I think most everyone would agree that war is bad. But nations have the right to defend themselves. Should we have allowed the Axis powers to prevail in WW2? I think not.
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Israel/Hamas conflict
- Thread starter Buckminster
- Start date
I think most everyone would agree that war is bad. But nations have the right to defend themselves. Should we have allowed the Axis powers to prevail in WW2? I think not.
Tiger
Active Member
I think the world police should be authorized to fetch and bring any leader (like Putin and any or all of his commanders) to justice and an eye-for-an-eye punishment to leaders, i.e., capital punishment, to set an example. The world police would be allowed to use all means that secret services currently use, to catch the criminals.
Seeing these arguments, and presumably by the more intelligent of those who don’t want Israel to defend itself, reminds me of the early days of 2017-2020 and seeing the TSLAQ crowd argue about Tesla going bankrupt any day — the weakness of the TSLAQ arguments convinced me that the TSLAQ bear position is a loser — they were so blinded by their bias, they lacked real facts and evidence, they were obviously guided by emotion. Same here.
The violence by Israel is precisely solely in response to the outrageous actions of Oct 7 and every moral fiber in my being hopes that every person who planned, participated, or supported those Oct 7 events is captured or killed and otherwise never allowed to do it again. Justice and morality absolutely requires it. Those who don’t see this are simply missing some basic facts, or missing basic morals in their constitution.
And now how to get to that justice is now ruled by the international rules of war — I posted those in detail up thread and also the facts supporting that Israel is following those rules. And the ICJ had. chance to find that Israel was violating them — all those who are shreiking that Israel is violating them presented their best facts and arguments, and the ICJ didn’t agree — they didn’t find that Israel was committing genocide, or any other violations of law. Indeed this preliminary ruling is completely consistent with Israel’s right to defend its territory and its people in the wake of the horrific October 7 attacks. And the Court explicitly expressed its grave concern about the fate of the October 7 hostages and to call for their immediate and unconditional release.
To be clear: That was the only immediate affirmative directive in the ruling — release the hostages.
It was terrible that innocent German civilians died and Japanese civilians died in WWII — but that is the predictable and moral consequence of the aggression of their leadership — same here. People attacked have a right to defend themselves, including pursuing the attackers, and rescuing those who were taken. As bad as it was in WWII and as bad as it is now, responding to unjust attacks than involve civilian causalities is better than the alternative of encouraging similar unjust attacks in the future. It boggles my mind that otherwise intelligent people don’t get that.
Over the long term, the world is becoming a more peaceful place (see Pinker, Better Angels) and a huge part of that is the consistent repudiation of acts of aggression and belligerence. Attacks on neighbors such as by Gazans and Russia must be rejected forcefully and decisively for the world to continue to become more peaceful in the long run.
If you have any doubt, review each of these websites in detail and consider how else to respond to these facts:
These videos are difficult to watch
These are crimes against humanity – and the world must know.saturday-october-seven.com
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
Israel played right into Hamas' hands. Hamas and its allies have spent years cultivating a following in the west of people who are now sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Those people were initially horrified by the violence on Oct 7, but as Hamas figured, Israel's response was a full court press by everything they had in the IDF which Hamas set up to ensure high civilian casualties in Gaza, which in turn got the sympathizers in the west more on their side than ever.
Israel has a right to defend itself, but it doesn't have the right to do anything it wants defending itself. Hamas also set up conditions where Israel's regular "go to" style of warfare would cause a humanitarian disaster, which is has. Israel has conducted this war very badly. They will win the battle, but in doing so they generated the next generation of Hamas recruits. Probably more than Hamas had at the beginning of the current conflict.
Israel is dealing with an insurgency. They can put a lid on it and have relative peace for stretches of time, but it boils over and they have another round of hot conflict. It is impossible for Israel to win using conventional fighting techniques. It is probably impossible for Israel to win at all.
Insurgents win by wearing down the conventional army until they give up, but Israel is defending their own homes, so they will never give up. Conventional armies can't beat an insurgency unless they completely exterminate the population that is generating the insurgents, or have a dramatic technological advantage. The latter hasn't happened in over a century.
What you are talking about it what the UN was originally envisioned to be. And the UN became the way it did because people do what people do.
The closest thing the world has had to a world police force since the end of WW II was the US military. And the US has done some questionable things with that military because, again, people are people and the US has had some leadership who ran off tilting at windmills rather than keeping the peace.
There are optional wars and necessary wars. In Ukraine, the war is a necessary war for Ukraine. It's an optional war for Russia.
The current conflict in Israel is a necessary war for Israel, but the way they have gone about conducting it has created more problems than it solved.
Assuming you agree that Hamas has to be destroyed or eliminated from power to achieve any kind of durable peace, how do you propose Israel accomplish this? The IDF are not just bombing from the sky, but risking the lives of their soldiers going door to door and tunnel to tunnel fighting in impossible conditions that Hamas created.
Also, even using Hamas' claims of civilian deaths so far - the civilian to combatant death ratio for urban fighting is much lower in Gaza than the historical norm.
Not fully with you there..
