10 ms·

Gaza and the End of Western Fantasy

17 points by jacooper 3y ago

vasilipupkin 3y ago
Author decided to ignore the fact that Israel and Hamas are fighting a war and so isn’t grappling with what is actually happening in Gaza. Instead making it seem as if Israel woke up one morning and decided to bomb a bunch of people for no reason.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  I'm fine with Israel assassinating Hamas members. Having a legitimate military objective does not give you carte blanche to run over civilians with a steamroller, any more than it gave Hamas just cause to massacre civilians at nearby kibbutzim and a music festival (vs the attacks on IDF bases, which were valid targets in my view).
- kstenerud 3y ago
  Author is speaking from the perspective of decades, even millennia of history. This war didn't emerge from a vacuum, and Israel wasn't always under the thrall of Likud. The change in the status quo is a result of the West growing weak. The weaker the West becomes, the more chaotic the world will become, until the next world order emerges (or the West reclaims the throne).
- mandmandam 3y ago
  Genocide is never acceptable. It's never justified. Never. That's explicit in the Genocide Convention, which Israel signed. The murder of ~700 Israeli civilians was an atrocity. That doesn't justify Israel's disproportionate, indiscriminate, and wholly illegal ongoing series of atrocities in response.
  - vasilipupkin 3y ago
    you can't put an equal sign on the two. Hamas committed horrible acts for genocidal reasons and subsequently vowed to do it again and again, multiple times in speeches of multiple Hamas leaders Israel is trying to destroy Hamas to remove this threat. Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field So, yes, as a result of the fact that Hamas is embedded in civilian areas, innocent people die in the fighting. But it's absurd to assign all the responsibility for this to Israel and zero to Hamas. It's absurd to say Hamas committed an atrocity and Israel should do nothing to stop similar atrocities from happening in the future. And if you concede Israel has the right to defend itself, then how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas?
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      > Israel is trying to destroy Hamas to remove this threat. Are they though? Israel's Minister of Communication just spoke on national TV about the need to make the people of Gaza leave "voluntarily". They want the land. That was always the goal, clearly. Because: How does murdering 20,000 women and children remove the threat of Hamas? How does leveling 75% of residential buildings remove the threat of Hamas? How does salting the earth and destroying all the infrastructure necessary for life remove Hamas? How does bombing historic mosques and churches, or universities and civic buildings remove Hamas? How does blockading food, electricity, internet, essential medicine, and even water remove Hamas? 30,000 Palestinians have been murdered during those war crimes. Israel are bombing and destroying refugee camps, UN shelters, UN schools, humanitarian corridors, and hospitals. In all this, they haven't taken out one single senior Hamas leader in Gaza. NOT ONE. Israel hasn't rescued a single hostage. In fact, when they found three hostages - shirtless, waving white flags and calling out in Hebrew - they murdered them. Can you imagine spending over ten billion dollars, and failing to take out one senior leader or rescue a single hostage? Even when allowed and encouraged by your leadership to kill as many civilians and destroy as much as you need to, to the point where ~90% of the population is now homeless? Really - try, if you can, to imagine that level of failure. The world's fourth largest military, killing 10,000 babies in an effort to save a single hostage or kill a single senior Hamas leader. And failing. And people think this will prevent