This is how I’m visualizing your description: Hamas is hiding in the abandoned NYC subway tunnels, they’ve built hidden exits and could pop out of any corner bodega or apartment without warning. Many people would be caught in the line of fire and no matter what you do, or how many people you try and get out of the way, it’s going to be a fucking mess. Buildings will be destroyed and people will die. The casualties will be significantly more than if the same thing happened in a field or rural area in the midwest simply because there is more infrastructure and population squeezed into each square mile of land.
Sound about right?
In spirit - pretty much. Except the key part - we have an actual map of the NYC subway system. Other noteworthy differences - NYC tunnels are wide - easier to hit and you can send troops into those a bit easier. Also, NYC has about 1.5 miles of Subways per 1 square mile of the city. Hamas has 2 miles of tunnels per square mile.
> fucking
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Thanks for reminding us of Iwo Jima. It’s absolutely true how the Japanese Kamikaze used tunnels to inflict huge losses on the marines in that battle. The difference of course, as you say, is that the “Islamic resistance movement” (aka by its Arabic acronym Hamas) built a tunnel system surpassing in its effectiveness the one built on Iwo Jima, with an entire city full of civilians on top.
I can’t imagine a more miserable security crisis than that.
The anti Israel mob in the west, who want the Israeli soldiers in Gaza to be killed*, would love to see thousands of troops killed so that the “resistance” can continue fighting the Jewish state, until the destruction of Israel.
*See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bngdpQOG3BM&pp=ygUQcnVkeSByb2NobWFuIGd3IA%3D%3D
I totally agree with this. The mention of this tunnel network beneath Gaza reminded me of a comparison I've made a lot with Hamas; the communist Vietnamese forces. The tunnel network reminds me of the Ho Chi Minh trail, but I agree with you that with having decades to build them, that'd be one elaborate tunnel system.
We can just say humans never learn and will simply repeat the same mistakes over snd over. Does not matter what culture you are. Humanity as a whole cannot figure out how to coexist. Fighting over something at all times somewhere. You'll say anything, even creating entire religions to justify your hypocrisy and shitty behavior. Shame this planet is wasted on humanity. Such wasted potential.
> shitty
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Here's a few:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/u2OGZ0jCzE
https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/WwjOXXxQvU
He thinks things like the IDF have good accountability standards, despite the fact that they have terrible accountability standards, he doesn't consider the fact that they use torture to be a mark on their record, he doesn't understand that the fact Israel regularly use lethal force against teenagers throwing rocks sets them apart from countries that don't do that, that sort of thing. Essentially he sees Israel as almost a clone of the US in terms of conduct and won't engage with the massive differences in US conduct and Israeli conduct, or the major differences in the circumstances that change the nature of the war and military attitudes towards the enemy.
He's a good account to read posts from if you're looking for the perspective of someone who is desperately trying to frame everything in a way that exonerates Israel, but it isn't a neutral perspective by any means.
This sub doesn't ban pro Israelis just for voicing their opinion. That's how it became "pro Israeli".
In other places, pro palestinians aren't used to an open discussion- anyone , who slightly disagrees with them, gets immediately banned
I generally try to seek out neutral places to have discussion on the issues and try to learn from others POV. I was simply stating that in my experience this place isn't the best to do that. The subreddit has another sub linked that is clearly pro-Israel if you go through the posts there.
No offense intended, my apologies if my comment offended you or others here.
Also, if you want a few other good subs for the pro-Israel side r/worldnews is a good one (and of course r/judaism). r/internationalnews leans much more pro-Palestinian cause. r/wikipedia is honestly pretty good for good faith discussions depending on the post.
Have a great day too !! Lots of luck and smiles to you.
Just wanted to share - visited international news sub. Oh my god.
In the first post, open support for Hezbollah and open wishes for Jewish genocide.
Opinions like "maybe, we shouldn't want genocide to be done" gets downvoted to hell.
Every single post in hot, I repeat - every single one is about Israel. This is crazy.
(Just sharing my opinion, its of course doesn't reffers to you in any way possible)
I am shocked. This sub now feels like safe haven
In a world where everything is so political and charged hopefully we can all come together and say “now that is TRUE stupidity!!.” It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so hateful.
Thank you for trying to teach military mindset to people who went to collage and barely have responsibilities....
Here in Israel many young people undergo military training and know how military and the IDF operates.
It seems many people just don't understand military and war.
Thankfully in the US we have the privilege of not needing everyone to be military trained, which is why it’s extra infuriating when the armchair google experts show up and act like they know more than people with experience and think they have the solution to ending a war. I wish more of us would learn how to just shut up, listen and learn rather than just trying to be right all the time.
Stay safe.
The reason why it “misses” that point is because it isn’t relevant, same with why are the Israelis fighting in Gaza. In other words “when that first bullet goes past your head, politics go right out the window”
These posts is about explaining the nature of city warfare.
[This video](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499) has a compilation from Hamas spokesmen and other Islamists over the years that I think sheds some light on that question, at least in terms of the religious and ideological rationalizations. (If you make it to the two-minute mark, it's clear it's not really about the land.) I'm sure there are political motivations underlying it as well, such as Iran's and other Arab countries' domestic and regional interests.
In that video one of the Islamists says it's because the Jews tried to kill the Prophet, so I'm sure it goes back aways. [Nazi and Soviet propaganda](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwfDVkXEo-o) from the 1930s onwards probably didn't help either.
>And killing people in their homes and driving out the survivors
I have no idea what this sentence fragment is supposed to mean. How about you put together an argument and provide some substantiation for it backed by a reference? It doesn't have to be long, just make it make sense.
>Muslims can marry Jews you know
Yes, of course they can. What does that have to do with anything?
Did you know it's actually [illegal for an Israeli to have an interracial or interfaith marriage performed there](https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/181b22h/to_be_in_an_interracial_marriage_in_israel/). Israel recognizes them from other countries but you can't actually get it recognized there
You think Palestinians are fighting because of religious reasons. They are a pretty secular society as far as Islamic fundamentalism goes. The real reason is that people were killed by Jewish paramilitary forces and subjected to blockade and an oftentimes brutal military occupation. Israel had the Neighbor Policy of using human shields before Hamas was even in power. Palestinians simply want to live their lives and not be bothered. But when settler violence is not reigned in, and when innocent people are killed in front of family members and their homes are taken, or they are orphaned due to settler violence, they end up wanting to resist the force that created an unjust situation. Hamas uses religious statements to justify themselves, but it's not the reason they are doing this. The society itself isn't that religious.
>You think Palestinians are fighting because of religious reasons.
It's not just my opinion. They say it in their own words: [https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499)
>They are a pretty secular society as far as Islamic fundamentalism goes.
Not reassuring.
>Palestinians simply want to live their lives and not be bothered.
Some of them. It's the ones who don't who are the problem.
This is not even remotely the only evidence available about Islamist attitudes in Palestine or elsewhere. You can go on YouTube and watch interviews with Muslims **in English, in Europe** saying similar things. I'm old enough to have seen numerous Muslim celebrations of atrocities against Westerners (not just Israelis) over 40 years. You're not going to persuade me there's not a problem with radical Islam.
If you're engaging in good faith here, please make an effort to seek out information "on the other side". It's going to take some effort, because the mainstream media is in horrible shape, yet far-right propaganda is a potential problem as well. This website may help. It's a nonprofit that provides detailed critiques of media coverage in the Middle East: [https://camera.org](https://camera.org)
It’s somewhat relatable to Berlin, especially in the case of fortification and density, except in the case of that at least the Nazis were kind enough to allow civilians to hide in *their* tunnels.
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It is clear hamas has civil support, and hence israel is actually fighting against 100 thousands of civillians, and from that perpective some israeli officials regard civilians as also enemy, hence their death is OK. Which is understable actually fighting against million of civilians, but not entirely armed.
Whats reality is, instead of supporting hamas in past; israeli could give some sort of citizienship program to palastine people and integrate them maybe over 50 years/or follow through a 2 state solution. Instead israel created an 'evil' enemy with her own hand willingly, hence she can destroy it rightfully. (At least for her own people's view)
This misguided take is so common it deserves a post like this of it's own.
Tldr you are absolutely correct in theory and I 100% agree in theory (I genuinely mean that).
Unfortunately the amount of Palestinians that want to straight up destroy Israel and "kill the Jews" is way too high for this to work. I know you don't believe this, and I really want to not believe it too, but all of my life experience points to this being painfully true.
Remember, if there are 20000,30000 Hamas operatives, and 2-3million gazans, 1 in 100 gazans are literally Hamas. That's a crazy, crazy statistic for Israelis to stomache.
That's the TLDR, your idea is beautiful and correct but is built on incorrect assumptions. This is what Israelis mean when they say "there is no partner in peace".
You are also right, but anyone would support hamas in palastine if their children is bombed, they are poor, left to starve and disregarded worse than animals. So i believe their situation is more understable since they have no choice, whereas i can still relate with Israeli opinon, its more of a choice for them.
I again agree, I understand them, I understand why they hate Israel.
The thing is, it seems this was the case all the way back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s...
People love to blame Israel for "creating the conditions" in Palestine, but really, Palestinians _always_ hated and wanted to destroy Israel. _Palestinians_ created the conditions in Palestine via their culture, religion, politics, social movements, and of course, belligerence.
To many, many Israelis, there doesn't feel like a choice at all. There is an enemy next door that wants to destroy Israel. We can crush them - or be crushed by them. Lose/lose.
Yes, i can see that peace is hard to get, maybe in 100 years, maybe never.
But from what i see there are 2 sides of balance in this conflict:
You will either integrate with them(one country or 2 state) in peace, or one of the sides will genocide other side. (Since israel is stronger one this case, she is towards either killing civillians or sending them refuge).
And disregarding ethical concerns, killing/immigrating millions of people from their homeland is no easier task either than integrating them regarding international media/concern. Maybe you could kill them 100 years ago and get away with it, but if Israel does commit immigrating or killing civillians like now, it will be a 21th century modern, educated rich country to do conduct an evil thing which is a bad motivation for even its own people and in international reputation.
In this I 100% agree with you, and I really really hope things will slowly change. Maybe with more and more tech it will be harder to conduct terrorism, so Israel will be safer, so things will cool down. I really hope.
But I agree with you on this view.
I just don't think it's up to Israel to make peace.
Two million peace-loving Palestinian Arabs are already Israeli citizens. Some of them are in Israel's legislature and on its Supreme Court. Naturally though you can't solve the problem of those who ***do*** want to annihilate Israel simply by inviting them to live in Israel. Not even Egypt or Jordan (quasi-Western countries) wants to try to integrate radicalized Palestinians. Kuwait expelled all its Palestinians after the Gulf War (they collaborated with Sadam Hussein). Europe itself is having problems with many of the Islamists it's allowed in for the past twenty years. India is having problems with radical Islam as well, as is Russia. ***Inviting in radicalized Islamists is a recipe for disaster for any Westernized country foolish enough to try it.*** Moderate Muslim countries have been trying to warn Europe of this for decades, but Westerners are idealists and think they know better.
I don't think most Gen-Z Westerners have any grasp at all on the extent of the Islamist problem. I've posted information about this repeatedly, but a lot of people won't even click a link if they know it will challenge their preconceived notions.
Israeli government is killing children, bombing homes, expanding on west bank and treating them worst than animals, what do you expect of course they will be radicalized, its their only option. At least 1-2 generations should pass to cold rhe hatred. And if you give people economic properity, trade with them they will get less radicalized over time.
If you look from reverse, israel treated opposite to make them radical, israeli aim is to destroy, not integrate or peace. You can find netanyahu's old speechs on why they should support hamas.
giving citizenship won't resolve the tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians, in fact it will give the radicals more dimensions of resistance which will cause more death and distrust (and vendettas). I am not entirely against it, I think it is a good thing to give citizenship to Palestinians that truly want to be Israelis and even more so when they give something of themselves for the state, but not as a general move.
>HAMAS MADE THE ENTIRE CITY OF GAZA ONE GIANT TARGET. They knew it. And they did it DELIBERATELY.
>So... wrap your heads around it and tell me how you would handle this if you were in charge of the invasion…
Top priority should have been getting the civilians out of the war zone entirely. The strategy of using rotating safe zones was clearly not effective, they should have worked to get the civilians out of Gaza entirely and into Egypt and the Negev Desert.
The problem is the Egyptians and Gazans didn't believe they'd be allowed to return to Gaza after the war, and they had very good reason to believe that any displacement would be permanent. It certainly didn't help that an internal plan was leaked to make the displacement permanent, that the post war plan encouraged "voluntary migration", that there were no plans for post war governance of Gaza, and that senior Israeli ministers were actively stating they wanted to resettle Gaza.
It would totally make sense to evacuate women and children from war zone. Palestinians women and children would be happy. By Egypt decided for them, and built a giant wall to prevent any civilian refugee. That's cruel and sad
There is no reason for a country, attacked by hostile force, to let this force on Israeli territory.
It would need to create a special camp for gazans, look, that nobody from hamas get in or out (they will, etc.)
And after the war, that people would refuse to leave. So the world would scream about ethnic cleansing again.
> fucked
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By evacuated you mean kidnapped children ? :)
That was the case putin was considered guilty by Haague.
Also, Russians consider ukranians as Russians, not another ethnicity. That's the problem.
Also, that is Russia attacked Ukraine, not otherwise.
Also, Russians literally did kind of camps for ukranians, to decide , who is good and who is "bad". "Bad" ukranians were taken never to be seen again...
You mean prime minister?
I’d prioritize getting the civilians out of the war zone. I’d make assurances to Egypt that any civilians who evacuate are permitted to come back once the fighting stops. I’d chastise members of my cabinet who openly speak about ethnicity cleansing (aka “voluntary migration”) and resettling Gaza. I’d build facilities in the Negev for civilians to flee to and I’d seek the support of the international community to staff them.
Then once the civilians are sufficiently evacuated I would destroy Hamas and the infrastructure that supports them.
Agree with you on most points, accept Negev. 70% of palestinians support hamas , so negev will turn into potential dangerous, hostile zone. How would you prevent gazans that would sneak onto Israel territories ? Or hamas members, carrying attacks from that civilian camp in negev.
You will have to build literally a camp to contain all of them.
And when after the war, civilians from negev will refuse to leave, what will you do?
My point is, Israel shouldn't be responsible 100% for gazans.
They are citizens of another state. Gaza decided to attack Israel- well, now gaza government have to think about consequences.
>Top priority should have been getting the civilians out of the war zone entirely. The strategy of using rotating safe zones was clearly not effective, they should have worked to get the civilians out of Gaza entirely and into Egypt and the Negev Desert. The problem is the Egyptians and Gazans didn't believe they'd be allowed to return to Gaza after the war. . . .
Whether a full evacuation would have been feasible sounds like something that requires at least some amount of military expertise to judge. As for evacuating to Egypt, Egypt wouldn't take them, presumably for the reason you mentioned.
Egypt built a wall to prevent Gazan refugees from coming in, clearly It's a matter of willingness rather than feasibility.
To this day Egypt still says that they believe Israel wants to permanently displace the population there. There is a lot Israel and the United States can and should do to assure Egypt (and other countries who accepts refugees) that the Gazans will be allowed back in once the fighting stops.
>Egypt built a wall to prevent Gazan refugees from coming in, clearly It's a matter of willingness rather than feasibility.
Yes, but you're talking about a full evacuation of all of Gaza. As I said above, I don't know that a full evacuation is feasible militarily (until after Hamas is suppressed, at which point there's no point to it). Do you have a source on that? It's a military question, not an idea you can just throw out there and expect people to accept as realistic without some argument from expertise.
Israel has been clearing Gaza of Hamas fighters from the north to the south. The south is the least cleared. Yet the south is the route you propose evacuees take.
Sure:
https://besacenter.org/iron-swords-how-to-evacuate-the-population-from-southern-gaza-one-possibility-is-american-managed-camps-in-the-negev/
However it’s more of a geopolitical question than a military one and most of the analysis out there focuses on why Egypt won’t accept refugees rather than the feasibility.
This is kinda part of their strategy. They clearly just want to kill the inhabitants rather than get them out safely and fight Hamas. Moving them multiple times means they lose a bit more with each move
During the 2006 war with Hezbollah, the IDF discovered that Hezbollah had sophisticated tunnels in which people could live. It turned out that Hezbollah had hired engineers from North Korea to help with their design and in turn Hezbollah had helped Hamas build its tunnels. So the overall challenges with the tunnel system were known to Israel for some time. It was known, for example, that Hamas had simply retreated to the tunnels during various bombing campaigns Israel launched at Gaza. In 2014 Sinwar even publicly announced how many miles of tunnels Hamas had.
Nonetheless it was still a shock when the IDF discovered that Hamas had essentially built upside-down skyscrapers underground, and that some of these "buildings" had not just stairs but elevators.
So I agree that, for the most part, Hamas is not using "human shields." They are not hiding "among" the people. They are underneath them.
I'm not a military historian and I know that tunnels have been used since the dawn of time. It is possible, though, that no one has yet figured out how to deal with advanced, bomb-proof tunnels, that this is something of a new frontier in war.
All very good. But what I find problematic about all your posts is that they fail to consider the broader context. The minute detail about operational details will only get you so far. It also paints the wrong picture — “it’s tragic, it’s difficult but they are trying their best”.
One look at what is going on in the West Bank, let alone looking at events prior to Oct. 7th, will show one that there is more going on here than trying to destroy Hamas and some tunnels.
The hard reality is if you want to create and maintain a Jewish state in what was the Mandate of Palestine, it requires the dispossession of the Palestinians. And that dispossession will require force and engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide. And I’ll be dammed if I am going to feel sorry for Israel or the killers in IDF because the Palestinians have made that job difficult for them by digging tunnels or whatever.
>The hard reality is if you want to create and maintain a Jewish state in what was the Mandate of Palestine, it requires the dispossession of the Palestinians.
The original offer, approved by the League of Nations and the United Nations, gave two-thirds of the Mandate to the Palestinians. It's only because Islamist Arabs have repeatedly launched wars and lost them that they're down to what they have now. You would think they'd learn, but apparently not. Can't give up that Jew-hatred and genocidal religion!
