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>Criticizing Israel’s response is not anti-Semitism- it is literally just criticizing the response. Okay - then what should be Israel's response? For me what t

>Criticizing Israel’s response is not anti-Semitism- it is literally just criticizing the response. Okay - then what should be Israel's response? For me what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have. Hamas is Gaza's government. Hamas has intertwined the civilian and the military infrastructure. Hamas has made sure that the civilian Palestinians will suffer if you target Hamas. And it was Hamas that made sure with organized rape, torture and atrocities on Oct 7 that it can't be overlooked or forgiven. Here is a good rule of thumb - if you are going to stir shit - stick to just killing. Don't livestream torture and rape, so diplomacy will have something to work with.

DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
Their response should be to leave the occupied territories, which aren't theirs to begin with, and to recognize a Palestinian state. Israel has held millions of Palestinians under military occupation for more than half a century, and it's way past time that that ended.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
    Israel has now killed 20k Palestinians and destroyed half of the Gaza Strip. That is a crime of vastly greater proportion.
    - ReptileMan 3y ago
      Nope. Hamas killed them by designing gaza in such a way as to maximize collateral.
      - callalex 3y ago
        If you find yourself on the “she shouldn’t have dressed that way” side of the argument, it’s probably time to take a step back and reevaluate.
        ReptileMan 3y ago
        [flagged]
        smoldesu 3y ago
        Comments like this make me grateful for the Geneva convention.
        ReptileMan 3y ago
        [flagged]
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. > Pillage is prohibited. > Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-33 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...
    - xpe 3y ago
      All deaths are tragedies, yes. But it is not valid to say that all deaths are equal crimes. These are not morally equivalent: A. 1,000 people killed in the name of religion B. 1,000 people (civilians) killed despite efforts to target only military targets I don't claim to know the _quality_ of the IDF's efforts to minimize civilian deaths, but I do know that intent matters here. The IDF has attempted (imperfectly of course) to reduce civilian deaths. Hamas does nothing of the sort. They are happy to kill non-combatants; any infidel will do. I want fewer deaths. Yes. It is heartrending to see the suffering on both sides. I welcome pressure on the IDF to minimize non-military casualties. Would any amount of public opinion stop Hamas from murdering again? Only to the extent it reduces their funding, recruiting, and operations. Israel, OTOH, is much more receptive to public opinion, inside and out. Hamas has designed their entire operation so that innocent people take the brunt of even the most targeted military operations. If the IDF attacks, there will be collateral damage and lost Palestinian lives. It is awful. However, this does not mean than IDF attacks are immoral in the big picture. Allowing Hamas to continue risks future violence. So what response is ethically warranted? Netanyahu and the IDF arguably could do better. No major actors in the region are blameless. But blamelessness isn't the standard here; I reject any claims of moral equivalence. Hamas massacres indiscriminately. The comparison matters. The basic argument in favor of Israel goes like this: some degree of IDF incursion into Palestine and aggression against Hamas is required to save future lives from more massacres. It is only question of how much and when. Perhaps the IDF should have waited some length of time to build more of an international coalition? I'll grant this. I'm not an expert. If it were possible to merely assume a defensive posture and stop them, I would say, sure try that. But I think that has been tried and it cannot work. Am I missing something? Minimizing death isn't the perfect ethical metric, but it is a reasonable starting approximation. To do so, we have to factor in all deaths, across a long time scale. I don't think there is any neat way to do it. It is a fucking mess; we chose the least worst option. I have no hate. If someone I knew had been killed, it might be impossible to have any emotional distance. I reject ideas that cause people to hate each other. I don't claim to know the right answers. But I know some answers are worse than others. I'm also less interested in blame. I'm interested in the future. What options might work? What actors would undermine the potential for a lasting peace? Find extremists wherever they are: Palestine, Israel, or the surrounding region. Neutralize them in the least invasive way possible. Use public opinion if possible. Condition aid if needed. Use coercive action, including military action, if the previous options don't work.
    - oytis 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - xpe 3y ago
        On what basis does the proportion not matter at all? Do you have a particular ethical justification? A philosophy underpinning this?
