8 ms·

In this seemingly forever argument, it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa. One of the perspectives as I understand it is t

In this seemingly forever argument, it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa. One of the perspectives as I understand it is that Hamas is actually a threat to the existence of Palestine; the militaristic behaviour undermines Palestinian efforts at independence (and this is an avenue for exploitation by those who don't want to see an independent Palestine). It is a similar situation with Hezbollah in Lebanon. You can argue that the government of Israel isn't the will of the people of Israel (in the same way the US government isn't the will of the people of the US), but in my opinion there's more of a separation between 'Palestine' and 'Hamas' than there is between 'Israel' and 'the will of the people of Israel'. There's a lot of wrongdoing, which means there are a lot of innocents being harmed, and the harming of innocents is the greatest wrongdoing. Harm by inaction is also wrong. Harm by preventing aid and assistance is also wrong. None of this stuff is easily answered. The joys of ideology, or maybe more correctly, the joys of living amongst those who take ideology so seriously that they attempt to enforce their fantasies upon the real world. In my personal logic bubble: Protesting in support of Palestine is not protesting in support of Hamas. Declaring support for Israel is protesting against Hamas and their acts of terrorism against Israel. I can do both of these things without being hypocritical (like I said, in my personal logic bubble).

keypusher 4mo ago
Hamas has been the democratically elected government of Palestine since 2006. That was the year after Israel pulled all their military out of Gaza.
- mptest 4mo ago
  "democratically elected" being an extremely load bearing sentiment if you know anything about what people's lives are actually like on the ground. did you know a large majority of the populace didn't even vote in 2006? since 2006? there hasn't been elections since. The median age is 18. Pulled all their military out? Oh, they still controlled their airspace, critical infra, borders tho? Sounds very self determined! Serious, bad faith or extremely reductive misrepresentation that I can't tell is borne from ignorance willful or accidental. your comment is the equivalent of acting like cuba's economy is all their own choosing, without analyzing the immense damage sanctions (and why sanctions were there in the first place) have done to the country, or accosting haiti without knowing why their struggles exist. context matters.
- mthoms 4mo ago
  That's a weird way of saying there hasn't been an election in 20 years.
- crote 4mo ago
  2006 is 20(!) years ago, the elections had a 70% turnout, and Hamas received only 44% of the vote. Considering that about 60% of the Gaza population is age 20 or younger, that means about 18% of the current population voted for Hamas. And of course Israel directly helped this by arresting a huge number of Hamas politicians right before the elections, and openly interfering with the election process in general. So no, Hamas does not represent the will of the people in Gaza, and calling it "democratically elected" is at this point a straight-up lie.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- piva00 4mo ago
  Support for Hamas also came from Netanyahu[0], he explicitly gave support to be used as wedge for the Palestinian cause, to perpetuate the conflict giving casus belli to Israeli actions against Palestinians in Gaza. [0] https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-hamas-october-7-adam-raz/ https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-hamas-october-7-adam-raz/
- citadel_melon 4mo ago
  This argument you make is the same one Osama bin Laden uses in his 2004 “Letter to the American People”: he argues that because the American people re-elected George W. Bush, the populace was complicit in the policy consequences, self-rationalizing 2001. Congratulations for using a heuristic that resulted in 9/11! Osama’s rationalization at least had a more accurate premise that the American people continued to be able to vote — unlike in Palestine. So congrats on having either a worse moral compass or worse reasoning skills than Bin Laden!
jmyeet 4mo ago
No, it's actually really simple. You start with these two questions: 1. Is Israel an apartheid state? 2. Is Israel committing a genocide? At this point (IMHO) you need to do some serious mental gymnastics not to answer "yes" to both questions. As soon as you do, it gets real simple. The existence of Hamas doesn't justify either of these things. The people who bring this up are engaging in respectability politics or engaging in weaponized cvility. Instead of addressing the underlying issues, the focus is on the methods and the actions of the oppressed when it is the oppressor that sets the level of violence. As Nelson Mandela put it: > A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire. People understood this quite clearly with apartheid South Africa. Can you imagine protesters having to do the performative "does apartheid South Africa have a right to exist?" pledge? No, me neither.
- ameminator 4mo ago