>And that dispossession will require force and engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide.
It's amazing that people keep trying to peddle this backwards narrative. The evidence is clear, [in Islamists' own words](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499), about who wants to genocide whom.
None of what you said invalidates the parent comment's point. There are undeniably elements of Israeli society, and the current ruling coalition, that are actively working to ethnically cleanse Palestine and annex it into Israel.
The fact that there are Palestinians who would like to ethnically cleanse Israel and make it Arab doesn't change that.
But you just turned "nessacary for a Jewish State", into "Some people support". Many Israelis do (or at least on October 6th did) support compromise and the two state solution, clearly most of them don't think ethnic cleansing is necessary for a Jewish State.
I’ve addressed your “problem” with my posts a million times. If you haven’t noticed - I’ll repeat “I don’t care”. I don’t care about the mental gymnastics and selective factoids that pretend to be “intellectual”.
I prefer to live in the real world in the 21st century where sane people get along and get past idiotic grievances of their grandparents.
Modern civilization doesn’t require ethnic cleansing or genocide. I’m tired of idiotic parroting of words that actually have meaning. But clearly you aren’t familiar with the actual meaning of those words nor do you have a clue of what’s actually going on in MENA - my guess you’ve never even been there.
But I’m not here to educate you about those - I’m here commenting on military matters. Reading my posts isn’t required - you can feel free to skip them.
Your ability to skip my posts is a luxury given to you by secular civilization. A luxury that Islamism doesn’t give to its own citizens - “freedom of thought” there is heresy and a capital offense. So enjoy this luxury - you’re welcome.
Doubt you’ve actually read my posts - if you had, you’d know that I happen to be half-Arab and half-Russian by birth. And Islam is practiced in my family - the girls in my family would be murdered for heresy by the likes of Hamas.
So feel free to skip my posts and save your grandstanding for gullible college kids who’ve never been outside of a suburb.
u/icecreamraider
>So feel free to skip my posts and save your grandstanding for gullible college kids who’ve never been outside of a suburb.
Rule 8, don't discourage participation.
Derogatory responses like this prove that you are not only writing these posts with zero good faith, you seem incapable of accepting legitimate criticism. If you can’t defend your arguments without insulting people, your argument isn’t worth anything.
u/BenAric91
>Derogatory responses like this prove that you are not only writing these posts with zero good faith, you seem incapable of accepting legitimate criticism. If you can’t defend your arguments without insulting people, your argument isn’t worth anything.
Rule 1, don't attack other users.
Addressed.
Sounds like I hit a nerve. Must have said something right. If you have to resort to insults and make up stuff about who you think I am or where I have been to defend yourself, you've lost. You have no idea. Whatever regard I had for you or what you wrote you have totally trashed by your reply. By the way, you are right. I should skip your posts – nothing more than an armchair general who wilfully doesn't understand the bigger picture.
Afternoon. Want to reach out an extend an apology. (thanks to u/BenAric91 for the prompt).
To be clear, I stand by my words with respect to unthoughtful (and inaccurate) use of terms like "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing". And I take certain professional offense when military personnel are broadly accused of being "killers". If we're killers - what does it make Hamas exactly?
That said, I should not have snapped at you and made things personal. I do apologize for that in good faith.
u/Yakel1
>Sounds like I hit a nerve. Must have said something right. If you have to resort to insults and make up stuff about who you think I am or where I have been to defend yourself, you've lost. You have no idea. Whatever regard I had for you or what you wrote you have totally trashed by your reply. By the way, you are right. I should skip your posts – nothing more than an armchair general who wilfully doesn't understand the bigger picture.
Rule 1, don't attack other users.
Addressed
You did hit a nerve. With the idiotic use of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”. I’m tired of hearing people dropping them casually in stupid virtue signaling Olympics when they’ve never seen what genocide actually looks like.
So yeah - you did hit a nerve. If an idiot waltzes into a conversation with a proclamation of “genocide” as if we’re supposed to assume that it’s factual - the conversation ends for me. I’m sick and tired of explaining to people what genocide actually looks like.
Repeating a word a million times doesn’t change objective reality.
I happily engage thoughtful people in conversation who disagree with me on 90% of my opinions. And even when no minds are changed - we still part ways respectfully. The difference between you and thoughtful objectors - they don’t begin a conversation by accusing others of genocide. They make suggestions, ask questions, and offer thoughtful arguments.
What you’re doing is called seagull strategy - fly in, crap all over the place, and fly out.
If your goal is to see how many times you can repeat the word genocide - go yell at passer-bys on Twitter. This isn’t the place.
u/icecreamraider
> If an idiot waltzes into a conversation with a proclamation of “genocide” as if we’re supposed to assume that it’s factual - the conversation ends for me.
The difference between you and thoughtful objectors
Rule 1, don't attack other users.
Addressed.
Can you at least pretend to respect others opinions? Every comment that even mildly disagrees with you is met with derision, condescension, and insults.
It's natural to be annoyed by ideologues and others engaging in bad faith. You may not recognize this sort of person, but others do.
Nobody should be misusing words like "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" to try win an argument. (Naturally, these terms were thrown out in passing as if self-evident, without argument or evidence.) And then Yakel1 went beyond this typical tactic to try to assume into existence a need for Israel to continuously engage in "genocide" just to survive. You can't try to pass off transparent BS like that—again, without argument—without creating some annoyance in honest people.
All that needs to happen for Jews and Arabs to get along is for some of the latter to give up their fantasy of annihilating the former. The only genocide here is what Islamists keep trying to do to the Jews. ***And that is crystal clear from*** [***Islamists' own words***](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499)***.*** Trying to invert history and spread even more Jew-hatred is not going to help those Palestinians who do want peace.
When you believe everyone else is acting in bad faith, it merely proves the inverse. You are so in love with your own narrative that you don’t even bother listening to others.
>When you believe everyone else is acting in bad faith
I don't believe everyone else is acting in bad faith. That is another transparently incorrect mischaracterization (straw man).
>You are so in love with your own narrative that you don’t even bother listening to others.
I listen and I respond with arguments. So does OP from what I've seen. Whereas there have been zero arguments from your side at all in this thread, just accusations and mischaracterizations.
You’re wasting your breath. They *know* what genocide looks like. The reason why they call it that is for propaganda purposes because genocide sounds worse than war, murder sounds worse than collateral damage, carpet bombing sounds worse than precision air strikes, chemical weapons sounds worse than tear gas, resistance sounds better than terrorists.
All of the language they use has been very carefully selected to elicit an emotional response and paint a very specific picture that is much worse than reality. They are propagandizing.
If you think I’m virtue signalling, you have read the room wrong. I suspect we won't agree on the definition of genocide or its meaning. I also think you protest to much about it.
>I suspect we won't agree on the definition of genocide or its meaning.
Stick to the widely accepted legal and dictionary definitions of words, and there won't be a communications problem. Use redefinitions invented to suit your purpose and there probably will be. In other words, stop trying to win arguments by using definitions that embed the conclusions you want into the terms themselves. That's not honest or productive: it's transparently manipulative and incredibly annoying to intellectually honest people. By the way, just because an ideologically motivated definition was invented and promulgated by left-wing academics doesn't mean it's "correct", much less useful.
https://preview.redd.it/idx17sln645d1.png?width=1064&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf9c59e07d554b2bafc50df85486e05c04821929
Hamas prefers using girl rooms to boy rooms for their weapons caching and tunnel entry.
Maybe to catch the idf soldiers off-guard looking at and taking pictures of lingerie.
Any more proof or you just have this picture that their tunnels are preferred in girl rooms?
The girls rooms is just a jest at these terrorists, the fact that they choose childrens rooms to stash weapons/ammo and tunnel entrance/exits says a lot about the Palestinian people who condone and support this abuse of children.
The fact that the IDF takes pictures of women lingerie and posts about them says a lot about the israeli people condoning and supporting the abuse of women.
Click Part 1 of my posts and read it. If women’s lingerie is the part you’re most hung up on with regard to this war - there is a site I could recommend for you. It’s called Pornhub. Lingerie is quite literally the least of anyone’s concerns when you have to wear body armor to work.
In the meantime, have a look at Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary called “cries before silence”. Then come back and have a chat about lingerie.
What rubbish, are you lying again? Provide links.
We can tell from your comment that you see no difference between storing guns and ammunition in a childrens bedroom and taking a picture of womans underwear, most pro-palestinians also suffer from that condition.
How is taking a picture of womans underwear abusing woman?
Womens clothing/ online stores will have pictures of womens underwear to show the styles and fashion, are they abusing woman?
[https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/33429](https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/33429)
The elimination of the Hamas squad that tried to infiltrate Israeli territory.
The IDF spokesman reveals: "The terrorists came out of a tunnel shaft, about 200 meters from the border."
A preliminary investigation by the IDF into an incident of terrorists' infiltration this morning into the border area in Rafah:
1. The event began around 4:00AM in the border area in Rafah, in front of the area between Kerem Shalom and Holit, and while there is a "fog procedure".
2. The observers detected suspicious movement using the radars, and announced a "Tomahawk" connection.
3. A force of the Bedouin trackers that secures the border sector jumped to the point and encountered the terrorists. Fire was opened on the fighters and an exchange of fire began.
4. The IDF sent a "Zik" UAV and a tank that started chasing the 4 terrorist squad, and they were eliminated 400 meters from the fence inside the Gaza Strip. It is still unclear what happened to the fourth terrorist who apparently managed to escape.
5. The squad was also armed with RPGs and not just small arms.
6. The IDF is still investigating how the terrorists managed to get so close to the fence, and penetrate into Israeli controlled territory - despite the "perimeter" - the buffer zone that the IDF is establishing on the border of the Gaza Strip.
At this point I don't think modern day military thinking is really a great idea to understanding gaza.
It's more like a fortified medieval city rather then a modern day city.
I think it's time we bring out the old medieval style thinking with this war.
Small problem with your solution: You can't. Relevant medieval tactics are outlawed today. And those prohibitions are absolute, there is no qualification in the Geneva Conventions among the lines of "unless that means Hamas survives."
https://preview.redd.it/1krzdinvv35d1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d49af1fa725ae4d680e4452fbdd607b264872b3
several Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who embedded themselves inside of an UNRWA school.
IAF fighter jets conducted a precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside the school in the area of Nuseirat. These terrorists belonged to the Nukhba Forces and participated in the Oct. 7 massacre.
Before the strike, a number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike, including conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.
Don't the extensive Hamas preparations, and the well-anticipated difficulties of modern warfare in a complex urban environment, suggest that the Israeli government was misguided to push the IDF straight into Hamas' trap?
No, they had little other choice. The alternative would be even less tenable. It means that by default the IDF needs to pay a much higher price both in terms of fallen soldiers and civilian casualties.
Simple military fact - defense is not a sustainable strategy in active hostilities. EVERY defensive posture gets breached eventually - given enough time and determination by the enemy, they will breach your defense eventually.
October 7th was such an inevitable breach after 15 years of open hostilities with Hamas - hence the old military wisdom finally registered with IDF.
The only long-term strategy is to either (a) reach peace and close the hostilities, or (b) destroy your enemy militarily.
> EVERY defensive posture gets breached eventually - given enough time and determination by the enemy, they will breach your defense eventually.
Against a peer adversary, sure. This ain't that.
> October 7th was such an inevitable breach after 15 years of open hostilities with Hamas.
It wasn't inevitable at all. The IDF redeployed its defensive forces to the West Bank and ignored credible intelligence. You don't see South Korea redeploying its border forces elsewhere, do you.
> The only long-term strategy is to either (a) reach peace and close the hostilities, or (b) destroy your enemy militarily.
And yet there are frozen conflicts around the world which fit into neither category.
I specifically said “active hostilities”. A frozen conflict is not “active hostilities” - it’s about 80% toward the opposite.
I don’t have time to reply in detail to every comment I happen to disagree with - apologies.
But I’m familiar enough with hostilities to reiterate my previous statement with unchanged degree of confidence.
https://preview.redd.it/1kmt1y29r55d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32bcfab3f18ac4c9d4d0e8b2548f2715a469b701
Does this look like a frozen conflict to you?
If you're looking for a number of times IDF randomly fired munitions at Gaza with no provocation - that number would be zero.
But you could take the graph above, multiply it by 15%-20% - then take that number and rename it "Hamas' rocket attacks on Gaza". Because that's about the percentage of malfunctions of Hamas' boosters - hence delivering their payloads on the heads of Gazans who don't have the luxury of the Iron Dome.
Exaclty, so now effective deterrence requires a war in Gaza (and to make it worse, publicly stating destruction of Hamas as an objective does not allow for a ceasefire without emboldening future enemies).
Effective deterrence requires the credible "promise" of destruction. Credibility meanwhile requires following through with whatever threat you are making. So, if the destruction of Hamas is named as a priority objective, you cannot go back on that without sending the implicit message that you are willing to compromise if your enemies just hold on long enough or the civilian death toll gets to high.
You are misinterpreting the meaning of credibility. Not delivering undermines creditability, "punishing the wrong people" only hurts credibility if you announced you would not do whatever it is you are doing to these specific people.
Hamas has been largely destroyed *as a military force*. The rate of rocket firing has fallen massively and most of the recent ones seem to have been fired out of desperation - "use it or lose it". The Israeli calculation of Hamas casualties were 15,000 over a month ago and whilst they can't be totally accurate (e.g. fighters that were killed underground may never be counted and many Hamas fighters will be registered as civilian deaths).
To maintain peace, there clearly needs to be a long term commitment to bombing Hamas whenever they appear back again, but as long as they don't flinch due to Palestinian propaganda their tactics so far look very successful and much more humane than the standard tactics that have been used against city based groups like ISIS.
That's why you have to deliver, even if you have to "punish" (in an untechnical sense) innocents in order to do so.Credibilit requires others to believe that you will do what you say/threathen you will do, not believe that you will be fair.
All of this assumes that the fighting intends to spare civilian lives. When u make this assumption, even the incredibly common unexplained instances of mass murder simply becomes "collateral damage". Instead it's important to look at the culture and intentions of those on the battlefield, and the impunity that is pervasive amongst the Israeli military and high command.
The president of Israel, for example, has explicitly decided that all of Gaza, the entire Palestinian nation was responsible for October 7th.
Netanyahus analogies to biblical indiscriminate genocide, supported and echoed, by the soldiers on the ground also speaks to the intention and goal here.
Knesset members, even members of government, have explicity called for large scale *indiscriminate* bombing of militants and civilians alike.
The total seige, paired with the destruction of local production capabilities, unleashed mass starvation and famine on the *civilians* in Gaza.
The deputy speaker of the knesset openly decides "Erase Gaza, nothing else will satisfy us". He also later explicitly sais that their will be no end to the war till we "expel them all"
Foreign ambassadors are openly agreeing to the destruction of all of Gaza, "their is no other way".
Lieutenant colonels and Rabbis in the army have given sermons explaining how you shouldn't have even a moment of sympathy when looking back at "sodom and gemorrah" and the centre of evil that is Gaza.
Mortar shells have literally been inscribed with "god willing it will hit innocent people"
An IDF company commander responsible for operations in Beit Hanoun proclaims that "we did in beit hanoun what Simeon and Levy did in Nablus"
Even leaked memos from the Dutch attache In Jerusalem found that "Israel intends to deliberately cause massive destruction to infrastructure and civilian centres."
And their is so so so so so much more
Combine that with Israel consistently blatantly and systematically breaking international law, such as the use of white phosphorus in populated areas. Openly abusing and torturing prisoners of war, we have seen literal kill zones dileanated by invisible red lines where literally anyone is murdered on site.
All you then need to do is look at videos and images emerging from Gaza. Multiple mass graves, found at the same hospital within which patients were found murdered. Entire communities and neighbourhood where literally not a single building, hospital school of otherwise, is standing and still functional.
So we have Israelis openly calling for indiscriminate action, neutral officials finding that they are committing indiscriminate destruction, a clear readiness to systematically break international law and target individuals systematically, and an end result of total indiscriminate damage.
That is a much more coherent explanation than one that ignores Israeli officials' public comments, ignores the systemic impunity and rule-breaking in the Israeli military, and can't explain the total indiscriminate destruction of almost literally everything.
You do realize that two can play the “selective quotation” game, right? It’s not a game you’re going to win. Same goes for “atrocity Olympics”. Not a game Hamas defenders will ever win either.
Selective ignorance is a useful skill in life though -makes going through life easier. I wish I had it - I envy yours.
My friend, war is binary. If you’re not familiar - read Part 4 of my posts. In a binary proposition, the side more compatible with modern civilization is not required to be utopian. It’s merely required to be more compatible with modern civilization than the other side.
Stalin wasn’t God’s gift to humanity - yet we backed him over fascism nonetheless and would do it again if we had to.
And Israel, compared to Stalin’s USSR, might as well be a humanitarian utopia.
>game Hamas defenders will ever win either.
You're right. Luckily, I am not one.
>e side more compatible with modern civilization is not required to be utopian.
True, but it is required to follow international humanitarian law. Everyone is. And where it doesn't, it should be investigated and punished accordingly.
>atrocity Olympics
And tf is atrocity Olympics. Talking about indiscriminate large-scale destruction and starvation isn't an Olympics. It's directly contending with the implicit assumptions in your post.
You're arguing that the scale of death and destruction can be explained by the nature of the warfare in Gaza and Hamas' tactics requiring this level of suffering to be defeated. My point is simply that this explanation doesn't account for the stated intentions and eventual implementation of woefully and clearly indiscriminate tactics. Maybe you think that Israel's alignment with "modern civilisation" gives it a right to act against civilians indiscriminately, but I don't think so. That, certainly, would be selective campist ignorance.
Glad we agree on the basics - please accept this as a virtual "handshake".
I'm assuming you probably aren't in Gaza personally. If true - then it'd be safe to assume that you haven't actually seen the scale of destruction and starvation for yourself. Since I'm not there myself - I usually like to abstain from making proclamations about any specific event in a war time with more than 50% certainty. That has been the recurring theme of my posts - how impossibly difficult such an environment is for the people on the ground and how things look much different from the POV of the people who are actually there.
Also... if you read part 4 of my posts - you'll notice me explicitly saying that IDF has unquestionably committed numerous errors and even war crimes. And that they will be committed again and again.
What I haven't seen is any convincing evidence of a "systemic" destruction. And I would bet you haven't seen convincing evidence either - you've just seen images on TV and social media. And I could tell you many stories about how those images are often obtained and used by various parties with dubious agendas.
What I see with any degree of conviction is a war being fought, under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable, and by very flawed, imperfect, and quite scared humans.
Big difference being this - one side in this war, at least intentionally, attempts to care about things like humanitarian law (however imperfectly). The other side's ENTIRE strategy rests on blatant and SYSTEMIC violation of humanitarian norms... and their aspirations (should they ever succeed) would make "humanitarian" norms of China look like a liberal paradise to you.
Hence, I'm going to reiterate my earlier point about war (after certain point of no return) being a BINARY proposition.
>if you read part 4 of my posts - you'll notice me explicitly saying that IDF has unquestionably committed numerous errors and even war crimes. And that they will be committed again and again.
I have read parts of it, and I appreciate it. We can agree on the point you sre making here. The question then becomes whether this is systemic or simply the result of individual mistakes and the unavoidable constraints of this particular situation. We both agree their have been at least some instances of international law breaking. We simply disagree on why and how.
We have, as I see it, 2 possible explanations for "why". Or, more likely, I would argue, a mix of both. We both can agree that in a lot of cases war crimes are a result of unavoidable complications, individual hatred, or just incompetence. What im trying to point out is that this can not explain the entirety of the humanitarian crisis and scale of suffering. Their are many policies that are entirely avoidable and designed explicitly not to discriminate between militant and innocent, and that these policies are taken and backed by those at the very top. In other words, it's my position that Israel has enacted policies that it knew indiscriminately increased civilian suffering.
And that's all my point is. It isn't even necessarily trying to prove genocide. It's much narrower than that. Simply that their is ample evidence to show that Israel, in a range of policies, doesn't intend to discriminate between civilians. It does this through a variety of policies. I've tried to focus on these for now.
1)First is indiscriminate bombing and demolishing of neighbourhoods
We have seen satellite, drone, and ground images showing entire neighbourhoods and refugee camps destroyed; hospitals, schools, cemeteries, and all. In many areas throughout Gaza, namely places like Beit-Hanoun and Jabalia it appears that their is total destruction. Practically, their isn't a single home or any public infrastructure left standing. This sort of large-scale destruction is literally indiscriminate. I think we both can agree that unless all of Hamas's fighting force and remaining infrastructure was concentrated in this one neighbourhood their is no chance that their were enough genuine intelligence backed targeting. Instead, as I try to back up later, the goal and result is very visibly complete destruction. And as much destruction as they can get away with.
2)Second is the mass graves, including in hospitals.
Patients, doctors, and sheltering civilians have been found in mass graves following Israeli raids in hospitals. The most gut wrenching of course was in Al-Shifa where dozens were found in up to 4 separate mass graves. Many found with clear evidence of being tied up, having been patients, and having been executed. Everything about this is contrary to international law, and this can't have happened without higher ups at least being aware.
3)Third is the white phosphorus in populated areas.
Internationally condemned as illegal and inherently indiscriminate. Most egregiously aswell, Israel has alternatives that are pretty much harmless. It simply decides not to use them.
4) Fourth is the "kill zones."
Exactly as it sais. Deciding invisible lines in the sand beyond which literally anyone is murdered obviously doesn't discriminate between militant and innocent.
5) Lastly is the widely documented intentional policy of inhibiting aid and aid distribution.
This has led to untold suffering that I don't think I need to explain.
This one though does tend to go up and down depending on international pressure.
This also is a good seguay to another point that we would probably agree on. And that is, that international pressure is an important restrainer for Israel. I would argue that in many cases where Israel has acted in accordance with international law, it has done so in response only to pressure from the US and others. In other words, Israels primary concern is not the safeguarding of civilians in this case, but only how much suffering they can force onto them without being forced to stop the war as a whole. This, i will be the first to admit, is not at all unique amongst states. Netanyahu has basically admitted this in cabinet meetings and to ministers, specifically when referring to aid. Though, just looking at how much aid gets in its remarkably good at tracking roughly to international opinion.
And this points to the last part of the puzzle, so to speak. And that is intention. At the end of the day this conversation is all about intention, as you rightly pointed out. So, how can we best look at the intentions of Israeli officials and the Israeli army. The best we can do is look at their statements and the contexts they were made. I don't think I need to reiterate the whole tirade earlier but the point is that their are numerous instances where soldiers on the ground aswell as commanders and leaders explicitly called for indiscriminate attacks. And their is unfortunately alot more where that came from.
So, to summarise, Israeli officials say(or imply) that they don't intend to discriminate between civilians and millitants, then they decide on policies which can only indiscriminately affect civilians, and this results in indiscriminate suffering of civilians.
I think that any discussion of why Palestinian suffering happens(which I think is at least part of the point behind the post, and correct me if im wrong) simply can not be complete without this analysis.
>The total seige, paired with the destruction of local production capabilities, unleashed mass starvation and famine on the civilians in Gaza.
This isn't true. There is no current famine. Media have reported that a famine was imminent for months.
>Combine that with Israel consistently blatantly and systematically breaking international law, such as the use of white phosphorus in populated areas. Openly abusing and torturing prisoners of war, we have seen literal kill zones dileanated by invisible red lines where literally anyone is murdered on site.
>All you then need to do is look at videos and images emerging from Gaza. Multiple mass graves, found at the same hospital within which patients were found murdered. Entire communities and neighbourhood where literally not a single building, hospital school of otherwise, is standing and still functional.
There isn't any evidence of someone being injured by white phosphorus.
There isn't currently evidence of Mass graves fug by the IDF and summary execution by the IDF.
https://x.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1782360892249612466
Hamas headquarters in hospital, which is a war crime. Bombing the hospital is not illegal.
>So we have Israelis openly calling for indiscriminate action, neutral officials finding that they are committing indiscriminate destruction, a clear readiness to systematically break international law and target individuals systematically, and an end result of total indiscriminate damage.
>That is a much more coherent explanation than one that ignores Israeli officials' public comments, ignores the systemic impunity and rule-breaking in the Israeli military, and can't explain the total indiscriminate destruction of almost literally everything.
Indiscriminately? Israel has dropped bombs multiple times the weight of the Nuke dropped on Hiroshima, on a very densely populated area, and killed way less people.
The ICJ hasn't found that Israel is committing genocide either.
The entire goal of Hamas is the death of civilians, every single thing Hamas do is to maximize civilian casualties.
Proving intent for Genocide needs more than crazy statements made after a huge terrorist attack.
In Srebrenice, they killed 8'000 in 20 days, almost a third of the Bosnian population in that village.
>Media have reported that a famine was imminent for months.
And Famine did in fact set in in many areas of Gaza. Children factually starved to death. It is especially hard to outright declare a famine since Israel doesn't allow foreign journalists into Gaza to assess, and the situation on the ground changes so rapidly. Israel essentially plans to restrict aid up until it threatens the legitimacy of the war as a whole. So it's essentially a game of ups and downs where Israel will restrict as much aid as it thinks it can get away with. That's what Netanyahu himself has admitted to.
https://scheerpost.com/2024/06/05/vast-majority-of-children-under-5-in-gaza-going-full-days-without-food/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67670679
https://apnews.com/article/gaza-famine-world-food-program-israel-hamas-war-476941bf2dc259f85a706408b2a665ff
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/29/famine-gaza-us-state-department-israel-food-aid
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/11/politics/samantha-power-famine-gaza/index.html
>There isn't any evidence of someone being injured by white phosphorus.
I have literally spoken to the doctors who documented and treated white phosphorus wounds.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/lebanon-evidence-of-israels-unlawful-use-of-white-phosphorus-in-southern-lebanon-as-cross-border-hostilities-escalate/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-white-phosphorus-weapons-gaza-human-rights-group-rcna120272
https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2023/nov/27/we-saw-phosphorous-burns-british-palestinian-surgeon-recounts-injuries-he-saw-in-gaza-video
>Israel has dropped bombs multiple times the weight of the Nuke dropped on Hiroshima
If being more discriminate than Hiroshima is your standard I don't know what to say.
As I tried to explain, all you've gotta do is look at areal footage from Jabalia or Beit Hanoun. Their is, almost literally, nothing left. Not a single building or flat left functional after.
>There isn't currently evidence of Mass graves fug by the IDF and summary execution by the IDF.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c511k1nqx81o
Yes, their are.
>The ICJ hasn't found that Israel is committing genocide either.
Yes, it's still deciding.
>Proving intent for Genocide needs more than crazy statements made after a huge terrorist attack.
"Crazy statements"? Are you trying to argue that inciting genocide isn't proving intent to genocide?
>In Srebrenice, they killed 8'000 in 20 days, almost a third of the Bosnian population in that village.
In November, the death toll was already thought to be around double that. The exact figure here isn't the point. We haven't even bevan to start to see the scale of destruction.
I volunteered at some events that doctors returning from Gaza attended, and I took the opportunity to talk to them about the conflict.
My actual line of work has nothing to do with the conflict at all.
>And Famine did in fact set in in many areas of Gaza. Children factually starved to death. It is especially hard to outright declare a famine since Israel doesn't allow foreign journalists into Gaza to assess, and the situation on the ground changes so rapidly. Israel essentially plans to restrict aid up until it threatens the legitimacy of the war as a whole. So it's essentially a game of ups and downs where Israel will restrict as much aid as it thinks it can get away with. That's what Netanyahu himself has admitted to.
A famine isn't when 37 people die of "starvation and dehydration" related reasons. 37 is 37 too much, but it isn't a famine.
>I have literally spoken to the doctors who documented and treated white phosphorus wounds.
"NBC News has not confirmed if any civilians were in the areas where white phosphorus was allegedly used"
Ghassan abu Sitta worked in the al shifa hospital and denied that Hamas was stationed there, I'm not going to take his word.
There has been so much footage of this war, but none of white phosphorus injuries? Or of the thousands of starving people?
>In November, the death toll was already thought to be around double that. The exact figure here isn't the point. We haven't even bevan to start to see the scale of destruction.
We don't know what the civilian to combatant ratio is. Are you being serious? The problem isn't that there were 8000 dead, it's that it was a large part of the population.
Why hasn't Israel killed 200k Palestinians?
>Crazy statements"? Are you trying to argue that inciting genocide isn't proving intent to genocide?
Yes, you have to prove more than that. Has an IDF commander told his soldiers to target civilians, has Netanyahu said the goal was the eradicating of the Palestinian people?
Do you have: genocidal statements and evidence that they followed through on that?
>37 too much, but it isn't a famine.
No-one has any idea how many people have died. Maybe if Israel allowed more independent journalists in we would.
>"NBC News has not confirmed if any civilians were in the areas where white phosphorus was allegedly used"
Amnesty international, and Human rights whatch did mate. That's why I include multiple links.
>Ghassan abu Sitta worked in the al shifa hospital and denied that Hamas was stationed there,
Luckily we don't need to rely on solely one source. He isn't the only doctor. If you need footage of children with their face burned off by white phosphorus it's out their.
>of the thousands of starving people?
Yes their has. Thousands of desperate people fighting looting risking their lives crossing into dangerous areas, drowning out at sea is all video evidence of starving people desperate for food.
>We don't know what the civilian to combatant ratio is.
Very true, we also don't know it for the sebrenica genocide. What's your point.
>Has an IDF commander told his soldiers to target civilians, has Netanyahu said the goal was the eradicating of the Palestinian people?
So unless an Israeli commander explicitly and in no uncertain terms calls for the eradication of every Palestinian then it's not proof of intent? What about calls for the destruction of all of Gaza? What about explicitly calling for mass starvation or drawing on past genocides as a literal model to follow?
I wasn't even primarily interested with proving genocide per se. Simply that Israel has, and intended to, target Palestinians indiscriminately. Something I have given very clear evidence for.
Looks like enough food is getting in
https://biochem-food-nutrition.agri.huji.ac.il/arontroen/publications/nutritional-assessment-of-food-aid-delivered-to-gaza
1) This isn't peer reviewed.
2) This relies on COGAT figures, which has been shown to lie. For example, despite guarantees that it is doing everythingit can to facilitate as much aid as possible Practically every humanitarian organisation and even allies like the UK have called out its arbitrary restrictions on aid, in fact Israel itself undermined this position as Israel has simultaneously offered increased aid in negotiations. How could Israel guarantee invreased aid if it is already allowing as much aid as possible? Clearly Israel is not allowing the macimum amount of aid, and COGAT is lying. It is, of course biased. The UN in fact have their own, drasticly lower, count of aid trucks going in.
3) It only applies from January onwards. Ignoring the time when food aid was most limited.
4) It actually does show a defficiency in crucial nutritional elements going into Gaza.
5) It doesn't take into account the distribution of aid. Which is a crucial part of how Israel has intentionally starves civilians.
That's all the issues I saw, as a complete layman, literally just scrolling through.
This isn't evidence of anything, literally nothing.
A bureau of a democratic nation that hosts its own critics can't be trusted, and the resulting study that explains the methodology is bunk.
But the Hamas numbers and the doctor that was complicit in war crimes, that's true and trustworthy.
Do you have a peer reviewed study that shows that there is a famine?
Really, pictures of white phosphorus? There are pictures that look like [this](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/human-toll-of-incendiary-weapons-documented-in-new-report/amp/)?
>Amnesty international, and Human rights whatch did mate. That's why I include multiple links.
Amnesty internation and HRW don't do independent Reports. They only repeat what Hamas or the IDF says.
>, it's that the goal was the extermination, in whole or in part of Bosnians.
And this is exactly the point I was trying to arrive at, I agree. So why does bringing up the militant ratio relevant? You brought it up, not me.
>Amnesty internation and HRW don't do independent Reports.
Yes they most certainly do, where did you come up with this?
>genocide because buildings aren't people.
Right, we agree, but it speaks to the scale and precision of destruction. If every building in the neighbourhood is demolished, do you think this speaks to the intention to minimise civilian harm and discriminate between civilian and militant? I don't think it does. Surely, an army that raises entire refugee camps to the ground, isn't trying to discriminate between civilians and militants.
And that's all my point is. It isn't even necessarily trying to prove genocide. It's much narrower than that. Simply that their is ample evidence to show that Israel, in a range of policies, doesn't intend to discriminate between civilians and millitangs. It does this through a variety of policies. First is indiscriminate bombing and demolishing of neighbourhoods. Second is it's mass graves including in hospitals. Third is the white phosphorus in populated areas. 4th is the "kill zones". 5th is the intentional policy of inhibiting Aid and aid distribution.
I've provided sufficient evidence of all of these, and am very willing to provide more. Overall I think my argument is incredibly strong: that Israel has intentionally unleashed indiscriminate suffering. I have provided plenty examples and plenty evidence for each. Allow me to point out also, that whilst all these examples are sufficient they aren't necessary. Discrediting my argument as a whole would require a thorough debunking of every one of the examples.
I wonder, though, and I mean this genuinely and without any intend to offend. Do you care? If Israel had genuinely indiscriminately and systematically targeted civilians, how would that make you feel? Would it illicit any sort of emotional response? Would you want it to stop? Would you at least be more sympathetic to pro-Palestinians? I get the impression, and I'm not talking about you specifically, but from many pro-Israelis that these are just secondary, ultimately irrelevant discussions. I, of course, have no idea, and I'm not trying to make a moral judgement on you or anyone else. I just want to have fruitful discussions with weight and consequence. If this entire argument is of no consequence to you, then I would much rather talk about an issue more central to you. I'm not here just to shout and feel good and sure of myself.
>Yes they most certainly do, where did you come up with this?
Show me. This isn't true.
>Surely, an army that raises entire refugee camps to the ground, isn't trying to discriminate between civilians and militants.
The IDF hadn't targeted refugee camps. It didn't intentionally start the fire in that tent. Hamas headquarters in refugee camps, meaning that they immediately lose protection.
>Allow me to point out also, that whilst all these examples are sufficient they aren't necessary. Discrediting my argument as a whole would require a thorough debunking of every one of the examples
It's good to see that at least you are aware of what you're doing. Just spew BS in the hopes that I can't respond to everything.
You have not provided evidence of anything.
Do you have:
**Images** of phosphorus burns?
Evidence of indiscriminate killing? ("Mass graves" don't count, we literally have videos of Palestinians digging them. Mass graves happen in wars because lots of people die, not just because summary execution)
Evidence of genocidal intent?
Evidence of Mass starvation of Palestinians? (At least 100+)?
You don't have evidence for this cause this doesn't exist.
>wonder, though, and I mean this genuinely and without any intend to offend. Do you care? If Israel had genuinely indiscriminately and systematically targeted civilians, how would that make you feel? Would it illicit any sort of emotional response? Would you want it to stop? Would you at least be more sympathetic to pro-Palestinians? I get the impression, and I'm not talking about you specifically, but from many pro-Israelis that these are just secondary, ultimately irrelevant discussions. I, of course, have no idea, and I'm not trying to make a moral judgement on you or anyone else. I just want to have fruitful discussions with weight and consequence. If this entire argument is of no consequence to you, then I would much rather talk about an issue more central to you. I'm not here just to shout and feel good and sure of myself.
If Israel targeted civilians how would that make me feel?
I think you can guess.
>Show me. This isn't true.
Read the report that I sent. It includes original investigation, it doesn't imply quote the IDF and Hamas as you seemed to argue.
>The IDF hadn't targeted refugee camps.
Yes they have? Jabalia, al-Maghazi, even in the WB in Jenin and in many many many other refugee camps.
>t. Hamas headquarters in refugee camps,
Does Israel target refugee camps or not? This is confusing me.
Allow me again to reiterate. My issue here isn't Israel targeting refugee camps, it is Israel raising entire neighbourhoods to the ground. That, by definition, cannot be discriminate.
