Israel-Gaza war

[Hindsight was 2020]

Welp it’s started 😔

Did they announce a full-bore invasion (as opposed to the slow-rolling incursions of the past day or two) or did you just log on/check the news for the first time today? I'm at work and haven't checked any of the major news sites or liveblogs in a few hours.

https://twitter.com/flash_news_ua/status/1718337300067676462?s=12

[Jingizu]

Welp it’s started 😔

Did they announce a full-bore invasion (as opposed to the slow-rolling incursions of the past day or two) or did you just log on/check the news for the first time today? I'm at work and haven't checked any of the major news sites or liveblogs in a few hours.

https://twitter.com/flash_news_ua/status/1718337300067676462?s=12

I’m glad I got my warnings out. It’s not much, but it’s more than nothing. 

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

The "second war of independence" framing is absolutely insane. I have to believe the Israeli mainstream is at least not fully on board with it, especially given how pissed the families of the hostages are.

[NOVA Green]

Welp it’s started 😔

Did they announce a full-bore invasion (as opposed to the slow-rolling incursions of the past day or two) or did you just log on/check the news for the first time today? I'm at work and haven't checked any of the major news sites or liveblogs in a few hours.

I suspect that Hindsight just recently logged in...

Granted we are pretty much in close to a total news blackout since the Israeli Military is keeping information relatively tight and almost all communications from Gaza have ceased with the exception of a few who have Israeli SiM cards.

Not seeing much in the Israeli Press to indicate that it has yet become the "Full Scale" invasion in force when it comes to ground troops and armored units attacking from multiple directions, as some of the initial reports a week or two back suggested would be a likely Israeli military move to attempt to completely take over North Gaza.

[NOVA Green]

Looks like another Senior Hamas Military Commander involved in the 10/7 attack on Israel has been killed per Israeli sources.

Not sure if this is connected with the whole "sea tunnel" thing, which would be a Hamas first in terms of their "Tunnel Wars".

Anyways link below also lists a number of significant other Senior Hamas military leaders killed in recent days, some (but not all) of whom were directly involved in the 10/7/23 Attack on Israel.

In addition, they assassinated Ratib Abu Tzahiba, commander of Hamas' naval forces of the Gaza City Brigade. He was responsible for the recent attempt to infiltrate the maritime space near Zikim, the IDF said in a statement Saturday morning.

Furthermore, Shayetet 13 commandos overnight Friday carried out a targeted raid from the sea in the southern Gaza Strip, destroying Hamas terrorist infrastructure used by the organization's naval commando force, the IDF said Friday afternoon.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-770514

[Indy Texas]

What exactly is the long term end game at this point?

Even if you eliminate Hamas, what does Israel think all those under-25 people (i.e. half the population) are going to think of the country that just bombed their home to rubble? They're not going to "want peace." They're just going to create Hamas 2.0.

I don't see how you permanently eliminate the problem of rockets and terror attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip unless you do one of two things:

(1) Create something akin to the German Democratic Republic, where a one-party state basically engages in state propaganda to "de-Hamas-ify" the population over the course of several decades. This, though, would require creating an actual Palestinian state in Gaza with the means to do that, which Israel does not want to do.

(2) Literally just kill everybody in Gaza. And this is not an acceptable option by the standards of the 2020s (or really any time after the mid-20th century).

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Reportedly the 2023-24 school year in Gaza has been cancelled because all of the children are dead.

Just let that sink in. All the children. That's hundreds of thousands of children. That's a level of genocide that would make Putin jealous. And we helped Israel do that.

I'm done with this country.

So Israel just killed 1 million people?

Yes.

This is not only a disservice to, I don't know, truthfulness and good faith, but also to Palestinians. I've really liked the responses by a lot of actual Palestinians on Twitter, many of which were correcting dumb takes from Sino/Europhiles such as yourself that were nothing more than a pure and unbridled hatred of the Jewish people.

Now, instead of just generally attacking you, I've decided that you must simply be extremely uneducated on the topic. If this sounds condescending, I'm sorry, but as a Jewish person who has to deal with anti-Semitism caused by dumb takes like yours on a regular basis, I don't have patience for this.

Firstly, the impact of October 7th appears to be getting lost as time goes on. That's bad, since context is important. This was ~1400 people massacred in a brutal and horrific manner.

To put this in perspective to try and get a feel of this event, it's the equivalent of nearly 70,000 people killed in the United States. Just for being American. That's 20-25 9/11s - One WTC for every two states. It's fair to say that 9/11 impacted our national psyche. We invaded multiple countries because of it, after all.

This was well over an order of magnitude greater.

No government in the world (besides Israel, of course) could be expected to not respond to such an incident. It was not merely the number of dead, it was the manner of the killings. Hostages taken, rape and casual murder of obvious non-combatants. Hamas militants videotaping all of this because they thought it justified.

The events of October 7th were a vile thing and to expect any sort of calm willingness from Israelis to discuss matters in the aftermath is nonsense. A response is to be expected, even from a purely "destruction of Hamas" standpoint.

Anyone outside of campists like RedVelvet or negatively-polarized-against-my-own-government clowns such as yourself should be able to see that.

But the response has been and continues to be disproportionate. Israel has treated the Palestinians like sh**t for decades at this point, going all the way back to 1948. Palestinians (understandably, but not justifiably) have been responding with violence that would be worse if they were in an equivalent power position as Israel.

That said, what Israel is currently doing is evil.

But then it's not like Hamas is giving Israel a wide array of options. When one sees pictures of Hamas rockets being fired at random targets in Israel, the launchers are almost always placed in locations such that if Israel targets them, there will be a lot of photogenic innocent bystanders killed. There's no reason other than PR that this happens, particularly considering half of Gaza is rural.

From the Hamas point of view, dead innocent Palestinians is (while perhaps not a goal) beneficial. It whips up outside enmity against Israel and Jews, and it radicalizes citizens of Palestine, increasing their own support.

Israel can hardly be expected to ignore the option of taking action that might hurt Palestinians because that would mean all it could do was ask Hamas to pretty please not murder Israeli children again. As Harrison Ford said, "don't negotiate with terrorists" (at least I think, I never watched that movie).

I really have no idea what the best solution here is. I, for one, as both a Jew and a social liberal am not comfortable telling Israel to suck it up in regards to October 7th. I'm not comfortable with giving Hamas a pass for their actions.

But, I'm also not comfortable with what Israel is doing to Gaza.

Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism are both on the rise, unsurprisingly and unfortunately. It's good the media is taking the former seriously, at least.

I have no idea what a good solution here is. Anyone who claims to (such as SnowStalker or SnowLabrador) has no idea about nuance or foreign policy.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The "second war of independence" framing is absolutely insane. I have to believe the Israeli mainstream is at least not fully on board with it, especially given how pissed the families of the hostages are.

There's a certain type of politician who, once placed under a significant amount of pressure, cannot help but respond by wheeling out inane and inappropriate clichés like something from a badly-produced greatest hits album.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

At this point, Biden needs to use any and all leverage the U.S. has to prevent Israel from this disastrous full-scale invasion…

I think you greatly overestimate America’s influence, because there is nothing that Biden can do. Nothing. After what happened on October 7, the ground invasion was always bound to happen. It is inevitable and any Israeli government that does not order it would be committing political suicide.

There are, in fact, several things Biden could do:

* He could publicly demand Israel adhere to the laws of war
* He could stop sending Israel ordinance to drop on Gaza
* He could stop sending Israel billions of taxpayer dollars
* He could withdraw the carriers and announce that he won't protect Israel if they provoke a reaction
* He could impose sanctions on the Israeli regime
* He could impose a naval blockade of Israel until they obey his commands
* He could impose a no-fly zone and obliterate the Israeli Airforce
* He could use those carriers to implement a regime change operation to replace Netanyahu with someone more pliable

Of course he won't do anything because he's senile and guided by traitorous advisors but don't pretend America doesn't have an enormous toolbox available to crush regimes that don't do what they're told.

[Red Velvet]

https://twitter.com/AlonLeeGreen/status/1718347927108677943?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%...

Dozens of far-right Jewish activists harass Arab students in Netanya University shouting “Death to Arabs”. Police does absolutely nothing.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

At this point, Biden needs to use any and all leverage the U.S. has to prevent Israel from this disastrous full-scale invasion…

I think you greatly overestimate America’s influence, because there is nothing that Biden can do. Nothing. After what happened on October 7, the ground invasion was always bound to happen. It is inevitable and any Israeli government that does not order it would be committing political suicide.

There are, in fact, several things Biden could do:

* He could publicly demand Israel adhere to the laws of war
* He could stop sending Israel ordinance to drop on Gaza
* He could stop sending Israel billions of taxpayer dollars
* He could withdraw the carriers and announce that he won't protect Israel if they provoke a reaction
* He could impose sanctions on the Israeli regime
* He could impose a naval blockade of Israel until they obey his commands
* He could impose a no-fly zone and obliterate the Israeli Airforce
* He could use those carriers to implement a regime change operation to replace Netanyahu with someone more pliable

Of course he won't do anything because he's senile and guided by traitorous advisors but don't pretend America doesn't have an enormous toolbox available to crush regimes that don't do what they're told.

The first two of those points are good ideas in principle but which wouldn't have any practical effect. It's good to take a firm stance against war crimes, and Israel has more than enough munitions already for any operation against Hamas.

The second two points are debatably good ideas in principle, but which have no chance of actually getting Israel to call off it's counterattack. They would be going in even without American support. Even if the USA suspended all aid and removed all ships from the Mediterranean that wouldn't actually stop Netanyahu from invading Gaza to try to crush Hamas.

The last three points are absolutely insane and would result in a nuclear war. The fact that you bring them up at all makes me doubt that you're being serious here.

I said these are things he could do, not things he should do. Obviously trying to impose a no-fly zone on Israel (and everything past that) would be insane but it would be no less insane than trying to impose a no-fly zone on the Russian Airforce, something that a shocking number of people considered feasible at the time.

Anyway, I think you seriously underestimate Israel's dependency on the US in the event of conflict. They might have enough firepower to level Gaza but what about Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Syrians, the Iraqis and the Iranians? A war of attrition without any American backing would not favour Israel, to say the least, and everyone in the Israeli government knows it.

Biden has enormous leverage over the Israelis not because they need him to pummel Hamas but because they need him to protect them from the blowback. If he was willing to seriously threaten to end that support then he could at least open humanitarian corridors, get fuel and water to hospitals and force the IDF to stick to rules of engagement closer to Ramadi than Grozny or Stalingrad.

[Meclazine for Israel]

There are, in fact, several things Biden could do:

* He could impose a no-fly zone and obliterate the Israeli Airforce

Huh?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CybLhohSTqf/

That is like a Nazi sympathiser asking the USA and Great Britain to start fighting each other on the day of the Normandy invasion in WW2.

At this stage, a more viable option is for President Biden to withdraw funding of $1 Billion annually to Egypt until they open the Rafah border and start taking Gazan refugees.

Rinse and repeat with Jordan.

At that stage, would you be surprised to learn of any potential links between Egypt and Hamas?

[All Along The Watchtower]

(2) Literally just kill everybody in Gaza. And this is not an acceptable option by the standards of the 2020s (or really any time after the mid-20th century).

This is the logical conclusion of Israeli policy, because they have no plan for the Palestinians other than them surrendering their claims to the land. That won’t happen—but then, neither will the murder of everyone in Gaza, realistically. To reiterate: there is no plan. This is just retribution and open-ended collective punishment, not a serious strategy.

And yes, the US is absolutely responsible as an enabler and guarantor of these crimes. Of course, we’ve done the same thing since 9/11–the “Global War on Terror” is ongoing.

[Vosem]

At this point, Biden needs to use any and all leverage the U.S. has to prevent Israel from this disastrous full-scale invasion…

I think you greatly overestimate America’s influence, because there is nothing that Biden can do. Nothing. After what happened on October 7, the ground invasion was always bound to happen. It is inevitable and any Israeli government that does not order it would be committing political suicide.

There are, in fact, several things Biden could do:

* He could publicly demand Israel adhere to the laws of war
* He could stop sending Israel ordinance to drop on Gaza
* He could stop sending Israel billions of taxpayer dollars
* He could withdraw the carriers and announce that he won't protect Israel if they provoke a reaction
* He could impose sanctions on the Israeli regime
* He could impose a naval blockade of Israel until they obey his commands
* He could impose a no-fly zone and obliterate the Israeli Airforce
* He could use those carriers to implement a regime change operation to replace Netanyahu with someone more pliable

Of course he won't do anything because he's senile and guided by traitorous advisors but don't pretend America doesn't have an enormous toolbox available to crush regimes that don't do what they're told.

The first two of those points are good ideas in principle but which wouldn't have any practical effect. It's good to take a firm stance against war crimes, and Israel has more than enough munitions already for any operation against Hamas.

The second two points are debatably good ideas in principle, but which have no chance of actually getting Israel to call off it's counterattack. They would be going in even without American support. Even if the USA suspended all aid and removed all ships from the Mediterranean that wouldn't actually stop Netanyahu from invading Gaza to try to crush Hamas.

The last three points are absolutely insane and would result in a nuclear war. The fact that you bring them up at all makes me doubt that you're being serious here.

I said these are things he could do, not things he should do. Obviously trying to impose a no-fly zone on Israel (and everything past that) would be insane but it would be no less insane than trying to impose a no-fly zone on the Russian Airforce, something that a shocking number of people considered feasible at the time.

Anyway, I think you seriously underestimate Israel's dependency on the US in the event of conflict. They might have enough firepower to level Gaza but what about Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Syrians, the Iraqis and the Iranians? A war of attrition without any American backing would not favour Israel, to say the least, and everyone in the Israeli government knows it.

Biden has enormous leverage over the Israelis not because they need him to pummel Hamas but because they need him to protect them from the blowback. If he was willing to seriously threaten to end that support then he could at least open humanitarian corridors, get fuel and water to hospitals and force the IDF to stick to rules of engagement closer to Ramadi than Grozny or Stalingrad.

I mean, the war of attrition favored Israel in the 1960s when the economic gap between them and their enemies was much smaller. Notwithstanding your nonsense from the last few pages, there's no particular reason to think a paramilitary of a few thousand individuals could perform better than the governments of multiple countries. (The expression "War of Attrition" was literally initially applied to a conflict that Israel...uh...won, and that when the state was much weaker.)

(2) Literally just kill everybody in Gaza. And this is not an acceptable option by the standards of the 2020s (or really any time after the mid-20th century).

This is the logical conclusion of Israeli policy, because they have no plan for the Palestinians other than them surrendering their claims to the land. That won’t happen—but then, neither will the murder of everyone in Gaza, realistically. To reiterate: there is no plan. This is just retribution and open-ended collective punishment, not a serious strategy.

And yes, the US is absolutely responsible as an enabler and guarantor of these crimes. Of course, we’ve done the same thing since 9/11–the “Global War on Terror” is ongoing.

This is phrased in a weird way, but you can certainly get to a point where there aren't meaningful active political organizations pressing such a claim; that happened to Silesia. It doesn't mean individuals might not maintain such a claim in their heart or whatever, but that shouldn't really matter.

[H. Ross Peron]

An absolutely demented response to a Bernie Sanders tweet about...the anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

https://twitter.com/ByYourLogic/status/1717994676878475774

[Stuart98]

An absolutely demented response to a Bernie Sanders tweet about...the anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

https://twitter.com/ByYourLogic/status/1717994676878475774

Oh, the responses to that tweet got so, so much worse than that. Lots of tankies who are super blatantly anti-semetic.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Julian Castro is the first major Democrat in Texas calling for a ceasefire. Props to him, and Warren's one-time potential VP.

https://twitter.com/stevanzetti/status/1718443187327418472?s=20

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if half the party is soon backing a ceasefire and pushing Biden to make stronger overtures for such / to put more pressure on Israel.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1718348409550332275?t=kcMD7c6tjyrE354G...
A lot of things are really coming together, namely that the motivation for the blackout is to hide as much of the ongoing and coming mass murder as possible. It doesn't even seem like they care about the hostages.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

An absolutely demented response to a Bernie Sanders tweet about...the anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

https://twitter.com/ByYourLogic/status/1717994676878475774

SnowStalker & Co: "Demonizing Israel will have no consequences. People will obviously be able to separate Israel and Jewish people"

Now Jews, including myself, are paying the price for this.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

An absolutely demented response to a Bernie Sanders tweet about...the anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

https://twitter.com/ByYourLogic/status/1717994676878475774

SnowStalker & Co: "Demonizing Israel will have no consequences. People will obviously be able to separate Israel and Jewish people"

Now Jews, including myself, are paying the price for this.

The worst thing to come out of this war is definitely a Jewish podcaster being mean to Bernie Sanders, yes.

I don't think the tweets about the Tree of Life shooting should be seen as commentary about Israel, for the record.

[Horus]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/musk-says-starlink-provide-connectivity-gaza-through-aid-organizations-2023-10-28/

"Musk says Starlink to provide connectivity in Gaza through aid groups"

Elon does the right thing for once.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1717566057815118289?s=20

I don't know if this was posted elsewhere, but it's an absolutely breath-taking view of the breadth of the Israeli bombardment campaign. And there are still people doubting the civilian casualty numbers out of Gaza? There's no way they aren't massive and dwarf anything that happened early on. Entire neighborhoods have been leveled and reduced to rubble. Actual genocide denial from people who purport to call out "tankie" genocide deniers.

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

An absolutely demented response to a Bernie Sanders tweet about...the anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

https://twitter.com/ByYourLogic/status/1717994676878475774

SnowStalker & Co: "Demonizing Israel will have no consequences. People will obviously be able to separate Israel and Jewish people"

Now Jews, including myself, are paying the price for this.

The worst thing to come out of this war is definitely a Jewish podcaster being mean to Bernie Sanders, yes.

I don't think the tweets about the Tree of Life shooting should be seen as commentary about Israel, for the record.

Of course they shouldn't. The idea that it's even a reasonable interpretation, still less the correct one, is absurd. People running their mouths like this (with bonus hoping "from the left" for a second Trump presidency to own Bernie Sanders of all people) demonstrably delegitimizes the real and increasingly serious problems with what the IDF is doing in the minds of grillist normies who run across it, yet we keep seeeing it anyway. Bird app revolution theater is just that addictive, I guess.

[Jingizu]

Two points of potential interest:

Tucked away in recent news, at the U.N. General Assembly there were two votes over the situation and now the U.S. and Israel’s few remaining allies have shifted to Brazil’s previous position, while many countries have shifted to a more condemnatory stance. The Israeli government is bleeding support and sympathy. But Bibi will kill as many Palestinians (and Israelis) as necessary to buttress his political position.

My brother and I were at a local gun shop getting ammunition for the guns we inherited from our late father. While there we heard two of the clerks arguing over Israel/Palestine, one on each side. While both made valid points, the interesting bit is that even in gun nut land opinions are divided.


Another sign of Israel bleeding support is that my best friend, a 25-year-old transwoman, mentioned that she no longer supports Israel. She is in no way in ‘woke’ country and is not a hard leftist.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

McCain's widow is extremely worried.

https://twitter.com/WFPChief/status/1718176834444030006