  While I actually have sympathy for people on both sides of the struggle, I also find it hard to answer "yes" to both questions, mostly because of how muddied the definitions of everything are. It's obvious to me, that both the Israeli government and Hamas are both committing serious warcrimes, and that there no good actors here, here are some questions I don't have an answer to. For example, is Palestine its own country? Is Hamas is its rightful government? Does that extend to the West Bank or only in Gaza? Palestinians seem to say that Palestine is its own country, Israelis say that Palestinians are not a part of Israel - so how can it be an apartheid state if BOTH sides say they aren't part of the same country at all? Is Israel committing a genocide? Well, what does a genocide look like? Israel is still distributing food in Gaza, to this day. I don't think it would look like this, but at the same time, there are terrorists on both sides (Itamar ben-Gvir being the most prominent on the Israeli side, in my opinion). There are more issues and questions and uncertainty around the problems in Israel, Palestine, the Levant as a whole, Iran's involvement and so on. Even worse, for most Israelis (who are 70% of Arab descent), the country of Israel no longer existing could mean a real genocide for the Israel side! (A counter-genocide?) Regardless, if this issue were easy to solve, it would have been solved already. Honestly, the situation seems to complicated to boil down to two "simple" questions and I admire that you can have such an "obvious" outlook, but the more I look at Israel and the Middle East (and read, and research), the more questions I have.
yodsanklai 4mo ago
There's simply no excuse for what Israel has been doing and everyone with a functioning moral compass should be denouncing it. Debating about Hamas is a distraction. They have a right to defend their country, but not treating a whole population as collateral damage.
- BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
  I agree with your first sentence. The rest is the messy middle around which negotiation is required for any form of minimal co-existence.
  - stanleykm 4mo ago
    Israel has a right to defend itself, but Palestine does not?
    - philipallstar 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      - mcmcmc 4mo ago
        > It's like if people in Wales were constantly firing rockets at London because they wanted to destroy all English people, and England doing nothing about it for years until there was a huge slaughter, and then finally retaliating. Or just like the IRA… asymmetric warfare/terrorism is a natural response to violent oppression
        Sabinus 4mo ago
        Discarded proportionalty calculations is in response to asymmetric warfare/terrorism which is in response to violent oppression is in response to ethnic conflict, which is in response to migration which is in response to persecution. Everyone has factors influencing their decisions but everyone still has their own agency and responsibility.
        4mo ago
donsupreme 4mo ago
I am tired boss
- BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
  Tell me about it!
ameminator 4mo ago
I mostly agree, except for the blatant calls for genocide from the Israeli side, and the blatant calls for genocide from the Palestinian side. I honestly don't know who to support - neither side wants to live with the other, and it seems, eventually, one of those sides will get their wish. To the detriment of us all.
sfifs 4mo ago
I think Israel's leadership has very unwisely lost the Strategic plot here in favour of tactical political advantages of survival. The history of middle East for the last 5000 years (since Sargon of Akkad) is replete with 'the king X "pacified" (the most commonly used euphemism) the people in the conquered territory'. It has never gone well for the victors under successors of king X, often within a generation or two. In today's age when access to technology and information is such that any small sufficiently competent and motivated group can cause massive destruction, is it wise to keep creating motivated enemies and expect they will somehow never become competent or that the competent won't become motivated? It is doubly ironic given Israel's own defense industrial complex is filled with such small motivated and competent groups and the evidence of Ukraine/Russia conflict is staring in the face. This situation will blow up I fear within a generation unless Israeli society chooses different leaders.
- Sabinus 4mo ago
  I agree. Netanyahu's strategy of destroying the possibility for the 2 state solution just locks his country into a future of either apartheid, ethnic minority status, or eternal war against ever more sophisticated and hateful enemies. None are futures he wants. I wonder what the long term vision is? If the Palestinians have a hard enough time they'll just migrate away faster than they have children?
TiredOfLife 4mo ago
> Protesting in support of Palestine is not protesting in support of Hamas. Yet every Palestine support protest includes Hamas symbols and chants to exterminate a certain group of people.
- BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
  One MAGA hat at a Republican rally doesn't mean all Republicans are MAGA. If anything is to be learnt, it is that individuals should be judged as individuals, or at least that individuals should not be judged by the worst actions of a group that they may (only appear to) be a part of. A good way for "one side" to trivialise or demonise "the other side" would be to seed "the other side" with extremist messaging.
  - dzhiurgis 4mo ago
    IDK, but a "pretty soon it's a nazi bar" fable kinda fits here. It's insane how universities are so chill when students literally call for genocide of Jews.
    - cultofmetatron 4mo ago
      > It's insane how universities are so chill when students literally call for genocide of Jews. where exactly have students "literally" called for genocide of jews? The only people I've heard the "kill them all" mentality blatently to my face so far have been pro israel zionists.
Computer0 4mo ago
Hamas is good. Supporting Hamas is not bad. The US military has done exponentially worse things.
Computer0 4mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
paulddraper 4mo ago
> it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa That's like saying the Nazis were not Germany and vice versa. That is technically correct. Hamas governs Palestine (to be precise, Gaza).
- mvdtnz 4mo ago
  Hamas also has widespread support within Palestine. Overwhelmingly the population of Palestine supports the actions of October 7. There is no clean separation between Palestine and Hamas, as much as one side wants you to believe there is.
karmakurtisaani 4mo ago
> One of the perspectives as I understand it is that Hamas is actually a threat to the existence of Palestine; Don't forget that Israel financially supported Hamas for this exact reason.
- spwa4 4mo ago
  Why are there always so many conspiracy theories around the Israeli government. I mean, I'm sure one or two hold water. But the vast majority ... And an even bigger mystery: why are there never conspiracy theories about hamas and the PLA? I mean, hamas is a conspiracy. There's no serious doubt about that. Obviously while there is a problem in Israel, Palestinians aren't behind hamas, unless they get very well paid. Many very bad state actors support Palestinian organizations, going back a loooong time. The PLA was created with the help of the KGB, imagine that. That's not a theory, that's a fact. Iran supports hamas. Qatar supports hamas. I mean, for hamas there's no doubt. It very much is a conspiracy, against Israel, against Jews (the KGB are the authors of "the protocols of the elders of zion" and the source of the whole Jews wanting to massacre the world theory) and against "the west" in general. China, massacres muslims and "reeducates" them in China, with hamas support btw, and supports hamas ... Do you think the KGB wants to support palestinians? Or muslims? Do you think China does? Do you think Iran wants to support Sunni religious nutcases? How do they treat those in Iran?
  - karmakurtisaani 4mo ago
    Not a conspiracy theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas A lot of shady stuff happens in the region. This is one of them and certainly something to be aware of. > Do you think the KGB wants to support palestinians? Or muslims? Do you think China does? Do you think Iran wants to support Sunni religious nutcases? How do they treat those in Iran? Why is it that every pro Israel comment is full of unrelated questions? My answer to all of these is: I don't care in this context.
    - spwa4 4mo ago
      > Why is it that every pro Israel comment is full of unrelated questions? My answer to all of these is: I don't care in this context. In other words, you're antisemitic. You don't care of a great many states that they have very bad intentions towards everyone, including Palestinians, you only care for conspiracy theories that say Jews do this too.
xphos 4mo ago
I mean the problem with this argument is that it is than transitively true than an entire people of any country with a crazy leader who bombs random countries in the middle east are inline and malovaent. I just disagree because that would imply the will of the US and its entire people is to bomb Palestine and Iran including these kids exiting there graduation. That argument just is factually debased. Collective blame of people for their government even in democracies just doesn't follow. I agree that support for Palestine is not necessiarly support for Hamas and collective punishiment for Palestine from Hamas's actions is horrible but their is something to playing a useful idiot. And I think Israel and Palestine protesters both do this. Israel could 100% kill Hamas leadership and cause a democracy movement to elect a reasonable leadership in Palestine but they don't and don't want to. Palestine protesters actively persue a 1 state solution in its extreme to model it on the US and I don't think it works that way especially with such a vocal majority in Israel opposed to it. Hamas also don't really want a 2 state solution either because that would be real long term concessions and also a degradation of their authority because they are murders and losers but they are "protecting" some Palestians from Israel. Israel game here is they want prolong conflict and attacks like Oct. 7 because it justifies more annexation and attacks like Oct. 7 do give strong affimative arguments to take action against Hamas and Palestine whether you like it or not. Long winded way of saying its a quagmire but if the US wanted to spend less and solve the problem they need to strong arm their ally to engage in generating a democractic uprising against Hamas in exchange for concessions of land (mostly settler land) after a new democratic state reins in their radicals. I think Palestians would jump at that idea but Hamas would be extremely anti that idea because they would be the pariah in their society. Its pragamtic solution but also 1 that requires long term follow through that is also likely to fail. To me that the Kotkin approach no one is happy but progress is possible

