Israel-Gaza war

[GeneralMacArthur]

If it does indeed turn out there was no complex under the hospital at all and Israel was just making it up then this will be their Iraq WMD moment.  Either a colossal failure of intelligence or outright lying.

What they have said so far makes little sense.  A massive underground tunnel network is not something you can just cover up, and should not be difficult to find even if Hamas militants had weeks to hide it.

The IDF also made these claims about other hospitals that they now control but have demonstrated zero evidence that they were used as operational bases, much less secret tunnel entrances.  The videos of "evidence" that they've released come off as juvenile and staged.  A single unopened case of diapers sitting in the hallway as evidence of babies being held as hostages, really?  Of course it doesn't help that the IDF and Israeli Twitter accounts have often been tweeting out wild claims, misleading statements and the occasional fabrication.

Now there's still plenty of reason to think they will end up finding the promised secret tunnel complex.  Other Western nations have made the same claims, hopefully based on more than just repetition of Israeli intelligence.  Independent actors have made the same claims.  We know without any ambiguity that the tunnel network exists, based on Hamas themselves providing video footage of it.  We also know that Hamas fighters just spent several days fighting a pitched battle to defend this hospital, just as Israeli fighters spent several days battling to take it, which doesn't make any sense if either side knows there's not actually anything to find there.  It also seems rather stupid and pointless for Israel to lie about such a specific thing.

The one thing I can think of that would make it all somewhat add up is that Hamas used the hospital as a fortress but not as the entrance to an underground command center, and Israel exaggerated so they could justify besieging the fighters holed up inside.  That doesn't really square with the past behavior of either party though.

At any rate, if there is a tunnel complex under the hospital, they need to prove it to the world quickly.  Otherwise it will be a massive blow to their credibility that will rightfully engender allied skepticism of any future operations.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Well, the main way it's comparable to Iraq WMD is that it will cause a very long-lasting state of skepticism towards any Israeli intelligence, if not outright refusal to believe it and determination to believe the opposite of whatever Israel says.  I mean this is a very specific and impactful claim made as the sole justification for a highly-scrutinized military operation.

If it turns out there wasn't actually a base under the hospital then even in 2050, when virtually everyone involved in this is dead or retired, people are still gonna be trotting out "you're gonna believe Israel?  Remember Al-Shifa?" the same way they do with Iraq WMD now -- even as those same people get their information about what's going in the world from Russian and Iranian mouthpieces who lie on a near-daily basis.

That said, I still think it's more likely than not that there is a Hamas tunnel base underneath the hospital, and the IDF is just being knuckleheads about it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Please do not compare the Iraq War to the Holocaust or the 10/7 Hamas killing spree.  These are not comparable things.

Also please do not be that person who tries to reach edgelord nirvana by replying to this with some variation of "yes, the Iraq War was more evil"

[GeneralMacArthur]

Yeah I'm not a fan of the "Pallywood" thing at all either.  Israel blew up an entire apartment building in an airstrike, obviously there are going to be civilians wounded or killed from that and a lot of their friends and relatives will be screaming in anguish and sorrow, which can be caught on camera.  Even if Hamas was fabricating some of these videos, obviously some are real, so unless Israel is trying to claim no civilians are being hurt or killed it doesn't even seem to be a point worth belaboring.  Furthermore their credibility has been severely undermined on this topic as their social media accounts have reposted film sets, or videos not from Palestine, as "Pallywood" evidence.

Again that doesn't mean Israel is in the wrong here, or that their operation is wrong.  That apartment building was allegedly infested with Hamas fighters and battle infrastructure, making it a legitimate military target whose demolition probably saved the lives of many Israeli soldiers.  I think civilian casualties are inevitable in any military operation and that a reasonable number of dead civilians is a fair price to pay for the elimination of Hamas, which is absolutely evil.  I also think most of these civilian deaths are Hamas's responsibility since they have chosen to put civilians in harms way by operating, in violation of the laws of war, from civilian population centers.  You don't have to try to convince me that the civilians aren't really dying.  I know they're dying and I'm ok with that up to a certain point as long as I feel like the deaths are mostly unavoidable in the service of fulfilling Israel's military objective of eliminating Hamas.

