It was a colossal blunder for sure. Netanyahu is finished after Hamas is dealt with.
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Israel/Hamas conflict
- Thread starter Buckminster
- Start date
I’m unfamiliar with the settler incident, but based on your other postings, I will accept that it happened. Unacceptable and unless there is context (which I can’t fathom), they should be prosecuted for it.
That said, the larger chart undoubtedly contains many innocents who died in bombings where the target was a weapon or terrorist in a place where it was impossible to avoid casualties, e.g., placing missiles on top of residential buildings. Terrorists do that on purpose.
Evil is evil, regardless of who perpetrates it, but state sponsored is orders of magnitude worse, and needs to be forcibly stopped.
Here is another article addressing both your original skepticism, as well as the suggestion that the IDF won’t provide further proof.
It appears they are doing exactly that.
The usual suspects will be hating on Israel no matter what they did. Hamas hates Israel even after they uprooted every last Jew from Gaza and surrounding settlements nearly 20 years ago in an effort to bring peace.
Have you seen the appalling displays of support for Hamas on major Ivy League US campuses this week? Have you seen how Chicago chapter of BLM has co-opted the Hamas Paraglider image on Twitter and their Social Media? Have you seen the DSA support? It's disgusting. Thankfully, some major Democrats, universities and Corporations are starting to separate themselves from these radical haters after this week's atrocities.
All reputable polls show the majority of Gazans support Hamas and their genocidal charter of totally wiping out Israel AND killing every Jew on the planet.
So how do you coexist with ISIS maniacs right next door after what they just did? There is no coming back after that. Will take generations to forgive.
Sadly - I think it is going to require relocating all 2+ million Gazans to other countries like we did after WWII with Millions of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Hungarians....
Unfortunately, most of the Sunni Arab world hate the Arabs in Gaza and don't want them in their countries either. It is easier to throw welfare at them and have them attack Israel.
By population, the Hamas slaughter of Israelis last week was an order of magnitude worse than the 9-11 attacks in the US. Just imagine if over 30,000 Americans had died on 9-11. I'd like to think that we'd have focused more intently on Afghanistan and decapitated Al Qaeda in the early days of the conflict.
@aubreymcfato I just saw this in my X feed. Apparently Biden stated that he had seen pictures of the babies… (I can’t write it). You can decide if you feel he is choosing to tell the truth or not. I believe he is. The post is from OSINTdefender
I don't think we will ever know for sure, but I think there is a possibility Netanyahu knew the attack was coming and let it happen for political purposes. There is evidence that both 9/11 and Pearl Harbor had signs that the US government ignored. It's always possible that the governments were just lax.
I am compelled to post this as what I posted regarding what Biden said has changed. The White House clarified later that he had not seen the pictures but had been told of them by the Israelis. I saw a post about this on X, then Googled it further and found an article in The New York Post (not my most trusted publication) that provided quotes from a number of people, including White House spokesperson, as well as others. Here is the article if you’d like to read it. Net net, Biden did not see pictures, but was told by Israelis. And additional people were quoted as having seen the horror at the kibbutz. I’m now moving on from this one.
Biden did not actually see ‘confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children’ as he claimed, WH clarifies
President Biden said Wednesday that he has seen “confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children” in southern Israel following reports that up to 40 babies were butchered over the weekend near …
nypost.com
I thought this provided an interesting perspective, since it is coming from a Muslim Ukrainian fighter regarding Hamas not being representative of all Palestinians. And also noting the alignment of Hamas with Iran, who is also supporting Russia. These points regarding alliances have been noted before. To me it just demonstrates the ability for individuals to see and separate themselves from groups that are bad elements in their ”tribe.”
Bet TSLA
Active Member
And Netanyahu (and his minions) wanted a big pile of dead Israelis as a fast path to war and autocracy. Nothing better for getting recalcitrant protestors in line. And, you know, sacrifices must be made so that the right people win.
You say this as an expert on Israeli politics and government? Just exactly how will Netanyahu be removed from his role once he's the great and glorious war leader with autocratic power?
I'm no expert, and I'm not saying that things will necessarily go well for him, but when it comes to lying and manipulating and doing things to benefit himself, Netanyahu has few peers.
Bet TSLA
Active Member
Worth reading this opinion piece by Yuval Noah Harari on what’s happening in Israel. He's an Israeli academic historian who has written several extraordinary books, e.g. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
He is not fond of Netanyahu. In this opinion piece he writes:
The real explanation for Israel’s dysfunction is populism rather than any alleged immorality. For many years, Israel has been governed by a populist strongman, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a public-relations genius but an incompetent prime minister. He has repeatedly preferred his personal interests over the national interest and has built his career on dividing the nation against itself. He has appointed people to key positions based on loyalty more than qualifications, took credit for every success while never taking responsibility for failures, and seemed to give little importance to either telling or hearing the truth.
The coalition Netanyahu established in December 2022 has been by far the worst. It is an alliance of messianic zealots and shameless opportunists, who ignored Israel’s many problems — including the deteriorating security situation — and focused instead on grabbing unlimited power for themselves. In pursuit of this goal, they adopted extremely divisive policies, spread outrageous conspiracy theories about state institutions that oppose their policies, and labeled the country’s serving elites as “deep state” traitors.
Have you done the opposite: like the state-sponsored collateral damage that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in the last 20 years and the percentage on population?
Hamas is awful, but Israel carefully curates it like a gardener, in that open prison that is Gaza.