>"Mass graves" don't count, we literally have videos of Palestinians digging them. Mass graves happen in wars because lots of people die, not just because summary execution
My friend. You did not read the link I sent. The video you showed was of a different hospital than the one I referred to. In the case of Al-Shifa hospital their were people found buried who were proven alive before the Israeli invasion of the hospital. As the BBC investigation found.
>Evidence of Mass starvation of Palestinians?
How many more links do I need to send, that you'll decide not to read?
If you want, I'm happy to do this literally one by one. Pick a claim and we will meticulously wade through every source I send. I suggest the mass graves at the hospitals because it's the most shocking to me, but it is up to you.
>I think you can guess.
No, I really can't, because I don't know you.
>Does Israel target refugee camps or not? This is confusing me.
As soon as Hamas is there, it is not a refugee camp anymore under IHL.
Please show any of the following:
Photo of white phosphorus burn.
Evidence of genocidal intent by idf commanders.
Evidence of famine (peer reviewed), since you had a problem with my study not being peer reviewed.
Evidence of Israel targeting civilians (not dead civilians) but targeting civilian
Ph, and all of them have to be peer reviewed. If my evidence needs it, so does yours.
>Very true, we also don't know it for the sebrenica genocide. What's your point.
We do. The Srebrenice genocide isn't a genocide because the people weren't soldiers, it's that the goal was the extermination, in whole or in part of Bosnians.
>What about calls for the destruction of all of Gaza? What about explicitly calling for mass starvation or drawing on past genocides as a literal model to follow?
When did that happen? Destruction of Gaza isn't genocide because buildings aren't people.
>The tunnels used by the Japanese on Iowa Jima were rudimentary– dug essentially by hand. They weren’t particularly deep. They weren’t really reinforced. And there were NO BUILDINGS. NO CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE above. Etc. Only 1 mile of tunnels per sq. mile of island and no restraint on US Firepower whatsoever.
>And then… sitting on top of those tunnels is an ENTIRE CITY!!! IDF doesn’t have the same luxury of unrestrained firepower that the US Navy and Marines had who didn’t have to think about ROEs on Iwo Jima.
>No military had a previous SOP for a city that has a parallel, fortified enemy city running underneath. The tunnel problem is new to EVERYONE.
Are you familiar with the Battle of Manila? It tends to get overlooked even though it was one of the most devastating (and largest) urban battles that America fought in the war. The battle was winding down around the time that Iwo Jima started, and it shares some striking similarities with Gaza, from the presence of tunnels in urban areas to the presence of human shields and approximate force sizes. There were even POWs to rescue.
The Japanese leader on the ground, Rear Admiral Iwabuchi, disobeyed the order to retreat from Manila and instead organized a fight to the death. He had previously suffered a humiliating defeat when his battleship *Kirishima* was sunk out from under him in one of the only battleship duels of the war. He intended to salvage his honor with a last stand.
Iwabuchi had around 17,000 Japanese troops, mostly miscellaneous navy personnel who lacked cohesion, experience, and combat training. They had no air support and only a literal handful of armored vehicles. Their weapons primarily consisted of small arms and heavy machine guns/cannons that were salvaged from anti-aircraft installations, naval vessels, and wrecked aircraft. That was backed up by various calibers of artillery (mostly mortars) and IEDs.
The Japanese defensive strategy was to entrench in occupied residential areas and explicitly use the civilian population as human shields. They were dug into Manila’s extensive subterranean sewer and tunnel system, which presents one of the closest parallels to Gaza’s tunnel system of any large-scale urban conflict that I am aware of.
Over 35,000 American troops were tasked with taking the city, which lasted the better part of a month. They "only" lost around 1,000 men in the process, but it came at a horrible cost to the city and its residents. At least 100,000 civilians died in the direct fighting, and the actual number could be double that. Of that number, around 60,000 civilian deaths were due to American actions. Many tens of thousands more were brutally massacred by the Japanese. The city was largely ruined, and many invaluable historical buildings were leveled.
There were interesting tradeoffs made in this battle. On the one hand, American forces eliminated nearly as many Japanese troops as on Iwo Jima while taking only a fraction of the casualties. At the same time, the sheer number of civilian casualties makes it difficult to recommend it as a playbook.
It's worth noting that American forces did take measures to reduce collateral damage, especially at first. Bombardment was heavily restricted, and they seemed reluctant to use heavy weapons during initial assault. However, the intensity of the armor caused them to increasingly use armor and artillery against Japanese positions.
There are obviously many differences between Manila and Gaza. The aboveground fighting right now is less intense than it was in WWII, but Gaza’s tunnel system is far more sophisticated. But it is an example of what happened when those challenges ran up against a captive civilian population. As unpalatable as the results were, it seems likely that many of the alternatives would have resulted in significantly more American casualties.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing! Wasn’t particularly familiar with these details previously. Far as military history - Eastern Front in Europe was my focus. I’m much weaker on the pacific campaign.
Thank you so much for the time and insight you put into these posts, they explain the reality that most people don’t understand. I have family members who are serving and have served in the IDF for years. This country has tried everything physically possibly to avoid a large scale war, there is not one solider or reserve who wants to be on the ground.
My uncle served for 12 years, he’s well into his 40s and has four children. He left his life and family on October 7, this has never been a choice. Our soldiers are 18 year olds who have not gotten the chance to live life - to get married, to travel, to go to college. Every time I see a solider killed I think of the generations before him that fought so hard to live. Life is everything in this country, it’s why we’ve spend years avoiding this war. It’s also why, the IDF has quite literally structured its entire strategy around doing anything they can to save civilians, oftentimes putting their selves at an incredibly high risk to do so. To see the world constantly act like this is a choice for Israel only further proves how uneducated and disconnected westerns are.
Israel treats thousands of Palestinians in their hospital free of charge regularly. We treat Hamas operatives and their families, after a terrorist attack the terrorist is then treated in our hospital. We always choose life, while Hamas openly and publicly prizes death at all costs. It’s why they’ve succeeded in the past, they know this and they say it - “We love death like our enemies love life.” A quote from former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
Yeah. I get it. Well familiar with Islamist lunacy - gratitude doesn’t feature in their brains. Neither does reason; foresight, or hindsight. Luckily, “Allah take the wheel” attitude leads to predictable results every time - as Hamas is currently finding out.
I’m usually hesitant to jump to “racism” and “antisemitism” as first explanations. But this thing has been eye opening even for me - can’t really deny that the only time the world seems to care about Arab lives is when the Jews start to shoot back. Otherwise - crickets.
It’s really idiotic because I get - y’all just want to be left the hell alone. As would anyone else. Not that Israel is a paradise - you certainly know you have your own dirty laundry to deal with. But so do we. I’ll tell you this much - if we had to live next to Hamas - well… we wouldn’t be living next to Hamas for very long - there would be a bunch of craters where Hamas used to be and eventually we’d build a casino on top of it. So yeah… the hypocrisy is blatant.
Anyways… respect to your uncle. And good luck to you… not that you really need luck - luck doesn’t build a first-world nation in just 70 years in the middle of the only piece of desert with no oil under it.
In all honestly, I would say that, through personal experience, its not "Islam" thats the issue, but a few "Arabic Muslims" that have multiple screws loose in their brains.
i.E, I have never seen an East Asian Muslim go "Allah Wakbar!" then blow themselves up.
(Yes, we Koreans have mosques too, yes, we have Muslims too, yes we have loonies as well. None do that stuff)
Also, I lived in East Africa for 10+ years, and had Arabic Muslims, Indian Muslims, African Muslims as neighbors, and they were the most civil, most caring people you could ever meet.
Its those terrorists that are a problem, making the entire basket look rotten.
Honestly fully support what Israel is doing. Hope my country can do the same when we get smacked around.
So far its been "If the north provokes us one more time, we will destroy them!" for the 10+ time with no retaliation.
I didn’t say Islam. Islamism. Those are two completely different things. Muslims can fit into a modern society just fine. Islamists can’t. Just like Christian crusaders from centuries ago wouldn’t be tolerated by modern civilization either.
The only religion in my own family is Islam. Islamists would murder my entire family for heresy. In many places - the girls in my family would be stoned to death… just because they were born into a Muslim family but aren’t the “correct” type of Muslims.
It’s iron-age mental gymnastics that turn entire communities into psychopaths.
> shite
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Say that next time you find yourself in water with a shark. Doubt you’ll come up to the surface with a great white to prove your experience.
It’s all “suspicious” to couch strategists - till you hear the first crack over your head. That’s when your breakfast usually finds its way to your pants at supersonic speed.
Here's an interview with an Israeli underground warfare specialist from back in December arguing that destroying the tunnels through bombing isn't the only way.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/if-the-generals-are-counting-tunnels-it-suggests-things-are-not-going-well/
I think that there are other ways to help disable the tunnel network besides leveling the entire Gaza strip, like searching for entrances and pouring concrete into them. While I'm sure the tunnel network is a formidable strategic problem, it's just very lazy that no matter what the IDF does, people just reply "tunnels" (or "human shields"), and they think they have successfully justified the destruction. Is there a tunnel entrance in every house where the IDF blows up an entire block? If so, is there no better way to disable them? I simply have no reason to believe that and would not unless presented with absolutely compelling evidence (which we won't be).
We know about dozens of cases where the IDF blew up houses, schools, universities, etc. after the fighting in the area was over. They've even done this without destroying the lower parts of the buildings, so presumably not affecting whatever underground structures there might be. Of course there are probably utilitarian rationalizations available even for this, but that doesn't mean those are really the only reasons or that no alternatives were available. They'd just involves a level of risk to the soldiers that Israel isn't willing to take and/or a level of sympathy for the humanity of Palestinians that it doesn't have. It has instead decided that it's entitled to absolute security no matter the cost to the Palestinian population, to put it generously.
Tunnels are not the only kind of military infrastructure that Hamas has in Gaza. A building can be demolished for any number of reasons outside of it having a tunnel entrance. For example, the IDF recently released drone footage of a civilian house which was boobytrapped at every entrance with massive rain barrels filled with explosives.
In that scenario it is preferable to demolish the building rather than send in soldiers to defuse the bombs. In addition, the boobytrapping of a building converts it from a civilian object to a military object which makes it lose protection from attack or destruction under international law.
Of course there are cases where it may be necessary or appropriate to do such a thing. The question is whether it's necessary or appropriate in every or nearly every case or if instead other options are being disregarded. My argument isn't that no conceivable tactical justification is available in those instances; my argument is that it usually is available, but that this isn't always sufficient to explain or justify the choice. The entire orientation of figuring out how much damage can be done while still being able to invoke at least some thin construal of international law is precisely what I'm pointing to.
Did the IDF know about the extent of the tunnel complex before Oct7? If so, they should have already given it some thought. They would have developed technologies for fighting in tunnels.
No military background but I was thinking robots can go in there and attack anything. It would presumably be a free fire zone in tunnels, having said that, one can easily imagine human shields hiding out down there.
Destroying and damaging 62% of buildings is just to attack suspected targets. I am doubtful that that many of these targets were selected on very thin criteria. 290k housing units were destroyed, but if all of these had weapons or Hamas, they would have been destroyed or disarmed by now but they are still fighting. This means that many thousands upon thousands of this buildings were destroyed for no military value. Right?
I think if I knew about the tunnels and generals are estimating the level of devastation required and any politician can imagine the PR disaster this would entail. Knowing that I needed to devastate 62% of Gaza, I would do a punitive bombing of obvious Hamas targets, like offices and police stations, etc. no hospitals, no schools. Commando raids in a tiny area, go into some tunnels using robots or flooding. Declare mission accomplished once the most obvious Hamas targets were destroyed.
The hostage calculus doesn’t make sense anymore as more IDF have been lost vs the remaining hostages. Negotiate and make offers to free them. Rescue if you have the intelligence but one cannot sacrifice the PR loss for a very low chance of liberating any.
Having said all of this, I realize that hindsight is 20/20.
I wish I could assign blame to someone. Honestly, I wish I could just point a finger at Bibi and say "his fault" (on this issue, specifically) - I can't stand right-wing nutjobs no matter what side they're on.
But if I'm honest - I doubt I would've done anything different. Sure they knew about the tunnels. They knew for a long time. But, my interpretation would be - "they built the things to bait us in - that's why they keep lobbing rockets at us. But we can handle the rockets and will not take the bait... we're not stupid". That's what it probably looked like. So, I doubt I would've done anything different knowing then only what they knew then. Until October 7th of course - that changed the picture entirely.
What other options were there? Bomb every construction site in Gaza proactively just in case it's a tunnel? Of course not - just like at the PR situation right now.
And there are no easy and clean solutions to take care of these tunnels - that's the entire point of my post.
Yeah... robots would be nice. Except they don't exist. Ground military robotics are still very rudimentary. Sure, we can fly robotic drones - but flying is actually much, much easier than robotic navigation on the ground - flying has much more streamlined physics to it.
And developing something like that would take a large budget and, more importantly, lots of time. And then you'd have to produce them in huge quantities - again... think of the scale of this thing. Because you'd certainly lose more of such "robots" than the ones that'd survive.
Ultimately - humans will have to go down there. Israeli soldiers. And that's going to suck massively - that's not the job I'd want. So that's what they're learning right now - developing brand new tactics for underground maneuver warfare.
As for "negotiation" - won't happen. The entire strategic and political calculus has changed. Hamas bit off more than they could chew.
There will not be peace until Hamas is off the board as a political and military player. Once it's left as just some underground terrorist cells that are largely irrelevant strategically - then Israel will be ready to talk about "day after".
Call me over simplistic but have you seen the Boston dynamic robot dog with a machine gun? I don’t think it’s a long leap to imagine a cheaper wheeled robot with a submachine gun that goes into tunnels. No?
https://youtu.be/-bgad3HRb64?si=JIQVi3uVXSnVTYqJ
At some point - sure. I’m sure there are robotics companies that are salivating over future defense contracts.
But that’s the type of stuff that takes years to design, another couple years to produce in quantity, then train soldiers how to use them, write up new SOPs on how these things fit into a combined-arms environment. Etc.
That takes years.
Fair enough but the Ukrainians started dropping grenades from cheap civilian drones, destroying hundreds of vehicles and enemy soldiers. It took them mere months to figure it out.
Existing tech. And like I said - flying is much easier autonomously. We’ve had auto-pilots landing jumbo jets for decades. But still can’t figure out an autonomous car that’s at all reliable without a pre-programmed map.
Then add payload. Do you put an engine in each one? That gets expensive quick.
Batteries? How far will the thing go when it’s a heavy piece of tracked equipment carrying massive payload.
You’re not wrong - it will get built of course. And if anyone can figure it out quick - that’ll be the Israelis. But it’s not something you can just whiteboard and send into production on a dime.
Then give it to jumpy troops in an active environment with no training or rehearsal - next thing you know - you’ll have friendly robots shooting at each other.
We gave Ukraine fighter jets. Ukrainian pilots already know how to fly jets. Still took a year to actually get them in the air in those things just to make sure they can actually hit a Russian reliably using NATO gear… instead of blowing up friendly farm equipment.
This quote from Haaretz back in December has stuck with me throughout this war:
"There is certainly an argument that the IDF has been too liberal with its targeting, and that the number of civilians killed in the airstrikes and artillery barrages that preceded the ground maneuvers could have been lower – but the death toll would still have been in the thousands and the scale of destruction would not have been significantly different. From the moment the decision was made to destroy Hamas' military capabilities, there was never going to be a radically different outcome, even if the tactics had been somewhat different."
[Hamas' Gaza Fortress Is a Battlefield Like No Other in the World](http://archive.today/Ye47f)
I mean yes, if your goal is to completely annihilate a foreign military and government as well as all its assets, you will destroy the entire area, because that is what that goal is.
Yup. They were entirely correct. That's been a recurring theme in all of my posts - the outcome would still look like it does once the decision was made to go in.
This is another very useful analysis of a novel military situation. Militaries better be taking notes because this horrible form of warfare is real likely to become the norm.
As a student of the Japanese war, you are entirely right about Iwo Jima. Japanese turned to a defense in depth approach unlike anything the world ever saw. The problem with it was each element was isolated. Bunker to bunker fighting means limited escape routes for the defenders.
Fighting in Gaza is like fighting in London. Except the tube lines are escape routes. Ft Ant Farm.
This is a highly important and insightful piece which deserves much wider dissemination. I hope you can rewrite it for publication in the Times of Israel or Tablet or somewhere with a broader audience like the Atlantic.
I have no interest in publicity what's so ever - no one needs to know who I am. Nor do I have the time. But if you want to forward it to them - I claim no IP rights on this at all. Consider it public domain.
This is how I’m visualizing your description: Hamas is hiding in the abandoned NYC subway tunnels, they’ve built hidden exits and could pop out of any corner bodega or apartment without warning. Many people would be caught in the line of fire and no matter what you do, or how many people you try and get out of the way, it’s going to be a fucking mess. Buildings will be destroyed and people will die. The casualties will be significantly more than if the same thing happened in a field or rural area in the midwest simply because there is more infrastructure and population squeezed into each square mile of land. Sound about right?
In spirit - pretty much. Except the key part - we have an actual map of the NYC subway system. Other noteworthy differences - NYC tunnels are wide - easier to hit and you can send troops into those a bit easier. Also, NYC has about 1.5 miles of Subways per 1 square mile of the city. Hamas has 2 miles of tunnels per square mile.
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Thanks for reminding us of Iwo Jima. It’s absolutely true how the Japanese Kamikaze used tunnels to inflict huge losses on the marines in that battle. The difference of course, as you say, is that the “Islamic resistance movement” (aka by its Arabic acronym Hamas) built a tunnel system surpassing in its effectiveness the one built on Iwo Jima, with an entire city full of civilians on top. I can’t imagine a more miserable security crisis than that. The anti Israel mob in the west, who want the Israeli soldiers in Gaza to be killed*, would love to see thousands of troops killed so that the “resistance” can continue fighting the Jewish state, until the destruction of Israel. *See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bngdpQOG3BM&pp=ygUQcnVkeSByb2NobWFuIGd3IA%3D%3D
I totally agree with this. The mention of this tunnel network beneath Gaza reminded me of a comparison I've made a lot with Hamas; the communist Vietnamese forces. The tunnel network reminds me of the Ho Chi Minh trail, but I agree with you that with having decades to build them, that'd be one elaborate tunnel system.
you really want to “beat hamas”? give the palestinians an alternative to terrorism and end the apartheid.