What it does mean though is that Israel's PR operation is an absolute disaster and Bibi, who is ultimately responsible for this, remains a national disgrace.  I would wager the general who ordered that airstrike, and the pilots who carried it out, are well aware that civilians were killed and probably aren't down with Bibi taking those videos and images of the civilians and saying they're "crisis actors" in a "Pallywood production."  I know none of my military friends would be down with that if it was them.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Clearly tiktok is entirely to blame for why people are upset with Israel and not crap like this

I think there's a big difference between thinking Bibi and the IDF in its current state are disgraceful, which should be a natural reaction to the intelligence failures, policy failures, duplicity and lack of discipline we've been seeing, and thinking Hamas is the good guys or 10/7 was justified or Israel is committing genocide or Jews control the world or whatever, which is what you're seeing on TikTok.

Do not conflate the two.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Wait so is there a cease fire or not

[GeneralMacArthur]

A couple thoughts:

1) The new footage of these tunnels does seem quite compelling.  There is an odd cut in one of the videos, and the other one is up against the wall for a lot of the video, which is leading some online to say it's a descent into a well spliced with a video of a different tunnel.  I find that unlikely but frankly the Israelis have lied so much on social media that they deserve this kind of skepticism.

2) At any rate they will need to open that blast door if they want people to believe this tunnel was actively being used by Hamas, since Israel themselves have said they built an underground bunker when they originally built the hospital (meaning this could just be an old Israeli bunker that wasn't being actively used by Hamas).

3) The footage of the hostage being dragged into the hospital -- assuming this is indeed a hostage and not just some injured Palestinian man -- is pretty shocking because it shows that this was not some big secret and people had to have known there were hostages in the hospital -- whether they were being held there or merely given medical attention.  Several international organizations have claimed there were no hostages at the hospital.  This would seem to be incontrovertible proof that there were hostages present, and they may indeed be the same hostages whose corpses were later found by the IDF.  I've never particularly trusted these international organizations that work in Gaza and this only degrades their credibility further, assuming as I said that the IDF is being truthful about what the videos depict.

4)  What's up with the peace deal story?  I was at a party last night and wasn't able to read anything beyond the headline.  Today, the story seems to be contradicted by the Biden Administration.  So was this just fake news reported by WaPo?  Or were they just scooping Biden?  Either way it seems like Hamas has almost entirely moved their operation to the south, meaning Israel will need to take time to prepare the next stage of their operation in either case, and their focus for now is on investigating and destroying abandoned Hamas infrastructure in Gaza City.  So this is an opportune time to focus on humanitarian concerns.

[GeneralMacArthur]

@ModernBourbon your video says "English subtitles added by The Electronic Intifada" which I somehow doubt is impartial.  At any rate, the line preceding it is "we will annihilate the swastika bearers" which makes it clear who they want to "annihilate" (assuming The Electronic Intifada translated that term accurately... lol)

Dan Cohen has posted a lot of fake news in this conflict and you shouldn't get your info from him.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So yesterday I saw several tweets go viral claiming that Israel had killed a large number of babies, or perhaps all the babies, who had been born prematurely and kept in incubators in the al-Shifa hospital.

https://twitter.com/normfinkelstein/status/1725170601327792327?s=20

https://twitter.com/deejahimawari/status/1723312607820468407?s=20

https://twitter.com/still_oppressed/status/1725436268971164028?s=20

this is just a sample.

About 40 minutes ago AP published a wire saying that Israel moved the babies out of the hospital and is transferring them to Egypt for care.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-11-19-2023-08a2f441a9ea03bf0bb3db0de6fc5408

Why are they transferring dead babies?  Or is it perhaps the case that the babies aren't dead and the most viral posts on Twitter were lying?

Be careful where you get your news, people.  For heaven's sake don't get your news from social media.  It is full of liars, manipulators, and paid propagandists.

And for the love of god, get angry when people lie to you!  Get angry when people try to take advantage of you!  Don't just immediately turn around and trust them again!

[GeneralMacArthur]

Why is it that I go to the Israel-Gaza War thread and see a dozen copies of this enormous picture of Maggie Thatcher?

Do you guys have to constantly repost the picture in your quote?  Can't you just take three seconds and remove it from the quote?  JFC

[GeneralMacArthur]

Chilling propaganda video from Israel using innocent children signing this fascist rubbish.