      - FireBeyond 3y ago
        You might argue about explicit and implicit, but then... Israel "ordered" 1.1 million residents of Northern Gaza (Hamas makes up <40,000 people) to flee south due to their bombing of Northern Gaza on October 13. It then increased bombing of Southern Gaza in the ten days following that evacuation order by eighty five per cent. That's not "collateral damage". Source: https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-war-satellite-data-shows-israel-intensifying-bombing-of-south-12993277 https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-war-satellite-data-shows-isr...
    - xpe 3y ago
      This is clear: the Palestinians have now suffered tremendously more over the last month than the Israelis. But differential _suffering_ is not a valid basis for moral analysis. And _harm_ is not the same thing as _crime_.
      - xbar 3y ago
        You are certainly correct. But every ethnic group of people has a right to exist in their place. To my eyes, there is enough evidence to warrant an investigation to determine if Palestinian civilians have been criminally murdered and forcibly relocated en masse. Also to my eyes, there is enough evidence that Hamas military murdered, kidnapped, raped, and brutalized Israeli civilians such that an Israeli military response was justified.
- edanm 3y ago
  Israel did leave Gaza though. Gaza elected Hamas, and they carried out this attack. So what should Israel do specifically in Gaza?
  - DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
    Israel left Gaza and then blockaded it, and has carried out major bombing campaigns against Gaza and ground invasions several times. The conflict is not limited to Gaza. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues to build its illegal settlements, to subject the Palestinian population to a humiliating and brutal military occupation, and to kill Palestinians regularly (several hundred in the West Bank this year). Until Israel leaves the occupied territories and allows the Palestinians to live as normal people, there will be Palestinian resistance. A few years ago, the people of Gaza tried nonviolent resistance, protesting at the border fence. Israel responded with live ammunition, killing hundreds of protestors. The Palestinians have tried every way to obtain their freedom: protest, negotiation, armed resistance. Nothing works. Israel is, by far, the stronger party, and it does what it wants to the Palestinians with no consequences.
    - oytis 3y ago
      There was no reason so far to believe that "Palestinian resistance" will end if Israel leaves the occupied territories. In fact these territories were occupied during an attempt by Arabic population to destroy Israel - which didn't include West Bank back then.
      - tmnvix 3y ago
        > There was no reason so far to believe that "Palestinian resistance" will end if Israel leaves the occupied territories. I guarantee that Palestinian resistance won't stop if Israel maintains its occupation.
        oytis 3y ago
        Yeah, but since it won't stop otherwise either, it's better for Israel to maintain stronger military position, which occupation provides, rather than making unilateral gestures in the faint hope for peace.
mandmandam 3y ago
Your comment is entirely regurgitated Israeli propaganda that has been repeatedly debunked. I'll be as polite as I can about this, and take it one step at a time. > Okay - then what should be Israel's response? The world has been clear about this. Stop killing civilians and treat Palestinians as humans with rights. > what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have. That's not remotely true. Human rights groups and genocide experts around the world are screaming at world leaders to take action. Schools and refugee camps and humanitarian corridors and civil infrastructure and entire residential blocks are being vaporized without warning. > Hamas is Gaza's government The last election was in 2006, so this talking point is real stale. > Hamas has intertwined the civilian and the military infrastructure. The only proof that has been offered of that has been incredibly shoddily made, as if daring people to believe it. > Hamas has made sure that the civilian Palestinians will suffer if you target Hamas. That doesn't excuse war crimes, and it's highly fucked up to think that it does somehow. > And it was Hamas that made sure with organized rape, torture and atrocities on Oct 7 that it can't be overlooked or forgiven. The only evidence of organized rape that I've seen presented turned out to be a 10 year old photo of Kurdish women [0]. Torture? No evidence. By atrocities, do you mean the debunked beheaded babies? Or the debunked babies in oven claim? The debunked pregnant women cut open claim? What Hamas did was atrocious, killing civilians and kidnapping people. So why embellish so devilishly? Only to excuse genocide, and grab land. > Here is a good rule of thumb - if you are going to stir shit - stick to just killing. Don't livestream torture and rape, so diplomacy will have something to work with. Again with the claims of "livestreamed torture and rape", which no one has actually seen. You know who can be documented to have tortured and raped people in the last couple decades? Israel and the US. On many, many occasions. But in your view, at least they're smart enough not to livestream it - they only took photos. 0 - https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1724688009293873502 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1724688009293873502
