted the present status quo by a calculated quasi-withdrawal, shirked its responsibilities as the power with imperium over the Holy Land, and now is rightfully getting criticism from those outside the region who want the cycle of violence to end.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What reasonable and measured posts from PP just above.

The contrast with the mindless "Israel can do no wrong" shills here is so stark.

Its not actually a football match, you know.

Thanks for the kind words.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Seems like an entirely reasonable sentiment?  Why would the country winning the war not be proud of what they've done?

Israel was viciously attacked by barbaric monsters who kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered innocent civilians.  Those same monsters still refuse to let the hostages go even as they shed crocodile tears about the consequences of their actions.  The whole world is arrayed against Israel and demands that the Jews, as they have time and time throughout history, must once again lie down and accept their submissive status, accept their place as a punching bag for the world's most diabolical cretins.  Instead of being weak and obedient, the Jews stood up for themselves and destroyed their enemy.  Of course they are proud of this!

I swear it's like people pretend 10/7 never happened.  Or like Hamas are just some innocent victims.

If you actually care about the Gazans, and aren't just engaged in either anti-semitism or performative anti-Israel activism that you don't realize is rooted in anti-semitic notions, then you should celebrate the destruction of Hamas and demand that any peace deal include the eradication of Hamas.  After all, if you're so concerned for the tired, poor, huddled masses of Palestine, why do you want to sentence them to a life of misery, poverty and endless war under the regime of a wannabe-ISIS?  What a terrible thing to wish upon anyone, much less those you claim to have sympathy for.

What Israel is presently doing is effectively recruiting for Hamas more than 10/7 ever could. Despite the popular dislike for all sides present in Gaza's popular majority, if people are losing their mom, dad, elder sister, younger sister, and uncle to Israeli bombs, how do you think people are actually going to respond to that? Either you end the problem through hard action (some of which would generate, for certain, still more problems for Israel on a PR front), or you show you can be trusted.
Israel isn't trusted, and deservedly so. Gaza has been put through hell and Israel's policies are creating needless human suffering and boosting recruitment for groups like Hamas and PIJ.
Israel crafted the present status quo by a calculated quasi-withdrawal, shirked its responsibilities as the power with imperium over the Holy Land, and now is rightfully getting criticism from those outside the region who want the cycle of violence to end.

I don't think the first half of this is necessarily true. People join political parties (particularly militarized ones) when there is some hope of that party actually achieving its goals; the goal of the current campaign is to convince people, both inside and outside of Gaza, that there isn't a realistic possibility of Hamas accomplishing its goals. Groups like this can and have been crushed through sheer violence (the first half of the history of the Soviet Union is replete with such groups), but for such a defeat to truly be effective in the modern Gazan case, Israel would need to also defeat "foreign Palestinian liberationism", in the form of organizations like UNRWA which run the local educational system, and in the form of humanitarian organizations sympathizing with Gaza. It seems like many Western governments are on board with this, but significant portions of Western civil society are not, which is a shame given that Hamas's ideology, in addition to its visible brutalities in the territories it controls, is an implicit giant threat to the international system as a whole. People will not join Hamas if those who might have done so are rendered totally hopeless.

I agree that the 2004 withdrawal from Gaza was a mistake, and Israel deserves significant blame for it, but it should be noted throughout this entire saga that there was substantial lobbying for this on the part of international "humanitarian" organizations, which pushes for actions that foreseeably led to a terrorist state arising, and today continues to push for actions which would strengthen it. Peace will come when foreign sympathy for Palestinian liberationism is defeated.