keypusher 4mo ago

Hamas has been the democratically elected government of Palestine since 2006. That was the year after Israel pulled all their military out of Gaza.

mptest 4mo ago
"democratically elected" being an extremely load bearing sentiment if you know anything about what people's lives are actually like on the ground. did you know a large majority of the populace didn't even vote in 2006? since 2006? there hasn't been elections since. The median age is 18. Pulled all their military out? Oh, they still controlled their airspace, critical infra, borders tho? Sounds very self determined! Serious, bad faith or extremely reductive misrepresentation that I can't tell is borne from ignorance willful or accidental. your comment is the equivalent of acting like cuba's economy is all their own choosing, without analyzing the immense damage sanctions (and why sanctions were there in the first place) have done to the country, or accosting haiti without knowing why their struggles exist. context matters.
mthoms 4mo ago
That's a weird way of saying there hasn't been an election in 20 years.
crote 4mo ago
2006 is 20(!) years ago, the elections had a 70% turnout, and Hamas received only 44% of the vote. Considering that about 60% of the Gaza population is age 20 or younger, that means about 18% of the current population voted for Hamas. And of course Israel directly helped this by arresting a huge number of Hamas politicians right before the elections, and openly interfering with the election process in general. So no, Hamas does not represent the will of the people in Gaza, and calling it "democratically elected" is at this point a straight-up lie.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
piva00 4mo ago
Support for Hamas also came from Netanyahu[0], he explicitly gave support to be used as wedge for the Palestinian cause, to perpetuate the conflict giving casus belli to Israeli actions against Palestinians in Gaza. [0] https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-hamas-october-7-adam-raz/ https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-hamas-october-7-adam-raz/
citadel_melon 4mo ago
This argument you make is the same one Osama bin Laden uses in his 2004 “Letter to the American People”: he argues that because the American people re-elected George W. Bush, the populace was complicit in the policy consequences, self-rationalizing 2001. Congratulations for using a heuristic that resulted in 9/11! Osama’s rationalization at least had a more accurate premise that the American people continued to be able to vote — unlike in Palestine. So congrats on having either a worse moral compass or worse reasoning skills than Bin Laden!

jmyeet 4mo ago

No, it's actually really simple. You start with these two questions: 1. Is Israel an apartheid state? 2. Is Israel committing a genocide? At this point (IMHO) you need to do some serious mental gymnastics not to answer "yes" to both questions. As soon as you do, it gets real simple. The existence of Hamas doesn't justify either of these things. The people who bring this up are engaging in respectability politics or engaging in weaponized cvility. Instead of addressing the underlying issues, the focus is on the methods and the actions of the oppressed when it is the oppressor that sets the level of violence. As Nelson Mandela put it: > A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire. People understood this quite clearly with apartheid South Africa. Can you imagine protesters having to do the performative "does apartheid South Africa have a right to exist?" pledge? No, me neither.