I already addressed this on the previous page.  Please read the thread before re-posting stuff.

Also please don't get your news from Max Blumenthal, for christ's sake.  Have some dignity.  Have some self-respect.  You know perfectly well that this guy lies all the time.  So why are you still dignifying him with your attention and credulity?

[GeneralMacArthur]

@ModernBourbon your video says "English subtitles added by The Electronic Intifada" which I somehow doubt is impartial.  At any rate, the line preceding it is "we will annihilate the swastika bearers" which makes it clear who they want to "annihilate" (assuming The Electronic Intifada translated that term accurately... lol)

Dan Cohen has posted a lot of fake news in this conflict and you shouldn't get your info from him.

Is there any evidence that this is fake - besides "I don't like the guy who posted it"?

There's at least one Hebrew speaker who seems to indicate that it is accurate (saw a tweet by David Mivasair, a left-wing rabbi, confirming his understanding.)

I don't speak Hebrew but in general I just don't trust extremely obviously biased sources and don't grant credibility to what they say.  If it's actually newsworthy you probably won't have to go to a group that calls itself The Electronic Intifada or Max Blumenthal to find out about it.  These accounts thrive on the presumption that there's some massive widespread cover-up of anti-Israel information and therefore you have to go to The Electronic Intifada to find out about bad things Israel's doing that everyone else won't tell you... but that's clearly not true and what happens far more often is these accounts tweet out misinformation, manipulations or outright lies and their audience laps it up.

That's different from "I don't like the guy who posted it."

But even if it is an accurate and faithful translation, it's not that interesting in the first place since the dark, genocidal interpretation is 100% dependent on ignoring the context of the preceding line in the song.  Which may be why no other news organization covered it, because it's only newsworthy if you intentionally manipulate its meaning by removing a single line from its context.  Not that I would ever accuse The Electronic Intifada of posting a manipulative, inflammatory tweet to try and make people hate Israel.  They would never do that!

So you see, whenever you read stuff from accounts like this, you have to filter it through a layer of "how are they trying to bulls--t me" and "why are they the only ones talking about this" and usually during that filtering process you'll find that they're once again lying to you.  At a certain point you just get tired of being lied to and played for a fool, and you stop listening to what these accounts have to say.  Or at least, I do.  There are evidently loads of people who love being played for a fool again and again and again because they just keep going back to the well even when they know it's poisoned.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I am not dependent on the Israeli government to tell me that the 10/7 massacre happened.  It is easily verifiable that it happened without having to rely on any outlet whatsoever, but even if that weren't the case, there are plenty of credible outlets providing reporting on 10/7.

That said "XXX is biased and has an agenda" is very different from "XXX has a rich history of lying and manipulating and deceiving, so I'm just going to automatically assume they're lying and not use them as a source of information."  That is especially the case for actors like Max Blumenthal who are professional liars and whose entire purpose in the discourse is to spread lies and disinformation.  Why would you trust such a person?  Why would you use them as a source of information?  Why should I be expected to take his claims seriously and devote a single second of my life to taking his claims into consideration?  I don't owe every single person on the planet credence.  I'm well within my rights to draw a line and say "anyone whose credibility is below this line, I'm simply going to completely ignore them."

[GeneralMacArthur]

What do you guys think happens to Gaza City?  Israel has basically depopulated it at this point and half of the buildings are destroyed.  They hold it under military rule and there's not much international demand for them to leave.

Assuming they don't just resume hostilities next week and roll tanks into Khan Yunis, what's the next move?  Blow up all the tunnels and then leave?  Force new elections and then leave it in the hands of a more Fatah-esque Palestinian leadership?  Install a puppet Palestinian governor and operate it as an iron curtain type of territory?  Hold the city indefinitely as a buffer between the new Hamas command center and Israel?  Delegate governance to an international or Arab coalition?  At what point do you let people return?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Continuing the now six-weeks long trend, there is some truly sick and disturbing stuff being posted by Hamas-supporting progressives on social media about the Israeli hostages being returned as well as tons of disinformation.  Be careful out there folks and remember to maintain your humanity.  If you wouldn't say it in the presence of the family members of the returning hostages, consider whether it's something you're actually proud to be posting on the internet for the entire world to read.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The Pacific sure seems to support Israel.

