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> Leaders have also said they will kill Jews anywhere in the world, btw I'm curious, is your claim that one of the current leaders of Hamas said this? If so I'

> Leaders have also said they will kill Jews anywhere in the world, btw I'm curious, is your claim that one of the current leaders of Hamas said this? If so I'd love to read the quote. > If Israel doesn't take out Hamas, it is entirely unclear if it will be able to prevent them from carrying out more attacks in the future. One counterargument is that taking out Hamas, if they succeed (I'm not bullish), is likely to just result in another possibly more radical group rising to power. Doubly so when we've seen something like 20,000 casualties in the last two months, overwhelmingly civilian, which is very obviously going to breed another generation that is full of hatred and vengeance. Anyway, moving on I frankly think it should be possible for Israel to prevent another October 7 even in a universe where Hamas is still in power. They have enormous technological and economic superiority as well as the full backing of the US government. It seems like dysfunctional organizational dynamics are a problem here, because Israel had all the intel it could possibly have needed to see this attack coming and stop it, but it didn't. So personally I think looking internally rather than externally is the most likely way to secure the safety of the Israeli populace into the future.

thrownv7032g 3y ago
If you want to see what Hamas says, or the tone of a segment of regional discussions, I encourage you to use your favorite translator on https://www.aljazeera.net/ https://www.aljazeera.net/. The arabic-language views are not always shared on the english-language version. The blog section is particularly aggressive at times. For the most inflammatory statements by leaders you can look at https://www.memri.org/ https://www.memri.org/, whose translation choices are sometimes disputed, and who is accused of being some sort of CIA-backed saboteur for choosing the worst statements without enough context, but I think can give you an idea.
- __blockcipher__ 3y ago
  I'm familiar with Memri, although it seems like less of a CIA op and more of an Israeli / American Zionist op. Then again, there might be a lot of overlap between the two :P (Wiki claims that it's founded by "Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser") I'm no fan of Hamas. Although speaking personally, I will never condemn any attacks of theirs on Israeli military installations or IDF tanks/soldiers. But any civilian killed intentionally is a war crime. I was really saddened to hear about the attack in Jerusalem where two Hamas gunmen killed a couple of civilians. To me that stuff is totally unjustifiable. I wish Hamas would give up dreams of reclaiming the originally stolen Palestinian land; it's not right that the land was taken but for better or for worse Israel is here to stay. I would like to see them fight a defensive war, with any offensive operations (i.e. crossing into Israel) focused only on military targets. In reality that's unlikely to ever happen, but if Hamas just did that then they would have the indisputable moral highground, instead of the current reality where in absolute numbers they commit way less evil than Israel but are clearly full of darkness themselves.
  - ashirusnw 3y ago
    If Hamas would take up a defensive stance, there would never be any conflict. The only reason Israel attacks has been in response to terrorism. You seem to view Hamas as just an extreme pro-Palestinian faction that's gone too far, but actually they're a terrorism group in every sense of the word, not tomorrow's leaders. (See video of Hamas throwing Fatah members off a rooftop one by one to their deaths, as one of numerous examples, besides that USA, EU, UK, Canada ... all class it was a terrorist organisation)
    - hbt 3y ago
      Hamas is a resistance movement and they have every right to resist by any means necessary. the same way the French resisted against the Nazis or the algerians against the French occupation. I don't hear french resistance being called terrorists despite sabotage operations, assassinations of nazi personnel and executing collaborators. they carried a successful military raid, captured hostages and exchanged them for Palestinian hostages. I completely reject the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group by countries that won't even join the international criminal court to protect their war criminals.
      - shiroiuma 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - js212 3y ago
        Raping and beheading people is terrorism. Even most Irish people hate Hamas. https://oct7th.org https://oct7th.org
        hbt 3y ago
        Yes, I agree those are war crimes and October 7th is called a Tuesday in the West Bank. You're welcome to read about the torture programs by the IDF from reputable organizations like humans right watch, amnesty international or even former IDF soldiers (your own people) explaining their tactics to terrorize the Palestinian population. I have more trust in those organizations as well as former IDF soldiers (who overcame the brainwashing, grew a conscience and spoke up) than the repeated lies in the zionist controlled media (40 babies? who lies about stuff like that?). You can read more about resistance under international law and how it's defined by the U.N charter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%20charter%2C%20the,subjugation%2C%20domination%20and%20exploitation%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist#:~:text=Based%.... Again, I will take that definition over the definition of a resistance movement by a military occupation.