The tragicomic fact is that if every Westerner that has always defended IDF actions lived like a Gazan, he would likeley be radicalized in a month. For the same libertarian reasons we justifies the israeli occupation.
The table I posted earlier is before this attack. It shows clearly the toll of the occupation on children. This attack, as much hateful as it is, it doesn't happen in the vacuum. But nobody never cares if there are not Israeli victims. You can actually find a lot of hate in Hamas, and in a lot of Israelis, that hate Arabs as much as their enemies hate them. It's a little, fake story that Israel is only defending itself.
Unfortunately, you can't change my mind, contrary to most of you I've seen the settlers, I've seen the Palestinian children stoned by them when they were going to school, I've seen the uprooted secular olives out of spite, I've seen the destroyed UN funded schools, I've seen Hebron and I talked to Palestinian teenagers tortured by IDF.
I'll stop here, there is no changing my mind. I know I won't change yours.
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Tam
Well-Known Member
He might not be removed, but his doctrine is definitely in question.
The end of the Netanyahu doctrine
1. “peace with the Arab world while completely ignoring the Palestinians.”
2. Israel propers without the need for peace with the Palestinians:
“Since he was first elected prime minister in 1996, Netanyahu has tried to avoid any negotiations with the Palestinian leadership, instead choosing to bypass it and push it aside. Israel does not need peace with the Palestinians to prosper, Netanyahu repeatedly claimed; its military, economic, and political strength is sufficient without it.”
3. Solution: Blockade that creates the largest prison in the world.
“For the past 25 years, we have been told repeatedly that peace with other Arab countries will only come after we resolve the conflict with the Palestinians,” Netanyahu wrote in an article in Haaretz before the last election. “Contrary to the prevailing position,” he continued, “I believe that the road to peace does not go through Ramallah, but bypasses it: instead of the Palestinian tail wagging the Arab world, I argued that peace should begin with Arab countries, which would isolate Palestinian obstinacy.”
4. Intentionally support strengthening Hamas:
“In 2018, for example, he agreed that Qatar would transfer millions of dollars a year to finance the Hamas government in Gaza, embodying the comments made in 2015 by Bezalel Smotrich (then a marginal Knesset member, and today the finance minister and de facto West Bank overlord) that “the Palestinian Authority is a burden and Hamas is an asset.”
“If Hamas collapses, Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] may control the strip. If he controls it, there will be voices from the left that will encourage negotiations and a political solution and a Palestinian state, also in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] … This is the real reason why Netanyahu does not eliminate the Hamas leader, everything else is bullshit.”
“anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas. This is part of our strategy, to isolate Palestinians in Gaza from Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.”
5. “The barrier will prevent terrorists from infiltrating our territory,”
The real reason for the fence: “ Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai wrote in Ynet that the ultimate goal of the fence, which was considered to be an impenetrable barrier for terrorists, is to “prevent a connection between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.”
5b. "an illusion that is now being shattered at a terrible human cost.”
“On Saturday morning, that fence was torn down, and with it the broader Netanyahu doctrine — adopted by the Americans and many Arab states — that it is possible to make peace in the Middle East without the Palestinians. As hundreds of militants crossed the border unhindered on their way to occupy army posts and infiltrate dozens of Israeli communities as far as 18 miles away, Hamas declared in the most clear, painful, and murderous way possible that the conflict that threatens Israelis’ lives is the conflict with the Palestinians, and the idea that they can be bypassed via Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, or that the 2 million Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza will disappear if Israel builds a sufficiently elaborate fence, is an illusion that is now being shattered at a terrible human cost.”
I have seen people argue past one another with the Israel-Palestine issue just about my entire life. Rarely do people argue that "their" side is right, but there is always a "yeah but" argument to support their side that equates to the other side being more wrong or more evil.
What if both sides are equally wrong? What if there is no real solution (short of something horrific like large scale genocide)? It sucks, but there is sometimes no answer to a problem and sometimes both sides are wrong.
Oh, we agree on that. They both sucks, and there is no solution. I was once a Christian, but I actually lost my faith in Jerusalem... if that's the Holy Land then, I thought, there is no God.
What we disagree is that they *equally* suck.
There is a party that sistemically strikes and a party that sistemically is striked.
That Is an important differenze for me. Deaths on Palestinian side are roughly ten times over. And has been for decades. Numbers like this dont lie. There is no equality of awfulness in numbers like these.
From the conservative Bulwark site, an explanation of the continued US support for Israel. Ignore the headline. Read the article.
Blood on Biden’s Hands?
Blood on Biden’s Hands?
There is no proof Palestinian fighters ‘beheaded’ babies. The only source is a radical settler.
U.S. and international media outlets are repeating Israeli claims that Palestinian fighters “beheaded” babies. These unverified claims aren’t just sloppy journalism — they are being used to justify a massacre.
mondoweiss.net
Be careful. Don't get fooled.
Column: Who's to blame for the Hamas attack on Israel? That debate is already going off the rails
There's something deeply troubling about the discussion over Israel’s failure to prevent the attacks. It assumes the terrorists have no agency in choosing not to engage in barbarity.
www.latimes.com
Fooled by who?There is no proof Palestinian fighters ‘beheaded’ babies. The only source is a radical settler.
U.S. and international media outlets are repeating Israeli claims that Palestinian fighters “beheaded” babies. These unverified claims aren’t just sloppy journalism — they are being used to justify a massacre.
Be careful. Don't get fooled.
By anyone taking rumors as truth, amplifying them, and refusing to verify them even if the initial reports have been retracted.