Many of these South Pacific island nations are very dependent on Australia for basically everything and align with the Aussies policy-wise.

Of course China has been trying to change that since they dream of building military bases on Fiji and Tonga.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Indy Texas the interesting thing about your link is that support was much much higher seven years ago and people simply don't think a two-state solution is possible anymore.

Declining support linked to low perceived feasibility. To understand the division of opinion about the two-state solution, it is useful to consider the findings regarding the feasibility and implementation of a two-state solution. When asked about the chances that an independent Palestinian state will be established in the next five years, among Palestinians, only 7% view the chances as high or very high that such a state will be established in the next five years; 70% of Palestinians say the chances are low or very low.

Among Israeli Jews a large majority of 88 percent believe the chances are low or very low – this is higher than 2020 and 2018 when 78 percent and 81 percent respectively thought that. Among Israeli settlers, 89 percent believe the chances of establishing a Palestinian state are low or very low. Arab respondents in general are somewhat more optimistic, but still a large majority of 68 percent view the chances as low or very low; 20 percent give “medium” chances. Among all Israelis and all sub-populations, only 3 percent give high or very high chances to the creation of a Palestinian state over the next five years.

As in the past, respondents were asked if they believe that the two-state solution is still possible, in light of recent political developments and the settlement spread. Among Israeli Jews, the findings indicate a rise in the percentage of those who believe it is no longer feasible, from 45 percent two years ago to 53% today. However, among Arab respondents, those who believe the two-state solution is still viable remains stable, 46% today compared to 45% two years ago. As a result, the Israeli total at present has become more pessimistic: 34 percent think the solution is still viable, and 49 percent believe it is not (the remainder don’t know). In September 2020, 43% thought it was viable and the same amount thought it was not.

Of course none of the alternatives to a two-state solution seem particularly feasible either:

(A) A fully-democratic single state -- essentially absorbing Gaza and West Bank into Israel and granting all Palestinians Israeli citizenship -- would have nearly an even demographic split of Arabs and Jews, and quickly devolve into an arms race of birth rate vs. birth rate for democratic control of the country -- a race the Arabs have been handily winning for the last few decades.  Regardless of whether you think the Jews have a right to an ethnostate or whether they are justified in being afraid of what life might bring under majority-Arab rule (it doesn't necessarily have to become outcome C, although that is what many Palestinian groups have openly promised), it should be plainly obvious that they are never going to willingly submit themselves to this.

(B) Incorporating Gaza and West Bank into a single, Jewish-run apartheid ethnostate designed to prevent this reality would be a diplomatic and administrative nightmare for Israel and unlikely to last very long before devolving into either a civil war that brings us back to the status quo or a reversion to the democracy of alternative (A) under massive diplomatic pressure.

(C) Some may dream of the land becoming a single Palestinian ethnostate ("from the river to the sea") where the Jews are either expelled, murdered, or treated as second-class citizens, but this is quite plainly something Israel would never allow to happen.  The IDF would use tactical nuclear weapons to prevent this from happening.  One way or another the Jews are going to stay in Israel and maintain self-determination and voting rights.

(D) Palestinians in the past wanted a two-state solution with full right of return, but Israel is never going to grant that because it is basically just solution (A) where most or all of the Palestinians return to Israel, are given Israeli citizenship and within a few decades become the demographic majority.

(E) With the way Palestinian nationalism has played out over the last 50 years and the course Gaza in particular has taken, there is virtually no chance that Gaza and the West Bank will return to simply being incorporated into Egypt and Jordan.  They either become part of Israel or they become their own state(s).

(F) A three-state solution where the West Bank becomes a Fatah-administered Palestinian state and Gaza becomes either an internationally-administered territory, its own sovereign state, or remains technically Israeli territory, has been heavily opposed by Palestinians and has zero chance of actually happening.

I don't know of any other alternatives.  Given these options, so long as the two-state solution isn't possible, the Israelis are just going to continue the status quo.  Their settlements in the West Bank give them control over the high ground and a lattice of military control that can ensnare any Palestinian or Jordanian attack (they also control the actual west bank itself of the Jordan River).  Gaza of course has been a problem but once the annihilation of Hamas is complete, Israel is going to either hold it under martial law or delegate it to a coalition to administer, but either way the threat of violence will be gone for at least a generation.