vacuity 3y ago
To your last paragraph, as I understand it, 9/11 was also moreso caused by lack of intelligence being acted on properly, rather than being completely blindsided. Of course, it may be that all the surveillance measures could mitigate future terrorist attacks, but in reality the cost is high and the benefits are empirically not great. I think that if Israel withdraws now and focuses on defense, it may not prevent (civilian, primarily) deaths entirely, but it will be more workable for a lasting truce in the future. I don't want to say that those deaths would be a "sacrifice" or "necessary evil", but it is a realistic cost, as unfair as it is.
edanm 3y ago
> I'm curious, is your claim that one of the current leaders of Hamas said this? If so I'd love to read the quote. I saw a video of this today, the quote was from 2019 though (and he was condemned for it and walked it back), so maybe this shouldn't be taken "too seriously" (it was on my mind cause I saw it today, mostly): > In July 2019, Hamad urged members of the Palestinian diaspora to kill "Jews everywhere". His comments were characterized as incitement to genocide by Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America[18] and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.[19] His rhetoric was widely condemned by other Palestinians and he later stated that he supports the Hamas policy of "limiting its resistance to the Zionist occupation that usurps Palestine’s land and defiles its holy sites". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathi_Hamad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathi_Hamad > One counterargument is that taking out Hamas, if they succeed (I'm not bullish), is likely to just result in another possibly more radical group rising to power. Doubly so when we've seen something like 20,000 casualties in the last two months, overwhelmingly civilian, which is very obviously going to breed another generation that is full of hatred and vengeance. Firstly, I'm not sure what you mean by "overwhelmingly civilian". Hamas doesn't publish numbers of militants vs. civilians, as far as I know the only good source for that figure is the IDF, which says more or less a 2:1 ratio (civilian:militant). Is that "overwhelmingly" civilian? Secondly, what's the alternative? Leave Hamas in power, trying to do this again and again? It's true that Israel doesn't have many good options here, it's all variations of bad, but taking out Hamas is a decent way to gain a lot of security. (And is better for the long-term peace process, IMO, and better for Gazans.) > [...] I frankly think it should be possible for Israel to prevent another October 7 even in a universe where Hamas is still in power. I thought so too, but after talking a lot about this I think you're wrong. Hamas aren't idiots - they're a smart, increasingly well-funded enemy. Israel has a lot of capabilities, but Hamas is right on the border. They are fully capable of waiting a few years and then launching another attack using other means. They are fully capable of eroding Israel's ability to defend the border by sending "peaceful civilians" to the border, putting Israel in a position of either shooting at civilians or accepting many thousands of people on the border (similar happened in 2018). Their rockets are getting better, their intel gathering is getting better, etc. It is incredibly naive (and arrogant!) to think you can forever outwit an enemy. Guerilla armies have beaten larger forces many times. Not to mention, the more defense you throw at them, the more economically costly this is for you,
babyshake 3y ago
Not saying I disagree, but where does the 20,000 overwhelmingly civilian number come from? One of the things that seems really difficult about Hamas is from my understanding, they do not wear a uniform and shelter amongst non-combatantants.
- Aerbil313 3y ago
  > 20,000 overwhelmingly civilian deaths Just putting it out there that the median age in Palestine is 18. Almost half the population is children. Figure out the rest yourself.
- C6JEsQeQa5fCjE 3y ago
  A fair question, but it is really not difficult to see why the claim must be true. Here [1] is one source for the death toll in Gaza by direct military action (not including people burried under the rubble of destroyed buildings, dying of starvation, all the lives that disease will claim over the following weeks and months and so on). About 70% of killed people are estimated to be women and children. Those are not Hamas fighters. Even if you assume that every adult male that has been killed was a Hamas fighter (which is obviously not going to be the case), and even if we pretend that men being killed is okay, that is still 70% of civilians dying compared to enemy combatants. That is the basis for "overwhelmingly civilian" deaths claim. Israel also constantly claimed that Hamas is hiding in tunnels underground, yet they were killing people by bombing residential buildings in a display of logical contradiction. That alone will lead one to conclude that they are mostly killing civilians. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestinians-have-died-gaza-war-how-will-counting-continue-2023-12-06/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestini...