It's good there's some common ground between us here.
Imo what's needed isn't less Israeli involvement in Gaza, it's better Israeli involvement. Israeli quasi-withdrawal was a step backwards despite it having some positive effects. Israel defeating Hamas now would be good but not at the cost of 80% of it demolished without replacement and/or the settler faction that is actually the biggest existential risk to the State of Israel becoming more powerful. Hamas exists to fill a perceived need and if Hamas was destroyed and nothing else changed then it would be 100% inevitable something else would take its place.
Hence, there's a need to look beyond Hamas and Bibi and look long-term towards fulfilling the needs (security and otherwise) of both Jews and Arabs, because these set pieces being out of place are what actually makes peace impossible.
The current Israeli government doesn't have thr vision to achieve this. I'd happily take Bibi getting pardoned and Ben Gvir etc. being kept away from power. But that's presently impossible.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/choose-the-lives-of-our-loved-ones-protesters-to-rally-for-hostages-demand-elections/
There's growing anger from anti-government Israelis.
https://twitter.com/EladNehorai/status/1761824601158648075?
This is how the protest unfolded.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No, much as with our previous discussion about casualty rates I have to repeat that country-wide conspiracy theories are not a thing. The primary reason Biden cannot really meaningfully criticize the war is American voters; yesterday's poll was an outlier but had 82% supporting the effort. (Would be consistent with the general history of support for Israel rising during periods when the media reports on the conflict, but for the moment that poll is outlier-ish and we'll have to see if it replicates.)

Unfortunately accurate.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

That post is extremely long and all over the place and I have no idea what core point you are even trying to make.

If you're too stupid to follow along, just say that

And you've made posts that are even longer. Again, why do you think you're the only person who can make lengthy posts? Do you think you're special or something?

About 55% of Bourbon's post (I'm assuming that's who he's responding to) was quotes by General MacArthur, lol.  Which makes this complaint lolzier.

Just hilarious.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It would be one thing to have bombed them for a continual campagin of drone strikes and raids into Gaza to eliminate the Hamas leadership as well as a tightening of the existing blockade but the current plan of discriminate carpet bombing has no point but revenge.

There is no reason other than an emotional reaction to believe that Israel's bombings have no point but revenge.  Israel has been consistently clear from day 1 that their goal is to eliminate Hamas and to all appearances they are succeeding, as Hamas presence outside of Rafah has dropped and Israel now appears to be mostly an occupying force dealing with urban guerilla warfare, rather than actively engaged in street-by-street conquest.  Accordingly, targeted bombings and shootings have slowed down dramatically and demolitions these days are mostly related to the destruction of tunnel networks or booby-trapped buildings.

Drone strikes and raids are what Israel used to do but the last few years have shown that this is not enough to remove Hamas.  The tunnel network is too strong.  You have to physically occupy Gaza and go building-to-building taking the weapons and destroying the tunnels.  If the tunnels are under buildings then you have no choice but to collapse those buildings.

It may not seem reasonable -- those buildings are people's homes, after all -- but it is Hamas to blame for this, not Israel.  Those buildings were marked for death the moment Hamas decided to remove the earth in their foundations and build tunnels instead.  Or the minute Hamas decided to fill the corridors with explosives.  Hamas fans were very proud a couple weeks ago when the IDF stormed a building that was lined with explosives and Hamas ignited the building, destroying it and killing 24 Jewish soldiers.  Israel should have just done an airstrike on that building.  But then people would post a video of it and say "look what Israel is doing to our homes.  This isn't about eliminating Hamas this is about revenge."  Hamas got 15 Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis just yesterday.  

Blaming Hamas for the deaths of Palestinians is perilously close to victim blaming.

