Israel-Gaza war

[Hindsight was 2020]

It's certainly a disgrace. We (the western world and its liberal values) will pay a high price for it

https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1713210261996462512?t=bM7yVJGecfofH5zcd3hd5w...

No one with a brain buys the ~west cares about the liberal order~ propaganda discourse outside the West.

The West has propelled dictatorships and genocide when it saw that as aligned to their material self-interests. They use liberalism and democracy as an instrument only, not as a goal, especially in foreign countries.

If a democracy starts going against their interests on any matter, they will promote regime change undercover and more discreetly. If an autocracy starts doing that, then they will be more open about it and justify it as fighting terrorism or dictatorship in name of liberal values.

However, if a democracy or an autocracy aligns with their interests, they will treat as “liberal allies” no matter the horrors they may commit when they happen to be a dictatorship.

I don't buy most of your arguments, but no doubt that most of the folks attacking you without caring to address the fundamental question stressed above are, in fact, validating you

Most of us don’t have patience for a poster who (by his own standards) supports genocide of Ukrainians saying how westerners are bunch of hypocrites especially when most westerners here made upset about how Palestinians are treated

Upset but somehow no calls for no-fly zones, or sanctions, or sending supplies to Gaza, or treating Israel as a pariah state like South Africa. Mostly a lot of hand wringing and "what can you do?"s from the same people who were most enthusiastic about unending support for Ukraine. RV can make some pretty boneheaded and shortsighted posts but in this case he is absolutely 100% correct

"If only we had some sort of measure we use against countries that violated international law!"

I have a question:

How is Hamas supposed to be destroyed with Israel Sieging Gaza. Like there is no good solutions to this, but Gaza will have to be invaded and occupied 

Times of Israel: "For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces" – The policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from by Tal Schneider https://timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

Haaretz: "Both the Egyptians and the Qataris are angry with Hamas, and they were going to cut all ties with them. All of a sudden Netanyahu shows up as a Hamas advocate, pressuring Egypt and the Qataris to continue” with the financial support." https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east...transfer/0000017f-ded8-d856-a37f-ffd88a960000

Mil Intel Dir Yadlin Comments on Gaza, etc. June 13, 2007: "Yadlin said Israel would be "happy" if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state. He dismissed the Iranian role "as long as they don't have a port." https://web.archive.org/web/20140904145748/https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07TELAVIV1733_a.html

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” – Benjamin Netanyahu https://archive.ph/ABPWd#selection-1144.0-1144.1

"How can we possibly deal with the terrorist group we propped up and supported for decades without slaughtering the civilians?"

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's certainly a disgrace. We (the western world and its liberal values) will pay a high price for it

https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1713210261996462512?t=bM7yVJGecfofH5zcd3hd5w...

No one with a brain buys the ~west cares about the liberal order~ propaganda discourse outside the West.

The West has propelled dictatorships and genocide when it saw that as aligned to their material self-interests. They use liberalism and democracy as an instrument only, not as a goal, especially in foreign countries.

If a democracy starts going against their interests on any matter, they will promote regime change undercover and more discreetly. If an autocracy starts doing that, then they will be more open about it and justify it as fighting terrorism or dictatorship in name of liberal values.

However, if a democracy or an autocracy aligns with their interests, they will treat as “liberal allies” no matter the horrors they may commit when they happen to be a dictatorship.

I don't buy most of your arguments, but no doubt that most of the folks attacking you without caring to address the fundamental question stressed above are, in fact, validating you

Most of use don’t have patience for a poster who (by his own standards) supports genocide of Ukrainians saying how westerners are bunch of hypocrites especially when most westerners here made upset about how Palestinians are treated

I don't think RV is a hypocrite per se. He has a Kissingerian worldview where all that matters is who's on whose side and who's not, only he's on a different side than Kissinger. What's infuriating is his belief that anyone who claims nobler motives must be lying, but that's different from hypocrisy.

I don’t believe in that at all. What happens is that I understand that this is how the real world actually works to this day and how leaderships base themselves to act on. Actions matter more than words and virtue-signaling.