terror? Absurd. Farcical. I find it hard to believe that anyone is taken in by this - and in fact, most of the world isn't. Even a majority of Americans want a ceasefire, and they're Israel's closest ally. > Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field That doesn't excuse war crimes, or genocide. Neither did the atrocities of October 7th. The Genocide Convention, which Israel signed over 70 years ago, is very clear on that fact. > how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas? Consider - making sure 2.3 million people have nothing to lose is a profoundly stupid way to try and fight terrorism. Israel isn't defending itself - when you invade an occupied land, destroy everything, massacre refugees and kill 5 children every hour for a hundred days straight, that's not defense. It's ethnic cleansing. It's genocide. And denying that makes you a genocide denier. Palestinians have provided HD footage of their suffering, their nightmare, their horror, for 100 days. Israeli leadership have made little attempt to hide their intent - go to israelquotes.com and filter for the word "genocide". You can't claim ignorance any more.
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  It's the IDF soldiers singing about genocide while they're committing ethnic cleansing, as high ranking officials condone genocide and/or ethnic cleansing, that is the issue. 80% of the currently catastrophic hungry in the world are in Gaza, right now. Every hour of time that can be played for causes death, predictably so. Those hospitals that haven't been damaged or destroyed have no fuel or electricity to operate. Just turning off water and enforcing mass starvation isn't "fighting Hamas". It's committing atrocities, if not genocide, while betting that people will simply shrug and blame it on Hamas after the people were murdered, directly or indirectly in even larger numbers. Calling that the playbook isn't just an idle accusation, this has predictive power, since every mention of Israeli crimes against civilians is hardly even looked at before deflecting at Hamas, time and time again.
  - vasilipupkin 3y ago
    there is no doubt that the situation in Gaza is tragic, no argument there But you have to engage with a simplest of facts: two sides are fighting a war in Gaza, right now, two armies. You can't put all the blame on suffering of civilians on Israel because it's a war that Israel didn't start. Israel can't easily stop this war because Hamas has publicly vowed to repeat October 7th again and again and again, a million times if necessary. But Hamas can stop this war and suffering of civilians literally any time by surrendering. I keep hearing the water argument. The water was turned back on first of all, but secondly it's absolutely astonishing to me that people take it as given that Israel has full responsibility to provide water to Palestininans, but Hamas, their own government, does not. I think it's absurd to treat Palestinians and Hamas specifically as if they are children, as if they are unable to make choices and bear responsibility for those choices.
    - runarberg 3y ago
      Gaza is not an autonomous region, but an occupied territory. This is not a war like the Russian invasion into Ukraine but a military operation which the Israel Army is conducting inside territory it controls. This was made abundantly clear at the public hearings in the Hague last Thursday. The IDF does not have any claims to self defense nor acts of war when it is fighting against Hamas. So, yes, you can indeed put all the blame on the suffering of civilians on Israel, because they controlled this territory before, during, and after oct. 7. The conduct of the Israel army should not be compared to an army that is fighting a war, like the Russian or the Ukrainian armies. Rather it should be compared to armies which act to maintain an occupation, like that of the British army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