This might just be the dumbest post in this thread, which is no small feat

The extent to which the security needs and legitimate desires of Palestinians are completely neglected by both Hamas and the Israeli government, within the paradigm created by Israeli security policies, is yet still more tragic than this post could ever be fairly regarded as dumb.
To be clear, Hamas is partially responsible for what's going on, but Israel has the legitimate powers and responsibilities of imperium and yet refuses to act in line with what fairly could be defined as genuine, clear responsibility. It has majority responsibility for what is going on, even if that responsibility is not total.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Israeli security policies towards Palestinians are what actually created Hamas' opening to be important.
Israel has to find some other way to operate than conducting what amounts to beyond-October 7th tolls of hardship on Palestinian populations. Life for Palestinians being as bad as it is (statelessness, arbitrariness, etc) is definitely partially the fault of the State of Israel.
The main problem isn't really Hamas because Hamas is functionally a vessel of the desire among many Palestinians to fight back against unjust Israeli policies (which gives them few if any peaceful ways to hope to secure their rights), with violence and the fact such a desire exists suggests a failure on part of Israel to judge its imperial possessions well. Getting rid of Hamas doesn't do much because something else will take its place even in a best-case scenario for them militarily. Hamas is obviously a problem but the bigger problem is that Israelis aren't willing to fundamentally reassess the approach that gave Hamas an audience. The current progression of the war in Gaza is evidence Israeli government officials could care less about what actually is the long-term interests of their own state, and they would rather please their interest groups and push maximalist goals - ironically, precisely what Hamas is doing.

Hyperfocus on Hamas misses the real root cause of these events. The history of the region didn't start on 10/7. Israel needs to respect Palestinian rights, needs to give Arabs more buy-in (giving up on things such as trying to forcibly break up the Arab lawyers association), and needs to reverse course on their most regionally unpopular practices in order to better their ties with neighboring Arab states. But they're so drunk on victory they won't even seriously ponder it.
Part of me thinks we'd be better off if all Palestinians in the West Bank took up Israeli citizenship. This would seriously erode the Jewish majority of Israel's electorate and make it impossible for Ben Gvir and Smotrich to be anything but politically marginalized.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What did you mean by this?

"If a solid majority of Israelis agree with the murder of unarmed Palestinians by their soldiers, why do you think that is?"

Thanks for confirming.

If Japanese right-wingers celebrating and glorifying war criminals (notice that I do not care about the celebration of military victories or remembrance of the dead who, if they fought, did so honorably) were calling us racist for not supporting (hypothetically) Japan invading South Korea and carrying out a genocide and sections of the British right were backing them I might have an opinion about that.

There's no hypothetical about it. Japan did precisely that in 1910, with the "genocide" more being an attempt to destroy Korean culture. We allied with them in the First World War:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule

Yes thank you for telling me. This is a modern-day hypothetical scenario (happening in 2024) in which Japan decided some time ago to take back the Japonic homeland or whatever. A Hamasesque terrorist group ruling Busan attacks Tsushima and it continues from there. Hence the 'hypothetically' and 'South Korea'.

I get what you're driving at here, but it is very tacky to compare the Jewish relationship with the Southern Levant in 1948 (or at any other time for that matter) to the Japanese relationsihp with the Korean Peninsula today (or at any time after the Battle of Sekigahara for that matter).

It's a bit wonky. The idea Jews are the only people who can claim the Holy Land is as tosh as they come and it's an attitude I greatly dislike deep down, and I've made Imperial Japan-Israel comparisons before, but there are differences that make such a comparison along these precise lines difficult to think through fully.  (Though it's true that there's more shared blood and ancestry than some would acknowledge)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Fatah has been collaborating with the enemy since day 1, where is this nonsense that they haven’t started yet?

This is strange language from someone who 'doesn't support Hamas'

Tbf, you don't have to be a Hamas supporter to recognize that the Israeli state is indeed the primary enemy of Palestinians.
Who was holding people as hostages in arbitrary detention in West Bank jails, was placing all kinds of security controls unnecessary for genuine safety for Jews but were still awful for Palestinians (affecting things like habitation, medical care, etc), and whose female soldiers were forcibly putting Palestinian women through highly degrading behavior in the weeks lead-up to October 7th? The Israelis, primarily. Hamas is a malevolent entity but it's a product of its environment, which was mostly shaped by Israel. And Bibi has only made it worse. Decades of Israeli policy have left Palestinians unable to realistically achieve good change within the current status quo and have left the traumatized people a mere "golden age" (in relative terms) to look back on and fantastical dreams that waste their time and attention, rather than positive solutions. Most of the problems of the Palestinians can in fact be majority blamed on Israeli maximalist goals which render them a people reduced to two hundred bantustans and nothing positive to strive for more generally. Unless you think a life in serfdom is something worth celebrating.