And I've never disputed that to my recollection; what I dispute is the idea that, since leaderships have these motivations, the rest of us can't decide how to feel about international situations based on moral concerns. I don't think Biden is being nearly critical enough of the Israeli response here, whereas if anything I think he's getting too squeamish about continued support for Ukraine, because I'm a human being with beliefs and values, not an avatar of all the worst features of my country's political and military leadership.

Also, please don't edit my screen name in posts quoting me to make me look more right-wing. Who does that?!

[PSOL]

He tried it in a small blog, he can try it anywhere.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Upset but somehow no calls for no-fly zones, or sanctions, or sending supplies to Gaza, or treating Israel as a pariah state like South Africa. Mostly a lot of hand wringing and "what can you do?"s from the same people who were most enthusiastic about unending support for Ukraine. RV can make some pretty boneheaded and shortsighted posts but in this case he is absolutely 100% correct

"If only we had some sort of measure we use against countries that violated international law!"

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?

But giving air support to the terrorists who literally exterminated entire towns in Libya was A-OK I guess? Or the terrorists who eventually became Al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria?

And putting aside the very long precedent of having zero qualm arming the worst possible people, what about humanitarian aid? What about sanctions? What about literally any of the measures taken against so-called "rogue states" over the past several decades? If you discount the fact that Israel is Above The Law then there are a huge range of options short of sending Hamas military equipment. Why are these options never on the table when it comes to Israel?

[NOVA Green]

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?
[/quote]

I think most of us here can agree on a few basic rules:

1.) Thou shalt not intentionally behead babies.

2.) Thou shalt not intentionally shoot, bomb, starve, or deprive babies of basic necessities such as water, shelter, and medical treatment.

3.) If thou shalt unintentionally shoot, bomb, starve or deprive babies of basic necessities such as water, shelter, and medical treatment (Regardless of which party is involved in whatever conflict), that is okay and simply "collateral damage"

[Aurelius2]

It's certainly a disgrace. We (the western world and its liberal values) will pay a high price for it

https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1713210261996462512?t=bM7yVJGecfofH5zcd3hd5w...

No one with a brain buys the ~west cares about the liberal order~ propaganda discourse outside the West.

The West has propelled dictatorships and genocide when it saw that as aligned to their material self-interests. They use liberalism and democracy as an instrument only, not as a goal, especially in foreign countries.

If a democracy starts going against their interests on any matter, they will promote regime change undercover and more discreetly. If an autocracy starts doing that, then they will be more open about it and justify it as fighting terrorism or dictatorship in name of liberal values.

However, if a democracy or an autocracy aligns with their interests, they will treat as “liberal allies” no matter the horrors they may commit when they happen to be a dictatorship.

I don't buy most of your arguments, but no doubt that most of the folks attacking you without caring to address the fundamental question stressed above are, in fact, validating you

Most of use don’t have patience for a poster who (by his own standards) supports genocide of Ukrainians saying how westerners are bunch of hypocrites especially when most westerners here made upset about how Palestinians are treated

I don't think RV is a hypocrite per se. He has a Kissingerian worldview where all that matters is who's on whose side and who's not, only he's on a different side than Kissinger. What's infuriating is his belief that anyone who claims nobler motives must be lying, but that's different from hypocrisy.

I don’t believe in that at all. What happens is that I understand that this is how the real world actually works to this day and how leaderships base themselves to act on. Actions matter more than words and virtue-signaling.

And I've never disputed that to my recollection; what I dispute is the idea that, since leaderships have these motivations, the rest of us can't decide how to feel about international situations based on moral concerns. I don't think Biden is being nearly critical enough of the Israeli response here, whereas if anything I think he's getting too squeamish about continued support from Ukraine, because I'm a human being with beliefs and values, not an avatar of all the worst features of my country's political and military leadership.

Also, please don't edit my screen name in posts quoting me to make me look more right-wing. Who does that?!