ameminator 4mo ago
While I actually have sympathy for people on both sides of the struggle, I also find it hard to answer "yes" to both questions, mostly because of how muddied the definitions of everything are. It's obvious to me, that both the Israeli government and Hamas are both committing serious warcrimes, and that there no good actors here, here are some questions I don't have an answer to. For example, is Palestine its own country? Is Hamas is its rightful government? Does that extend to the West Bank or only in Gaza? Palestinians seem to say that Palestine is its own country, Israelis say that Palestinians are not a part of Israel - so how can it be an apartheid state if BOTH sides say they aren't part of the same country at all? Is Israel committing a genocide? Well, what does a genocide look like? Israel is still distributing food in Gaza, to this day. I don't think it would look like this, but at the same time, there are terrorists on both sides (Itamar ben-Gvir being the most prominent on the Israeli side, in my opinion). There are more issues and questions and uncertainty around the problems in Israel, Palestine, the Levant as a whole, Iran's involvement and so on. Even worse, for most Israelis (who are 70% of Arab descent), the country of Israel no longer existing could mean a real genocide for the Israel side! (A counter-genocide?) Regardless, if this issue were easy to solve, it would have been solved already. Honestly, the situation seems to complicated to boil down to two "simple" questions and I admire that you can have such an "obvious" outlook, but the more I look at Israel and the Middle East (and read, and research), the more questions I have.

yodsanklai 4mo ago

There's simply no excuse for what Israel has been doing and everyone with a functioning moral compass should be denouncing it. Debating about Hamas is a distraction. They have a right to defend their country, but not treating a whole population as collateral damage.

BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
I agree with your first sentence. The rest is the messy middle around which negotiation is required for any form of minimal co-existence.
- stanleykm 4mo ago
  Israel has a right to defend itself, but Palestine does not?
  - philipallstar 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - mcmcmc 4mo ago
      > It's like if people in Wales were constantly firing rockets at London because they wanted to destroy all English people, and England doing nothing about it for years until there was a huge slaughter, and then finally retaliating. Or just like the IRA… asymmetric warfare/terrorism is a natural response to violent oppression
      - Sabinus 4mo ago
        Discarded proportionalty calculations is in response to asymmetric warfare/terrorism which is in response to violent oppression is in response to ethnic conflict, which is in response to migration which is in response to persecution. Everyone has factors influencing their decisions but everyone still has their own agency and responsibility.
      - 4mo ago

donsupreme 4mo ago

I am tired boss

BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
Tell me about it!

ameminator 4mo ago

I mostly agree, except for the blatant calls for genocide from the Israeli side, and the blatant calls for genocide from the Palestinian side. I honestly don't know who to support - neither side wants to live with the other, and it seems, eventually, one of those sides will get their wish. To the detriment of us all.

sfifs 4mo ago

I think Israel's leadership has very unwisely lost the Strategic plot here in favour of tactical political advantages of survival. The history of middle East for the last 5000 years (since Sargon of Akkad) is replete with 'the king X "pacified" (the most commonly used euphemism) the people in the conquered territory'. It has never gone well for the victors under successors of king X, often within a generation or two. In today's age when access to technology and information is such that any small sufficiently competent and motivated group can cause massive destruction, is it wise to keep creating motivated enemies and expect they will somehow never become competent or that the competent won't become motivated? It is doubly ironic given Israel's own defense industrial complex is filled with such small motivated and competent groups and the evidence of Ukraine/Russia conflict is staring in the face. This situation will blow up I fear within a generation unless Israeli society chooses different leaders.

Sabinus 4mo ago
I agree. Netanyahu's strategy of destroying the possibility for the 2 state solution just locks his country into a future of either apartheid, ethnic minority status, or eternal war against ever more sophisticated and hateful enemies. None are futures he wants. I wonder what the long term vision is? If the Palestinians have a hard enough time they'll just migrate away faster than they have children?

TiredOfLife 4mo ago

> Protesting in support of Palestine is not protesting in support of Hamas. Yet every Palestine support protest includes Hamas symbols and chants to exterminate a certain group of people.

BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
One MAGA hat at a Republican rally doesn't mean all Republicans are MAGA. If anything is to be learnt, it is that individuals should be judged as individuals, or at least that individuals should not be judged by the worst actions of a group that they may (only appear to) be a part of. A good way for "one side" to trivialise or demonise "the other side" would be to seed "the other side" with extremist messaging.
- dzhiurgis 4mo ago
  IDK, but a "pretty soon it's a nazi bar" fable kinda fits here. It's insane how universities are so chill when students literally call for genocide of Jews.
  - cultofmetatron 4mo ago
    > It's insane how universities are so chill when students literally call for genocide of Jews. where exactly have students "literally" called for genocide of jews? The only people I've heard the "kill them all" mentality blatently to my face so far have been pro israel zionists.

Computer0 4mo ago

Hamas is good. Supporting Hamas is not bad. The US military has done exponentially worse things.

Computer0 4mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

paulddraper 4mo ago

> it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa That's like saying the Nazis were not Germany and vice versa. That is technically correct. Hamas governs Palestine (to be precise, Gaza).

mvdtnz 4mo ago
Hamas also has widespread support within Palestine. Overwhelmingly the population of Palestine supports the actions of October 7. There is no clean separation between Palestine and Hamas, as much as one side wants you to believe there is.

karmakurtisaani 4mo ago

> One of the perspectives as I understand it is that Hamas is actually a threat to the existence of Palestine; Don't forget that Israel financially supported Hamas for this exact reason.

spwa4 4mo ago
Why are there always so many conspiracy theories around the Israeli government. I mean, I'm sure one or two hold water. But the vast majority ... And an even bigger mystery: why are there never conspiracy theories about hamas and the PLA? I mean, hamas is a conspiracy. There's no serious doubt about that. Obviously while there is a problem in Israel, Palestinians aren't behind hamas, unless they get very well paid. Many very bad state actors support Palestinian organizations, going back a loooong time. The PLA was created with the help of the KGB, imagine that. That's not a theory, that's a fact. Iran supports hamas. Qatar supports hamas. I mean, for hamas there's no doubt. It very much is a conspiracy, against Israel, against Jews (the KGB are the authors of "the protocols of the elders of zion" and the source of the whole Jews wanting to massacre the world theory) and against "the west" in general. China, massacres muslims and "reeducates" them in China, with hamas support btw, and supports hamas ... Do you think the KGB wants to support palestinians? Or muslims? Do you think China does? Do you think Iran wants to support Sunni religious nutcases? How do they treat those in Iran?
- karmakurtisaani 4mo ago
  Not a conspiracy theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas A lot of shady stuff happens in the region. This is one of them and certainly something to be aware of. > Do you think the KGB wants to support palestinians? Or muslims? Do you think China does? Do you think Iran wants to support Sunni religious nutcases? How do they treat those in Iran? Why is it that every pro Israel comment is full of unrelated questions? My answer to all of these is: I don't care in this context.
  - spwa4 4mo ago
    > Why is it that every pro Israel comment is full of unrelated questions? My answer to all of these is: I don't care in this context. In other words, you're antisemitic. You don't care of a great many states that they have very bad intentions towards everyone, including Palestinians, you only care for conspiracy theories that say Jews do this too.

xphos 4mo ago

I mean the problem with this argument is that it is than transitively true than an entire people of any country with a crazy leader who bombs random countries in the middle east are inline and malovaent. I just disagree because that would imply the will of the US and its entire people is to bomb Palestine and Iran including these kids exiting there graduation. That argument just is factually debased. Collective blame of people for their government even in democracies just doesn't follow. I agree that support for Palestine is not necessiarly support for Hamas and collective punishiment for Palestine from Hamas's actions is horrible but their is something to playing a useful idiot. And I think Israel and Palestine protesters both do this. Israel could 100% kill Hamas leadership and cause a democracy movement to elect a reasonable leadership in Palestine but they don't and don't want to. Palestine protesters actively persue a 1 state solution in its extreme to model it on the US and I don't think it works that way especially with such a vocal majority in Israel opposed to it. Hamas also don't really want a 2 state solution either because that would be real long term concessions and also a degradation of their authority because they are murders and losers but they are "protecting" some Palestians from Israel. Israel game here is they want prolong conflict and attacks like Oct. 7 because it justifies more annexation and attacks like Oct. 7 do give strong affimative arguments to take action against Hamas and Palestine whether you like it or not. Long winded way of saying its a quagmire but if the US wanted to spend less and solve the problem they need to strong arm their ally to engage in generating a democractic uprising against Hamas in exchange for concessions of land (mostly settler land) after a new democratic state reins in their radicals. I think Palestians would jump at that idea but Hamas would be extremely anti that idea because they would be the pariah in their society. Its pragamtic solution but also 1 that requires long term follow through that is also likely to fail. To me that the Kotkin approach no one is happy but progress is possible