Timex
3321
I see no reason to give the Palestinian people a pass when it comes to the actions taken by hamas. They freely elected them. It’s not like the populace under a dictatatorship.
Why aren’t they responsible for the actions of their government?
The issue, Dan, isn’t dismissing Palestinians as “bad guys,” but recognizing that the best way to pressure governments is to pressure their constituents.
A wholly separate problem, particular to this fight, is that the Palestinians are not unitary actors. HAMAS is sometimes unable to send credible signals for this reason.
Fatah is corrupt, yes. That’s a good reason why Hamas got it’s foot in the door. But it DID grab power in Gaza by force, too, which can’t be overlooked.
Timex’s narrative is too simplistic. Equally, though, I don’t see why Hamas should be let off the hook for any attacks from Gaza…because they did seize it.
Who said they get a pass? I’m just arguing against labeling them all as bad guys. It’s cartoonish.
Actually, that’s my issue with it.
… but recognizing that the best way to pressure governments is to pressure their constituents.
A wholly separate problem, particular to this fight, is that the Palestinians are not unitary actors. HAMAS is sometimes unable to send credible signals for this reason.
True enough.
Israel wants a final solution, and is working hard at getting it.
I’m assuming the choice of words was a coincidence and this wasn’t a moronic Nazi comment.
Why would you give him that?
Things have gotten way out of hand. The worst elements on both sides seem to have taken over the decision making process.
That’s been true for some time, Soapy. Doesn’t mean a majority on either side approve of what’s going on.
Good grief. Surely Israeli soldiers must eventually tire of killing children, no matter how unintentional.
Polling in Israel shows the majority are behind this war (even if they don’t like the collateral damage, and at the same time there do seem to be some hardline groups that revel in the carnage) which I think is part of the problem. The left is giving Netanyahu a free pass right now.
Nobody asks the Palestinians what they want.
Again, Soapy, that’s because Hamas have attacked the areas the left live in, they were building tunnels to attack those same areas, and they attacked the airport.
The common factor there is…Hamas.
The increasingly disproportionate and indiscriminate response cannot really be justified at this point, and no matter what Israel does short of emptying Gaza of all it’s inhabitants Hamas will still continue to exist and attack Israel at every opportunity. Nothing is solved, everything is worse, another generation of vendetta is born.
Hamas are a bunch of terrorist criminal assholes who are hiding behind innocents at every opportunity, but I don’t think the solution here can be to shoot the hostage to get the baddie.
That would be my initial feeling, too, but I also wonder, is it reasonable to expect Israel to accept rocket and mortar fire and not respond at all? If the choice is not respond, and in effect let people attack them with impunity, no matter how weak, comparatively, those attacks may be, or respond, and cause extensive destruction and civilian casualties while reducing, but not eliminating, the immediate threat, what is the right decision?
There are at least two levels to this, the immediate (attack and retaliation) and the long-term (the strategic situation and the overall Israel-Palestine issue). Both are intertwined, though people keep trying to untangle them. Israel fears that not pressing its attacks will simply give HAMAS the opportunity to rebuild and regroup, and nothing will change. HAMAS feels that unless they press Israel into doing things that rebound negatively on the Israelis, they have zero leverage and zero chance of influencing anything. There’s not much wiggle room here.
Either Israel has to do something monumental, along the lines of withdrawing to pre-1967 borders and removing settlements (not likely), in order to establish a baseline the international community can really get behind, and thus pressure the Palestinians into giving up armed resistance, or HAMAS and the rest of the Palestinians have to ratify the fait accompli of Israel’s ascendancy in the region and voluntarily give up pretty much all forms of resistance, and in effect agree to become vassals. Neither is likely to happen really.
TheWombat - Don’t forget the tunnels - and the massive attack Hamas were planning during the Jewish New Year. This isn’t “weak”, sorry, there could easily have been thousands of casualties if they’d got their tunnels finished. And the longer-range rockets which mean even the very expensive Iron Done system can’t cover all the areas needed…if they start hitting Ben Gurion Airport, as they tried to already, they’d cut off Israel from the air. They’ve now deployed Iron Dome there, which means it’s been moved from other communities.
This is causing massive negative reactions to Hamas. Moreover, withdrawing wouldn’t do a thing positive, given Hamas does not recognise Israel at all. I remind you that this came about in the first place because Israel withdrew, unilaterally, from Gaza nine years ago and Fstah was too weak to prevent Hamas’s seizure(and a LOT of looting of infrastructure which happened then). Again, Fatah - while nasty - can be negotiated with. Hamas has simply demonstrated that it sees negotiation as a weakness to exploit.
Getting any kind of broad consensus in Israel takes truly “heroic” efforts. Hamas has made them.
I made this exact argument upthread days ago but there’s a lot of room between “no response” and “indiscriminate shelling of UN shelters and market bread lines”
Agreed. It’s the determining of the balance point that’s devilishly difficult.
Starlight: No argument that Israel has to respond and defend itself. Whether HAMAS actually has the capacity, given Israel’s security apparatus, to reliably inflict heavy casualties on Israel is debatable, but I’d agree that Israel cannot ignore it.
The real issue seems to be whether the IDF is as careful as it should be. While there is some evidence that it is indeed trying hard to minimize collateral damage, there are other indications that the IDF or its leadership really doesn’t care much about Palestinian casualties, and views all of them as combatants.
I don’t see either side wanting to cease hostilities. Hamas can play the long game, and since their peope have already lived horrible miserable lives for the past few years, the loss of civilians to them is no big deal despite their cries. The Israeli leadership doesn’t appear to care either. As the Palestinian people get used to continued hardship it will make it harder for Israel to make any difference outside of total extermination.
Something interesting people should think about is the entire incident in Wyoming with the idiot cattle rancher. The thanks of armed people who came to his aid were prepared to use women and children as shields to try and get federal agents to shoot them accidentally to make them look bad. Horrible people are horrible and it influences others in a bad way :(
Hamas plays a utter cynical game cause it has too, they are not stupid, but they have little in terms of choice. They are the only line of defense Gaza has, remove them and there is nothing. They cannot acknowledge Israel, because of the occupied land, is that so hard to understand!?
Israel is by far the most powerful part here, and they are the only ones who can end this, Hamas cannot and should not end their resistance unless they want their people to live in a fenced in prison. To call them terrorists and criminals borders on stupidity and lack of any and all understanding of this conflict.
Except Fatah recognised Israel.
And yes, Israel could wipe out Gaza overnight, but it’s not going to. That you think civilians should be targeted…that you can’t understand that peace would grant the Palestians allies throughout the Jewish world, and even more outside…
Hamas are terrorists. There’s no two ways about it. You are upholding the conflict here, defending Hamas’s rockets and tunnels.