The quotes in your username break the BBCode and cause everyone's replies to do that, unfortunately.

[Silent Hunter]

Both Israelis and Palestinians are "off white" for lack of a better term if you insist on classifying them into discrete racial groups.

"White-passing" is a common term used and that's common across the Middle East. Asma al-Assad could be played by Keira Knightley fairly easily.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Upset but somehow no calls for no-fly zones, or sanctions, or sending supplies to Gaza, or treating Israel as a pariah state like South Africa. Mostly a lot of hand wringing and "what can you do?"s from the same people who were most enthusiastic about unending support for Ukraine. RV can make some pretty boneheaded and shortsighted posts but in this case he is absolutely 100% correct

"If only we had some sort of measure we use against countries that violated international law!"

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?

But giving air support to the terrorists who literally exterminated entire towns in Libya was A-OK I guess? Or the terrorists who eventually became Al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria?

And putting aside the very long precedent of having zero qualm arming the worst possible people, what about humanitarian aid? What about sanctions? What about literally any of the measures taken against so-called "rogue states" over the past several decades? If you discount the fact that Israel is Above The Law then there are a huge range of options short of sending Hamas military equipment. Why are these options never on the table when it comes to Israel?

Libya and Syria are lazy whataboutisms considering the atrocities Gaddafi and Assad had/have done that the country you have as an avatar enabled (especially Assad). When it comes to humanitarian aid you already seeing that this is an issue with groundswell western support by the fact after being so gung-ho that Biden raised these concerns

[ProudModerate2]

The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history.

[Velasco]

It's certainly a disgrace. We (the western world and its liberal values) will pay a high price for it

https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1713210261996462512?t=bM7yVJGecfofH5zcd3hd5w...

This is dumb. Those regimes will say that no matter what.

No, it makes sense. If western liberal democracies were consistent to their own values and sets of rules, those regimes wouldn't have anything to say. However, given that they are inconsistent, the propaganda of those regimes has a receptive audience in the so-called "Global South" (I don't like the concept, but you know what I mean). A clear example of this is the success among Latin American audiences of the Russia Today propaganda (on a side note, the woman who was the RT's main propagandist for LatAm is now in Spain).  The failure in implementing a system of international relationships based on the rule of the international law also contributes to the rise of authoritarianism and illiberalism in the West

[windjammer]

To all the posters that are being critical of Israel. What would you have done if you were Israel After the Hamas abducted/raped/decapitated a ton of israeli children ?


Death toll is terrible in Gaza but I genuinely don't see how Hamas shouldn't be entirely blamed for that.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Upset but somehow no calls for no-fly zones, or sanctions, or sending supplies to Gaza, or treating Israel as a pariah state like South Africa. Mostly a lot of hand wringing and "what can you do?"s from the same people who were most enthusiastic about unending support for Ukraine. RV can make some pretty boneheaded and shortsighted posts but in this case he is absolutely 100% correct

"If only we had some sort of measure we use against countries that violated international law!"

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?

But giving air support to the terrorists who literally exterminated entire towns in Libya was A-OK I guess? Or the terrorists who eventually became Al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria?

And putting aside the very long precedent of having zero qualm arming the worst possible people, what about humanitarian aid? What about sanctions? What about literally any of the measures taken against so-called "rogue states" over the past several decades? If you discount the fact that Israel is Above The Law then there are a huge range of options short of sending Hamas military equipment. Why are these options never on the table when it comes to Israel?

Libya and Syria are lazy whataboutisms considering the atrocities Gaddafi and Assad had/have done that the country you have as an avatar enabled (especially Assad). When it comes to humanitarian aid you already seeing that this is an issue with groundswell western support by the fact after being so gung-ho that Biden raised these concerns

Biden's concerns seem quite mild and, so far, they haven't led to deliveries of humanitarian aid.

I'd like to be proven wrong on this (and there's still time), but I don't think there will be any until the guns stop firing.

[Hindsight was 2020]

To all the posters that are being critical of Israel. What would you have done if you were Israel After the Hamas abducted/raped/decapitated a ton of israeli children ?


Death toll is terrible in Gaza but I genuinely don't see how Hamas shouldn't be entirely blamed for that.

Not firing missiles at hospitals, giving a more reasonable evacuation timeframe for civilians and not cutting off water to children don’t seem unreasonable expectations

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Upset but somehow no calls for no-fly zones, or sanctions, or sending supplies to Gaza, or treating Israel as a pariah state like South Africa. Mostly a lot of hand wringing and "what can you do?"s from the same people who were most enthusiastic about unending support for Ukraine. RV can make some pretty boneheaded and shortsighted posts but in this case he is absolutely 100% correct

"If only we had some sort of measure we use against countries that violated international law!"

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?

But giving air support to the terrorists who literally exterminated entire towns in Libya was A-OK I guess? Or the terrorists who eventually became Al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria?

And putting aside the very long precedent of having zero qualm arming the worst possible people, what about humanitarian aid? What about sanctions? What about literally any of the measures taken against so-called "rogue states" over the past several decades? If you discount the fact that Israel is Above The Law then there are a huge range of options short of sending Hamas military equipment. Why are these options never on the table when it comes to Israel?

Libya and Syria are lazy whataboutisms considering the atrocities Gaddafi and Assad had/have done that the country you have as an avatar enabled (especially Assad). When it comes to humanitarian aid you already seeing that this is an issue with groundswell western support by the fact after being so gung-ho that Biden raised these concerns

So to be clear, you believe there's a point where a state commits enough atrocities that arming baby killing terrorists is justified after all? Could you define the line Israel would have to cross for a no-fly zone and arming Hamas to be the correct course of action? How about sanctions? Come on, lets now be vague and talk about "atrocities" somehow changing the calculus, tell me specifically: what crime committed by Assad or Gaddafi that the Israelis haven't would cause Biden to take a hard line? An illegal WMD program, perhaps a secret nuclear program? The number of civilians killed in the entire Libyan Civil War (at least the first phase) was somewhere in the high thousands to low tens of thousands. If Bibi surpasses that number will American F-35's intervene to end the bombing campaign? Is there any conceivable action that would result in sanctions being imposed on "America's Greatest Ally"?

If you haven't noticed my signature I'm not exactly a fan of Putin but he didn't defend Assad because of "international law" or "human rights" but because Assad was his ally. And all the evidence suggests that Biden isn't sending aircraft carriers to protect Israel from retaliation because of the "rules based international order" but for similarly amoral reasons. My point isn't "America is just like Putin, therefore Putin is justified", it's "America is just like Putin, therefore we live in a world of murderous amoral tyrants who only care about human rights so far as it benefits them personally"

[windjammer]

To all the posters that are being critical of Israel. What would you have done if you were Israel After the Hamas abducted/raped/decapitated a ton of israeli children ?


Death toll is terrible in Gaza but I genuinely don't see how Hamas shouldn't be entirely blamed for that.

Not firing missiles at hospitals, giving a more reasonable evacuation timeframe for civilians and not cutting off water to children don’t seem unreasonable expectations

Hospitals are literally where the missiles are being launched.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Upset but somehow no calls for no-fly zones, or sanctions, or sending supplies to Gaza, or treating Israel as a pariah state like South Africa. Mostly a lot of hand wringing and "what can you do?"s from the same people who were most enthusiastic about unending support for Ukraine. RV can make some pretty boneheaded and shortsighted posts but in this case he is absolutely 100% correct

"If only we had some sort of measure we use against countries that violated international law!"

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?

But giving air support to the terrorists who literally exterminated entire towns in Libya was A-OK I guess? Or the terrorists who eventually became Al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria?

And putting aside the very long precedent of having zero qualm arming the worst possible people, what about humanitarian aid? What about sanctions? What about literally any of the measures taken against so-called "rogue states" over the past several decades? If you discount the fact that Israel is Above The Law then there are a huge range of options short of sending Hamas military equipment. Why are these options never on the table when it comes to Israel?