thrownv7032g 3y ago

If you want to see what Hamas says, or the tone of a segment of regional discussions, I encourage you to use your favorite translator on https://www.aljazeera.net/ https://www.aljazeera.net/. The arabic-language views are not always shared on the english-language version. The blog section is particularly aggressive at times. For the most inflammatory statements by leaders you can look at https://www.memri.org/ https://www.memri.org/, whose translation choices are sometimes disputed, and who is accused of being some sort of CIA-backed saboteur for choosing the worst statements without enough context, but I think can give you an idea.

__blockcipher__ 3y ago
I'm familiar with Memri, although it seems like less of a CIA op and more of an Israeli / American Zionist op. Then again, there might be a lot of overlap between the two :P (Wiki claims that it's founded by "Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser") I'm no fan of Hamas. Although speaking personally, I will never condemn any attacks of theirs on Israeli military installations or IDF tanks/soldiers. But any civilian killed intentionally is a war crime. I was really saddened to hear about the attack in Jerusalem where two Hamas gunmen killed a couple of civilians. To me that stuff is totally unjustifiable. I wish Hamas would give up dreams of reclaiming the originally stolen Palestinian land; it's not right that the land was taken but for better or for worse Israel is here to stay. I would like to see them fight a defensive war, with any offensive operations (i.e. crossing into Israel) focused only on military targets. In reality that's unlikely to ever happen, but if Hamas just did that then they would have the indisputable moral highground, instead of the current reality where in absolute numbers they commit way less evil than Israel but are clearly full of darkness themselves.
- ashirusnw 3y ago
  If Hamas would take up a defensive stance, there would never be any conflict. The only reason Israel attacks has been in response to terrorism. You seem to view Hamas as just an extreme pro-Palestinian faction that's gone too far, but actually they're a terrorism group in every sense of the word, not tomorrow's leaders. (See video of Hamas throwing Fatah members off a rooftop one by one to their deaths, as one of numerous examples, besides that USA, EU, UK, Canada ... all class it was a terrorist organisation)
  - hbt 3y ago
    Hamas is a resistance movement and they have every right to resist by any means necessary. the same way the French resisted against the Nazis or the algerians against the French occupation. I don't hear french resistance being called terrorists despite sabotage operations, assassinations of nazi personnel and executing collaborators. they carried a successful military raid, captured hostages and exchanged them for Palestinian hostages. I completely reject the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group by countries that won't even join the international criminal court to protect their war criminals.
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - js212 3y ago
      Raping and beheading people is terrorism. Even most Irish people hate Hamas. https://oct7th.org https://oct7th.org
      - hbt 3y ago
        Yes, I agree those are war crimes and October 7th is called a Tuesday in the West Bank. You're welcome to read about the torture programs by the IDF from reputable organizations like humans right watch, amnesty international or even former IDF soldiers (your own people) explaining their tactics to terrorize the Palestinian population. I have more trust in those organizations as well as former IDF soldiers (who overcame the brainwashing, grew a conscience and spoke up) than the repeated lies in the zionist controlled media (40 babies? who lies about stuff like that?). You can read more about resistance under international law and how it's defined by the U.N charter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%20charter%2C%20the,subjugation%2C%20domination%20and%20exploitation%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist#:~:text=Based%.... Again, I will take that definition over the definition of a resistance movement by a military occupation.