So in terms of feasibility, from a Palestinian perspective I would think you ought to be doing all you can to reach the two-state solution, because nothing else is actually going to be remotely within consideration for Israel relative to the status quo.  Like they're not going to accept any of the alternatives versus just keeping things the way they are where they're relatively safe from both war and demographic dominance.  The only thing they might accept is a two-state solution.  It was a mistake in the 20th century for Palestine to continually reject it in favor of demanding full right of return (D), because Israel has only continued to strengthen its hand since then.

[GeneralMacArthur]

For the love of christ, truncate your quotes.  There is absolutely no reason to quote a massive wall of nested text blocks other than sheer laziness.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So is anything actually happening in Gaza right now?

This thread has just devolved into stupid bickering.

Meanwhile Israel looks to be gearing up for a full-scale invasion of the southern half of the strip.  Unclear whether they're planning to move civilians back to Gaza City or just have them play musical chairs within different areas of south Gaza.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The United Kingdom evidently believes the Palestinian Authority taking over administration of Gaza is the correct outcome and is taking steps to make that happen:  https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-preparing-west-bank-leaders-to-govern-gaza-0qptjrnqs

This is the first indication we've had from any stakeholder in the conflict regarding what they believe should happen to Gaza after the war is over.

[GeneralMacArthur]

If you compare this photo to Abu Ghraib then you are unworthy of respect and deserve to never have your posts taken seriously ever again.

I would also take that to mean you are probably a teenager who wasn't alive when Abu Ghraib happened, or at least you're too young to remember it.

The problem with Abu Ghraib was that people were being tortured for kicks, not that the prisoners had their shirts off.  Jesus Christ you absolute idiots.  In the most famous photo from Abu Ghraib the prisoner isn't even naked at all.

Also I couldn't care less if a "journalist" was among those captured.  Everyone except the willfully delusional is by now well aware how many of these "journalists" are Hamas propagandists who are embedded with Hamas, openly support Hamas, join Hamas fighters in their operations, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're even fighting alongside them when they're not writing propaganda for them.  Hamas and their allies in the west love to slap labels on things to try and declare them sacrosanct under international law -- or at least in the court of public opinion -- and therefore safe from Israeli retaliation.  Some of you stupid easy marks just keep falling for it over and over.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The problem with Abu Ghraib was that people were being tortured for kicks, not that the prisoners had their shirts off.  Jesus Christ you absolute idiots.  In the most famous photo from Abu Ghraib the prisoner isn't even naked at all.

This take is hotter than the core of the sun. So the problem wasn't the torture, it was that the torturers were having too much fun?

Maybe the most egregious willful misinterpretation of a post I've ever seen in the history of Atlas and that's really, really saying something since we all know how much Atlasians love to pretend they think someone is saying something different from what they know that person actually said.

Yes obviously the torture of the detainees was absolutely deplorable and the main reason why Abu Ghraib was a catastrophic moral and public relations failure for the Bush Administration that continues to haunt America decades later.

I know you know that I believe this.  I know you don't actually believe that I would be ok with torture under any circumstances.  But you are pretending to believe otherwise so you can try and score some cheap drive-by shot on an online blog.  What are you doing with your life?  Do you actually think you're some big hero in this situation?

That said, let's not pretend that the impact of Abu Ghraib wasn't doubled by the fact that these were detainees who were being tortured just for fun, degraded and killed for the sadistic pleasure of their captors, that the pictures of Charles Graner, Lynndie English and Sabrina whatever-her-name-was smiling and giving the thumbs up next to tortured and degraded prisoners weren't just as damaging as the torture itself.  The implication was that American soldiers were sadistic freaks who tortured detainees not for information, not to prevent attacks and save lives as the administration claimed, but for fun, or just because they hated muslims.  And even today, 20 years later, with torture outlawed for 15 of those years, that is how many people in the middle east see us.

