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Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be? They're the leaders of a terrorist organization. The US takes out terrorists wherever they may be

Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be? They're the leaders of a terrorist organization. The US takes out terrorists wherever they may be (or, works with local authorities to get them first). But, when local authorities are siding with the terrorists, we go in there and do it ourselves. October 7th was Israel's 9/11 - we went and got bin Laden in Pakistan, without dealing with the Pakistani government. Why shouldn't Israel do the same thing? I say - kill all the Hamas leadership, and leave the random Palestinian citizens alone.

axus 1y ago
There was only one bin Laden, and we didn't use missiles for that one.
kayodelycaon 1y ago
We have bombed their leadership. This is an entirely different war. Hamas was/is the government of Gaza. They're part of the people there, not outside it. You're trying to fight an organization that is part of the civilian population, not above it or outside of it. And that organization is deliberately using human shields to blur the lines even further. It's not easy to figure out who's a random Palestinian or who's going to fire a rocket into Israel five years from now. If we want to keep bombing our way to victory, that's going to continue down the road of genocide. Humanity needs to be better than this. We need to be better than this.
- fahhem 1y ago
  I can turn anyone, including you, into "someone who will fire a rocket in 5 years". Give me US backing and I can do it in 4
  - kayodelycaon 1y ago
    Out of curiosity, how would you plan to do that? You know nothing about me.
    - churchill 1y ago
      >I can turn anyone, including you, into "someone who will fire a rocket in 5 years". Give me US backing and I can do it in 4 Echoing OP's point, I can turn you into a person who'll fire a rocket in a year, even. Go read through B'Tselem's reports of Israel's torture camps [0] where tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians are systematically raped, murdered, and abused as a matter of state policy. By the time you undergo that from youth, with half the people in your family gone for years, imprisoned in such camps, while half the kids you grew up with have died in senseless state-sanctioned murder, you'll be ready to do something worse that firing rockets. Of course, you'll argue, from a sheltered perspective that you wouldn't ever do something like that. So, what will you do instead of fighting back? Sue? LMAO. Protest? You'll get shot. Just focus on building a family? Your home will get demolished or bombed just because. [0]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell
    - FireBeyond 1y ago
      Turn your electricity off for days on end when someone in your country does something that other country disagrees with. Hell, turn your fresh water off too. Bomb your only airport into non-functioning rubble, and tell you that if you try to rebuild it, the same thing will happen. Keep that up for 20 years. Park destroyers in your harbors to ensure nothing gets in or out of the country without their say so. Keep that up for a few decades as well. Keep your land border effectively locked down so you can't even leave that way. Bulldoze your neighborhood and childhood home because a rocket was suspected to be launched from nearby. When the other kids in your neighborhood throw rocks at the armored bulldozers, watch as they have rubber bullets shot at them by an army. When they throw rocks at the army, watch as those soldiers return fire with live ammunition. No, I know nothing about you. But don't pretend that having that as the only existence you've known is not going to make you increasingly angry and willing to fight back in any way, shape, or form, against the boot on your throat.
      - velcrohn 1y ago
        You left out a lot of things. You are trying to make a point. I don’t expect you to put in all the things that go against your point, but you left out so many that maybe your point is not worth making.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be? Israel wouldn't be nearly as criticised if they're restricted themselves to surgical strikes on Hamas. Hell, they could have done exactly what they did until hostages started being exchanged, and then switched to surgical strikes, and I suspect--while folks would grumble--leaders would have better things to focus on.
- belorn 1y ago
  Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is. The US military defined anyone killed above the age of 15 to be a terrorist regardless of situation, and thus by definition had almost zero civilian deaths. It was one of those things that got leaked through the war logs. The war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people. Surgical strikes is not a good description for that, nor was the war on terror a good model for how to behave in a war.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war. More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.) > war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
    - throwaway3060 1y ago
      > the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states. Which is why holding Israel to a higher standard than we hold ourselves is odd, to say the least.
mnw21cam 1y ago
Let's imagine that a political opposition leader from Russia were to take refuge in the US. Now imagine that Russia performed a "surgical strike" bombing in the US to kill what they viewed as a terrorist leader. Can you imagine the outrage that would occur? That's exactly the situation that Qatar has just experienced. It's an act of war. One country bombing another country means they are at war. Now, the power dynamics in this region mean that they'll probably get away with it, and Qatar is more likely to let it slip than not, but it's still morally reprehensible.
- velcrohn 1y ago
  But in your example, the unstated premise is that the opposition leader is not in fact a terrorist, so his killing is wrong. In the case of Hamas, they are in fact terrorists. So the analogy fails.
  - mnw21cam 1y ago
    No, that's not the point. Whether someone is a terrorist is subjective. Russia could (and likely would) define their opposition leader as a terrorist. My point is that if Russia were to conduct a bombing on US soil, regardless of who it was targeting, the response would be severe and the reasonable onlookers would not blame the US for being "upset" about it. Yet that is exactly what Israel has done to Qatar.
    - shykes 1y ago
      There is in fact international consensus on what constitutes a terrorist organization. Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Houtis, Boko Haram and so on, very clearly quality. Sure, China or Russia can and will label political opponents "terrorists" to justify persecution against them. Their goal is to destroy the international consensus, so that "terrorist" becomes a purely subjective label. By equating Israel's bombing of an actual terrorist group with Russia's persecution of a fake one, you are supporting Russia in this effort. Instead, you should equate Israel killing Hamas leaders with the US killing Bin Laden, coalition forces bombing ISIS in Iraq, France bombing islamists in Mali, etc.
courseofaction 1y ago
Hilarious. 9/11 was used as a false pretense for invading Iraq, killing millions, for geopolitics and oil. Never let a good crisis go to waste they say
muddi900 1y ago
Well because Israel asked them to come to Qatar for mediation. From Turkey. Where they can't attack because it is a NATO member. It was duplicitous move that not only put an end to any good faith negotiations, but also attacke a mediator in a negotiation. The hostages are dead and the Israeli military killed them.