When you consider the West Bank has seen an increasing flood of settlers and Fatah has indeed worked with Israel in order to prevent Hamas from having an opening, it is true that Fatah has collaborated with the foremost enemy of Palestinians. I don't think it paints them as very very evil but it's still is accurate as a descriptor. Palestinians are of course incredibly divided. What's new?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I think Netanyahu is trying to run out the clock.

His "solution" to everything.

"Aliens who have shown the ability to completely destroy Earth have landed from Mars and demanded 200 people from every nation come with them to their planet. The last nation to still not comply, Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, still wants more time to discuss the issue internally, despite our new extraterrestrial overlords saying they're giving him no more chances"

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1770668603307872401?s=46&t=chlbk-s...
🎉

Genius.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It might also be an optics thing. If Russia or China vetoes it (which is actually pretty likely), then the USA won't be the only country having vetoed a "ceasefire" resolution.

Why is that? I haven't really been following the Russian or Chinese postures on this.

Because it’s simply just obvious? US insistently vetoed every proposal of ceasefire made by those two, why would they give a geopolitical victory to US by approving theirs?

I get confused with people seemingly really believing that geopolitics is driven mainly out of principles. It never is for anyone. Competing interests. Why did US veto every ceasefire proposal up until now when that’s basically a consensus in the international community?

Usually when this kind of bickering happens, two powers measuring dicks by domestically instrumentalizing third-party countries issues in order to not give a “win” to the other, in order to advance the agenda a small “neutral” country tends to be the one that has to advance the proposal by dialoguing with the major powers that have the veto ability in order to find a common ground for approval.

Otherwise every peace proposal created by Russia or China will be blocked by USA and every peace proposal made by USA will be blocked by Russia or China.

Well, it did get vetoed. The US got what it wanted, most likely.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Israel violating UN resolution by dropping bombs on Rafah.

https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1772780840134553885

No more weapons.

What's needed isn't the single biggest step towards our leverage shrinking precipitously.  What's needed is something more thought through.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Israel has attacked and at least damaged the Iranian embassy in Syria.
Bibi wants war to expand for sake of his own job security.
Biden shouldn't play this game IMO.
He should work with Iran if needed.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.93fm.co.il/radio/1000266/

In the published documents, a building near the embassy was bombed and destroyed, the embassy building itself was also damaged. Iranian media: The building that was attacked is the building of the Iranian consulate that the Iranian ambassador in Syria uses as a residence.

The Canadian embassy was right next door. This is evidence Israel could be acting with precision in Gaza. But isn't.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Israeli war cabinet agreed on increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza, hours after the phone call between Netanyahu and Biden. New aid corridor will open on land, and another on the sea. The IDF is conducting an investigation on the WCK attack and several officers already fired. Pressure works.

I am very glad that this has happened, but it is frankly shameful that this is what it took for Biden to apply sufficient pressure to Israel even though pressure is clearly very effective.

Kind of kills the idea that Biden was doing everything he could and that he's simply powerless to stop Netanyahu. The IDF applied their usual targeting standards to foreign employees of a DC bigshot instead of Palestinian UNRWA workers and suddenly Joe discovers the ability to force open the land crossings

I don't really agree. Biden is tied most by US public opinion. US public opinion generally was more pro the entire package until now. Now that Americans are opposed enough to facets of this operation he has the room to move if he wants.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One of the most popular right wing pundits in Israel is accusing not only the WCK but the United States itself of being Hamas. The jokes write themselves.

https://twitter.com/CarolineGlick/status/1776792288728928598?t=h9HHR4GdxvhcTPmk5...

"If you aren't with us you're against us working for Hamas"
Some Israeli right wingers