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Israel/Hamas conflict
- Thread starter Buckminster
- Start date
I don't know why you assume that I am somehow happy about death of Israeli civilians... I am not.
But you got to back your claims of torture and rape... Again, I am not saying these things not happened.. They may have. But the tone is such that there was mass tortures or rape or something like that. You'd think there are dozens of women raped, but somehow no evidence has been found. (I hope nothing gets found, not that I'd be right, but it would mean no one was raped, which is a terrible crime).
Israeli police ask victims and witnesses to testify about Hamas sexual violence
The problem is, Israel tried to use this narrative of mass & gross acts to justify the out-of-proportion respond.
Problem is, there is no proof for most of these allegations. Beheaded babies etc, all lies. And we know Israel does lie, a lot. Remember Shireen Abu Akleh? Murdered by Israeli army. They immediately denied. Then blamed some islamist group... Then finally, as they usually do, accepted that they did it. This is a pattern. They lie to get what they want or avoid PR issues... but the truth always comes up.
Shireen Abu Akleh: Israel Defense Forces apologizes for her death for the first time | CNN
I agree with first two of your statements.
Oct 7th was about getting the attention of the world, who has unfortunately forgotten the occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing of Palestinian lands/people.
And it was definitely about upsetting the normalization deals, where arabs are backstabbing and selling out Palestinians for money...
The description from the video:
So your argument is, Gazans have some nice places, therefore everything is great. Gazans have (or had) market place, universities, hospitals... Would you be happier if they didn't even have those things? I don't understand your argument.
Anyways, while they had these amenities, they are also under occupation, they have no control over their "borders" (meaning the fence and wall surrounding them), they can't leave, pretty much no one can get it... They have basic stuff like food, clean water and electricity in limited supply. There are endless UN and human rights reports on all of this. And I'll add, because they are under this occupation, they cannot even get rid of hamas.
NPR article from 2019. Clue is in the title.
And this is what wikipedia reports:
There is minimal amount of outsiders allowed in Gaza, whether you call them tourist or otherwise. We know for a fact that many dual citizens are/were trapped in Gaza since Oct 7th. So yes we know some people can get in to Gaza, but there is no thriving tourist scene...
I don't know why you would assume that I would think that you rejoice over the rape and murder of innocent civilians. As for the mass rape and torture...... Only a Hamas apologist would question the validity of those crimes.
Again with mass rape and torture.. where is the proof?
I was going to apologize that I thought you thought I would rejoice over rape and murder... but then your last sentence is again accusing me... So now you see why I feel like I have to keep defend myself, because the problem is trying the speak the truth about Israel's crimes is that you immediately get labeled as anti-semite etc... that's the world we live in.
Hatred of what?
And what tropes and perversion? In all my arguments, I have shared sources to back up my claims.
No - my argument is that Gaza was not the absolute hell hole that all the Hamas apologists claim to justify the absolute evil and animalistic barbarity we saw by Gazans on 10/7. What Gazans did on 10/7 should shock the conscience. But you are still denying much of it happened believing the claims of an anti-Semitic death cult.
FFS
There are loads of first hand allegations from the victims and eye witnesses. Do these victim's allegations not count because you think they are lying Jews?
Israeli women and girls have suffered horrific sexual violence from Hamas. Where is the outrage? | Deborah Lipstadt and Michèle Taylor
The lack of condemnation of these appalling crimes is not only unjust – it is a sign of deeper biases that must be addressed, say ambassadors Deborah Lipstadt and Michèle Taylor
www.theguardian.com
Do you also dispute all of the Jihadi snuff films Hamas made with their GoPro's killing innocent women and children? Assuming you are not deluded enough to dispute Hamas' own videos where they proudly show off their murderous barbarity - why is it so hard for you to believe the rape allegations?
Jigglypuff
Member
I think that it is especially classy when Hamas shows these snuff and rape videos to their hostages.
Define hell hole. If you are born in open air prison (as described by US presidents, South African leaders, Desmond Tutu etc), with no hope of a normal life, where people you know, family members get murdered every 2 years during regular "mowing the grass" operations, with no clean water, not enough food, no chance of travel, and on and on and on... I call that hell hole.