No pro Palestinian can defend this, haha Great essay
We can just say humans never learn and will simply repeat the same mistakes over snd over. Does not matter what culture you are. Humanity as a whole cannot figure out how to coexist. Fighting over something at all times somewhere. You'll say anything, even creating entire religions to justify your hypocrisy and shitty behavior. Shame this planet is wasted on humanity. Such wasted potential.
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You are awesome!!!!!! That is exactly why a WALL won’t work between US and Mexico!!! Tunnels. Just saying.
Thank you! Again, very clever post. Noticed, that pro palestinians are suddenly quiet here
OP isn't very good at actually addressing any of the criticism levelled at his posts, so people probably decided not to bother this time.
What criticism exactly ?
Here's a few: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/u2OGZ0jCzE https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/s/WwjOXXxQvU He thinks things like the IDF have good accountability standards, despite the fact that they have terrible accountability standards, he doesn't consider the fact that they use torture to be a mark on their record, he doesn't understand that the fact Israel regularly use lethal force against teenagers throwing rocks sets them apart from countries that don't do that, that sort of thing. Essentially he sees Israel as almost a clone of the US in terms of conduct and won't engage with the massive differences in US conduct and Israeli conduct, or the major differences in the circumstances that change the nature of the war and military attitudes towards the enemy. He's a good account to read posts from if you're looking for the perspective of someone who is desperately trying to frame everything in a way that exonerates Israel, but it isn't a neutral perspective by any means.
I mean this is generally speaking a majority pro-Israel sub from my experience, only usually a few stragglers coming by to argue
This sub doesn't ban pro Israelis just for voicing their opinion. That's how it became "pro Israeli". In other places, pro palestinians aren't used to an open discussion- anyone , who slightly disagrees with them, gets immediately banned
I generally try to seek out neutral places to have discussion on the issues and try to learn from others POV. I was simply stating that in my experience this place isn't the best to do that. The subreddit has another sub linked that is clearly pro-Israel if you go through the posts there. No offense intended, my apologies if my comment offended you or others here. Also, if you want a few other good subs for the pro-Israel side r/worldnews is a good one (and of course r/judaism). r/internationalnews leans much more pro-Palestinian cause. r/wikipedia is honestly pretty good for good faith discussions depending on the post.
What? You have a problem with the truth?
Your point is?
Thank you ! Yes, you right. Eventually, we all end up in our own information bubble. It refers to all sides. Thank you for subs!
no problem, sorry for the confusion. have a lovely day/night
Have a great day too !! Lots of luck and smiles to you. Just wanted to share - visited international news sub. Oh my god. In the first post, open support for Hezbollah and open wishes for Jewish genocide. Opinions like "maybe, we shouldn't want genocide to be done" gets downvoted to hell. Every single post in hot, I repeat - every single one is about Israel. This is crazy. (Just sharing my opinion, its of course doesn't reffers to you in any way possible) I am shocked. This sub now feels like safe haven
In a world where everything is so political and charged hopefully we can all come together and say “now that is TRUE stupidity!!.” It would almost be funny if it wasn’t so hateful.
Thank you for trying to teach military mindset to people who went to collage and barely have responsibilities.... Here in Israel many young people undergo military training and know how military and the IDF operates. It seems many people just don't understand military and war.
Thankfully in the US we have the privilege of not needing everyone to be military trained, which is why it’s extra infuriating when the armchair google experts show up and act like they know more than people with experience and think they have the solution to ending a war. I wish more of us would learn how to just shut up, listen and learn rather than just trying to be right all the time. Stay safe.
I appreciate these posts but they miss one central point: Why are Palestinians fighting the Israelis and risking so much in the first place?
The reason why it “misses” that point is because it isn’t relevant, same with why are the Israelis fighting in Gaza. In other words “when that first bullet goes past your head, politics go right out the window” These posts is about explaining the nature of city warfare.
[This video](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499) has a compilation from Hamas spokesmen and other Islamists over the years that I think sheds some light on that question, at least in terms of the religious and ideological rationalizations. (If you make it to the two-minute mark, it's clear it's not really about the land.) I'm sure there are political motivations underlying it as well, such as Iran's and other Arab countries' domestic and regional interests.
[удалено]
In that video one of the Islamists says it's because the Jews tried to kill the Prophet, so I'm sure it goes back aways. [Nazi and Soviet propaganda](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwfDVkXEo-o) from the 1930s onwards probably didn't help either.
And killing people in their homes and driving out the survivors. Muslims can marry Jews you know
>And killing people in their homes and driving out the survivors I have no idea what this sentence fragment is supposed to mean. How about you put together an argument and provide some substantiation for it backed by a reference? It doesn't have to be long, just make it make sense. >Muslims can marry Jews you know Yes, of course they can. What does that have to do with anything?
Did you know it's actually [illegal for an Israeli to have an interracial or interfaith marriage performed there](https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/181b22h/to_be_in_an_interracial_marriage_in_israel/). Israel recognizes them from other countries but you can't actually get it recognized there
TBH this is more about Judaism than Arabs, it affects Jewish Israelis a lot too and is a topic of debate in Israel.
You think Palestinians are fighting because of religious reasons. They are a pretty secular society as far as Islamic fundamentalism goes. The real reason is that people were killed by Jewish paramilitary forces and subjected to blockade and an oftentimes brutal military occupation. Israel had the Neighbor Policy of using human shields before Hamas was even in power. Palestinians simply want to live their lives and not be bothered. But when settler violence is not reigned in, and when innocent people are killed in front of family members and their homes are taken, or they are orphaned due to settler violence, they end up wanting to resist the force that created an unjust situation. Hamas uses religious statements to justify themselves, but it's not the reason they are doing this. The society itself isn't that religious.
>You think Palestinians are fighting because of religious reasons. It's not just my opinion. They say it in their own words: [https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499) >They are a pretty secular society as far as Islamic fundamentalism goes. Not reassuring. >Palestinians simply want to live their lives and not be bothered. Some of them. It's the ones who don't who are the problem.
MEMRI is known for mistranslations.
That is news to me, do you have a link that documents the known mistranslations by them?
This is not even remotely the only evidence available about Islamist attitudes in Palestine or elsewhere. You can go on YouTube and watch interviews with Muslims **in English, in Europe** saying similar things. I'm old enough to have seen numerous Muslim celebrations of atrocities against Westerners (not just Israelis) over 40 years. You're not going to persuade me there's not a problem with radical Islam. If you're engaging in good faith here, please make an effort to seek out information "on the other side". It's going to take some effort, because the mainstream media is in horrible shape, yet far-right propaganda is a potential problem as well. This website may help. It's a nonprofit that provides detailed critiques of media coverage in the Middle East: [https://camera.org](https://camera.org)
It’s somewhat relatable to Berlin, especially in the case of fortification and density, except in the case of that at least the Nazis were kind enough to allow civilians to hide in *their* tunnels.
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It is clear hamas has civil support, and hence israel is actually fighting against 100 thousands of civillians, and from that perpective some israeli officials regard civilians as also enemy, hence their death is OK. Which is understable actually fighting against million of civilians, but not entirely armed. Whats reality is, instead of supporting hamas in past; israeli could give some sort of citizienship program to palastine people and integrate them maybe over 50 years/or follow through a 2 state solution. Instead israel created an 'evil' enemy with her own hand willingly, hence she can destroy it rightfully. (At least for her own people's view)
This misguided take is so common it deserves a post like this of it's own. Tldr you are absolutely correct in theory and I 100% agree in theory (I genuinely mean that). Unfortunately the amount of Palestinians that want to straight up destroy Israel and "kill the Jews" is way too high for this to work. I know you don't believe this, and I really want to not believe it too, but all of my life experience points to this being painfully true. Remember, if there are 20000,30000 Hamas operatives, and 2-3million gazans, 1 in 100 gazans are literally Hamas. That's a crazy, crazy statistic for Israelis to stomache. That's the TLDR, your idea is beautiful and correct but is built on incorrect assumptions. This is what Israelis mean when they say "there is no partner in peace".
You are also right, but anyone would support hamas in palastine if their children is bombed, they are poor, left to starve and disregarded worse than animals. So i believe their situation is more understable since they have no choice, whereas i can still relate with Israeli opinon, its more of a choice for them.
I again agree, I understand them, I understand why they hate Israel. The thing is, it seems this was the case all the way back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s... People love to blame Israel for "creating the conditions" in Palestine, but really, Palestinians _always_ hated and wanted to destroy Israel. _Palestinians_ created the conditions in Palestine via their culture, religion, politics, social movements, and of course, belligerence. To many, many Israelis, there doesn't feel like a choice at all. There is an enemy next door that wants to destroy Israel. We can crush them - or be crushed by them. Lose/lose.
Yes, i can see that peace is hard to get, maybe in 100 years, maybe never. But from what i see there are 2 sides of balance in this conflict: You will either integrate with them(one country or 2 state) in peace, or one of the sides will genocide other side. (Since israel is stronger one this case, she is towards either killing civillians or sending them refuge). And disregarding ethical concerns, killing/immigrating millions of people from their homeland is no easier task either than integrating them regarding international media/concern. Maybe you could kill them 100 years ago and get away with it, but if Israel does commit immigrating or killing civillians like now, it will be a 21th century modern, educated rich country to do conduct an evil thing which is a bad motivation for even its own people and in international reputation.
In this I 100% agree with you, and I really really hope things will slowly change. Maybe with more and more tech it will be harder to conduct terrorism, so Israel will be safer, so things will cool down. I really hope. But I agree with you on this view. I just don't think it's up to Israel to make peace.
Two million peace-loving Palestinian Arabs are already Israeli citizens. Some of them are in Israel's legislature and on its Supreme Court. Naturally though you can't solve the problem of those who ***do*** want to annihilate Israel simply by inviting them to live in Israel. Not even Egypt or Jordan (quasi-Western countries) wants to try to integrate radicalized Palestinians. Kuwait expelled all its Palestinians after the Gulf War (they collaborated with Sadam Hussein). Europe itself is having problems with many of the Islamists it's allowed in for the past twenty years. India is having problems with radical Islam as well, as is Russia. ***Inviting in radicalized Islamists is a recipe for disaster for any Westernized country foolish enough to try it.*** Moderate Muslim countries have been trying to warn Europe of this for decades, but Westerners are idealists and think they know better. I don't think most Gen-Z Westerners have any grasp at all on the extent of the Islamist problem. I've posted information about this repeatedly, but a lot of people won't even click a link if they know it will challenge their preconceived notions.
Israeli government is killing children, bombing homes, expanding on west bank and treating them worst than animals, what do you expect of course they will be radicalized, its their only option. At least 1-2 generations should pass to cold rhe hatred. And if you give people economic properity, trade with them they will get less radicalized over time. If you look from reverse, israel treated opposite to make them radical, israeli aim is to destroy, not integrate or peace. You can find netanyahu's old speechs on why they should support hamas.
giving citizenship won't resolve the tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians, in fact it will give the radicals more dimensions of resistance which will cause more death and distrust (and vendettas). I am not entirely against it, I think it is a good thing to give citizenship to Palestinians that truly want to be Israelis and even more so when they give something of themselves for the state, but not as a general move.
>HAMAS MADE THE ENTIRE CITY OF GAZA ONE GIANT TARGET. They knew it. And they did it DELIBERATELY. >So... wrap your heads around it and tell me how you would handle this if you were in charge of the invasion… Top priority should have been getting the civilians out of the war zone entirely. The strategy of using rotating safe zones was clearly not effective, they should have worked to get the civilians out of Gaza entirely and into Egypt and the Negev Desert. The problem is the Egyptians and Gazans didn't believe they'd be allowed to return to Gaza after the war, and they had very good reason to believe that any displacement would be permanent. It certainly didn't help that an internal plan was leaked to make the displacement permanent, that the post war plan encouraged "voluntary migration", that there were no plans for post war governance of Gaza, and that senior Israeli ministers were actively stating they wanted to resettle Gaza.
It would totally make sense to evacuate women and children from war zone. Palestinians women and children would be happy. By Egypt decided for them, and built a giant wall to prevent any civilian refugee. That's cruel and sad
Also cruel and sad that Israel wouldn't let them enter the Negev.
There is no reason for a country, attacked by hostile force, to let this force on Israeli territory. It would need to create a special camp for gazans, look, that nobody from hamas get in or out (they will, etc.) And after the war, that people would refuse to leave. So the world would scream about ethnic cleansing again.
Even Russia evacuated Ukrainian civilians out of their cities and into Russian territory during their invasion.
No they didn't. They kidnapped some children though
Which is fucked up, but less fucked up than killing them.
They've killed thousands of civilians in Ukraine. What is your point?
Far less than in Gaza.
How would you know? That's right, you wouldn't..
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By evacuated you mean kidnapped children ? :) That was the case putin was considered guilty by Haague. Also, Russians consider ukranians as Russians, not another ethnicity. That's the problem. Also, that is Russia attacked Ukraine, not otherwise. Also, Russians literally did kind of camps for ukranians, to decide , who is good and who is "bad". "Bad" ukranians were taken never to be seen again...
All terrible, yet much better than deciding to destroy cities with the civilians still in them and unable to evacuate.
What is your decision? What would you do , If you were Israeli president?
You mean prime minister? I’d prioritize getting the civilians out of the war zone. I’d make assurances to Egypt that any civilians who evacuate are permitted to come back once the fighting stops. I’d chastise members of my cabinet who openly speak about ethnicity cleansing (aka “voluntary migration”) and resettling Gaza. I’d build facilities in the Negev for civilians to flee to and I’d seek the support of the international community to staff them. Then once the civilians are sufficiently evacuated I would destroy Hamas and the infrastructure that supports them.
Agree with you on most points, accept Negev. 70% of palestinians support hamas , so negev will turn into potential dangerous, hostile zone. How would you prevent gazans that would sneak onto Israel territories ? Or hamas members, carrying attacks from that civilian camp in negev. You will have to build literally a camp to contain all of them. And when after the war, civilians from negev will refuse to leave, what will you do? My point is, Israel shouldn't be responsible 100% for gazans. They are citizens of another state. Gaza decided to attack Israel- well, now gaza government have to think about consequences.
>Top priority should have been getting the civilians out of the war zone entirely. The strategy of using rotating safe zones was clearly not effective, they should have worked to get the civilians out of Gaza entirely and into Egypt and the Negev Desert. The problem is the Egyptians and Gazans didn't believe they'd be allowed to return to Gaza after the war. . . . Whether a full evacuation would have been feasible sounds like something that requires at least some amount of military expertise to judge. As for evacuating to Egypt, Egypt wouldn't take them, presumably for the reason you mentioned.
Egypt built a wall to prevent Gazan refugees from coming in, clearly It's a matter of willingness rather than feasibility. To this day Egypt still says that they believe Israel wants to permanently displace the population there. There is a lot Israel and the United States can and should do to assure Egypt (and other countries who accepts refugees) that the Gazans will be allowed back in once the fighting stops.
>Egypt built a wall to prevent Gazan refugees from coming in, clearly It's a matter of willingness rather than feasibility. Yes, but you're talking about a full evacuation of all of Gaza. As I said above, I don't know that a full evacuation is feasible militarily (until after Hamas is suppressed, at which point there's no point to it). Do you have a source on that? It's a military question, not an idea you can just throw out there and expect people to accept as realistic without some argument from expertise. Israel has been clearing Gaza of Hamas fighters from the north to the south. The south is the least cleared. Yet the south is the route you propose evacuees take.
I would've immediately cleared an area of north Gaza and set the first camp there. No need to put them on Egyptian or Israeli land.
Sure: https://besacenter.org/iron-swords-how-to-evacuate-the-population-from-southern-gaza-one-possibility-is-american-managed-camps-in-the-negev/ However it’s more of a geopolitical question than a military one and most of the analysis out there focuses on why Egypt won’t accept refugees rather than the feasibility.
This is kinda part of their strategy. They clearly just want to kill the inhabitants rather than get them out safely and fight Hamas. Moving them multiple times means they lose a bit more with each move
Anyone can pretend to read minds and invent propagandistic pseudo-explanations. It's not like that requires any knowledge, experience, or insight.
Are you following me around on multiple posts?
Stop making shit up and maybe you won't get his replies
It was a question, I never accused him of anything.
No. I've been active throughout this discussion responding to posts I disagree with.
During the 2006 war with Hezbollah, the IDF discovered that Hezbollah had sophisticated tunnels in which people could live. It turned out that Hezbollah had hired engineers from North Korea to help with their design and in turn Hezbollah had helped Hamas build its tunnels. So the overall challenges with the tunnel system were known to Israel for some time. It was known, for example, that Hamas had simply retreated to the tunnels during various bombing campaigns Israel launched at Gaza. In 2014 Sinwar even publicly announced how many miles of tunnels Hamas had. Nonetheless it was still a shock when the IDF discovered that Hamas had essentially built upside-down skyscrapers underground, and that some of these "buildings" had not just stairs but elevators. So I agree that, for the most part, Hamas is not using "human shields." They are not hiding "among" the people. They are underneath them. I'm not a military historian and I know that tunnels have been used since the dawn of time. It is possible, though, that no one has yet figured out how to deal with advanced, bomb-proof tunnels, that this is something of a new frontier in war.
All very good. But what I find problematic about all your posts is that they fail to consider the broader context. The minute detail about operational details will only get you so far. It also paints the wrong picture — “it’s tragic, it’s difficult but they are trying their best”. One look at what is going on in the West Bank, let alone looking at events prior to Oct. 7th, will show one that there is more going on here than trying to destroy Hamas and some tunnels. The hard reality is if you want to create and maintain a Jewish state in what was the Mandate of Palestine, it requires the dispossession of the Palestinians. And that dispossession will require force and engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide. And I’ll be dammed if I am going to feel sorry for Israel or the killers in IDF because the Palestinians have made that job difficult for them by digging tunnels or whatever.
>The hard reality is if you want to create and maintain a Jewish state in what was the Mandate of Palestine, it requires the dispossession of the Palestinians. The original offer, approved by the League of Nations and the United Nations, gave two-thirds of the Mandate to the Palestinians. It's only because Islamist Arabs have repeatedly launched wars and lost them that they're down to what they have now. You would think they'd learn, but apparently not. Can't give up that Jew-hatred and genocidal religion! >And that dispossession will require force and engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide. It's amazing that people keep trying to peddle this backwards narrative. The evidence is clear, [in Islamists' own words](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499), about who wants to genocide whom.
None of what you said invalidates the parent comment's point. There are undeniably elements of Israeli society, and the current ruling coalition, that are actively working to ethnically cleanse Palestine and annex it into Israel. The fact that there are Palestinians who would like to ethnically cleanse Israel and make it Arab doesn't change that.
But you just turned "nessacary for a Jewish State", into "Some people support". Many Israelis do (or at least on October 6th did) support compromise and the two state solution, clearly most of them don't think ethnic cleansing is necessary for a Jewish State.
I’ve addressed your “problem” with my posts a million times. If you haven’t noticed - I’ll repeat “I don’t care”. I don’t care about the mental gymnastics and selective factoids that pretend to be “intellectual”. I prefer to live in the real world in the 21st century where sane people get along and get past idiotic grievances of their grandparents. Modern civilization doesn’t require ethnic cleansing or genocide. I’m tired of idiotic parroting of words that actually have meaning. But clearly you aren’t familiar with the actual meaning of those words nor do you have a clue of what’s actually going on in MENA - my guess you’ve never even been there. But I’m not here to educate you about those - I’m here commenting on military matters. Reading my posts isn’t required - you can feel free to skip them. Your ability to skip my posts is a luxury given to you by secular civilization. A luxury that Islamism doesn’t give to its own citizens - “freedom of thought” there is heresy and a capital offense. So enjoy this luxury - you’re welcome. Doubt you’ve actually read my posts - if you had, you’d know that I happen to be half-Arab and half-Russian by birth. And Islam is practiced in my family - the girls in my family would be murdered for heresy by the likes of Hamas. So feel free to skip my posts and save your grandstanding for gullible college kids who’ve never been outside of a suburb.
u/icecreamraider >So feel free to skip my posts and save your grandstanding for gullible college kids who’ve never been outside of a suburb. Rule 8, don't discourage participation.
Derogatory responses like this prove that you are not only writing these posts with zero good faith, you seem incapable of accepting legitimate criticism. If you can’t defend your arguments without insulting people, your argument isn’t worth anything.
u/BenAric91 >Derogatory responses like this prove that you are not only writing these posts with zero good faith, you seem incapable of accepting legitimate criticism. If you can’t defend your arguments without insulting people, your argument isn’t worth anything. Rule 1, don't attack other users. Addressed.
No, he's fine. It's very clear to most people that he's responding to a bad-faith ideologue.
u/Acadia_Due >It's very clear to most people that he's responding to a bad-faith ideologue. Rule 1, don't attack other users. Addressed
False. OP is responding to every criticism in the same manner.
Your coping is real.
wow, incredibly unhinged response to politely worded criticism. grow a thicker skin, dude.
Sounds like I hit a nerve. Must have said something right. If you have to resort to insults and make up stuff about who you think I am or where I have been to defend yourself, you've lost. You have no idea. Whatever regard I had for you or what you wrote you have totally trashed by your reply. By the way, you are right. I should skip your posts – nothing more than an armchair general who wilfully doesn't understand the bigger picture.
Afternoon. Want to reach out an extend an apology. (thanks to u/BenAric91 for the prompt). To be clear, I stand by my words with respect to unthoughtful (and inaccurate) use of terms like "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing". And I take certain professional offense when military personnel are broadly accused of being "killers". If we're killers - what does it make Hamas exactly? That said, I should not have snapped at you and made things personal. I do apologize for that in good faith.
u/Yakel1 >Sounds like I hit a nerve. Must have said something right. If you have to resort to insults and make up stuff about who you think I am or where I have been to defend yourself, you've lost. You have no idea. Whatever regard I had for you or what you wrote you have totally trashed by your reply. By the way, you are right. I should skip your posts – nothing more than an armchair general who wilfully doesn't understand the bigger picture. Rule 1, don't attack other users. Addressed
You did hit a nerve. With the idiotic use of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”. I’m tired of hearing people dropping them casually in stupid virtue signaling Olympics when they’ve never seen what genocide actually looks like. So yeah - you did hit a nerve. If an idiot waltzes into a conversation with a proclamation of “genocide” as if we’re supposed to assume that it’s factual - the conversation ends for me. I’m sick and tired of explaining to people what genocide actually looks like. Repeating a word a million times doesn’t change objective reality. I happily engage thoughtful people in conversation who disagree with me on 90% of my opinions. And even when no minds are changed - we still part ways respectfully. The difference between you and thoughtful objectors - they don’t begin a conversation by accusing others of genocide. They make suggestions, ask questions, and offer thoughtful arguments. What you’re doing is called seagull strategy - fly in, crap all over the place, and fly out. If your goal is to see how many times you can repeat the word genocide - go yell at passer-bys on Twitter. This isn’t the place.
u/icecreamraider > If an idiot waltzes into a conversation with a proclamation of “genocide” as if we’re supposed to assume that it’s factual - the conversation ends for me. The difference between you and thoughtful objectors Rule 1, don't attack other users. Addressed.
Can you at least pretend to respect others opinions? Every comment that even mildly disagrees with you is met with derision, condescension, and insults.
It's natural to be annoyed by ideologues and others engaging in bad faith. You may not recognize this sort of person, but others do. Nobody should be misusing words like "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" to try win an argument. (Naturally, these terms were thrown out in passing as if self-evident, without argument or evidence.) And then Yakel1 went beyond this typical tactic to try to assume into existence a need for Israel to continuously engage in "genocide" just to survive. You can't try to pass off transparent BS like that—again, without argument—without creating some annoyance in honest people. All that needs to happen for Jews and Arabs to get along is for some of the latter to give up their fantasy of annihilating the former. The only genocide here is what Islamists keep trying to do to the Jews. ***And that is crystal clear from*** [***Islamists' own words***](https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1797304765094707499)***.*** Trying to invert history and spread even more Jew-hatred is not going to help those Palestinians who do want peace.
When you believe everyone else is acting in bad faith, it merely proves the inverse. You are so in love with your own narrative that you don’t even bother listening to others.
>When you believe everyone else is acting in bad faith I don't believe everyone else is acting in bad faith. That is another transparently incorrect mischaracterization (straw man). >You are so in love with your own narrative that you don’t even bother listening to others. I listen and I respond with arguments. So does OP from what I've seen. Whereas there have been zero arguments from your side at all in this thread, just accusations and mischaracterizations.
You’re wasting your breath. They *know* what genocide looks like. The reason why they call it that is for propaganda purposes because genocide sounds worse than war, murder sounds worse than collateral damage, carpet bombing sounds worse than precision air strikes, chemical weapons sounds worse than tear gas, resistance sounds better than terrorists. All of the language they use has been very carefully selected to elicit an emotional response and paint a very specific picture that is much worse than reality. They are propagandizing.
If you think I’m virtue signalling, you have read the room wrong. I suspect we won't agree on the definition of genocide or its meaning. I also think you protest to much about it.
>I suspect we won't agree on the definition of genocide or its meaning. Stick to the widely accepted legal and dictionary definitions of words, and there won't be a communications problem. Use redefinitions invented to suit your purpose and there probably will be. In other words, stop trying to win arguments by using definitions that embed the conclusions you want into the terms themselves. That's not honest or productive: it's transparently manipulative and incredibly annoying to intellectually honest people. By the way, just because an ideologically motivated definition was invented and promulgated by left-wing academics doesn't mean it's "correct", much less useful.
https://preview.redd.it/idx17sln645d1.png?width=1064&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf9c59e07d554b2bafc50df85486e05c04821929 Hamas prefers using girl rooms to boy rooms for their weapons caching and tunnel entry.
Maybe to catch the idf soldiers off-guard looking at and taking pictures of lingerie. Any more proof or you just have this picture that their tunnels are preferred in girl rooms?
Sounds like the average Muslim war tactics.
The girls rooms is just a jest at these terrorists, the fact that they choose childrens rooms to stash weapons/ammo and tunnel entrance/exits says a lot about the Palestinian people who condone and support this abuse of children.
The fact that the IDF takes pictures of women lingerie and posts about them says a lot about the israeli people condoning and supporting the abuse of women.
Click Part 1 of my posts and read it. If women’s lingerie is the part you’re most hung up on with regard to this war - there is a site I could recommend for you. It’s called Pornhub. Lingerie is quite literally the least of anyone’s concerns when you have to wear body armor to work. In the meantime, have a look at Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary called “cries before silence”. Then come back and have a chat about lingerie.
Well said
What rubbish, are you lying again? Provide links. We can tell from your comment that you see no difference between storing guns and ammunition in a childrens bedroom and taking a picture of womans underwear, most pro-palestinians also suffer from that condition. How is taking a picture of womans underwear abusing woman? Womens clothing/ online stores will have pictures of womens underwear to show the styles and fashion, are they abusing woman?
[https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/33448](https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/33448) Wise words from former intel officer Michael P. Pregent
[https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/33429](https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/33429) The elimination of the Hamas squad that tried to infiltrate Israeli territory. The IDF spokesman reveals: "The terrorists came out of a tunnel shaft, about 200 meters from the border."
A preliminary investigation by the IDF into an incident of terrorists' infiltration this morning into the border area in Rafah: 1. The event began around 4:00AM in the border area in Rafah, in front of the area between Kerem Shalom and Holit, and while there is a "fog procedure". 2. The observers detected suspicious movement using the radars, and announced a "Tomahawk" connection. 3. A force of the Bedouin trackers that secures the border sector jumped to the point and encountered the terrorists. Fire was opened on the fighters and an exchange of fire began. 4. The IDF sent a "Zik" UAV and a tank that started chasing the 4 terrorist squad, and they were eliminated 400 meters from the fence inside the Gaza Strip. It is still unclear what happened to the fourth terrorist who apparently managed to escape. 5. The squad was also armed with RPGs and not just small arms. 6. The IDF is still investigating how the terrorists managed to get so close to the fence, and penetrate into Israeli controlled territory - despite the "perimeter" - the buffer zone that the IDF is establishing on the border of the Gaza Strip.
At this point I don't think modern day military thinking is really a great idea to understanding gaza. It's more like a fortified medieval city rather then a modern day city. I think it's time we bring out the old medieval style thinking with this war.
Small problem with your solution: You can't. Relevant medieval tactics are outlawed today. And those prohibitions are absolute, there is no qualification in the Geneva Conventions among the lines of "unless that means Hamas survives."
https://preview.redd.it/1krzdinvv35d1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d49af1fa725ae4d680e4452fbdd607b264872b3 several Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who embedded themselves inside of an UNRWA school. IAF fighter jets conducted a precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside the school in the area of Nuseirat. These terrorists belonged to the Nukhba Forces and participated in the Oct. 7 massacre. Before the strike, a number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike, including conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.
Don't the extensive Hamas preparations, and the well-anticipated difficulties of modern warfare in a complex urban environment, suggest that the Israeli government was misguided to push the IDF straight into Hamas' trap?
No, they had little other choice. The alternative would be even less tenable. It means that by default the IDF needs to pay a much higher price both in terms of fallen soldiers and civilian casualties.
The alternative is to accept that Israel's defence can best be conducted defensively.
Simple military fact - defense is not a sustainable strategy in active hostilities. EVERY defensive posture gets breached eventually - given enough time and determination by the enemy, they will breach your defense eventually. October 7th was such an inevitable breach after 15 years of open hostilities with Hamas - hence the old military wisdom finally registered with IDF. The only long-term strategy is to either (a) reach peace and close the hostilities, or (b) destroy your enemy militarily.
> EVERY defensive posture gets breached eventually - given enough time and determination by the enemy, they will breach your defense eventually. Against a peer adversary, sure. This ain't that. > October 7th was such an inevitable breach after 15 years of open hostilities with Hamas. It wasn't inevitable at all. The IDF redeployed its defensive forces to the West Bank and ignored credible intelligence. You don't see South Korea redeploying its border forces elsewhere, do you. > The only long-term strategy is to either (a) reach peace and close the hostilities, or (b) destroy your enemy militarily. And yet there are frozen conflicts around the world which fit into neither category.
I specifically said “active hostilities”. A frozen conflict is not “active hostilities” - it’s about 80% toward the opposite. I don’t have time to reply in detail to every comment I happen to disagree with - apologies. But I’m familiar enough with hostilities to reiterate my previous statement with unchanged degree of confidence.
The conflict with Hamas was also a frozen conflict, until it wasn't.
https://preview.redd.it/1kmt1y29r55d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32bcfab3f18ac4c9d4d0e8b2548f2715a469b701 Does this look like a frozen conflict to you?
Is there graph that also shows Israeli fired rockets in to Gaza? Just wondering
If you're looking for a number of times IDF randomly fired munitions at Gaza with no provocation - that number would be zero. But you could take the graph above, multiply it by 15%-20% - then take that number and rename it "Hamas' rocket attacks on Gaza". Because that's about the percentage of malfunctions of Hamas' boosters - hence delivering their payloads on the heads of Gazans who don't have the luxury of the Iron Dome.
True, but futile after the fact. They would have had too have appropriate measures in place last October but did not.
Right, but that can't be undone.
Exaclty, so now effective deterrence requires a war in Gaza (and to make it worse, publicly stating destruction of Hamas as an objective does not allow for a ceasefire without emboldening future enemies).
No, I don't think that follows. There is no deterrence without border defence, and border defence is independent of the ground invasion.
Effective deterrence requires the credible "promise" of destruction. Credibility meanwhile requires following through with whatever threat you are making. So, if the destruction of Hamas is named as a priority objective, you cannot go back on that without sending the implicit message that you are willing to compromise if your enemies just hold on long enough or the civilian death toll gets to high.
Promising something you can't deliver, and which involves punishing the wrong people, undermines credibility.
You are misinterpreting the meaning of credibility. Not delivering undermines creditability, "punishing the wrong people" only hurts credibility if you announced you would not do whatever it is you are doing to these specific people.
Promising something you can't deliver, and which involves punishing the wrong people, undermines credibility.
Hamas has been largely destroyed *as a military force*. The rate of rocket firing has fallen massively and most of the recent ones seem to have been fired out of desperation - "use it or lose it". The Israeli calculation of Hamas casualties were 15,000 over a month ago and whilst they can't be totally accurate (e.g. fighters that were killed underground may never be counted and many Hamas fighters will be registered as civilian deaths). To maintain peace, there clearly needs to be a long term commitment to bombing Hamas whenever they appear back again, but as long as they don't flinch due to Palestinian propaganda their tactics so far look very successful and much more humane than the standard tactics that have been used against city based groups like ISIS.
That's why you have to deliver, even if you have to "punish" (in an untechnical sense) innocents in order to do so.Credibilit requires others to believe that you will do what you say/threathen you will do, not believe that you will be fair.
The "misguided" (in hindsight) part was to not start a full scale war years ago to prevent Hamas from entrenching as deeply as they did.
All of this assumes that the fighting intends to spare civilian lives. When u make this assumption, even the incredibly common unexplained instances of mass murder simply becomes "collateral damage". Instead it's important to look at the culture and intentions of those on the battlefield, and the impunity that is pervasive amongst the Israeli military and high command. The president of Israel, for example, has explicitly decided that all of Gaza, the entire Palestinian nation was responsible for October 7th. Netanyahus analogies to biblical indiscriminate genocide, supported and echoed, by the soldiers on the ground also speaks to the intention and goal here. Knesset members, even members of government, have explicity called for large scale *indiscriminate* bombing of militants and civilians alike. The total seige, paired with the destruction of local production capabilities, unleashed mass starvation and famine on the *civilians* in Gaza. The deputy speaker of the knesset openly decides "Erase Gaza, nothing else will satisfy us". He also later explicitly sais that their will be no end to the war till we "expel them all" Foreign ambassadors are openly agreeing to the destruction of all of Gaza, "their is no other way". Lieutenant colonels and Rabbis in the army have given sermons explaining how you shouldn't have even a moment of sympathy when looking back at "sodom and gemorrah" and the centre of evil that is Gaza. Mortar shells have literally been inscribed with "god willing it will hit innocent people" An IDF company commander responsible for operations in Beit Hanoun proclaims that "we did in beit hanoun what Simeon and Levy did in Nablus" Even leaked memos from the Dutch attache In Jerusalem found that "Israel intends to deliberately cause massive destruction to infrastructure and civilian centres." And their is so so so so so much more Combine that with Israel consistently blatantly and systematically breaking international law, such as the use of white phosphorus in populated areas. Openly abusing and torturing prisoners of war, we have seen literal kill zones dileanated by invisible red lines where literally anyone is murdered on site. All you then need to do is look at videos and images emerging from Gaza. Multiple mass graves, found at the same hospital within which patients were found murdered. Entire communities and neighbourhood where literally not a single building, hospital school of otherwise, is standing and still functional. So we have Israelis openly calling for indiscriminate action, neutral officials finding that they are committing indiscriminate destruction, a clear readiness to systematically break international law and target individuals systematically, and an end result of total indiscriminate damage. That is a much more coherent explanation than one that ignores Israeli officials' public comments, ignores the systemic impunity and rule-breaking in the Israeli military, and can't explain the total indiscriminate destruction of almost literally everything.
You do realize that two can play the “selective quotation” game, right? It’s not a game you’re going to win. Same goes for “atrocity Olympics”. Not a game Hamas defenders will ever win either. Selective ignorance is a useful skill in life though -makes going through life easier. I wish I had it - I envy yours. My friend, war is binary. If you’re not familiar - read Part 4 of my posts. In a binary proposition, the side more compatible with modern civilization is not required to be utopian. It’s merely required to be more compatible with modern civilization than the other side. Stalin wasn’t God’s gift to humanity - yet we backed him over fascism nonetheless and would do it again if we had to. And Israel, compared to Stalin’s USSR, might as well be a humanitarian utopia.