- prmph 3y ago
  [flagged]
- hackerlight 3y ago
  I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what Israel should do from here. Presumably you want a ceasefire, but then what? The problem from Israel's perspective regarding a ceasefire is that Hamas isn't just an ideology that can be charmed out of existence with good behavior. It's also an autocratic/theocratic government. These government structures don't go away even if the conditions that lead to their initial support are addressed, because they have a regime survival incentive to maintain power. For example, Iran. Some of the reasons (colonial interference) that caused the Iranian revolution are no longer there, but the governance structure is nevertheless perpetual because that's how autocracies work. Maybe Hamas can moderate in the future, but this moderation historically has happened after the nationalist (and in this case, irredentist) aims are fulfilled, such as in Vietnam or with the IRA. I don't know if that can happen with the continued existence of Israel and lack of right of return, which, let's face it, it's a pipe dream, Jews will never accept being an ethnic minority after the last few thousand years of endless pogroms including from MENA countries, literal survival will always trump everything else. Right or wrong, that's the reality, and we only have reality to work with. I lean towards the idea that Israel shouldn't invade but instead build a DMZ around Gaza to contain Hamas. While simultaneously sowing the seeds for peace in the next generation by withdrawing from the West Bank, and implementing a Marshall-like plan with oversight from the UN to lift the standard of living. Then hoping hoping the West Bank doesn't fall to Hamas in the power vacuum (and if it does, another DMZ around the West Bank might be a practically unfortunate necessity pending Hamas' moderation...). Thoughts? I want to hear from the "ceasefire" people the practical steps required and what it may actually look like along with an assessment of where it can go wrong, and what should happen in the cases where it goes wrong.
underlipton 3y ago
>Okay - then what should be Israel's response? The same response I have concluded should have been the US' response to 9/11: turn the other cheek, and invest heavily in reconciling with "enemy" forces while rebuilding "enemy" infrastructure and institutions, while dealing with individual bad actors on a case-by-case basis as a matter of legal (rather than martial) procedure. And I'm not joking. I feel bad for Israelis who have let their government doom them to a generation of government mismanagement and expensive, arduous military adventure. My single-payer health insurance and my friends' free college education went into a couple Patriot missiles, and I do wonder what they're going to have to give up.
- ketzo 3y ago
  It is a shame that this could never, ever happen politically, when from an outside, dispassionate perspective, it just seems obviously and objectively correct.
- dijit 3y ago
  1) thats politically a dead end, nobody will immediately make friends after a massacre and mass rape. Especially after decades of tensions and double especially when the muslim world once descended on Israel at once. 2) Quiet reminder that there are 1B followers of Islam and there has always been a wish (especially from Iran) to end the existence of Israel: the Palestinian people are unfortunately a pawn in that game. - Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything. Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything. Establishment of a Palestinian State with a stake in peace and stability would win you something. > Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again. One of the things this would win you is someone with interest and capacity to respond to this where the occupation/colonialism/ethnic-/religious-conflict narrative would not be applicable.
FireBeyond 3y ago
> For me what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have. Really? Israel routinely turns off Gaza's electricity (to the entire country) for days. It has also turned off all fresh water for similar durations. I think we have different definitions of "bare minimum". That comes across looking a lot more "punitive". In this conflict it told Gazan civilians to move to Southern Gaza because of the extensive bombing in Northern Gaza. Then it began increasing bombing in Southern Gaza. There is a lot of Gazan support for Hamas. But Hamas also makes up a very small minority of Gazans (I believe 40,000 in a country of 2.3 million). Hamas is also the people who are armed (thanks to both Israeli blockades, oh, and when Israel found it politically expedient to encourage Hamas' militancy because a more moderate Palestinian Authority would make the far right Israeli government look worse by being more willing to compromise).
s3p 3y ago
I'm not sure if Israel killing 14-16x the amount of citizens that Hamas did qualifies as a bare 'minimum'