Doesn't justify what hamas did, but it gives you context. History is full of events where oppressed people doing crazy sh*t like this. Good example is Nat Turner.
edit: grammar, and apparently I can't say sh*t
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Sure, there are allegations. But no proof. I think you are missing my bigger point. These allegations in day 1 used to attack Gaza in an unprecedented way. A revenge, really. So what if the mass rapes didn't happen. How are you going to bring back 30k death Gazans, who are killed under the assumption of mass rape.FFS
There are loads of first hand allegations from the victims and eye witnesses. Do these victim's allegations not count because you think they are lying Jews?
Israeli women and girls have suffered horrific sexual violence from Hamas. Where is the outrage? | Deborah Lipstadt and Michèle Taylor
The lack of condemnation of these appalling crimes is not only unjust – it is a sign of deeper biases that must be addressed, say ambassadors Deborah Lipstadt and Michèle Taylor
Do you also dispute all of the Jihadi snuff films Hamas made with their GoPro's killing innocent women and children? Assuming you are not deluded enough to dispute Hamas' own videos where they proudly show off their murderous barbarity - why is it so hard for you to believe the rape allegations?
Also, again, as I posted Haaretz article before. Why is police asking for witnesses if there was so much rape going on? Don't you think something is fishy in the narrative?
I haven't brought up this till now, but speaking of witness accounts, I am sure you are well aware of Palestinian hostage (prisoner is white-washed terms) accounts of rape & torture in Israeli prisons, including to children.
Have you seen any of the gopro footage? Or are we taking Israel's word on this? Again, if it happened, shame on those who did it. But I have huge reservations on what Israel claims, since they regularly lie (as I give a recent example of Shireen Abu Akleh's account).
A hell hole would be North Korea, Syria, Uyghurs in China, Afghanistan, women in Iran, Christian and Yezidi minorities who were wiped out by ISIS, huge parts of Africa suffering from civil war, war lords, Islamists and famine..
Millions and millions of people are suffering far worse injustices, poverty and physical harm every freaking day around the world, but these victims aren't turning into absolute animals and attacking innocent civilians, hijacking airlines, blowing up Olympics.....basically inventing modern day terrorism as the Palestinians have for decades.
Gazans have had hope for a normal life for 17 years since Israel pulled out. All they had to do was stop firing rockets into Israel and there would be no need for a blockade and final borders with the West Bank could be negotiated.
We need to stop acting like Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have absolutely no agency and are just victims of Hamas, PA or the IDF.
You deny or downplay the atrocities of 10/7 while you exaggerate the conditions in Gaza.
Video is out there for all the world to see.
Videos and evidence have been available for months.
Some people just choose to disbelieve.
Link below has plenty of awful videos from Hamas and CCTV cameras cataloged if you have the stomach for it.
Hamas Massacre - October 2023
On October 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s security fence. Over 1,400 men, women, and children were murdered in the ensuing attack. More than 200 were kidnapped to Gaza. These graphic videos and images document the horrors of that day.
www.hamas-massacre.net
This is coming back around to the point I've made before. To tamp down criticism of Israel, the pro-Israel lobby, especially in the US, but in other countries too, has been quick to jump on any criticism of Israel's government or any other secular criticism and call is anti-Semitism. It has conflated any criticism of the Israeli government with being anti-Semitic. It has been very effective in keeping criticism for some questionable things the Israeli government down to a minimum. Israel has taken some actions that would be more heavily criticized and/or condemned if any other western nation did them.
The two have been conflated like socialism and communism have in the US among those who are old enough to remember the cold war (but not there in those who are too young).
There are clearly people who are anti-Semitic and critical of Israel. You can find examples on the internet pretty easily with a search. There are also people who are critical of at least some things Israel's government has done, who have no issue with Judaism, Jewish people, or anything of the sort. These people would be equally critical of Belgium doing the same sorts of things.
Everything surrounding Israel can be described as "it's complicated".
Over the past 75 years the Palestinians could have been treated better than they have. Some Palestinians have voluntarily decided to live under Israeli rule and they generally have the same rights as Jewish Israeli citizens, but being a minority in a primarily Jewish country, there are some issues. Israel has demonstrated that they are more or less OK with Muslims who accept Israel and play within Israel's rules (not perfect, but OK).