I shouldn't punish Tesla for maybe having some racist or neonazi employees. if its leadership however is supporting a cause which I'm not in favor of, I can make my decision of not buying a Tesla (fun fact... I cancelled my model X order on Nov 28 after Elon visited Netanyahu)
Likewise, if UNRWA as an organization (including its leadership) would be a proponent of killing civilians, then yes it should be defunded.
but I don't have reason to believe that it supports that from an organizational perspective.
The anti-Semitic school curriculum alone is enough to disband UNRWA.
Video and documented evidence has been presented to UNRWA and US leadership for years and it was either ignored or not acted upon.
There is no possible way the leadership was not aware.
Palestinian Schools Have a Problem—and Are Running Out of Time
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has failed to fulfill demands for reform—and may soon face the consequences.
foreignpolicy.com
It's a Kobyashi Maru scenario. A 2 state solution is the best possible solution out of a lot of bad options. A 2 state solution will only work if there is such overwhelming support for it on both sides that the few remaining who want to destroy the other side can be kept in check and not cause more conflict. Otherwise there is no solution.
The only way that the number of people who want to destroy a two state solution shrinks to near zero is education and time. At least one generation of time and probably two.
Hamas cannot be destroyed militarily unless Israel exterminates all the Palestinians, which is a whole plethora of wrong and impossible. Hamas is an insurgency organization. So are the Houthis and Hezbollah. The more you kill, the more recruits they get.
Insurgency armies have been a check on conventional armies for more than 70 years and there are no signs that anybody has figured out how to neutralize them. All the evidence is that insurgency armies are becoming more capable, and thus more of a problem for conventional armies.
The truth is that we will probably be playing rinse and repeat on this scenario of periodic violence in Israel for the rest of our lives.
Recent polls don't seem to show that
Half of US adults say Israel has gone too far in war in Gaza, AP-NORC poll shows
That's one poll. Here's another:
some history of the Gaza strip - told by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe:
The Washington Post Ignores the Facts on Pappé
The Washington Post'sprofile of lecturer Ilan Pappe did not provide key context about why he is so reviled in Israel. The feature negligently omitted
www.camera.org
The Liar as Hero
The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis, 1700-1948 By Ilan Pappe (University of California Press, 399 pp., $29.95) Out of the Frame: The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel By Ilan Pappe (Pluto Press, 246 pp., $22) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine By Ilan Pappe (Oneworld...
newrepublic.com
There is all this talk of eliminating hamas.. Experts say that it is an impossible target. And we know that to be the case from history. Militant, resistance groups like hamas are impossible to eliminate. So one wonders, why netanyahu set this as a supposed target?
On the other hand, there is no end to killing innocent civilians in West Bank, where hamas does NOT operate. What is the justification for that?
Isn't it clear that goal is not to eliminate hamas, but to kill as many Palestinians as possible, destroy as much property & infrastructure as possible, make life as unlivable as possible to force them to leave?
On the other hand, there is no end to killing innocent civilians in West Bank, where hamas does NOT operate. What is the justification for that?
Isn't it clear that goal is not to eliminate hamas, but to kill as many Palestinians as possible, destroy as much property & infrastructure as possible, make life as unlivable as possible to force them to leave?
I'd ask you the same thing about Hamas.
Why did they choose to attack Israel in such a heinous and barbaric way knowing they could never win militarily and would only bring ruin to Gaza?
Does Hamas, Iran and their defenders in the West really think Israel could ever give into Hamas' demands (eliminating every Jew in Israel)?
If Hamas is so popular amongst the majority of Gazans after 10/7, 4 months of war and refusing any 2 state solution peace deal - why should I feel sorry for the suffering of Hamas' supporters?
I would still like to believe that majority of Gazans are held hostage to Hamas and Hamas can be largely wiped out.
What other choice is there at this point?
I would still like to believe that majority of Gazans are held hostage to Hamas and Hamas can be largely wiped out.
What other choice is there at this point?
I'm not sure that Hamas can be completely eliminated, but I wouldn't assume that it can't be, either. You don't hear much from Black September these days. The main thing is to remove Hamas from power, and weaken them to the point that they don't pose a threat to Israeli civilians.
I missed this... Apparently Biden is an antisemite as well.
I don't see you using the same language when Israel military kills innocents people in West Bank. Or when Israel military protects settlers as they kill Palestinian civilians.
There is definite exaggeration in what happened in Oct 7th. I know we disagree on this. There were civilians killed, which is wrong, but the picture that is being painted is way over the top. I believe hamas' main target was a military operation, and things went south in some areas. And I believe once the fence was knocked down (by hamas) some other groups or random people went over the Israel side and did some terrible things. Point is, we have to be factual. Making a broad, and exaggerated statements is not helpful. Eventually, facts will come to light.
Regarding why hamas attacked Israel. There are obvious reasons for it, which you won't agree because you don't think Palestinian lands are occupied. So what's there to argue, if we can't even agree on the facts of occupation and decades of Israeli aggression.
FFS.... the backwards gymnastics that some Hamas apologists will go to deny reality.
"Sorry about your peace raves and sleeping peacefully in your beds Israelis - things went a little bit south!"