DiogenesKynikos 3y ago

Their response should be to leave the occupied territories, which aren't theirs to begin with, and to recognize a Palestinian state. Israel has held millions of Palestinians under military occupation for more than half a century, and it's way past time that that ended.

ReptileMan 3y ago
[flagged]
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  Israel has now killed 20k Palestinians and destroyed half of the Gaza Strip. That is a crime of vastly greater proportion.
  - ReptileMan 3y ago
    Nope. Hamas killed them by designing gaza in such a way as to maximize collateral.
    - callalex 3y ago
      If you find yourself on the “she shouldn’t have dressed that way” side of the argument, it’s probably time to take a step back and reevaluate.
      - ReptileMan 3y ago
        [flagged]
        smoldesu 3y ago
        Comments like this make me grateful for the Geneva convention.
        ReptileMan 3y ago
        [flagged]
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. > Pillage is prohibited. > Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-33 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...
  - xpe 3y ago
    All deaths are tragedies, yes. But it is not valid to say that all deaths are equal crimes. These are not morally equivalent: A. 1,000 people killed in the name of religion B. 1,000 people (civilians) killed despite efforts to target only military targets I don't claim to know the _quality_ of the IDF's efforts to minimize civilian deaths, but I do know that intent matters here. The IDF has attempted (imperfectly of course) to reduce civilian deaths. Hamas does nothing of the sort. They are happy to kill non-combatants; any infidel will do. I want fewer deaths. Yes. It is heartrending to see the suffering on both sides. I welcome pressure on the IDF to minimize non-military casualties. Would any amount of public opinion stop Hamas from murdering again? Only to the extent it reduces their funding, recruiting, and operations. Israel, OTOH, is much more receptive to public opinion, inside and out. Hamas has designed their entire operation so that innocent people take the brunt of even the most targeted military operations. If the IDF attacks, there will be collateral damage and lost Palestinian lives. It is awful. However, this does not mean than IDF attacks are immoral in the big picture. Allowing Hamas to continue risks future violence. So what response is ethically warranted? Netanyahu and the IDF arguably could do better. No major actors in the region are blameless. But blamelessness isn't the standard here; I reject any claims of moral equivalence. Hamas massacres indiscriminately. The comparison matters. The basic argument in favor of Israel goes like this: some degree of IDF incursion into Palestine and aggression against Hamas is required to save future lives from more massacres. It is only question of how much and when. Perhaps the IDF should have waited some length of time to build more of an international coalition? I'll grant this. I'm not an expert. If it were possible to merely assume a defensive posture and stop them, I would say, sure try that. But I think that has been tried and it cannot work. Am I missing something? Minimizing death isn't the perfect ethical metric, but it is a reasonable starting approximation. To do so, we have to factor in all deaths, across a long time scale. I don't think there is any neat way to do it. It is a fucking mess; we chose the least worst option. I have no hate. If someone I knew had been killed, it might be impossible to have any emotional distance. I reject ideas that cause people to hate each other. I don't claim to know the right answers. But I know some answers are worse than others. I'm also less interested in blame. I'm interested in the future. What options might work? What actors would undermine the potential for a lasting peace? Find extremists wherever they are: Palestine, Israel, or the surrounding region. Neutralize them in the least invasive way possible. Use public opinion if possible. Condition aid if needed. Use coercive action, including military action, if the previous options don't work.
  - oytis 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - xpe 3y ago
      On what basis does the proportion not matter at all? Do you have a particular ethical justification? A philosophy underpinning this?
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      You might argue about explicit and implicit, but then... Israel "ordered" 1.1 million residents of Northern Gaza (Hamas makes up <40,000 people) to flee south due to their bombing of Northern Gaza on October 13. It then increased bombing of Southern Gaza in the ten days following that evacuation order by eighty five per cent. That's not "collateral damage". Source: https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-war-satellite-data-shows-israel-intensifying-bombing-of-south-12993277 https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-war-satellite-data-shows-isr...
  - xpe 3y ago
    This is clear: the Palestinians have now suffered tremendously more over the last month than the Israelis. But differential _suffering_ is not a valid basis for moral analysis. And _harm_ is not the same thing as _crime_.
    - xbar 3y ago
      You are certainly correct. But every ethnic group of people has a right to exist in their place. To my eyes, there is enough evidence to warrant an investigation to determine if Palestinian civilians have been criminally murdered and forcibly relocated en masse. Also to my eyes, there is enough evidence that Hamas military murdered, kidnapped, raped, and brutalized Israeli civilians such that an Israeli military response was justified.
edanm 3y ago
Israel did leave Gaza though. Gaza elected Hamas, and they carried out this attack. So what should Israel do specifically in Gaza?
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  Israel left Gaza and then blockaded it, and has carried out major bombing campaigns against Gaza and ground invasions several times. The conflict is not limited to Gaza. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues to build its illegal settlements, to subject the Palestinian population to a humiliating and brutal military occupation, and to kill Palestinians regularly (several hundred in the West Bank this year). Until Israel leaves the occupied territories and allows the Palestinians to live as normal people, there will be Palestinian resistance. A few years ago, the people of Gaza tried nonviolent resistance, protesting at the border fence. Israel responded with live ammunition, killing hundreds of protestors. The Palestinians have tried every way to obtain their freedom: protest, negotiation, armed resistance. Nothing works. Israel is, by far, the stronger party, and it does what it wants to the Palestinians with no consequences.
  - oytis 3y ago
    There was no reason so far to believe that "Palestinian resistance" will end if Israel leaves the occupied territories. In fact these territories were occupied during an attempt by Arabic population to destroy Israel - which didn't include West Bank back then.
    - tmnvix 3y ago
      > There was no reason so far to believe that "Palestinian resistance" will end if Israel leaves the occupied territories. I guarantee that Palestinian resistance won't stop if Israel maintains its occupation.
      - oytis 3y ago
        Yeah, but since it won't stop otherwise either, it's better for Israel to maintain stronger military position, which occupation provides, rather than making unilateral gestures in the faint hope for peace.

mandmandam 3y ago

Your comment is entirely regurgitated Israeli propaganda that has been repeatedly debunked. I'll be as polite as I can about this, and take it one step at a time. > Okay - then what should be Israel's response? The world has been clear about this. Stop killing civilians and treat Palestinians as humans with rights. > what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have. That's not remotely true. Human rights groups and genocide experts around the world are screaming at world leaders to take action. Schools and refugee camps and humanitarian corridors and civil infrastructure and entire residential blocks are being vaporized without warning. > Hamas is Gaza's government The last election was in 2006, so this talking point is real stale. > Hamas has intertwined the civilian and the military infrastructure. The only proof that has been offered of that has been incredibly shoddily made, as if daring people to believe it. > Hamas has made sure that the civilian Palestinians will suffer if you target Hamas. That doesn't excuse war crimes, and it's highly fucked up to think that it does somehow. > And it was Hamas that made sure with organized rape, torture and atrocities on Oct 7 that it can't be overlooked or forgiven. The only evidence of organized rape that I've seen presented turned out to be a 10 year old photo of Kurdish women [0]. Torture? No evidence. By atrocities, do you mean the debunked beheaded babies? Or the debunked babies in oven claim? The debunked pregnant women cut open claim? What Hamas did was atrocious, killing civilians and kidnapping people. So why embellish so devilishly? Only to excuse genocide, and grab land. > Here is a good rule of thumb - if you are going to stir shit - stick to just killing. Don't livestream torture and rape, so diplomacy will have something to work with. Again with the claims of "livestreamed torture and rape", which no one has actually seen. You know who can be documented to have tortured and raped people in the last couple decades? Israel and the US. On many, many occasions. But in your view, at least they're smart enough not to livestream it - they only took photos. 0 - https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1724688009293873502 https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1724688009293873502

prmph 3y ago
[flagged]
hackerlight 3y ago
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what Israel should do from here. Presumably you want a ceasefire, but then what? The problem from Israel's perspective regarding a ceasefire is that Hamas isn't just an ideology that can be charmed out of existence with good behavior. It's also an autocratic/theocratic government. These government structures don't go away even if the conditions that lead to their initial support are addressed, because they have a regime survival incentive to maintain power. For example, Iran. Some of the reasons (colonial interference) that caused the Iranian revolution are no longer there, but the governance structure is nevertheless perpetual because that's how autocracies work. Maybe Hamas can moderate in the future, but this moderation historically has happened after the nationalist (and in this case, irredentist) aims are fulfilled, such as in Vietnam or with the IRA. I don't know if that can happen with the continued existence of Israel and lack of right of return, which, let's face it, it's a pipe dream, Jews will never accept being an ethnic minority after the last few thousand years of endless pogroms including from MENA countries, literal survival will always trump everything else. Right or wrong, that's the reality, and we only have reality to work with. I lean towards the idea that Israel shouldn't invade but instead build a DMZ around Gaza to contain Hamas. While simultaneously sowing the seeds for peace in the next generation by withdrawing from the West Bank, and implementing a Marshall-like plan with oversight from the UN to lift the standard of living. Then hoping hoping the West Bank doesn't fall to Hamas in the power vacuum (and if it does, another DMZ around the West Bank might be a practically unfortunate necessity pending Hamas' moderation...). Thoughts? I want to hear from the "ceasefire" people the practical steps required and what it may actually look like along with an assessment of where it can go wrong, and what should happen in the cases where it goes wrong.

underlipton 3y ago

>Okay - then what should be Israel's response? The same response I have concluded should have been the US' response to 9/11: turn the other cheek, and invest heavily in reconciling with "enemy" forces while rebuilding "enemy" infrastructure and institutions, while dealing with individual bad actors on a case-by-case basis as a matter of legal (rather than martial) procedure. And I'm not joking. I feel bad for Israelis who have let their government doom them to a generation of government mismanagement and expensive, arduous military adventure. My single-payer health insurance and my friends' free college education went into a couple Patriot missiles, and I do wonder what they're going to have to give up.

ketzo 3y ago
It is a shame that this could never, ever happen politically, when from an outside, dispassionate perspective, it just seems obviously and objectively correct.
dijit 3y ago
1) thats politically a dead end, nobody will immediately make friends after a massacre and mass rape. Especially after decades of tensions and double especially when the muslim world once descended on Israel at once. 2) Quiet reminder that there are 1B followers of Islam and there has always been a wish (especially from Iran) to end the existence of Israel: the Palestinian people are unfortunately a pawn in that game. - Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything. Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything. Establishment of a Palestinian State with a stake in peace and stability would win you something. > Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again. One of the things this would win you is someone with interest and capacity to respond to this where the occupation/colonialism/ethnic-/religious-conflict narrative would not be applicable.

FireBeyond 3y ago

> For me what they are doing is the bare minimum with the minimum casualties from the options they have. Really? Israel routinely turns off Gaza's electricity (to the entire country) for days. It has also turned off all fresh water for similar durations. I think we have different definitions of "bare minimum". That comes across looking a lot more "punitive". In this conflict it told Gazan civilians to move to Southern Gaza because of the extensive bombing in Northern Gaza. Then it began increasing bombing in Southern Gaza. There is a lot of Gazan support for Hamas. But Hamas also makes up a very small minority of Gazans (I believe 40,000 in a country of 2.3 million). Hamas is also the people who are armed (thanks to both Israeli blockades, oh, and when Israel found it politically expedient to encourage Hamas' militancy because a more moderate Palestinian Authority would make the far right Israeli government look worse by being more willing to compromise).

s3p 3y ago

I'm not sure if Israel killing 14-16x the amount of citizens that Hamas did qualifies as a bare 'minimum'