Libya and Syria are lazy whataboutisms considering the atrocities Gaddafi and Assad had/have done that the country you have as an avatar enabled (especially Assad). When it comes to humanitarian aid you already seeing that this is an issue with groundswell western support by the fact after being so gung-ho that Biden raised these concerns

So to be clear, you believe there's a point where a state commits enough atrocities that arming baby killing terrorists is justified after all? Could you define the line Israel would have to cross for a no-fly zone and arming Hamas to be the correct course of action? How about sanctions? Come on, lets now be vague and talk about "atrocities" somehow changing the calculus, tell me specifically: what crime committed by Assad or Gaddafi that the Israelis haven't would cause Biden to take a hard line? An illegal WMD program, perhaps a secret nuclear program? The number of civilians killed in the entire Libyan Civil War (at least the first phase) was somewhere in the high thousands to low tens of thousands. If Bibi surpasses that number will American F-35's intervene to end the bombing campaign? Is there any conceivable action that would result in sanctions being imposed on "America's Greatest Ally"?

If you haven't noticed my signature I'm not exactly a fan of Putin but he didn't defend Assad because of "international law" or "human rights" but because Assad was his ally. And all the evidence suggests that Biden isn't sending aircraft carriers to protect Israel from retaliation because of the "rules based international order" but for similarly amoral reasons. My point isn't "America is just like Putin, therefore Putin is justified", it's "America is just like Putin, therefore we live in a world of murderous amoral tyrants who only care about human rights so far as it benefits them personally"

No and at no point in my post did I imply that only that invoking them to own the West is a bad example also Assad gassed civilians and as bad as Israel has been they haven’t gone down that road

[Aurelius2]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1713267311061192930

It also appears that Hamas may have blown up the main road bridge over Wadi Gaza.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1713241560752533662

[NOVA Green]

To all the posters that are being critical of Israel. What would you have done if you were Israel After the Hamas abducted/raped/decapitated a ton of israeli children ?


Death toll is terrible in Gaza but I genuinely don't see how Hamas shouldn't be entirely blamed for that.

Not firing missiles at hospitals, giving a more reasonable evacuation timeframe for civilians and not cutting off water to children don’t seem unreasonable expectations

Hospitals are literally where the missiles are being launched.

Sources?

Also, should be noted that the vast majority of Israeli's killed in the most recent Hamas action, including both civilian and military, did not die at the hands of Hamas rockets, but rather at the hands of more traditional style "infantry" type units, which penetrated the Israeli border with various units having specific instructions as to their combat missions.

This included groups which were designed to maximize terror among Israeli Civilian populations, including many of the massive atrocities witnessed, others specifically targeting Israeli military bases, mortar squads providing close action support against both military and civilian targets, etc...

This is not to minimize the impact of Hamas rockets reigning down on Israel, most of which are extremely inaccurate (Not that Hamas cares), but rather that Hamas rockets were a bit more symbolic for the most part, and achieved little real gain, other than perhaps shutting down airports, causing Israeli civilians to race to the bomb shelters, and generally helping to add to the sense of crisis within Israel, after all what was a mass "spectacular" event, which undermined the confidence of the people of Israel in their Government's ability to protect them.

It is patently clear that Hamas had this planned for at least a year (Based upon some of the documents taken from dead Hamas fighters), and deliberately conducted such a brazen and outrageous assault designed to provoke a massive Israeli response.

What is unclear, is to what extent the massive Israeli response presuming the invasion and occupation of parts of Gaza, will have on Arab public opinion, as well as among Non-Arab Muslim populations throughout the world.

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1713267311061192930

It also appears that Hamas may have blown up the main road bridge over Wadi Gaza.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1713241560752533662

Unfortunately not surprising nor unexpected...

They obviously want to keep civilians in the Northern part of the Gaza Strip to make it more difficult for the IDF to operate.

Still even if they hadn't done that, it is questionable how the humanitarian crisis in the Southern portion of the Gaza Strip would be able to handle however many 100,000s of civilians attempting to utilize the Israeli "Safe Corridor".