[GeneralMacArthur]

No end in sight?  Fighting in Gaza City has quieted down considerably and Israel should have Khan Yunis completely occupied within the next week.  They still need to root out Hamas from the Jabalia "refugee camp" and destroy the compounds in the south, but total Israeli victory looks like an inevitability at this point since none of the regional powers decided to get involved, and I predict that by mid-February we'll be primarily discussing the future administration of Gaza rather than violent conflict.  There's your "end."

[GeneralMacArthur]

I will look at 4 examples:

1) The 2nd Battle of Fallujah (7 November – 23 December 2004; 1 month, 2 weeks and 2 days)
2) The Battle of Huế (31 January – 2 March 1968; 1 month and 2 days)
3) The Battle of Berlin (16 April – 2 May 1945; 2 weeks and 2 days)
4) The Battle of Nanking (1937) AKA the Rape of Nanking

This is an absolutely fantastic post

[GeneralMacArthur]

One thing I would like to add.

Let me present the following axioms that I would guess most anti-Israel liberals would agree with:

1) Hamas is an evil organization, and their elimination would be a great good for the world

2) What Hamas did on October 7 was so egregiously evil that it makes their destruction a matter of immediate urgency

3) The only way to destroy Hamas is via military action

4) Israel has been genocidal, or at least indiscriminate and brutal, in their treatment of the Palestinians over the course of this conflict, in a way that is completely unnecessary and avoidable

5) Israel's conduct is so abhorrent that in the great value tradeoff, it is better for them to end operations (allowing Hamas to continue to exist) than to continue operations (committing more atrocities)

People like myself and The Great Spectator (presumably) would disagree with 4/5.

Most of the leftists who've turned into Hamas supporters -- the people you see being assholes in the streets, reposting disinformation and lies, following Jackson Hinkle, etc. -- would disagree with 1/2 because they think Hamas is a bunch of FFs and depending on their audience will pretend to believe that 10/7 was either an awesome strike for liberation, an Israeli false flag, and a thing that never happened.

There are also many liberals who agree with 1/2, but disagree with 3, making the conveniently non-disprovable claim that there's some sort of diplomatic peace settlement that could be reached with Hamas where peace and love and tolerance would wash over the region (but of course it is solely Israel's fault that this hasn't happened, thus making them responsible for the destruction of the war).

However, it seems like the mainstream position in the Democratic Party right now is to believe in all of 1-5.  I was dismayed to find that my relatives -- who voluntarily brought this up despite my insistence on not discussing politics at holidays -- hold this position.  Specifically they are invested in paying lip service to the evil of 10/7 and the abhorrence of Hamas, but downplay it relative to the subject they're much more interested in talking about, Israeli atrocities.  And this seems to be in service of making it much easier on the conscience to believe 5.



Now, I did not bring this up to my relatives, because my paramount desire in political discussions with my family is to end them as quickly as possible.  But if 1-5 is your position, then the logical follow-up is that you should be advocating for American military involvement in Palestine.

After all, if you acknowledge that Hamas is evil and must be eradicated, and that its eradication is a matter of urgency and importance, then you also acknowledge that it would be a great evil for Hamas to be allowed to continue to exist.  But that is what would happen were Israel to end its war.

You also claim to believe that Israel's conduct has been abnormally wicked, that they are visiting easily-avoidable harm upon the Palestinians, that their military conduct is guided not by a desire to defeat Hamas but by a malicious desire to hurt the innocent Palestinian people.  Presumably then, you believe that there is some power in the world that would be able to conduct operations against Hamas without inflicting this kind of civilian damage -- because that power would not be malicious/genocidal/whatever.

Thus, the only way to defeat Hamas (avoiding the evil of Hamas's continued existence) without making Israel do it (avoiding the evil of Israel's continued atrocities) is for some more ethical military power to step in and do it instead of Israel.  And which power?  What is the supposedly ethical army that can defeat a terrorist group without inflicting massive civilian destruction?  Could it perhaps be the one that just defeated ISIS less than a decade ago?


In other words, if you think it's so easy to defeat a deeply-rooted terror group in an urban area that uses civilians as human shields and doesn't follow one iota of the laws of war, and to do so without incurring even minimal civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure, why don't you step in and show Israel how it's done?

Unless, of course, you think at this point that Hamas must simply be allowed to live on.

Which I will never agree with you on.  Not now, not ever.  Hamas must die.