axus 1y ago

There was only one bin Laden, and we didn't use missiles for that one.

kayodelycaon 1y ago

We have bombed their leadership. This is an entirely different war. Hamas was/is the government of Gaza. They're part of the people there, not outside it. You're trying to fight an organization that is part of the civilian population, not above it or outside of it. And that organization is deliberately using human shields to blur the lines even further. It's not easy to figure out who's a random Palestinian or who's going to fire a rocket into Israel five years from now. If we want to keep bombing our way to victory, that's going to continue down the road of genocide. Humanity needs to be better than this. We need to be better than this.

fahhem 1y ago
I can turn anyone, including you, into "someone who will fire a rocket in 5 years". Give me US backing and I can do it in 4
- kayodelycaon 1y ago
  Out of curiosity, how would you plan to do that? You know nothing about me.
  - churchill 1y ago
    >I can turn anyone, including you, into "someone who will fire a rocket in 5 years". Give me US backing and I can do it in 4 Echoing OP's point, I can turn you into a person who'll fire a rocket in a year, even. Go read through B'Tselem's reports of Israel's torture camps [0] where tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians are systematically raped, murdered, and abused as a matter of state policy. By the time you undergo that from youth, with half the people in your family gone for years, imprisoned in such camps, while half the kids you grew up with have died in senseless state-sanctioned murder, you'll be ready to do something worse that firing rockets. Of course, you'll argue, from a sheltered perspective that you wouldn't ever do something like that. So, what will you do instead of fighting back? Sue? LMAO. Protest? You'll get shot. Just focus on building a family? Your home will get demolished or bombed just because. [0]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    Turn your electricity off for days on end when someone in your country does something that other country disagrees with. Hell, turn your fresh water off too. Bomb your only airport into non-functioning rubble, and tell you that if you try to rebuild it, the same thing will happen. Keep that up for 20 years. Park destroyers in your harbors to ensure nothing gets in or out of the country without their say so. Keep that up for a few decades as well. Keep your land border effectively locked down so you can't even leave that way. Bulldoze your neighborhood and childhood home because a rocket was suspected to be launched from nearby. When the other kids in your neighborhood throw rocks at the armored bulldozers, watch as they have rubber bullets shot at them by an army. When they throw rocks at the army, watch as those soldiers return fire with live ammunition. No, I know nothing about you. But don't pretend that having that as the only existence you've known is not going to make you increasingly angry and willing to fight back in any way, shape, or form, against the boot on your throat.
    - velcrohn 1y ago
      You left out a lot of things. You are trying to make a point. I don’t expect you to put in all the things that go against your point, but you left out so many that maybe your point is not worth making.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> Why shouldn't Hamas leadership be bombed wherever they may be? Israel wouldn't be nearly as criticised if they're restricted themselves to surgical strikes on Hamas. Hell, they could have done exactly what they did until hostages started being exchanged, and then switched to surgical strikes, and I suspect--while folks would grumble--leaders would have better things to focus on.