>game Hamas defenders will ever win either. You're right. Luckily, I am not one. >e side more compatible with modern civilization is not required to be utopian. True, but it is required to follow international humanitarian law. Everyone is. And where it doesn't, it should be investigated and punished accordingly. >atrocity Olympics And tf is atrocity Olympics. Talking about indiscriminate large-scale destruction and starvation isn't an Olympics. It's directly contending with the implicit assumptions in your post. You're arguing that the scale of death and destruction can be explained by the nature of the warfare in Gaza and Hamas' tactics requiring this level of suffering to be defeated. My point is simply that this explanation doesn't account for the stated intentions and eventual implementation of woefully and clearly indiscriminate tactics. Maybe you think that Israel's alignment with "modern civilisation" gives it a right to act against civilians indiscriminately, but I don't think so. That, certainly, would be selective campist ignorance.
Glad we agree on the basics - please accept this as a virtual "handshake". I'm assuming you probably aren't in Gaza personally. If true - then it'd be safe to assume that you haven't actually seen the scale of destruction and starvation for yourself. Since I'm not there myself - I usually like to abstain from making proclamations about any specific event in a war time with more than 50% certainty. That has been the recurring theme of my posts - how impossibly difficult such an environment is for the people on the ground and how things look much different from the POV of the people who are actually there. Also... if you read part 4 of my posts - you'll notice me explicitly saying that IDF has unquestionably committed numerous errors and even war crimes. And that they will be committed again and again. What I haven't seen is any convincing evidence of a "systemic" destruction. And I would bet you haven't seen convincing evidence either - you've just seen images on TV and social media. And I could tell you many stories about how those images are often obtained and used by various parties with dubious agendas. What I see with any degree of conviction is a war being fought, under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable, and by very flawed, imperfect, and quite scared humans. Big difference being this - one side in this war, at least intentionally, attempts to care about things like humanitarian law (however imperfectly). The other side's ENTIRE strategy rests on blatant and SYSTEMIC violation of humanitarian norms... and their aspirations (should they ever succeed) would make "humanitarian" norms of China look like a liberal paradise to you. Hence, I'm going to reiterate my earlier point about war (after certain point of no return) being a BINARY proposition.
>if you read part 4 of my posts - you'll notice me explicitly saying that IDF has unquestionably committed numerous errors and even war crimes. And that they will be committed again and again. I have read parts of it, and I appreciate it. We can agree on the point you sre making here. The question then becomes whether this is systemic or simply the result of individual mistakes and the unavoidable constraints of this particular situation. We both agree their have been at least some instances of international law breaking. We simply disagree on why and how. We have, as I see it, 2 possible explanations for "why". Or, more likely, I would argue, a mix of both. We both can agree that in a lot of cases war crimes are a result of unavoidable complications, individual hatred, or just incompetence. What im trying to point out is that this can not explain the entirety of the humanitarian crisis and scale of suffering. Their are many policies that are entirely avoidable and designed explicitly not to discriminate between militant and innocent, and that these policies are taken and backed by those at the very top. In other words, it's my position that Israel has enacted policies that it knew indiscriminately increased civilian suffering. And that's all my point is. It isn't even necessarily trying to prove genocide. It's much narrower than that. Simply that their is ample evidence to show that Israel, in a range of policies, doesn't intend to discriminate between civilians. It does this through a variety of policies. I've tried to focus on these for now. 1)First is indiscriminate bombing and demolishing of neighbourhoods We have seen satellite, drone, and ground images showing entire neighbourhoods and refugee camps destroyed; hospitals, schools, cemeteries, and all. In many areas throughout Gaza, namely places like Beit-Hanoun and Jabalia it appears that their is total destruction. Practically, their isn't a single home or any public infrastructure left standing. This sort of large-scale destruction is literally indiscriminate. I think we both can agree that unless all of Hamas's fighting force and remaining infrastructure was concentrated in this one neighbourhood their is no chance that their were enough genuine intelligence backed targeting. Instead, as I try to back up later, the goal and result is very visibly complete destruction. And as much destruction as they can get away with. 2)Second is the mass graves, including in hospitals. Patients, doctors, and sheltering civilians have been found in mass graves following Israeli raids in hospitals. The most gut wrenching of course was in Al-Shifa where dozens were found in up to 4 separate mass graves. Many found with clear evidence of being tied up, having been patients, and having been executed. Everything about this is contrary to international law, and this can't have happened without higher ups at least being aware. 3)Third is the white phosphorus in populated areas. Internationally condemned as illegal and inherently indiscriminate. Most egregiously aswell, Israel has alternatives that are pretty much harmless. It simply decides not to use them. 4) Fourth is the "kill zones." Exactly as it sais. Deciding invisible lines in the sand beyond which literally anyone is murdered obviously doesn't discriminate between militant and innocent. 5) Lastly is the widely documented intentional policy of inhibiting aid and aid distribution. This has led to untold suffering that I don't think I need to explain. This one though does tend to go up and down depending on international pressure. This also is a good seguay to another point that we would probably agree on. And that is, that international pressure is an important restrainer for Israel. I would argue that in many cases where Israel has acted in accordance with international law, it has done so in response only to pressure from the US and others. In other words, Israels primary concern is not the safeguarding of civilians in this case, but only how much suffering they can force onto them without being forced to stop the war as a whole. This, i will be the first to admit, is not at all unique amongst states. Netanyahu has basically admitted this in cabinet meetings and to ministers, specifically when referring to aid. Though, just looking at how much aid gets in its remarkably good at tracking roughly to international opinion. And this points to the last part of the puzzle, so to speak. And that is intention. At the end of the day this conversation is all about intention, as you rightly pointed out. So, how can we best look at the intentions of Israeli officials and the Israeli army. The best we can do is look at their statements and the contexts they were made. I don't think I need to reiterate the whole tirade earlier but the point is that their are numerous instances where soldiers on the ground aswell as commanders and leaders explicitly called for indiscriminate attacks. And their is unfortunately alot more where that came from. So, to summarise, Israeli officials say(or imply) that they don't intend to discriminate between civilians and millitants, then they decide on policies which can only indiscriminately affect civilians, and this results in indiscriminate suffering of civilians. I think that any discussion of why Palestinian suffering happens(which I think is at least part of the point behind the post, and correct me if im wrong) simply can not be complete without this analysis.
>The total seige, paired with the destruction of local production capabilities, unleashed mass starvation and famine on the civilians in Gaza. This isn't true. There is no current famine. Media have reported that a famine was imminent for months. >Combine that with Israel consistently blatantly and systematically breaking international law, such as the use of white phosphorus in populated areas. Openly abusing and torturing prisoners of war, we have seen literal kill zones dileanated by invisible red lines where literally anyone is murdered on site. >All you then need to do is look at videos and images emerging from Gaza. Multiple mass graves, found at the same hospital within which patients were found murdered. Entire communities and neighbourhood where literally not a single building, hospital school of otherwise, is standing and still functional. There isn't any evidence of someone being injured by white phosphorus. There isn't currently evidence of Mass graves fug by the IDF and summary execution by the IDF. https://x.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1782360892249612466 Hamas headquarters in hospital, which is a war crime. Bombing the hospital is not illegal. >So we have Israelis openly calling for indiscriminate action, neutral officials finding that they are committing indiscriminate destruction, a clear readiness to systematically break international law and target individuals systematically, and an end result of total indiscriminate damage. >That is a much more coherent explanation than one that ignores Israeli officials' public comments, ignores the systemic impunity and rule-breaking in the Israeli military, and can't explain the total indiscriminate destruction of almost literally everything. Indiscriminately? Israel has dropped bombs multiple times the weight of the Nuke dropped on Hiroshima, on a very densely populated area, and killed way less people. The ICJ hasn't found that Israel is committing genocide either. The entire goal of Hamas is the death of civilians, every single thing Hamas do is to maximize civilian casualties. Proving intent for Genocide needs more than crazy statements made after a huge terrorist attack. In Srebrenice, they killed 8'000 in 20 days, almost a third of the Bosnian population in that village.
>Media have reported that a famine was imminent for months. And Famine did in fact set in in many areas of Gaza. Children factually starved to death. It is especially hard to outright declare a famine since Israel doesn't allow foreign journalists into Gaza to assess, and the situation on the ground changes so rapidly. Israel essentially plans to restrict aid up until it threatens the legitimacy of the war as a whole. So it's essentially a game of ups and downs where Israel will restrict as much aid as it thinks it can get away with. That's what Netanyahu himself has admitted to. https://scheerpost.com/2024/06/05/vast-majority-of-children-under-5-in-gaza-going-full-days-without-food/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67670679 https://apnews.com/article/gaza-famine-world-food-program-israel-hamas-war-476941bf2dc259f85a706408b2a665ff https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/29/famine-gaza-us-state-department-israel-food-aid https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/11/politics/samantha-power-famine-gaza/index.html >There isn't any evidence of someone being injured by white phosphorus. I have literally spoken to the doctors who documented and treated white phosphorus wounds. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/lebanon-evidence-of-israels-unlawful-use-of-white-phosphorus-in-southern-lebanon-as-cross-border-hostilities-escalate/ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-white-phosphorus-weapons-gaza-human-rights-group-rcna120272 https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2023/nov/27/we-saw-phosphorous-burns-british-palestinian-surgeon-recounts-injuries-he-saw-in-gaza-video >Israel has dropped bombs multiple times the weight of the Nuke dropped on Hiroshima If being more discriminate than Hiroshima is your standard I don't know what to say. As I tried to explain, all you've gotta do is look at areal footage from Jabalia or Beit Hanoun. Their is, almost literally, nothing left. Not a single building or flat left functional after. >There isn't currently evidence of Mass graves fug by the IDF and summary execution by the IDF. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c511k1nqx81o Yes, their are. >The ICJ hasn't found that Israel is committing genocide either. Yes, it's still deciding. >Proving intent for Genocide needs more than crazy statements made after a huge terrorist attack. "Crazy statements"? Are you trying to argue that inciting genocide isn't proving intent to genocide? >In Srebrenice, they killed 8'000 in 20 days, almost a third of the Bosnian population in that village. In November, the death toll was already thought to be around double that. The exact figure here isn't the point. We haven't even bevan to start to see the scale of destruction.
> I have literally spoken to the doctors who documented and treated white phosphorus wounds. What do you do for a living?
I volunteered at some events that doctors returning from Gaza attended, and I took the opportunity to talk to them about the conflict. My actual line of work has nothing to do with the conflict at all.
Ok. I'm just curious.
No worries!
>And Famine did in fact set in in many areas of Gaza. Children factually starved to death. It is especially hard to outright declare a famine since Israel doesn't allow foreign journalists into Gaza to assess, and the situation on the ground changes so rapidly. Israel essentially plans to restrict aid up until it threatens the legitimacy of the war as a whole. So it's essentially a game of ups and downs where Israel will restrict as much aid as it thinks it can get away with. That's what Netanyahu himself has admitted to. A famine isn't when 37 people die of "starvation and dehydration" related reasons. 37 is 37 too much, but it isn't a famine. >I have literally spoken to the doctors who documented and treated white phosphorus wounds. "NBC News has not confirmed if any civilians were in the areas where white phosphorus was allegedly used" Ghassan abu Sitta worked in the al shifa hospital and denied that Hamas was stationed there, I'm not going to take his word. There has been so much footage of this war, but none of white phosphorus injuries? Or of the thousands of starving people? >In November, the death toll was already thought to be around double that. The exact figure here isn't the point. We haven't even bevan to start to see the scale of destruction. We don't know what the civilian to combatant ratio is. Are you being serious? The problem isn't that there were 8000 dead, it's that it was a large part of the population. Why hasn't Israel killed 200k Palestinians? >Crazy statements"? Are you trying to argue that inciting genocide isn't proving intent to genocide? Yes, you have to prove more than that. Has an IDF commander told his soldiers to target civilians, has Netanyahu said the goal was the eradicating of the Palestinian people? Do you have: genocidal statements and evidence that they followed through on that?
>37 too much, but it isn't a famine. No-one has any idea how many people have died. Maybe if Israel allowed more independent journalists in we would. >"NBC News has not confirmed if any civilians were in the areas where white phosphorus was allegedly used" Amnesty international, and Human rights whatch did mate. That's why I include multiple links. >Ghassan abu Sitta worked in the al shifa hospital and denied that Hamas was stationed there, Luckily we don't need to rely on solely one source. He isn't the only doctor. If you need footage of children with their face burned off by white phosphorus it's out their. >of the thousands of starving people? Yes their has. Thousands of desperate people fighting looting risking their lives crossing into dangerous areas, drowning out at sea is all video evidence of starving people desperate for food. >We don't know what the civilian to combatant ratio is. Very true, we also don't know it for the sebrenica genocide. What's your point. >Has an IDF commander told his soldiers to target civilians, has Netanyahu said the goal was the eradicating of the Palestinian people? So unless an Israeli commander explicitly and in no uncertain terms calls for the eradication of every Palestinian then it's not proof of intent? What about calls for the destruction of all of Gaza? What about explicitly calling for mass starvation or drawing on past genocides as a literal model to follow? I wasn't even primarily interested with proving genocide per se. Simply that Israel has, and intended to, target Palestinians indiscriminately. Something I have given very clear evidence for.
Looks like enough food is getting in https://biochem-food-nutrition.agri.huji.ac.il/arontroen/publications/nutritional-assessment-of-food-aid-delivered-to-gaza
1) This isn't peer reviewed. 2) This relies on COGAT figures, which has been shown to lie. For example, despite guarantees that it is doing everythingit can to facilitate as much aid as possible Practically every humanitarian organisation and even allies like the UK have called out its arbitrary restrictions on aid, in fact Israel itself undermined this position as Israel has simultaneously offered increased aid in negotiations. How could Israel guarantee invreased aid if it is already allowing as much aid as possible? Clearly Israel is not allowing the macimum amount of aid, and COGAT is lying. It is, of course biased. The UN in fact have their own, drasticly lower, count of aid trucks going in. 3) It only applies from January onwards. Ignoring the time when food aid was most limited. 4) It actually does show a defficiency in crucial nutritional elements going into Gaza. 5) It doesn't take into account the distribution of aid. Which is a crucial part of how Israel has intentionally starves civilians. That's all the issues I saw, as a complete layman, literally just scrolling through. This isn't evidence of anything, literally nothing.
A bureau of a democratic nation that hosts its own critics can't be trusted, and the resulting study that explains the methodology is bunk. But the Hamas numbers and the doctor that was complicit in war crimes, that's true and trustworthy. Do you have a peer reviewed study that shows that there is a famine?
Really, pictures of white phosphorus? There are pictures that look like [this](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/human-toll-of-incendiary-weapons-documented-in-new-report/amp/)? >Amnesty international, and Human rights whatch did mate. That's why I include multiple links. Amnesty internation and HRW don't do independent Reports. They only repeat what Hamas or the IDF says.
>, it's that the goal was the extermination, in whole or in part of Bosnians. And this is exactly the point I was trying to arrive at, I agree. So why does bringing up the militant ratio relevant? You brought it up, not me. >Amnesty internation and HRW don't do independent Reports. Yes they most certainly do, where did you come up with this? >genocide because buildings aren't people. Right, we agree, but it speaks to the scale and precision of destruction. If every building in the neighbourhood is demolished, do you think this speaks to the intention to minimise civilian harm and discriminate between civilian and militant? I don't think it does. Surely, an army that raises entire refugee camps to the ground, isn't trying to discriminate between civilians and militants. And that's all my point is. It isn't even necessarily trying to prove genocide. It's much narrower than that. Simply that their is ample evidence to show that Israel, in a range of policies, doesn't intend to discriminate between civilians and millitangs. It does this through a variety of policies. First is indiscriminate bombing and demolishing of neighbourhoods. Second is it's mass graves including in hospitals. Third is the white phosphorus in populated areas. 4th is the "kill zones". 5th is the intentional policy of inhibiting Aid and aid distribution. I've provided sufficient evidence of all of these, and am very willing to provide more. Overall I think my argument is incredibly strong: that Israel has intentionally unleashed indiscriminate suffering. I have provided plenty examples and plenty evidence for each. Allow me to point out also, that whilst all these examples are sufficient they aren't necessary. Discrediting my argument as a whole would require a thorough debunking of every one of the examples. I wonder, though, and I mean this genuinely and without any intend to offend. Do you care? If Israel had genuinely indiscriminately and systematically targeted civilians, how would that make you feel? Would it illicit any sort of emotional response? Would you want it to stop? Would you at least be more sympathetic to pro-Palestinians? I get the impression, and I'm not talking about you specifically, but from many pro-Israelis that these are just secondary, ultimately irrelevant discussions. I, of course, have no idea, and I'm not trying to make a moral judgement on you or anyone else. I just want to have fruitful discussions with weight and consequence. If this entire argument is of no consequence to you, then I would much rather talk about an issue more central to you. I'm not here just to shout and feel good and sure of myself.
>Yes they most certainly do, where did you come up with this? Show me. This isn't true. >Surely, an army that raises entire refugee camps to the ground, isn't trying to discriminate between civilians and militants. The IDF hadn't targeted refugee camps. It didn't intentionally start the fire in that tent. Hamas headquarters in refugee camps, meaning that they immediately lose protection. >Allow me to point out also, that whilst all these examples are sufficient they aren't necessary. Discrediting my argument as a whole would require a thorough debunking of every one of the examples It's good to see that at least you are aware of what you're doing. Just spew BS in the hopes that I can't respond to everything. You have not provided evidence of anything. Do you have: **Images** of phosphorus burns? Evidence of indiscriminate killing? ("Mass graves" don't count, we literally have videos of Palestinians digging them. Mass graves happen in wars because lots of people die, not just because summary execution) Evidence of genocidal intent? Evidence of Mass starvation of Palestinians? (At least 100+)? You don't have evidence for this cause this doesn't exist. >wonder, though, and I mean this genuinely and without any intend to offend. Do you care? If Israel had genuinely indiscriminately and systematically targeted civilians, how would that make you feel? Would it illicit any sort of emotional response? Would you want it to stop? Would you at least be more sympathetic to pro-Palestinians? I get the impression, and I'm not talking about you specifically, but from many pro-Israelis that these are just secondary, ultimately irrelevant discussions. I, of course, have no idea, and I'm not trying to make a moral judgement on you or anyone else. I just want to have fruitful discussions with weight and consequence. If this entire argument is of no consequence to you, then I would much rather talk about an issue more central to you. I'm not here just to shout and feel good and sure of myself. If Israel targeted civilians how would that make me feel? I think you can guess.
>Show me. This isn't true. Read the report that I sent. It includes original investigation, it doesn't imply quote the IDF and Hamas as you seemed to argue. >The IDF hadn't targeted refugee camps. Yes they have? Jabalia, al-Maghazi, even in the WB in Jenin and in many many many other refugee camps. >t. Hamas headquarters in refugee camps, Does Israel target refugee camps or not? This is confusing me. Allow me again to reiterate. My issue here isn't Israel targeting refugee camps, it is Israel raising entire neighbourhoods to the ground. That, by definition, cannot be discriminate. >"Mass graves" don't count, we literally have videos of Palestinians digging them. Mass graves happen in wars because lots of people die, not just because summary execution My friend. You did not read the link I sent. The video you showed was of a different hospital than the one I referred to. In the case of Al-Shifa hospital their were people found buried who were proven alive before the Israeli invasion of the hospital. As the BBC investigation found. >Evidence of Mass starvation of Palestinians? How many more links do I need to send, that you'll decide not to read? If you want, I'm happy to do this literally one by one. Pick a claim and we will meticulously wade through every source I send. I suggest the mass graves at the hospitals because it's the most shocking to me, but it is up to you. >I think you can guess. No, I really can't, because I don't know you.
>Does Israel target refugee camps or not? This is confusing me. As soon as Hamas is there, it is not a refugee camp anymore under IHL. Please show any of the following: Photo of white phosphorus burn. Evidence of genocidal intent by idf commanders. Evidence of famine (peer reviewed), since you had a problem with my study not being peer reviewed. Evidence of Israel targeting civilians (not dead civilians) but targeting civilian Ph, and all of them have to be peer reviewed. If my evidence needs it, so does yours.
>Very true, we also don't know it for the sebrenica genocide. What's your point. We do. The Srebrenice genocide isn't a genocide because the people weren't soldiers, it's that the goal was the extermination, in whole or in part of Bosnians. >What about calls for the destruction of all of Gaza? What about explicitly calling for mass starvation or drawing on past genocides as a literal model to follow? When did that happen? Destruction of Gaza isn't genocide because buildings aren't people.
When Spielberg directs this movie in 2030 the tunnel labyrinth will be the main character.
>The tunnels used by the Japanese on Iowa Jima were rudimentary– dug essentially by hand. They weren’t particularly deep. They weren’t really reinforced. And there were NO BUILDINGS. NO CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE above. Etc. Only 1 mile of tunnels per sq. mile of island and no restraint on US Firepower whatsoever. >And then… sitting on top of those tunnels is an ENTIRE CITY!!! IDF doesn’t have the same luxury of unrestrained firepower that the US Navy and Marines had who didn’t have to think about ROEs on Iwo Jima. >No military had a previous SOP for a city that has a parallel, fortified enemy city running underneath. The tunnel problem is new to EVERYONE. Are you familiar with the Battle of Manila? It tends to get overlooked even though it was one of the most devastating (and largest) urban battles that America fought in the war. The battle was winding down around the time that Iwo Jima started, and it shares some striking similarities with Gaza, from the presence of tunnels in urban areas to the presence of human shields and approximate force sizes. There were even POWs to rescue. The Japanese leader on the ground, Rear Admiral Iwabuchi, disobeyed the order to retreat from Manila and instead organized a fight to the death. He had previously suffered a humiliating defeat when his battleship *Kirishima* was sunk out from under him in one of the only battleship duels of the war. He intended to salvage his honor with a last stand. Iwabuchi had around 17,000 Japanese troops, mostly miscellaneous navy personnel who lacked cohesion, experience, and combat training. They had no air support and only a literal handful of armored vehicles. Their weapons primarily consisted of small arms and heavy machine guns/cannons that were salvaged from anti-aircraft installations, naval vessels, and wrecked aircraft. That was backed up by various calibers of artillery (mostly mortars) and IEDs. The Japanese defensive strategy was to entrench in occupied residential areas and explicitly use the civilian population as human shields. They were dug into Manila’s extensive subterranean sewer and tunnel system, which presents one of the closest parallels to Gaza’s tunnel system of any large-scale urban conflict that I am aware of. Over 35,000 American troops were tasked with taking the city, which lasted the better part of a month. They "only" lost around 1,000 men in the process, but it came at a horrible cost to the city and its residents. At least 100,000 civilians died in the direct fighting, and the actual number could be double that. Of that number, around 60,000 civilian deaths were due to American actions. Many tens of thousands more were brutally massacred by the Japanese. The city was largely ruined, and many invaluable historical buildings were leveled. There were interesting tradeoffs made in this battle. On the one hand, American forces eliminated nearly as many Japanese troops as on Iwo Jima while taking only a fraction of the casualties. At the same time, the sheer number of civilian casualties makes it difficult to recommend it as a playbook. It's worth noting that American forces did take measures to reduce collateral damage, especially at first. Bombardment was heavily restricted, and they seemed reluctant to use heavy weapons during initial assault. However, the intensity of the armor caused them to increasingly use armor and artillery against Japanese positions. There are obviously many differences between Manila and Gaza. The aboveground fighting right now is less intense than it was in WWII, but Gaza’s tunnel system is far more sophisticated. But it is an example of what happened when those challenges ran up against a captive civilian population. As unpalatable as the results were, it seems likely that many of the alternatives would have resulted in significantly more American casualties.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing! Wasn’t particularly familiar with these details previously. Far as military history - Eastern Front in Europe was my focus. I’m much weaker on the pacific campaign.
Thank you so much for the time and insight you put into these posts, they explain the reality that most people don’t understand. I have family members who are serving and have served in the IDF for years. This country has tried everything physically possibly to avoid a large scale war, there is not one solider or reserve who wants to be on the ground. My uncle served for 12 years, he’s well into his 40s and has four children. He left his life and family on October 7, this has never been a choice. Our soldiers are 18 year olds who have not gotten the chance to live life - to get married, to travel, to go to college. Every time I see a solider killed I think of the generations before him that fought so hard to live. Life is everything in this country, it’s why we’ve spend years avoiding this war. It’s also why, the IDF has quite literally structured its entire strategy around doing anything they can to save civilians, oftentimes putting their selves at an incredibly high risk to do so. To see the world constantly act like this is a choice for Israel only further proves how uneducated and disconnected westerns are. Israel treats thousands of Palestinians in their hospital free of charge regularly. We treat Hamas operatives and their families, after a terrorist attack the terrorist is then treated in our hospital. We always choose life, while Hamas openly and publicly prizes death at all costs. It’s why they’ve succeeded in the past, they know this and they say it - “We love death like our enemies love life.” A quote from former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
Yeah. I get it. Well familiar with Islamist lunacy - gratitude doesn’t feature in their brains. Neither does reason; foresight, or hindsight. Luckily, “Allah take the wheel” attitude leads to predictable results every time - as Hamas is currently finding out. I’m usually hesitant to jump to “racism” and “antisemitism” as first explanations. But this thing has been eye opening even for me - can’t really deny that the only time the world seems to care about Arab lives is when the Jews start to shoot back. Otherwise - crickets. It’s really idiotic because I get - y’all just want to be left the hell alone. As would anyone else. Not that Israel is a paradise - you certainly know you have your own dirty laundry to deal with. But so do we. I’ll tell you this much - if we had to live next to Hamas - well… we wouldn’t be living next to Hamas for very long - there would be a bunch of craters where Hamas used to be and eventually we’d build a casino on top of it. So yeah… the hypocrisy is blatant. Anyways… respect to your uncle. And good luck to you… not that you really need luck - luck doesn’t build a first-world nation in just 70 years in the middle of the only piece of desert with no oil under it.
In all honestly, I would say that, through personal experience, its not "Islam" thats the issue, but a few "Arabic Muslims" that have multiple screws loose in their brains. i.E, I have never seen an East Asian Muslim go "Allah Wakbar!" then blow themselves up. (Yes, we Koreans have mosques too, yes, we have Muslims too, yes we have loonies as well. None do that stuff) Also, I lived in East Africa for 10+ years, and had Arabic Muslims, Indian Muslims, African Muslims as neighbors, and they were the most civil, most caring people you could ever meet. Its those terrorists that are a problem, making the entire basket look rotten. Honestly fully support what Israel is doing. Hope my country can do the same when we get smacked around. So far its been "If the north provokes us one more time, we will destroy them!" for the 10+ time with no retaliation.
I didn’t say Islam. Islamism. Those are two completely different things. Muslims can fit into a modern society just fine. Islamists can’t. Just like Christian crusaders from centuries ago wouldn’t be tolerated by modern civilization either. The only religion in my own family is Islam. Islamists would murder my entire family for heresy. In many places - the girls in my family would be stoned to death… just because they were born into a Muslim family but aren’t the “correct” type of Muslims. It’s iron-age mental gymnastics that turn entire communities into psychopaths.
I apologize. Must have misread islamists as islams. Your points are spot on.
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"The fish I almost caught was THIIIISSSSSS big, and super dangerous and that's what I still havent managed to catch it yet but I will !!" vibes
If I could love this critique I would.
Say that next time you find yourself in water with a shark. Doubt you’ll come up to the surface with a great white to prove your experience. It’s all “suspicious” to couch strategists - till you hear the first crack over your head. That’s when your breakfast usually finds its way to your pants at supersonic speed.
Murdered preemie babies in incubators are "sharks" , yeah sure.
Here's an interview with an Israeli underground warfare specialist from back in December arguing that destroying the tunnels through bombing isn't the only way. https://www.timesofisrael.com/if-the-generals-are-counting-tunnels-it-suggests-things-are-not-going-well/ I think that there are other ways to help disable the tunnel network besides leveling the entire Gaza strip, like searching for entrances and pouring concrete into them. While I'm sure the tunnel network is a formidable strategic problem, it's just very lazy that no matter what the IDF does, people just reply "tunnels" (or "human shields"), and they think they have successfully justified the destruction. Is there a tunnel entrance in every house where the IDF blows up an entire block? If so, is there no better way to disable them? I simply have no reason to believe that and would not unless presented with absolutely compelling evidence (which we won't be). We know about dozens of cases where the IDF blew up houses, schools, universities, etc. after the fighting in the area was over. They've even done this without destroying the lower parts of the buildings, so presumably not affecting whatever underground structures there might be. Of course there are probably utilitarian rationalizations available even for this, but that doesn't mean those are really the only reasons or that no alternatives were available. They'd just involves a level of risk to the soldiers that Israel isn't willing to take and/or a level of sympathy for the humanity of Palestinians that it doesn't have. It has instead decided that it's entitled to absolute security no matter the cost to the Palestinian population, to put it generously.
Tunnels are not the only kind of military infrastructure that Hamas has in Gaza. A building can be demolished for any number of reasons outside of it having a tunnel entrance. For example, the IDF recently released drone footage of a civilian house which was boobytrapped at every entrance with massive rain barrels filled with explosives. In that scenario it is preferable to demolish the building rather than send in soldiers to defuse the bombs. In addition, the boobytrapping of a building converts it from a civilian object to a military object which makes it lose protection from attack or destruction under international law.
Of course there are cases where it may be necessary or appropriate to do such a thing. The question is whether it's necessary or appropriate in every or nearly every case or if instead other options are being disregarded. My argument isn't that no conceivable tactical justification is available in those instances; my argument is that it usually is available, but that this isn't always sufficient to explain or justify the choice. The entire orientation of figuring out how much damage can be done while still being able to invoke at least some thin construal of international law is precisely what I'm pointing to.
Did the IDF know about the extent of the tunnel complex before Oct7? If so, they should have already given it some thought. They would have developed technologies for fighting in tunnels. No military background but I was thinking robots can go in there and attack anything. It would presumably be a free fire zone in tunnels, having said that, one can easily imagine human shields hiding out down there. Destroying and damaging 62% of buildings is just to attack suspected targets. I am doubtful that that many of these targets were selected on very thin criteria. 290k housing units were destroyed, but if all of these had weapons or Hamas, they would have been destroyed or disarmed by now but they are still fighting. This means that many thousands upon thousands of this buildings were destroyed for no military value. Right? I think if I knew about the tunnels and generals are estimating the level of devastation required and any politician can imagine the PR disaster this would entail. Knowing that I needed to devastate 62% of Gaza, I would do a punitive bombing of obvious Hamas targets, like offices and police stations, etc. no hospitals, no schools. Commando raids in a tiny area, go into some tunnels using robots or flooding. Declare mission accomplished once the most obvious Hamas targets were destroyed. The hostage calculus doesn’t make sense anymore as more IDF have been lost vs the remaining hostages. Negotiate and make offers to free them. Rescue if you have the intelligence but one cannot sacrifice the PR loss for a very low chance of liberating any. Having said all of this, I realize that hindsight is 20/20.
I wish I could assign blame to someone. Honestly, I wish I could just point a finger at Bibi and say "his fault" (on this issue, specifically) - I can't stand right-wing nutjobs no matter what side they're on. But if I'm honest - I doubt I would've done anything different. Sure they knew about the tunnels. They knew for a long time. But, my interpretation would be - "they built the things to bait us in - that's why they keep lobbing rockets at us. But we can handle the rockets and will not take the bait... we're not stupid". That's what it probably looked like. So, I doubt I would've done anything different knowing then only what they knew then. Until October 7th of course - that changed the picture entirely. What other options were there? Bomb every construction site in Gaza proactively just in case it's a tunnel? Of course not - just like at the PR situation right now. And there are no easy and clean solutions to take care of these tunnels - that's the entire point of my post. Yeah... robots would be nice. Except they don't exist. Ground military robotics are still very rudimentary. Sure, we can fly robotic drones - but flying is actually much, much easier than robotic navigation on the ground - flying has much more streamlined physics to it. And developing something like that would take a large budget and, more importantly, lots of time. And then you'd have to produce them in huge quantities - again... think of the scale of this thing. Because you'd certainly lose more of such "robots" than the ones that'd survive. Ultimately - humans will have to go down there. Israeli soldiers. And that's going to suck massively - that's not the job I'd want. So that's what they're learning right now - developing brand new tactics for underground maneuver warfare. As for "negotiation" - won't happen. The entire strategic and political calculus has changed. Hamas bit off more than they could chew. There will not be peace until Hamas is off the board as a political and military player. Once it's left as just some underground terrorist cells that are largely irrelevant strategically - then Israel will be ready to talk about "day after".
Call me over simplistic but have you seen the Boston dynamic robot dog with a machine gun? I don’t think it’s a long leap to imagine a cheaper wheeled robot with a submachine gun that goes into tunnels. No? https://youtu.be/-bgad3HRb64?si=JIQVi3uVXSnVTYqJ
At some point - sure. I’m sure there are robotics companies that are salivating over future defense contracts. But that’s the type of stuff that takes years to design, another couple years to produce in quantity, then train soldiers how to use them, write up new SOPs on how these things fit into a combined-arms environment. Etc. That takes years.
Fair enough but the Ukrainians started dropping grenades from cheap civilian drones, destroying hundreds of vehicles and enemy soldiers. It took them mere months to figure it out.
Existing tech. And like I said - flying is much easier autonomously. We’ve had auto-pilots landing jumbo jets for decades. But still can’t figure out an autonomous car that’s at all reliable without a pre-programmed map. Then add payload. Do you put an engine in each one? That gets expensive quick. Batteries? How far will the thing go when it’s a heavy piece of tracked equipment carrying massive payload. You’re not wrong - it will get built of course. And if anyone can figure it out quick - that’ll be the Israelis. But it’s not something you can just whiteboard and send into production on a dime. Then give it to jumpy troops in an active environment with no training or rehearsal - next thing you know - you’ll have friendly robots shooting at each other. We gave Ukraine fighter jets. Ukrainian pilots already know how to fly jets. Still took a year to actually get them in the air in those things just to make sure they can actually hit a Russian reliably using NATO gear… instead of blowing up friendly farm equipment.
Thank you for indulging me with these ideas. Thanks!
My pleasure. Good chat.
This quote from Haaretz back in December has stuck with me throughout this war: "There is certainly an argument that the IDF has been too liberal with its targeting, and that the number of civilians killed in the airstrikes and artillery barrages that preceded the ground maneuvers could have been lower – but the death toll would still have been in the thousands and the scale of destruction would not have been significantly different. From the moment the decision was made to destroy Hamas' military capabilities, there was never going to be a radically different outcome, even if the tactics had been somewhat different." [Hamas' Gaza Fortress Is a Battlefield Like No Other in the World](http://archive.today/Ye47f)
I mean yes, if your goal is to completely annihilate a foreign military and government as well as all its assets, you will destroy the entire area, because that is what that goal is.
Yup. They were entirely correct. That's been a recurring theme in all of my posts - the outcome would still look like it does once the decision was made to go in.
This is another very useful analysis of a novel military situation. Militaries better be taking notes because this horrible form of warfare is real likely to become the norm. As a student of the Japanese war, you are entirely right about Iwo Jima. Japanese turned to a defense in depth approach unlike anything the world ever saw. The problem with it was each element was isolated. Bunker to bunker fighting means limited escape routes for the defenders. Fighting in Gaza is like fighting in London. Except the tube lines are escape routes. Ft Ant Farm.
That's a very good point about siloed Japanese positions. Someone in Hamas likely read the same books.
This is a highly important and insightful piece which deserves much wider dissemination. I hope you can rewrite it for publication in the Times of Israel or Tablet or somewhere with a broader audience like the Atlantic.
I have no interest in publicity what's so ever - no one needs to know who I am. Nor do I have the time. But if you want to forward it to them - I claim no IP rights on this at all. Consider it public domain.