There are also a larger number of Muslims who see Israel as an outside invading force. This has been amplified by propaganda, but there is also a valid argument that it was kind of what happened too. The people from the protectorate of Palestine who now call themselves Palestine want to be their own nation-state, but are still controlled by Israel to a large extent. The government of the West Bank has decided to go a more peaceful route and are economically doing fairly well. The government of Gaza (Hamas) wants to keep up the fight and they have been much more impoverished.
The Palestinians as a separate ethnic identity didn't exist until the 20th century, but it now exists. Ethnic identity more often has cultural factors than anything genetic, but it's a real thing. A part of human tribal nature. It makes sense for the Palestinians to want their own nation they can call their own and their own equal seat at the table with everyone else. But Israel has not really allowed that to happen.
Then there are the radical elements who aren't willing to settle for half a pie, but want the whole thing. These people want to wipe Israel from the map and make the state of Palestine the entire region of the original protectorate from the post-WW I era. Hamas is the most active of these groups right now, but Hezbollah and others are active too.
Hamas has set things up so Israel can't attack them without causing a lot of civilian casualties. Then they deliberately poked the dragon on Oct 7 with the full knowledge that Israel was going to come after them with everything they had, which would cause high civilian casualties. The goal of Hamas is to lose the battle but win the war. They have been on a PR campaign to raise sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians (which has truth to it) on social media. Then when Israel attacks Gaza and causes civilian casualties because there is no way to conduct this war otherwise, those sympathies get cranked up and Israel looks more and more like a baddy to the west, which will eventually lead to aid to Israel being cut off.
The people in the west, and especially the US are split on this because different generations have different experiences of Israel and are exposed to different news. Younger generations have no memories of Israel fighting for its existence against Arab state actors. Older generations remember at least the latter of those wars. Older generations were also steeped in the meme that criticism of Israel = anti-Semitism. The older generations are more inclined to be on Israel's side because of this.
Younger generations have a lot less of the messaging the older generations had, plus they have been exposed on social media to a PR campaign by Hamas and other's supporting Hamas to make the Palestinians look like the innocent victims of the big, bad Israel.
As I said above, everything about Israel and the Palestinians is complicated. Neither side has clean hands and both have been effective at promoting their side with at least part of the western population.
Any sane person can see that a two state solution is the only reasonable outcome of all this. But there are bad actors on both sides who are actively trying to destroy every step towards that solution. Whenever it looks like Israel is about to move ahead diplomatically with any Muslim country, Hamas does something to destroy that progress. Israel and Saudi Arabia were well into talks to normalize relations between the two countries on Oct 7.
There are also bad actors in Israel who build new settlements on land that the Palestinians claim, pushing out Palestinians. Some Israeli governments have done their best to discourage this and tried to curb it, but others (including the current government) have encouraged these activities.
Nobody wants people from another country encroaching on their territory and effectively expanding the borders of the other country. The war in Ukraine has been ongoing since 2014 because Russia did that to Ukraine. Georgia isn't happy with Russia occupying part of their country, but isn't strong enough to resist. Other countries have had similar problems with their neighbors too.
Both sides have a point, and both sides have done wrong. The two state solution is a great idea, but interference from bad actors on both sides makes it a pipe dream. Israel is and will probably be for decades to come, complicated.
Calling someone who is critical of the Israeli government anti-Semite without any further proof of being anti-Semitic doesn't help the conversation. There are valid criticisms of Israel's government. The meme that criticizing Israel = anti-Semitism is an old meme, but holding on to it is causing more harm than good.
While it is very true that not everyone who criticizes Israel is an antisemite, those who deny the many well documented atrocities committed by Palestinians against Israelis typically are antisemites. Antisemitism has always been incredibly widespread. Many who hold antisemitic beliefs probably aren't even aware of it. A lot of it gets passed down from parents to offspring.
Can we please use Hamas rather than Gazans in this context. It could be construed as islamophobic (which you are not) and inflame things.
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Netanyahu tells US he opposes creation of Palestinian state after Gaza war
What will Netanyahu's plan be post war, post office? Hunker down in Israel where he will likely be protected by future PMs?
What will Netanyahu's plan be post war, post office? Hunker down in Israel where he will likely be protected by future PMs?