17 points by jacooper 3y ago

Author decided to ignore the fact that Israel and Hamas are fighting a war and so isn’t grappling with what is actually happening in Gaza. Instead making it seem as if Israel woke up one morning and decided to bomb a bunch of people for no reason.

anigbrowl 3y ago
I'm fine with Israel assassinating Hamas members. Having a legitimate military objective does not give you carte blanche to run over civilians with a steamroller, any more than it gave Hamas just cause to massacre civilians at nearby kibbutzim and a music festival (vs the attacks on IDF bases, which were valid targets in my view).
kstenerud 3y ago
Author is speaking from the perspective of decades, even millennia of history. This war didn't emerge from a vacuum, and Israel wasn't always under the thrall of Likud. The change in the status quo is a result of the West growing weak. The weaker the West becomes, the more chaotic the world will become, until the next world order emerges (or the West reclaims the throne).
mandmandam 3y ago
Genocide is never acceptable. It's never justified. Never. That's explicit in the Genocide Convention, which Israel signed. The murder of ~700 Israeli civilians was an atrocity. That doesn't justify Israel's disproportionate, indiscriminate, and wholly illegal ongoing series of atrocities in response.
- vasilipupkin 3y ago
  you can't put an equal sign on the two. Hamas committed horrible acts for genocidal reasons and subsequently vowed to do it again and again, multiple times in speeches of multiple Hamas leaders Israel is trying to destroy Hamas to remove this threat. Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field So, yes, as a result of the fact that Hamas is embedded in civilian areas, innocent people die in the fighting. But it's absurd to assign all the responsibility for this to Israel and zero to Hamas. It's absurd to say Hamas committed an atrocity and Israel should do nothing to stop similar atrocities from happening in the future. And if you concede Israel has the right to defend itself, then how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas?
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    > Israel is trying to destroy Hamas to remove this threat. Are they though? Israel's Minister of Communication just spoke on national TV about the need to make the people of Gaza leave "voluntarily". They want the land. That was always the goal, clearly. Because: How does murdering 20,000 women and children remove the threat of Hamas? How does leveling 75% of residential buildings remove the threat of Hamas? How does salting the earth and destroying all the infrastructure necessary for life remove Hamas? How does bombing historic mosques and churches, or universities and civic buildings remove Hamas? How does blockading food, electricity, internet, essential medicine, and even water remove Hamas? 30,000 Palestinians have been murdered during those war crimes. Israel are bombing and destroying refugee camps, UN shelters, UN schools, humanitarian corridors, and hospitals. In all this, they haven't taken out one single senior Hamas leader in Gaza. NOT ONE. Israel hasn't rescued a single hostage. In fact, when they found three hostages - shirtless, waving white flags and calling out in Hebrew - they murdered them. Can you imagine spending over ten billion dollars, and failing to take out one senior leader or rescue a single hostage? Even when allowed and encouraged by your leadership to kill as many civilians and destroy as much as you need to, to the point where ~90% of the population is now homeless? Really - try, if you can, to imagine that level of failure. The world's fourth largest military, killing 10,000 babies in an effort to save a single hostage or kill a single senior Hamas leader. And failing. And people think this will prevent terror? Absurd. Farcical. I find it hard to believe that anyone is taken in by this - and in fact, most of the world isn't. Even a majority of Americans want a ceasefire, and they're Israel's closest ally. > Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field That doesn't excuse war crimes, or genocide. Neither did the atrocities of October 7th. The Genocide Convention, which Israel signed over 70 years ago, is very clear on that fact. > how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas? Consider - making sure 2.3 million people have nothing to lose is a profoundly stupid way to try and fight terrorism. Israel isn't defending itself - when you invade an occupied land, destroy everything, massacre refugees and kill 5 children every hour for a hundred days straight, that's not defense. It's ethnic cleansing. It's genocide. And denying that makes you a genocide denier. Palestinians have provided HD footage of their suffering, their nightmare, their horror, for 100 days. Israeli leadership have made little attempt to hide their intent - go to israelquotes.com and filter for the word "genocide". You can't claim ignorance any more.
johnnyworker 3y ago
It's the IDF soldiers singing about genocide while they're committing ethnic cleansing, as high ranking officials condone genocide and/or ethnic cleansing, that is the issue. 80% of the currently catastrophic hungry in the world are in Gaza, right now. Every hour of time that can be played for causes death, predictably so. Those hospitals that haven't been damaged or destroyed have no fuel or electricity to operate. Just turning off water and enforcing mass starvation isn't "fighting Hamas". It's committing atrocities, if not genocide, while betting that people will simply shrug and blame it on Hamas after the people were murdered, directly or indirectly in even larger numbers. Calling that the playbook isn't just an idle accusation, this has predictive power, since every mention of Israeli crimes against civilians is hardly even looked at before deflecting at Hamas, time and time again.
- vasilipupkin 3y ago
  there is no doubt that the situation in Gaza is tragic, no argument there But you have to engage with a simplest of facts: two sides are fighting a war in Gaza, right now, two armies. You can't put all the blame on suffering of civilians on Israel because it's a war that Israel didn't start. Israel can't easily stop this war because Hamas has publicly vowed to repeat October 7th again and again and again, a million times if necessary. But Hamas can stop this war and suffering of civilians literally any time by surrendering. I keep hearing the water argument. The water was turned back on first of all, but secondly it's absolutely astonishing to me that people take it as given that Israel has full responsibility to provide water to Palestininans, but Hamas, their own government, does not. I think it's absurd to treat Palestinians and Hamas specifically as if they are children, as if they are unable to make choices and bear responsibility for those choices.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    Gaza is not an autonomous region, but an occupied territory. This is not a war like the Russian invasion into Ukraine but a military operation which the Israel Army is conducting inside territory it controls. This was made abundantly clear at the public hearings in the Hague last Thursday. The IDF does not have any claims to self defense nor acts of war when it is fighting against Hamas. So, yes, you can indeed put all the blame on the suffering of civilians on Israel, because they controlled this territory before, during, and after oct. 7. The conduct of the Israel army should not be compared to an army that is fighting a war, like the Russian or the Ukrainian armies. Rather it should be compared to armies which act to maintain an occupation, like that of the British army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.