Israel-Gaza war

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The two types of Israel supporters:

1) “Uh ackthually, it wasn’t 25,000 Gazans dead, it was merely 22,000. Get your facts straight.”

2) “I wish it was a million.”

The two types of anti-Israel posters:

1) “Uh ackthually, I don’t support Hamas, I just support the rape, mass murder, and ethnic cleansing of all Jewish Israelis.  Get your facts straight.”

2) “Hamas should finish what Hitler started!”

This is a duplicitous argument and you know ir

Yes, I 100% agree and so is Dule’s post.  My point was that it’s easy to make nonsensical offensive bad-faith BS sh!tposts and this was no different - certainly no more inaccurate - than Dule’s post.  If you thought Dule’s post was fine, but found mine offensive then that suggests bias on your part because they’re basically the same post.  

I also was curious if this would be infracted for excessive hyperbole even though Dule’s was not. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of a double standard.

It wasn't even reported. You're a moderator. You know this.

Yes, it was.  You’re literally the moderator who marked Dule’s post as no violation counted.  You know this.

I'm taking about your post.

It can't be infracted if it's not been reported.

It was reported and then marked no violation counted by another mod.  But I apologize if I mistakenly commended you for being fair and unbiased.  Won’t happen again

It was reported after your post claiming it had been and after I said it hadn't so my point still stands.

I’m genuinely not sure what point you think you’re making?  From what I can tell you’re salty that I (erroneously, I guess) said I was pleasantly surprised that despite what I consider your pretty blatant biases on this conflict, you seemed to be being consistent and not employing an intellectually dishonest double standard.  From my POV this was me saying “I gotta say, I’m pleasantly surprised to see that despite Afleitch’s strong views on the issue, he’s actually trying to be fair and unbiased after all” and you basically responding in not so many words “liar, how dare you call me unbiased; take it back! “

[Silent Hunter]

It's so hard to follow the ongoing negotiations because it feel likes you're getting different stories from each news source. BBC News is reporting Hamas is hopeful they can get a deal within 48 hours, Israeli sources like The Times of Israel are essentially calling the talks near death because Sinwar wants more civilian deaths during Ramadan, Reuters barely goes into details and focuses on the current humanitarian crisis.

The only conclusion I can come up with is that nobody really knows if the talks are on track to succeed or not.

There's a real danger any ceasefire doesn't last through Ramadan. If things kick off around al-Aqsa, then Hamas could use that as a pretext to resume attacks - they've already called for a march to the site at the beginning of Ramadan.

Kamala Harris has called for an immediate ceasefire of at least six weeks, but the US still wants Hamas eliminated. The only reason they want this halted is the levels of civilian suffering.

[Bernie Derangement Syndrome Haver]

Harris calling for a ceasefire is surely going to backfire among independents and moderates.

[Pres Mike]

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/03/israel-hamas-netanyahu-washington-00144577

Apprently General Benny Gantz is heading to DC to speak with the Biden adminsitration, defying Netanyahu

An official from Netanyahu’s Likud party said Gantz’s visit was without authorization from the Israeli leader. The official said Netanyahu had a “tough talk” with Gantz about the trip and told him the country has “just one prime minister.”

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Harris calling for a ceasefire is surely going to backfire among independents and moderates.

Nah, anyone who listens to the text of her actual comments will see she's putting the onus on Hamas to agree.

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/04/kamala-harris-israel-idf-gaza-catastrophe-ceasefire-hamas-hostage-deal

Harris is truly awful

[Beet]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/04/kamala-harris-israel-idf-gaza-catastrophe-ceasefire-hamas-hostage-deal

Harris is truly awful

No, she's not. Biden has been trying to broker a legit ceasefire as part of a hostage deal for weeks now. Hamas is the roadblock.

When leftists are screeching "Ceasefire", they mean to put Israel under occupation so it can't respond to Hamas. The only actual successful ceasefire was brokered by the Biden admin. until Hamas broke it.

[Gass3268]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

There is 0% chance Harris says this without Biden's okay. This is clearly going to be part of a messaging pivot.

[Beet]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

There is 0% chance Harris says this without Biden's okay. This is clearly going to be part of a messaging pivot.

Maybe, but it still has to come out of the big guy's mouth. Also, if it comes apart after six weeks that'll be a problem. The goal should be for Biden to eventually call for an indefinite cease-fire.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

There is 0% chance Harris says this without Biden's okay. This is clearly going to be part of a messaging pivot.

Maybe, but it still has to come out of the big guy's mouth. Also, if it comes apart after six weeks that'll be a problem. The goal should be for Biden to eventually call for an indefinite cease-fire.

He already seems to be calling for a Palestinian state. Netanyahu doesn’t care what Biden thinks.

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

The two types of Israel supporters:

1) “Uh ackthually, it wasn’t 25,000 Gazans dead, it was merely 22,000. Get your facts straight.”

2) “I wish it was a million.”

The two types of anti-Israel posters:

1) “Uh ackthually, I don’t support Hamas, I just support the rape, mass murder, and ethnic cleansing of all Jewish Israelis.  Get your facts straight.”

2) “Hamas should finish what Hitler started!”

This is a duplicitous argument and you know ir

Yes, I 100% agree and so is Dule’s post.  My point was that it’s easy to make nonsensical offensive bad-faith BS sh!tposts and this was no different - certainly no more inaccurate - than Dule’s post.  If you thought Dule’s post was fine, but found mine offensive then that suggests bias on your part because they’re basically the same post.  

I also was curious if this would be infracted for excessive hyperbole even though Dule’s was not. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of a double standard.

It wasn't even reported. You're a moderator. You know this.

Yes, it was.  You’re literally the moderator who marked Dule’s post as no violation counted.  You know this.

I'm taking about your post.

It can't be infracted if it's not been reported.

It was reported and then marked no violation counted by another mod.  But I apologize if I mistakenly commended you for being fair and unbiased.  Won’t happen again

It was reported after your post claiming it had been and after I said it hadn't so my point still stands.

I’m genuinely not sure what point you think you’re making?  From what I can tell you’re salty that I (erroneously, I guess) said I was pleasantly surprised that despite what I consider your pretty blatant biases on this conflict, you seemed to be being consistent and not employing an intellectually dishonest double standard.  From my POV this was me saying “I gotta say, I’m pleasantly surprised to see that despite Afleitch’s strong views on the issue, he’s actually trying to be fair and unbiased after all” and you basically responding in not so many words “liar, how dare you call me unbiased; take it back! “

I don't think we should hash out intra-mod-cave disputes in a public megathread like this, guys.

[CumbrianLefty]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

There is 0% chance Harris says this without Biden's okay. This is clearly going to be part of a messaging pivot.

This.

It is clear that the US has had enough of Netanyahu prolonging the war just to stay in power.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

There is 0% chance Harris says this without Biden's okay. This is clearly going to be part of a messaging pivot.

This.

It is clear that the US has had enough of Netanyahu prolonging the war just to stay in power.

Good, Biden will lose the Jewish vote too.

[CumbrianLefty]

Jews who vote for Trump deserve what is coming to them (as does everyone else who does this)

Are *you* voting for Orange Man to totally destroy America?

[jaichind]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

There is 0% chance Harris says this without Biden's okay. This is clearly going to be part of a messaging pivot.

Netanyahu will tell Biden when he is ready for a ceasefire, and then Biden will claim credit for it.  Not sure when that is going to be though. 

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

Great stuff. This will help the Biden-Harris ticket with the base. Now we just need Joe to come along. This reminds me of 2012 when Biden came out for gay marriage.

There is 0% chance Harris says this without Biden's okay. This is clearly going to be part of a messaging pivot.

Netanyahu will tell Biden when he is ready for a ceasefire, and then Biden will claim credit for it.  Not sure when that is going to be though. 

Netanyahu will drag the war for as long as possible. Netanyahu is done politically as soon as there is a ceasefire.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

Jews who vote for Trump deserve what is coming to them (as does everyone else who does this)

Are *you* voting for Orange Man to totally destroy America?

I am voting against Biden, not for Trump. If you want a chance of beating Trump, replace Biden with someone stronger. I would probably vote third party even if the nominee were Harris.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

It's tempting as it is to assume the current events in Gaza are a one-off blip in an otherwise long running conflict, the death toll in this instance is truly staggering and not at comporable to the past. Hamas terrorism on October 7th was of course responsible for starting the current conflict, by getting rid of any Israeli opposition for the current campagin and people who celebrated it as some glorious decolonail strike are more vacuumes but the  that does change the reality of current events.

More people have been killed in the last 6 months in Gaza by the IDF  than have been killed for the past 50 years of the conflict prior. So many people seem to to be trying to pretend this distinction doesn't matter but the scale of the campagin in Gaza is horrific and there's no actual end in sight for the conflict.  There's no actual proposal for a long term end to the conflict.

For those who are supportive of continuing the war, just how many palestianian deaths are acceptable for elimating hamas ?. The way people like Mr X, Vosem and Patzer act, they seem to think that killing every single resident in Gaza is worth it if it eliminates Hamas.

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

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-04/americans-sour-on-both-israel-and-palestinian-authority-in-poll

"Americans Sour on Both Israel and Palestinian Authority in Poll"

Gallup poll show Dems getting more negative on Israel.  This is going to be a problem for Biden and it will not go away.

[GeneralMacArthur]

More people have been killed in the last 6 months in Gaza by the IDF  than have been killed for the past 50 years of the conflict prior. So many people seem to to be trying to pretend this distinction doesn't matter but the scale of the campagin in Gaza is horrific and there's no actual end in sight for the conflict.  There's no actual proposal for a long term end to the conflict.

For those who are supportive of continuing the war, just how many palestianian deaths are acceptable for elimating hamas ?. The way people like Mr X, Vosem and Patzer act, they seem to think that killing every single resident in Gaza is worth it if it eliminates Hamas.

Violent insurgency in the Gaza Strip is a festering cancer that has been metastasizing beneath the surface for most of the past 50 years.

Occasionally it has surfaced in various violent attacks and suicide bombing campaigns, but mostly it is just the slow simmering daily pain of rocket fire, kidnappings, shootings, stabbings, etc. the kind of thing you allow to continue because you would rather tolerate that low level of pain forever than pay the enormous one-time cost of ripping off the band-aid and undertaking the surgical operation to remove it.

This can only continue so long as the effect is slow and gradual.  Then one day you wake up and the cancer has metastasized to your eye and you can no longer see.  Or it metastasized to your shoulder and you can't move your left arm anymore.  Or a big black bulge has surfaced in an area you can't reasonably hide in public.  And it becomes no longer tolerable to endure the slow steady march of the horror.  It becomes time to put an end to it once and for all, to pay the enormous price that will cost.  And of course that is a price that has only grown and grown as it's deeply rooted itself in your body.

Make no mistake, this is not a one-off, sudden attack that's solely in response to 10/7.  This war is paying down decades of debt incurred by various Israeli decisions, the most prominent of course being their exit from the Gaza Strip in 2005.  They have not taken Hamas seriously enough as a threat, they have not done enough to stop its progress, and they delayed far too long in taking the steps necessary to overthrow its rule of the Strip, for exactly the reasons we're seeing now -- fear of the consequences of a terrible urban war with massive civilian casualties that would draw widespread international condemnation.

Instead, it was always easier to say, we'll do the war later, for now we'll just reinforce the Iron Dome.  We'll do the war later, for now we'll just increase border security.  We'll do the war later, for now we'll just do a couple drone strikes a year on Hamas weapons caches and military buildings.

Then one day, October 7 2023, Israel woke up and found that allowing Hamas to continue to live had developed into symptoms that were impossible to ignore, impossible to live with.

It was time to do the surgery.  Long past time.

[GeneralMacArthur]

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

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

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

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

[Silent Hunter]

The fact that Hamas say they need a ceasefire to establish which of the hostages are still alive is a significant statement. If true, Israel has successfully hampered their C3I capability, meaning that the groups outside Rafah are operating on their own.

[Lord Halifax]

For those who are supportive of continuing the war, just how many palestianian deaths are acceptable for elimating hamas ?. The way people like Mr X, Vosem and Patzer act, they seem to think that killing every single resident in Gaza is worth it if it eliminates Hamas.

how would you set a specific limit for civilian casualties? That's not something you usually do in a war, it's not like the Roosevelt administration sat down after Peal Harbor and agreed that "sure, we want to defeat Japan, but if it costs more than 500k Japanese civilian casualties we'll have to stop because that would be too cruel".

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

It's tempting as it is to assume the current events in Gaza are a one-off blip in an otherwise long running conflict, the death toll in this instance is truly staggering and not at comporable to the past. Hamas terrorism on October 7th was of course responsible for starting the current conflict, by getting rid of any Israeli opposition for the current campagin and people who celebrated it as some glorious decolonail strike are more vacuumes but the  that does change the reality of current events.

More people have been killed in the last 6 months in Gaza by the IDF  than have been killed for the past 50 years of the conflict prior. So many people seem to to be trying to pretend this distinction doesn't matter but the scale of the campagin in Gaza is horrific and there's no actual end in sight for the conflict.  There's no actual proposal for a long term end to the conflict.

For those who are supportive of continuing the war, just how many palestianian deaths are acceptable for elimating hamas ?. The way people like Mr X, Vosem and Patzer act, they seem to think that killing every single resident in Gaza is worth it if it eliminates Hamas.

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

Please show me where I have ever advocated “killing every single resident in Gaza.”