Gaza's water desalinization plant just closed down because of lack of fuel. Clean drinking water is in scare supply.

Egypt has yet to open up a Humanitarian Aid corridor through Rafah, because of concerns that weapons might be smuggled in along with food, water, medicine, etc...

Israel already took out most of the boats on the main harbor a couple days ago, so no exit by water.

Sigh....

[Aurelius2]

My grandmother has boarded her flight out of Israel, thank God.

[Hindsight was 2020]

My grandmother has boarded her flight out of Israel, thank God.

🙏

[Red Velvet]

It's certainly a disgrace. We (the western world and its liberal values) will pay a high price for it

https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1713210261996462512?t=bM7yVJGecfofH5zcd3hd5w...

No one with a brain buys the ~west cares about the liberal order~ propaganda discourse outside the West.

The West has propelled dictatorships and genocide when it saw that as aligned to their material self-interests. They use liberalism and democracy as an instrument only, not as a goal, especially in foreign countries.

If a democracy starts going against their interests on any matter, they will promote regime change undercover and more discreetly. If an autocracy starts doing that, then they will be more open about it and justify it as fighting terrorism or dictatorship in name of liberal values.

However, if a democracy or an autocracy aligns with their interests, they will treat as “liberal allies” no matter the horrors they may commit when they happen to be a dictatorship.

I don't buy most of your arguments, but no doubt that most of the folks attacking you without caring to address the fundamental question stressed above are, in fact, validating you

Most of use don’t have patience for a poster who (by his own standards) supports genocide of Ukrainians saying how westerners are bunch of hypocrites especially when most westerners here made upset about how Palestinians are treated

I don't think RV is a hypocrite per se. He has a Kissingerian worldview where all that matters is who's on whose side and who's not, only he's on a different side than Kissinger. What's infuriating is his belief that anyone who claims nobler motives must be lying, but that's different from hypocrisy.

I don’t believe in that at all. What happens is that I understand that this is how the real world actually works to this day and how leaderships base themselves to act on. Actions matter more than words and virtue-signaling.

And I've never disputed that to my recollection; what I dispute is the idea that, since leaderships have these motivations, the rest of us can't decide how to feel about international situations based on moral concerns. I don't think Biden is being nearly critical enough of the Israeli response here, whereas if anything I think he's getting too squeamish about continued support from Ukraine, because I'm a human being with beliefs and values, not an avatar of all the worst features of my country's political and military leadership.

Also, please don't edit my screen name in posts quoting me to make me look more right-wing. Who does that?!

Nobody actually. So much that I didn’t lol. Must be something in your username because it happens to anyone in this thread quoting you.

It’s interesting though, because it projects that you see this discussion as some leftism competition or something. I don’t care about whether my ideas and beliefs fall into “leftism”; “marxism” or any other abstract camp or club.

[NOVA Green]

My grandmother has boarded her flight out of Israel, thank God.

shabbat shalom

As a secularist, I still miss the Jewish prayers on regular Sabbath days with my older sister and her family.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

To all the posters that are being critical of Israel. What would you have done if you were Israel After the Hamas abducted/raped/decapitated a ton of israeli children ?


Death toll is terrible in Gaza but I genuinely don't see how Hamas shouldn't be entirely blamed for that.

You can't just act like history began a week ago.

If I were Israel I wouldn't have funded and supported Hamas in the first place. Instead of crowding my citizens into Bantustans and propping up a fake opposition to justify ever escalating crimes I would recognize the reality that both Israel and Palestine are defacto a single state. I would grant all citizens within this territory equal rights regardless of religion, as is expected (even if it may not be enforced) of literally every developed country that isn't Israel. Palestinians would gain the right to freely travel, to buy property and to leave Gaza. Neither settlers nor West Bank Palestinians would be forcibly deported but all would be free to stay or live where  they please. Then whatever remained of Hamas and other terrorist groups could be dealt with the way civilized countries deal with terrorism: professional police and intelligence, not indiscriminate airstrikes. Or there could be some sort of Good Friday agreement to disarm militias without bloodshed.

South Africa experienced all sorts of atrocities at the hands of the ANC and other rebel groups. Necklacing is among the most brutal methods of execution and it was pioneered by the ANC. Yet despite the atrocities they were somehow able to end apartheid. Why should we not hold Israel to the same standard?

Upset but somehow no calls for no-fly zones, or sanctions, or sending supplies to Gaza, or treating Israel as a pariah state like South Africa. Mostly a lot of hand wringing and "what can you do?"s from the same people who were most enthusiastic about unending support for Ukraine. RV can make some pretty boneheaded and shortsighted posts but in this case he is absolutely 100% correct

"If only we had some sort of measure we use against countries that violated international law!"

Geeh I wonder why people might be more fine giving a conventional military sending arms to a place that would likely end up in the hands of a terrorist organization that just beheaded babies?

But giving air support to the terrorists who literally exterminated entire towns in Libya was A-OK I guess? Or the terrorists who eventually became Al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria?

And putting aside the very long precedent of having zero qualm arming the worst possible people, what about humanitarian aid? What about sanctions? What about literally any of the measures taken against so-called "rogue states" over the past several decades? If you discount the fact that Israel is Above The Law then there are a huge range of options short of sending Hamas military equipment. Why are these options never on the table when it comes to Israel?

Libya and Syria are lazy whataboutisms considering the atrocities Gaddafi and Assad had/have done that the country you have as an avatar enabled (especially Assad). When it comes to humanitarian aid you already seeing that this is an issue with groundswell western support by the fact after being so gung-ho that Biden raised these concerns

So to be clear, you believe there's a point where a state commits enough atrocities that arming baby killing terrorists is justified after all? Could you define the line Israel would have to cross for a no-fly zone and arming Hamas to be the correct course of action? How about sanctions? Come on, lets now be vague and talk about "atrocities" somehow changing the calculus, tell me specifically: what crime committed by Assad or Gaddafi that the Israelis haven't would cause Biden to take a hard line? An illegal WMD program, perhaps a secret nuclear program? The number of civilians killed in the entire Libyan Civil War (at least the first phase) was somewhere in the high thousands to low tens of thousands. If Bibi surpasses that number will American F-35's intervene to end the bombing campaign? Is there any conceivable action that would result in sanctions being imposed on "America's Greatest Ally"?

If you haven't noticed my signature I'm not exactly a fan of Putin but he didn't defend Assad because of "international law" or "human rights" but because Assad was his ally. And all the evidence suggests that Biden isn't sending aircraft carriers to protect Israel from retaliation because of the "rules based international order" but for similarly amoral reasons. My point isn't "America is just like Putin, therefore Putin is justified", it's "America is just like Putin, therefore we live in a world of murderous amoral tyrants who only care about human rights so far as it benefits them personally"

No and at no point in my post did I imply that only that invoking them to own the West is a bad example also Assad gassed civilians and as bad as Israel has been they haven’t gone down that road

They've only starved the civilians, demolished the hospitals, threatened ethnic cleansing, declared "there are no civilians in Gaza" and smoked their houses with white phosphorous (ie. a chemical weapon that isn't a Chemical Weapon). But okay, are you saying that if Israel used chemical weapons in combat that you'd support an anti-Israeli no-fly zone? Is that the magic line where mealy mouthed, half-assed requests for restraint from the Biden administration would transform into threats of obliteration and plans to remove the Netanyahu regime? The IDF can do anything in Gaza short of deploying WMDs and the "International Rules Based Order" won't so much as cut a cent of military funding, let alone threaten the sort of responses Iran has gotten over the past few decades?

[GALeftist]

To all the posters that are being critical of Israel. What would you have done if you were Israel After the Hamas abducted/raped/decapitated a ton of israeli children ?


Death toll is terrible in Gaza but I genuinely don't see how Hamas shouldn't be entirely blamed for that.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.