belorn 1y ago
Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is. The US military defined anyone killed above the age of 15 to be a terrorist regardless of situation, and thus by definition had almost zero civilian deaths. It was one of those things that got leaked through the war logs. The war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people. Surgical strikes is not a good description for that, nor was the war on terror a good model for how to behave in a war.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Surgical strikes is mostly a myth presented to make the war on terrorism look better than it is Even if they are, which I don't grant, myths matter in the fog of war. More pointedly, surgical strikes would mean serially decapitating Hamas and destroying its infrastructure from the sky. It would preclude messing with aid flows. (Even if Hamas steals all the food, you can't turn most food into weapons. And Hamas amassing fighters they have to feed isn't a strategic threat to Israel in the way their ports and tunnels are.) > war on terror is estimated to have killed 4,5 million people One, source? Two, the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states.
  - throwaway3060 1y ago
    > the U.S. obviously didn't prosecute a surgical war on the Taliban or Al Qaeda. We invaded, occupied and attempted to rebuild two nation states. Which is why holding Israel to a higher standard than we hold ourselves is odd, to say the least.

mnw21cam 1y ago

Let's imagine that a political opposition leader from Russia were to take refuge in the US. Now imagine that Russia performed a "surgical strike" bombing in the US to kill what they viewed as a terrorist leader. Can you imagine the outrage that would occur? That's exactly the situation that Qatar has just experienced. It's an act of war. One country bombing another country means they are at war. Now, the power dynamics in this region mean that they'll probably get away with it, and Qatar is more likely to let it slip than not, but it's still morally reprehensible.

velcrohn 1y ago
But in your example, the unstated premise is that the opposition leader is not in fact a terrorist, so his killing is wrong. In the case of Hamas, they are in fact terrorists. So the analogy fails.
- mnw21cam 1y ago
  No, that's not the point. Whether someone is a terrorist is subjective. Russia could (and likely would) define their opposition leader as a terrorist. My point is that if Russia were to conduct a bombing on US soil, regardless of who it was targeting, the response would be severe and the reasonable onlookers would not blame the US for being "upset" about it. Yet that is exactly what Israel has done to Qatar.
  - shykes 1y ago
    There is in fact international consensus on what constitutes a terrorist organization. Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Houtis, Boko Haram and so on, very clearly quality. Sure, China or Russia can and will label political opponents "terrorists" to justify persecution against them. Their goal is to destroy the international consensus, so that "terrorist" becomes a purely subjective label. By equating Israel's bombing of an actual terrorist group with Russia's persecution of a fake one, you are supporting Russia in this effort. Instead, you should equate Israel killing Hamas leaders with the US killing Bin Laden, coalition forces bombing ISIS in Iraq, France bombing islamists in Mali, etc.

courseofaction 1y ago

Hilarious. 9/11 was used as a false pretense for invading Iraq, killing millions, for geopolitics and oil. Never let a good crisis go to waste they say

muddi900 1y ago

Well because Israel asked them to come to Qatar for mediation. From Turkey. Where they can't attack because it is a NATO member. It was duplicitous move that not only put an end to any good faith negotiations, but also attacke a mediator in a negotiation. The hostages are dead and the Israeli military killed them.