vacuity 3y ago

To your last paragraph, as I understand it, 9/11 was also moreso caused by lack of intelligence being acted on properly, rather than being completely blindsided. Of course, it may be that all the surveillance measures could mitigate future terrorist attacks, but in reality the cost is high and the benefits are empirically not great. I think that if Israel withdraws now and focuses on defense, it may not prevent (civilian, primarily) deaths entirely, but it will be more workable for a lasting truce in the future. I don't want to say that those deaths would be a "sacrifice" or "necessary evil", but it is a realistic cost, as unfair as it is.

edanm 3y ago

> I'm curious, is your claim that one of the current leaders of Hamas said this? If so I'd love to read the quote. I saw a video of this today, the quote was from 2019 though (and he was condemned for it and walked it back), so maybe this shouldn't be taken "too seriously" (it was on my mind cause I saw it today, mostly): > In July 2019, Hamad urged members of the Palestinian diaspora to kill "Jews everywhere". His comments were characterized as incitement to genocide by Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America[18] and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.[19] His rhetoric was widely condemned by other Palestinians and he later stated that he supports the Hamas policy of "limiting its resistance to the Zionist occupation that usurps Palestine’s land and defiles its holy sites". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathi_Hamad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathi_Hamad > One counterargument is that taking out Hamas, if they succeed (I'm not bullish), is likely to just result in another possibly more radical group rising to power. Doubly so when we've seen something like 20,000 casualties in the last two months, overwhelmingly civilian, which is very obviously going to breed another generation that is full of hatred and vengeance. Firstly, I'm not sure what you mean by "overwhelmingly civilian". Hamas doesn't publish numbers of militants vs. civilians, as far as I know the only good source for that figure is the IDF, which says more or less a 2:1 ratio (civilian:militant). Is that "overwhelmingly" civilian? Secondly, what's the alternative? Leave Hamas in power, trying to do this again and again? It's true that Israel doesn't have many good options here, it's all variations of bad, but taking out Hamas is a decent way to gain a lot of security. (And is better for the long-term peace process, IMO, and better for Gazans.) > [...] I frankly think it should be possible for Israel to prevent another October 7 even in a universe where Hamas is still in power. I thought so too, but after talking a lot about this I think you're wrong. Hamas aren't idiots - they're a smart, increasingly well-funded enemy. Israel has a lot of capabilities, but Hamas is right on the border. They are fully capable of waiting a few years and then launching another attack using other means. They are fully capable of eroding Israel's ability to defend the border by sending "peaceful civilians" to the border, putting Israel in a position of either shooting at civilians or accepting many thousands of people on the border (similar happened in 2018). Their rockets are getting better, their intel gathering is getting better, etc. It is incredibly naive (and arrogant!) to think you can forever outwit an enemy. Guerilla armies have beaten larger forces many times. Not to mention, the more defense you throw at them, the more economically costly this is for you,

babyshake 3y ago

Not saying I disagree, but where does the 20,000 overwhelmingly civilian number come from? One of the things that seems really difficult about Hamas is from my understanding, they do not wear a uniform and shelter amongst non-combatantants.

Aerbil313 3y ago
> 20,000 overwhelmingly civilian deaths Just putting it out there that the median age in Palestine is 18. Almost half the population is children. Figure out the rest yourself.
C6JEsQeQa5fCjE 3y ago
A fair question, but it is really not difficult to see why the claim must be true. Here [1] is one source for the death toll in Gaza by direct military action (not including people burried under the rubble of destroyed buildings, dying of starvation, all the lives that disease will claim over the following weeks and months and so on). About 70% of killed people are estimated to be women and children. Those are not Hamas fighters. Even if you assume that every adult male that has been killed was a Hamas fighter (which is obviously not going to be the case), and even if we pretend that men being killed is okay, that is still 70% of civilians dying compared to enemy combatants. That is the basis for "overwhelmingly civilian" deaths claim. Israel also constantly claimed that Hamas is hiding in tunnels underground, yet they were killing people by bombing residential buildings in a display of logical contradiction. That alone will lead one to conclude that they are mostly killing civilians. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestinians-have-died-gaza-war-how-will-counting-continue-2023-12-06/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestini...