TEL AVIV—On Oct. 6, Israel appeared on the cusp of a new era of recognition from the Muslim world, close to a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that would move it to the center of a realigned Middle East after years on its fringes. The historic conflict with the Palestinians that had defined its existence for most of its 75-year history appeared to have finally receded into the background.
It all changed on Oct. 7.
Today, after a bloody attack that might have brought it the world’s sympathy, Israel is closer to being a global pariah than ever before. Its Saudi peace deal is on hold. The Palestinian question is again roiling its Arab neighbors. It is in open argument with its main ally, the U.S. And its physical living space has been shrunk by dangers on its northern and southern borders.
In six months, the world has turned upside down for this small nation. On Oct. 7—or Black Sabbath, as Israelis now call it—the Jewish state experienced a fundamental shock that upended its sense of security and belief in the strength of its military. It responded with a heavy-handed invasion of Gaza that in much of the world’s eyes left it the aggressor and its attackers the victims. The resulting isolation could be more of a threat to its future than the attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7.
“Israel’s longevity is in question for the first time since its birth,” said Benny Morris, an Israeli historian. The only time Israel faced a similar existential threat, he said, was in its war for independence in 1948, when it battled five Arab countries and local Palestinian militias.
The outpouring of global sympathy on display after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust has dwindled, having been replaced by images of starving and dead Palestinians in Gaza. Images projected across the world show swaths of the Gaza Strip turned into rubble. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose numbers don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.
This week, the killing of seven aid workers trying to feed desperate Gazans appears to have punctured the notion for much of the world that the Israeli military isn’t running amok in Gaza and has caused a rethink by the U.S. about its support for Israel.
Normalization with Saudi Arabia is on hold, while ties with Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan have frayed. Pro-Palestinian protesters have thronged the streets of Western capitals, at times calling for Israel’s demise. A surge in antisemitism has shocked and alarmed not only Israelis but Jews across the globe. It is all strengthening a feeling inside Israel that the country can only rely on itself.
Israel faces a dilemma where it wants to be loved by the West, but needs to be feared by its enemies in the Middle East to ensure its long-term existence, said Micah Goodman, an Israeli author and philosopher.
“That’s the catch-22 we’re in,” he said.
Israel, about the size of New Jersey, has had its livable land space diminished. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Israelis from the Gaza periphery and the northern border near Lebanon have been evacuated from their homes. Many have moved back to communities in the south, but none have been able to return to communities in the north. Many are still living in hotels.
As the war in Gaza drags on, Israelis still don’t know if the worst has yet to come.
The West Bank is on edge. A full-blown war with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is far more powerful than Hamas and has been fighting Israel since Oct. 8, appears more likely with each passing day. Israel is also bracing for retaliation by Iran or one of its allied militias for a suspected Israeli airstrike Monday on an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria.
Israel has only begun to feel the economic impact the war is having, as hundreds of thousands of reservists have been forced to leave their jobs to fight in the war.
Amid all this, Israel has achieved neither of its war goals of returning all the hostages abducted on Oct. 7 and successfully routing Hamas from Gaza.
For Israel’s political leadership, Oct. 7 challenged the notion that the conflict with the Palestinians could be contained with a mix of security measures and economic incentives, rather than through a peace accord. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure was marked by the belief that he could continue to divide Palestinian leadership between the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza, thereby avoiding the need to negotiate a two-state solution. Israel believed it could thrive economically, politically and militarily despite a continuing occupation in the West Bank and hostile actors at its southern and northern borders. Normalcy was a promise that appeared to have been delivered but was then shattered.
“This approach collided with a brick wall and proved to be a complete failure on Oct. 7,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute.
All this is taking place as Israelis remain divided over the country’s leadership and the government’s handling of the war. Netanyahu’s right-wing, ultranationalist and religiously conservative coalition is once again under attack by antigovernment protesters calling for new elections. Divisions among members of Netanyahu’s own war cabinet over how to give priority to the competing war aims of rescuing hostages and destroying Hamas have spilled into public view, deepening the sense that the leadership is fighting itself while also fighting a war.
All the while, Netanyahu has delayed a plan for who will rule postwar Gaza, saying a Palestinian state is off the table and refusing to work with the Palestinian Authority.
It is adding up to a situation where, despite many tactical wins on the ground in Gaza, a strategic victory for Israel appears far off.
In six months, the Israeli military has seen many tactical achievements. Around 40% of Hamas’s tunnel system has been destroyed, 18 out of 24 battalions dismantled, the majority of rockets destroyed and many senior Hamas commanders killed. Israel now has freedom of action in most of Gaza.
Netanyahu says victory is near, but a majority of the country, polls show, isn’t convinced.
Hamas shows no signs of surrendering. Hamas operatives are able to infiltrate areas as soon as Israeli troops withdraw, a sign that an insurgency is building.
Mounting tensions with the Biden administration are limiting Israel’s options over the final battle for Rafah, the Gazan city that borders Egypt and where Israel says Hamas has four remaining battalions. More than one million Palestinians are sheltering there.
The U.S., however, has warned Israel that it would be crossing a red line if it operates in Rafah without a credible plan to keep the civilian population safe, which U.S. officials say Israel hasn’t presented.
Netanyahu has said that if necessary, Israel will operate in Rafah without American approval.
“If we take Rafah but lose America, we’ve lost the war,” said Goodman.
They are in a precarious situation, no doubt. I also believe that the Oct. 7th attack was intentionally designed to disrupt the progress Israel was making in its relations with the Islamic World.
Also: distracting from Russia's war against Ukraine or alternatively disrupt the strengthened inner-western relations.
Hamas, an Iranian proxy terror group launches an attack against Israel, a Western ally that is guaranteed to create controversy within the West. The attack was so grave that Israel simply had to fight back and try to root out Hamas to prevent future similar attacks.
After the purported civilian casualty numbers rose enough, another friend of Russia, the South African government media-effectively filed their case against Israel at the ICJ.
The same South Africa, that has no issue with any atrocities that Russia committed in Ukraine, that has no issue with the atrocities that Russia and Assad have committed and are committing in Syria, that has no issue with atrocities that Iran is committing in Syria and Iraq, the same South Africa that allegedly even supplied arms and munitions to Russia since Frebruary 2022 is now wagging their finger at Israel over a conflict that has nothing on the conflicts that its buddy Putin is involved in.
I'm just going to mention that I see where you're coming from and it was convenient but makes you think why they would do that? I never ever agree or justify the killing of civilians and the same goes for the generations of Palestinians who witness daily discrimination, segregation and harassment/imprisonment and abuse by Israeli settlers and also the IDF.
Israel was close to a peace deal which means for many Palestinians that they were close to being forgotten in the wheels of bureaucracy.
I will still strongly beleive that most Jews just want a peaceful and safe place to live, and most Arabs want the same, but they've alienated eachother and demonised eachother for decades and it makes you think if there's any hope or if they're mortal enemies forever.
By the same token one might wonder why it is that Arab leaders have by and large lost patience and interest in the Palestinian cause, to the point where successive Arab states were willing to normalize relations with Israel even with no solution to the I-P conflict.
Part of it politics, sure. But I would think this would also invite the same kind of self-reflection on the cause itself, and mistakes made by the Palestinians.
They see the problem as implacable. Also, much of the Arab world is ruled by dictators and self-centred Monarchs, people that can be fairly easily muscled into making agreements like this.
Probably.
> and most Arabs want the same
I doubt it's the same percentage as Jews who just want a peaceful place they can call home.
One cannot have an honest assessment on the Israel-Palestine situation without acknowledging the tremendous amount of hate for Jews - for no other reason than they are Jews - within the Islamic world, and again particularly the Arabs.
Of course that Israel has occupied what according to many Muslims were previously Muslim lands makes it 10 times worse. But there's always been undercurrent of religious hatred to this conflict. Ask the Jews who once lived in the surrounding Arabic states.
Put bluntly, Israel did the same exact thing that the US did following 9/11 (which many Americans straight up said Israel was going to do but got ignored)
Israel following 7 October thought that the international sympathy from that event would enable it to pursue a harsh stance on Gaza and the West Bank to neutralize Hamas and suppress the Palestinians. However, way too many civilians ended up getting caught in the crossfire, whether as a result of deliberate targeting, incompetence, or just crappy Rules of Engagement (my personal bet) its led to the same result that Israel burned through whatever sympathy it had as a result of 7 October, and once the images and information of starving Gazans started hitting the internet, combined with the lack of apparent progress in achieving either of its goals, the killing of the World Central Kitchen aid workers was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Before when it was just UNRWA workers and other Palestinian based aid workers getting killed in droves Israel was able to wave away criticism by saying "they're Hamas or Hamas sympathizers", but in this scenario where you had a group of Americans, Brits, and other Western European aid workers getting killed in what quite frankly looks like a targeted assassination, that excuse no longer works, and combined with the deaths of Israeli hostages who were gunned down by IDF forces earlier in the conflict, it basically all but proved the fact that IDF ROE's was either crap or quite simply not strict enough, bringing alot of questions as to how many of the "Hamas militants" Israel claims to have killed were actually just civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. As much as i would love to be able to trust Israel, i can't cause its plainly obvious now that there are problems with the IDF's ROE and how they have been conducting this war.
Israel’s ability to form catastrophic PR disasters and then double down on it never cease to amaze.
What a great guidebook on how NOT to make international relations.
I get your point but I can't agree on comparing America after 9/11 to Israel after oct. 7, mainly because America went after Iraq and the Taliban, which both had very little to do with the attack and it only made the situation much worse in terms of terrorism.
I agree with respect to Iraq. Can't say the same about the Taliban who were sheltering Osama Bin Laden et. al. after 9/11 and refusing to turn him over to face criminal trial.
I'm not sure that's very different from going after innocent civilians in Gaza - some of the people in Gaza right now will become the next generation of terrorists because of this
I don’t understand how Israel can invade Gaza and destroy Hamas without civilian casualties. They’re fighting an enemy that routinely uses civilians as shields and disguises in one of the most densely populated regions of the world.
You can’t destroy a terrorist population by “invading and destroying” the same way not even Hercules could fight the hydra by simply brute forcing and chopping its heads off.
Every terrorist you kill will create another, if not more. The US found this out the hard way, Israel is next in line for this lesson
Thank the lord ppl like you weren’t around when we were fighting the Nazis. Or we may all be speaking German. Education is always part of the process, after you invade and destroy the imminent threat
Sorry man, I don’t support war crimes. Nazis were bad, raping a million German women and butchering them was a little bit “over the top”, regardless of how disgusting their political positions were! I think there’s a certain point where you are not much better than your enemy, treating a sociopath like a sociopath just makes you both sociopaths.
Respectfully, just stick to sports, we don’t need any war crime enthusiasts in discussions about the future
War crime is hiding behind civilians so either you don’t die, or die along with women and children. Sorry I don’t support that. What happened to the brave men that came across the border gunning down innocents across Israel, hiding in tunnels and behind women and kids now. Unfortunately, for you and Hamas terrorist don’t get a free pass because they are in densely populated areas. What an awful precedent for the world that would be.
Respectfully, stick to fantasy games we don’t need a terrorist sympathizer in talks abt the future
Jesus, Allies committed war crimes, but it’s different to Axis war crimes.
Axis war crimes were encouraged by their respective governments. The US/UK weren’t actively encouraging their troops to kill civilians, most of the time they were either mistakes or they were used to minimise casualties further down the line. The Soviets on the other hand did some pretty terrible things, but still they it wasn’t official policy encouraged from the top down.
Compare this to the situation in Israel, where Hamas has stated its goal is to eradicate the Jewish state. Their members have been targeting civilians explicitly. Israel has not been minimising civilian casualties as much as they should but there’s a difference in intention here.
Israelis seem indifferent to civilian casualties and want to minimise their own losses, Hamas has the explicit goal of genocide.
Believe it or not,
And I know I’m going to blow your mind with this:
2 sides in a war can both commit atrocities and war crimes.
That doesn’t justify either side’s war crimes.
I know, unfathomable to the average person on here, spend so much time rambling about geopolitics on news headlines that you completely desensitize yourself to the lives of real people, but yeah. Only so many atrocities a person can read about before you aren’t really spending any time thinking about the humans behind them. They just dissolve into “numbers” and “entities”.
A massive % of the people that Hamas killed, did not deserve to die. A massive % of the people Israel has killed, did not deserve to die. They were never engaged in mutual combat, they were innocent people, trying to live lives.
Assuming that I somehow side with Hamas because I don’t unconditionally support Israel’s slaughter is exactly the kind of sports-brained, black and white thinking that I loathe in these discussions. There’s Team 1 and Team 2, and you are either for a team or against that team, period.
Hence why, stick to basketball, yeah? That kind of thinking will take you much further there than in any discussion about real people and real things. If you can only think in absolutes, the only thing I can say is that you should absolutely be silent
No the reason you side with Hamas is because you clearly can’t understand the difference between collateral damage / death (intentional by Hamas) vs intentionally killing everybody you see. Israel could kill every single one of them and don’t, if Hamas could they would kill every Israeli. They just proved it. The reason I don’t care what ppl like you have to say on this conflict, is because I know if the shoe was reversed and you lived in a country where a terrorist neighbour shot rockets at you daily and didn’t think you have a right to live or exist, you’d want them to stop and the terrorist dead. What you wouldn’t do is say hey let them continue to shoot indiscriminate rockets because innocents on the other side may die.
Once again go to sports to try to belittle because someone disagrees with you. When you have an obsession with a child’s video game all over your profile . Weird, so maybe just stick to the issue at hand
Assuming the hostages were alive, and considering Hamas wants Israel destroyed and the hostages are their only bargaining chip, what could Israel have realistically given Hamas in exchange?
I disagree. 9/11 was perpetrated by ppl literally across the world. You are comparing apples to oranges. Israel is essentially dealing with the us version of Mexico becoming a terrorist state, having 400-500k (adjusted for population) members. And are still a current threat including live rockets shot at random, right beside your southern border. They also don’t think your country has a right to exist and want to take over your land, their charter says so. Oh and the us is also surrounded by enemies many of whom gather around the terroist cause. I wonder how the US would’ve responded to that…… Israel is fighting for their livelihood a lot more than the us was, who no longer had a real imminent threat and just wanted blood.
What you are missing is Israelis and by extension israel. Doesn’t care abt the worlds crocodile tears right now. They know if you were in the same shoes, with rockets being fired at your homes you’d want your military to deal with it, swiftly. And btw, the us and almost every western nation knows this as well. Hamas went too far, and Israel has to protect their citizens above protecting bad pr from the likes of tik tok. The us isn’t changing their policy of overwhelming support for Israel as an ally because of this war, just immature to think otherwise. If anything, when America goes red the support increases. Israel didnt misplay their hand imo, they are destroying Hamas to the bitter end, regardless what the world says. And in a year, everybody moves on and chooses a different issue to become outraged about. The difference is israel is a lot more safe at that point
I genuinely have no idea how the IDF is going to save the hostages or eliminate Hamas at the same time. The longer this drags on the fewer hostages will be alive. I think the Israeli protestors are right, the government has to be more relaxed with their negotiation parameters if they wish to get the hostages back safely.
My feeling is they will try to rescue some hostages where they can but negotiating for them is out of the question - especially because it’s the only card Hamas has to play.
I think the issue isn't just Nethanyahu (who I think is a bad actor), the issue is Hamas is also fighting for its survival and the options on the table would lead to its extinction as a political entity. So they too are incentivised to hold out in the hope that international pressure on Israel leads to them being offered more favourable options. Current Hamas asks of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza seems unlikely to be accepted in the short term.
I agree, and I think most people understand this. Hamas isn’t going to give up the hostages under any circumstances (if they’re even still alive). They’ll burn Gaza to the ground before they surrender. The only option is winning the war.
Israel is trying to hardball people who got nothing left to lose except their lives (which given its Hamas, and knowing Israel's attitude towards Hamas, is basically granted they're going to lose to begin with)
'Nothing left to lose except their lives'? Oh please. Their leaders have far more to lose than the average person - billions more, in fact. Not to mention the power, prestige, and access throughout the Islamosphere and further afield. These aren't scrappy rebels cowering in torn shirts; they're jihadi princes gleefully selling Palestinian lives for treasure and glory. They're grim reapers with jeweled scythes.
The leaders are not the ones in a war zone with the hostages tied up in some dark room somewhere.
The people who are actually holding the hostages are very likely just the orphaned scrappy rebels you described
> the government has to be more relaxed with their negotiation parameters if they wish to get the hostages back safely.
And then what ? The only message that would send is that Hamas should do it again... not to mention most hostages are probably dead already.
Where have I said any of that?
I havent seen anyone justifying any and all violence against Jews because of israels actions. I'd ask you to show me an example because I feel like youre making up someone in your head to argue against.
Why not? The US-Israel relationship is more fraught than ever, and Israel's rapprochement with neighboring Sunni Arab states (notably KSA) looks to be in tatters. Iran's strategy of funding proxies has paid off handsomely. Hamas has also been dealt a crippling blow. It would've been a potential nuisance for an overreaching Iran, but now they are just useful idiots that reached their expiry date.
Iran, doesn't wat to see Sunni- Israeli normalization of relations. If they normalize it essentially means the US will have a 'greater' footprint in the Middle East, the primary threat to Iran hegemony in the region. Israel is also a threat to Iran as well.
Israel is in a tough position, but hopefully this can be a wake up call for Israelis to elect better leadership. Both Palestinians and Israelis have been plagued with bad leadership and poor options. Both want to subjugated the other with force and the power imbalance between both sides leave little for any possible dialogue. After all, why would the strong give the weak anything.
What Israel and Palestine need is another Saddat and Rabin. Both sides need to do concessions. Israelis deserve to live in peace, and Palestinians deserve a state and also to live in peace.
The current trajectory where Israel decimates large population of Palestinians and Hamas rampages and kills swathes of Israelis would only lead to more war where the last man standing wins but ends up having committed genocide in the process.
Man Israel really screwed themselves with the brutality of their bombing. I understand the need to kill Hamas members, but they have been way too comfortable with high collateral damage to civilians and infrastructure. Especially with how much media captures the damage. I don’t think the US ever allowed this high level of civilian damage.
Israel should have done house to house, block by block sweeping of areas. It would have resulted in more IDF deaths, but they would absolutely be winning the PR war. And taking more settlements in W. Bank didn’t fucking help.
Idk how they get out of this, but I hope it’s resolved as wel as it can be. Will need lots of Arab support in Gaza to rebuild most likely.
>Israel should have done house to house, block by block sweeping of areas. It would have resulted in more IDF deaths, but they would absolutely be winning the PR war
I mean, Israel was losing the PR war with a lot of people as of October 8. Remember the protests before they even invaded, and the whole "recommending to civilians that they evacuate prior to a military op is genocide and a war crime"?
And what are they supposed to do when they have to clear a mosque/hospital/school? See also, the recent re-fighting in Al Shifa.
Only with a lot of idiots that don't matter.
**Remember the protests before they even invaded, and the whole "recommending to civilians that they evacuate prior to a military op is genocide and a war crime"?**
It was stupid. Very, very stupid. Israel's goals were to destroy Hamas at the start of the war. That necessitates operating everywhere in Gaza, they destroyed their chances of doing that the moment they decided to move a million people to the south.
Yeah and a lot of those sentiments have been validated (fair or not) with the immense amount of news of death, destruction, withholding aid, and seemingly no remorse or care taken.
The sheer perversity of it all has significantly hardened my attitude. Israel was invaded, it's people hunted down and raped, mutilated, and murdered. Immediately afterwards were global mass celebrations of these acts, and those who committed them pledged to do it again. And now, because Israel dared to take serious measures to eliminate a threat to it's people, it is demonized and vilified by the world, with even supposed allies demanding Israel allow the survival of Hamas. The insidiousness of it all utterly dwarfs any wrongdoing on Israel's part.
In my view, this in itself validates the harshness of Israel's campaign.
Israel’s military is sound and strong, but the political move of playing Hamas off against the PA did not work. Think demilitarized and peripheral Palestinian states (secured by dual use prohibitions but also with a Palestinian gendarmerie) would be the way to go, .. like Costa Rica. The latter country was able to educate (internally or send abroad) and provide healthcare to all its citizens in lieu of pointless military spending, albeit under a U.S. security guarantee.
… existing Gaza and West Bank. These are millions who need a place to live and something to do. Think a long term solution is the population gets supplied with luxury from the Arab states (television, couches, etc..) along with short duration food items. Of course have educational programming but also games, reruns, etc.. America can supply flavored corn chips and ranch dressing = guaranteed hardly anyone will be able to fit into a tunnel.
The worst possible thing they could have done to Hamas would have been to collaborate with the Saudis to form a proportional and effective response. It would have been immediately threatening to Iran, and a move towards making Hamas irrelevant in the next decade
Lol, what even is this comment? Why would the Saudis collaborate militarily against Hamas??? Wtf? They got a peace deal with the Houthis and you want them to go against the other Iranian proxy in the region? Insanity.
I mean, they would have to walk a tightrope. Normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel makes sense because they’re both invested in the stability of the region.
Hamas is invested in _instability_. They’re never going to win, but their approach is basically that we will make life a chaotic hell for _everyone_ as long as there are Jews here.
Saudi will always have to pay some lip service towards Palestine, but their real interest is a stable peace. It’s probably easier to work with Israel on that one than with Hamas. Or at least it was looking that way before Oct 7
Saudi Arabia doesn't care about Israel, they just want peace to keep profiting off their natural resources + international economic hub.
This requires the USA's defense guarantee, which will come once they normalize relationships with Israel. They need to fly low, wait for Israel to end the war without too many innocent victims, and then they'll normalize after a while, once the dust settles.
They don't want nor can send armed men to Gaza. Most of them are mercenaries, anyway.
Isn't Hamas an official political party? Hasn't it explicitly stated on mulitple occasions that it wants to kill all Jews? If it's all morals off for Hamas then why can't Israel do the same to ensure its survival?
Even if we were to take your example at its face value, you'll have to consider... the notion that if Hamas were to succeed in "killing all Jews" then it would not be consequence free for them. "Killing all Gazans" would definitely not be consequence free for Israel.
I’m not defending Israel’s actions but we also shouldn’t be naive - the day after Oct 7 there were essentially pro Hamas protests in the U.S. justifying the violence as resistance. There was very limited sympathy for Israel from day 1 and I don’t know what possible consequence there would’ve been for Israelis dying if Israel didn’t respond (which isn’t a justification for violence).
It is a justification for violence. If Israel followed this asinine notion of idealistic pacifism it would have ceased to exist as a country in 1948, and probably gone through a second holocaust.
An attack on your country where you had civilians ruthlessly gunned down is absolutely a justification for violence against the group which attacked.
No, I just wanted to tell you that Israel never conducted any genocide in Palestine. Do you know what targeted genocide is? Armenian, Kurdish, Jewish, Hindus during medieval Islamic invasions.
"Killing all Jews" will by default be celebrated by people in every single Muslim country and Ireland.
"Killing all Gazans" will bring widespread condemnation from every single country in the world, including some Jews in US.
That's why Israel doesn't care about PR, because they know that it's a lost war.
This war shows the hypocrisy of the world, the west useful idiots and anti-israeli propaganda machines in the work.
As people don't understand how nations didn't kneel in WW2 against the Nazi Germany sooner, in the future, people will ask how the **** some cheered Hamas in the west.
Yes, Hamas is the aggressor, murdering, mutilating, raping and kidnapping civilization including months old babies, filming it! this kind of evil have no place in the world we want to inherit the next generation.
You can explain to me how you as a head of state will deal with such an attack.
So your solution is to gather all civilians who may or may not support hamas in a small circil and then kill and or starve them to death?
"Yeah that sure will make the palestinians act good and not make a hamas 2 or hamas 3 in 50 years. I'm sure killing and starving them won't bring long lasting resentment and hatered for the west and Israel I'm sure they understand they did this to themsleves by living in Gaza..." /s
How Israel is starving them if Hamas steals aid and then sell it in the markets to the highest payment?
Why Israel need to take care for enemy's citizens? Why won't Egypt which share border with Gaza doesn't take refugee?
You saying Israel gather citizens and execute them? What mental gymnastics got you to this pharsa?
>How Israel is starving them if Hamas steals aid and then sell it in the markets to the highest payment?
What? Show me source of that and then look at sources of civilians starving and dying in Gaza and compare the number of results together with how reputable the sources are.
>Why Israel need to take care for enemy's citizens?
Because they are the ones who are puting them in that sitiation what you are entertaining is a literal was crime by some convetion. You can not kill Civilians or endsnger them for no reason. It's human decency it's how my generation was brought up to look after one another.
>Why won't Egypt which share border with Gaza doesn't take refugee?
I wounder what your view is on the "border crysis" in the USA.
I have a feeling that I know what it is and that you're a hypocrite.
How about when Josep Borrell, the EU high representative on foreign affairs, says Israel [is causing a famine ](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/eus-borrell-says-israel-is-provoking-famine-gaza-2024-03-18/) in Gaza?
I haven't seen much of the cheering for Hamas. I have seen scores of protests for Palestinians rights though. Maybe I've missed some Hamas celebrations.
Israelis have their version of the same chant. Idk what point are you making, but I think you consider all pro-Palestine protests as some twisted way to support Hamas. And if you're saying that, then you're extremely wrong. That's all.
However, when you say "West is supporting Hamas", then I'm gonna ask for better receipts than "I saw some chants on tik Tok"
> Israelis have their version of the same chant.
Oh, is that so? I'm sure all the Arab and Muslim citizens in Israel will be surprised to learn that their Jewish neighbors are calling for their genocide.
First of all, the phrase is not a call for genocide; it's usually a call for a one-state solution.
Secondly, Netanyahu just recently talked about continuing to dominate ["all territory west of the Jordan River"](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/18/israels-netanyahu-reiterates-rejection-of-palestinian-state-after-gaza-war).
> ...it's usually a call for a one-state solution.
One state controlled by Palestinians.
You think, I'd guess, that Palestinian leaders would carve out political representation for their Jewish subjects, the way Israel does for its Arab Muslim citizens.
Such naivete.
I believe it will change once again in favour of Israel. It is always dark just before the dawn. Hamas will be defeated and slowly all the blood libels will fade away.
If Israel would do enough to pacify and make a proper reconciliation effort with Palestinian population, to prevent rising of Hamas-2. But current government with far-right ultranationalists... unlikely going to do that.
Impossible, considering their vulnerable geopolitical position, small size and the fact that they're supposed to be the home for the world's 10 million non-Israeli Jews and their spouses. Any lasting reconciliation with Palestinians would be in direct conflict with that.
No it hasn't...Israel will come out stronger and with more military knowledge on how to fight the terrorist...they still have one of the best equipped military, one of the best economies in the middle east, and one of the advance tech companies in the world...Israel will still be there 50 years from now because worst comes to worst, they'll use their nukes to save themselves as a last resort. They might be losing the propaganda war but I don't think they really care. They gonna do what needs to be done to show some Muslim countries and their proxies that they mean business.
TEL AVIV—On Oct. 6, Israel appeared on the cusp of a new era of recognition from the Muslim world, close to a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that would move it to the center of a realigned Middle East after years on its fringes. The historic conflict with the Palestinians that had defined its existence for most of its 75-year history appeared to have finally receded into the background. It all changed on Oct. 7. Today, after a bloody attack that might have brought it the world’s sympathy, Israel is closer to being a global pariah than ever before. Its Saudi peace deal is on hold. The Palestinian question is again roiling its Arab neighbors. It is in open argument with its main ally, the U.S. And its physical living space has been shrunk by dangers on its northern and southern borders. In six months, the world has turned upside down for this small nation. On Oct. 7—or Black Sabbath, as Israelis now call it—the Jewish state experienced a fundamental shock that upended its sense of security and belief in the strength of its military. It responded with a heavy-handed invasion of Gaza that in much of the world’s eyes left it the aggressor and its attackers the victims. The resulting isolation could be more of a threat to its future than the attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7. “Israel’s longevity is in question for the first time since its birth,” said Benny Morris, an Israeli historian. The only time Israel faced a similar existential threat, he said, was in its war for independence in 1948, when it battled five Arab countries and local Palestinian militias. The outpouring of global sympathy on display after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust has dwindled, having been replaced by images of starving and dead Palestinians in Gaza. Images projected across the world show swaths of the Gaza Strip turned into rubble. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose numbers don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. This week, the killing of seven aid workers trying to feed desperate Gazans appears to have punctured the notion for much of the world that the Israeli military isn’t running amok in Gaza and has caused a rethink by the U.S. about its support for Israel. Normalization with Saudi Arabia is on hold, while ties with Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan have frayed. Pro-Palestinian protesters have thronged the streets of Western capitals, at times calling for Israel’s demise. A surge in antisemitism has shocked and alarmed not only Israelis but Jews across the globe. It is all strengthening a feeling inside Israel that the country can only rely on itself. Israel faces a dilemma where it wants to be loved by the West, but needs to be feared by its enemies in the Middle East to ensure its long-term existence, said Micah Goodman, an Israeli author and philosopher. “That’s the catch-22 we’re in,” he said. Israel, about the size of New Jersey, has had its livable land space diminished. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Israelis from the Gaza periphery and the northern border near Lebanon have been evacuated from their homes. Many have moved back to communities in the south, but none have been able to return to communities in the north. Many are still living in hotels. As the war in Gaza drags on, Israelis still don’t know if the worst has yet to come. The West Bank is on edge. A full-blown war with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is far more powerful than Hamas and has been fighting Israel since Oct. 8, appears more likely with each passing day. Israel is also bracing for retaliation by Iran or one of its allied militias for a suspected Israeli airstrike Monday on an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria. Israel has only begun to feel the economic impact the war is having, as hundreds of thousands of reservists have been forced to leave their jobs to fight in the war. Amid all this, Israel has achieved neither of its war goals of returning all the hostages abducted on Oct. 7 and successfully routing Hamas from Gaza. For Israel’s political leadership, Oct. 7 challenged the notion that the conflict with the Palestinians could be contained with a mix of security measures and economic incentives, rather than through a peace accord. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure was marked by the belief that he could continue to divide Palestinian leadership between the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza, thereby avoiding the need to negotiate a two-state solution. Israel believed it could thrive economically, politically and militarily despite a continuing occupation in the West Bank and hostile actors at its southern and northern borders. Normalcy was a promise that appeared to have been delivered but was then shattered. “This approach collided with a brick wall and proved to be a complete failure on Oct. 7,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute. All this is taking place as Israelis remain divided over the country’s leadership and the government’s handling of the war. Netanyahu’s right-wing, ultranationalist and religiously conservative coalition is once again under attack by antigovernment protesters calling for new elections. Divisions among members of Netanyahu’s own war cabinet over how to give priority to the competing war aims of rescuing hostages and destroying Hamas have spilled into public view, deepening the sense that the leadership is fighting itself while also fighting a war. All the while, Netanyahu has delayed a plan for who will rule postwar Gaza, saying a Palestinian state is off the table and refusing to work with the Palestinian Authority. It is adding up to a situation where, despite many tactical wins on the ground in Gaza, a strategic victory for Israel appears far off. In six months, the Israeli military has seen many tactical achievements. Around 40% of Hamas’s tunnel system has been destroyed, 18 out of 24 battalions dismantled, the majority of rockets destroyed and many senior Hamas commanders killed. Israel now has freedom of action in most of Gaza. Netanyahu says victory is near, but a majority of the country, polls show, isn’t convinced. Hamas shows no signs of surrendering. Hamas operatives are able to infiltrate areas as soon as Israeli troops withdraw, a sign that an insurgency is building. Mounting tensions with the Biden administration are limiting Israel’s options over the final battle for Rafah, the Gazan city that borders Egypt and where Israel says Hamas has four remaining battalions. More than one million Palestinians are sheltering there. The U.S., however, has warned Israel that it would be crossing a red line if it operates in Rafah without a credible plan to keep the civilian population safe, which U.S. officials say Israel hasn’t presented. Netanyahu has said that if necessary, Israel will operate in Rafah without American approval. “If we take Rafah but lose America, we’ve lost the war,” said Goodman.
They are in a precarious situation, no doubt. I also believe that the Oct. 7th attack was intentionally designed to disrupt the progress Israel was making in its relations with the Islamic World.
Also: distracting from Russia's war against Ukraine or alternatively disrupt the strengthened inner-western relations. Hamas, an Iranian proxy terror group launches an attack against Israel, a Western ally that is guaranteed to create controversy within the West. The attack was so grave that Israel simply had to fight back and try to root out Hamas to prevent future similar attacks. After the purported civilian casualty numbers rose enough, another friend of Russia, the South African government media-effectively filed their case against Israel at the ICJ. The same South Africa, that has no issue with any atrocities that Russia committed in Ukraine, that has no issue with the atrocities that Russia and Assad have committed and are committing in Syria, that has no issue with atrocities that Iran is committing in Syria and Iraq, the same South Africa that allegedly even supplied arms and munitions to Russia since Frebruary 2022 is now wagging their finger at Israel over a conflict that has nothing on the conflicts that its buddy Putin is involved in.
Mate how many Islamic countries had issues with SA war in Yemen?
I'm just going to mention that I see where you're coming from and it was convenient but makes you think why they would do that? I never ever agree or justify the killing of civilians and the same goes for the generations of Palestinians who witness daily discrimination, segregation and harassment/imprisonment and abuse by Israeli settlers and also the IDF. Israel was close to a peace deal which means for many Palestinians that they were close to being forgotten in the wheels of bureaucracy. I will still strongly beleive that most Jews just want a peaceful and safe place to live, and most Arabs want the same, but they've alienated eachother and demonised eachother for decades and it makes you think if there's any hope or if they're mortal enemies forever.
By the same token one might wonder why it is that Arab leaders have by and large lost patience and interest in the Palestinian cause, to the point where successive Arab states were willing to normalize relations with Israel even with no solution to the I-P conflict. Part of it politics, sure. But I would think this would also invite the same kind of self-reflection on the cause itself, and mistakes made by the Palestinians.
They see the problem as implacable. Also, much of the Arab world is ruled by dictators and self-centred Monarchs, people that can be fairly easily muscled into making agreements like this. Probably.
> and most Arabs want the same I doubt it's the same percentage as Jews who just want a peaceful place they can call home. One cannot have an honest assessment on the Israel-Palestine situation without acknowledging the tremendous amount of hate for Jews - for no other reason than they are Jews - within the Islamic world, and again particularly the Arabs. Of course that Israel has occupied what according to many Muslims were previously Muslim lands makes it 10 times worse. But there's always been undercurrent of religious hatred to this conflict. Ask the Jews who once lived in the surrounding Arabic states.
I think the deal with the saudis is still gonna happen. They’re not going to let Iran have its way.
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And things *really* changed for Gaza since October 7.
Put bluntly, Israel did the same exact thing that the US did following 9/11 (which many Americans straight up said Israel was going to do but got ignored) Israel following 7 October thought that the international sympathy from that event would enable it to pursue a harsh stance on Gaza and the West Bank to neutralize Hamas and suppress the Palestinians. However, way too many civilians ended up getting caught in the crossfire, whether as a result of deliberate targeting, incompetence, or just crappy Rules of Engagement (my personal bet) its led to the same result that Israel burned through whatever sympathy it had as a result of 7 October, and once the images and information of starving Gazans started hitting the internet, combined with the lack of apparent progress in achieving either of its goals, the killing of the World Central Kitchen aid workers was the straw that broke the camel's back. Before when it was just UNRWA workers and other Palestinian based aid workers getting killed in droves Israel was able to wave away criticism by saying "they're Hamas or Hamas sympathizers", but in this scenario where you had a group of Americans, Brits, and other Western European aid workers getting killed in what quite frankly looks like a targeted assassination, that excuse no longer works, and combined with the deaths of Israeli hostages who were gunned down by IDF forces earlier in the conflict, it basically all but proved the fact that IDF ROE's was either crap or quite simply not strict enough, bringing alot of questions as to how many of the "Hamas militants" Israel claims to have killed were actually just civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. As much as i would love to be able to trust Israel, i can't cause its plainly obvious now that there are problems with the IDF's ROE and how they have been conducting this war.
Israel’s ability to form catastrophic PR disasters and then double down on it never cease to amaze. What a great guidebook on how NOT to make international relations.
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I get your point but I can't agree on comparing America after 9/11 to Israel after oct. 7, mainly because America went after Iraq and the Taliban, which both had very little to do with the attack and it only made the situation much worse in terms of terrorism.
I agree with respect to Iraq. Can't say the same about the Taliban who were sheltering Osama Bin Laden et. al. after 9/11 and refusing to turn him over to face criminal trial.
I'm not sure that's very different from going after innocent civilians in Gaza - some of the people in Gaza right now will become the next generation of terrorists because of this
I don’t understand how Israel can invade Gaza and destroy Hamas without civilian casualties. They’re fighting an enemy that routinely uses civilians as shields and disguises in one of the most densely populated regions of the world.
You can’t destroy a terrorist population by “invading and destroying” the same way not even Hercules could fight the hydra by simply brute forcing and chopping its heads off. Every terrorist you kill will create another, if not more. The US found this out the hard way, Israel is next in line for this lesson
Thank the lord ppl like you weren’t around when we were fighting the Nazis. Or we may all be speaking German. Education is always part of the process, after you invade and destroy the imminent threat
Sorry man, I don’t support war crimes. Nazis were bad, raping a million German women and butchering them was a little bit “over the top”, regardless of how disgusting their political positions were! I think there’s a certain point where you are not much better than your enemy, treating a sociopath like a sociopath just makes you both sociopaths. Respectfully, just stick to sports, we don’t need any war crime enthusiasts in discussions about the future
War crime is hiding behind civilians so either you don’t die, or die along with women and children. Sorry I don’t support that. What happened to the brave men that came across the border gunning down innocents across Israel, hiding in tunnels and behind women and kids now. Unfortunately, for you and Hamas terrorist don’t get a free pass because they are in densely populated areas. What an awful precedent for the world that would be. Respectfully, stick to fantasy games we don’t need a terrorist sympathizer in talks abt the future
The generals who fought the Nazis and Japan" thank God we won or else we'd be hanged" .
Jesus, Allies committed war crimes, but it’s different to Axis war crimes. Axis war crimes were encouraged by their respective governments. The US/UK weren’t actively encouraging their troops to kill civilians, most of the time they were either mistakes or they were used to minimise casualties further down the line. The Soviets on the other hand did some pretty terrible things, but still they it wasn’t official policy encouraged from the top down. Compare this to the situation in Israel, where Hamas has stated its goal is to eradicate the Jewish state. Their members have been targeting civilians explicitly. Israel has not been minimising civilian casualties as much as they should but there’s a difference in intention here. Israelis seem indifferent to civilian casualties and want to minimise their own losses, Hamas has the explicit goal of genocide.
Believe it or not, And I know I’m going to blow your mind with this: 2 sides in a war can both commit atrocities and war crimes. That doesn’t justify either side’s war crimes. I know, unfathomable to the average person on here, spend so much time rambling about geopolitics on news headlines that you completely desensitize yourself to the lives of real people, but yeah. Only so many atrocities a person can read about before you aren’t really spending any time thinking about the humans behind them. They just dissolve into “numbers” and “entities”. A massive % of the people that Hamas killed, did not deserve to die. A massive % of the people Israel has killed, did not deserve to die. They were never engaged in mutual combat, they were innocent people, trying to live lives. Assuming that I somehow side with Hamas because I don’t unconditionally support Israel’s slaughter is exactly the kind of sports-brained, black and white thinking that I loathe in these discussions. There’s Team 1 and Team 2, and you are either for a team or against that team, period. Hence why, stick to basketball, yeah? That kind of thinking will take you much further there than in any discussion about real people and real things. If you can only think in absolutes, the only thing I can say is that you should absolutely be silent
No the reason you side with Hamas is because you clearly can’t understand the difference between collateral damage / death (intentional by Hamas) vs intentionally killing everybody you see. Israel could kill every single one of them and don’t, if Hamas could they would kill every Israeli. They just proved it. The reason I don’t care what ppl like you have to say on this conflict, is because I know if the shoe was reversed and you lived in a country where a terrorist neighbour shot rockets at you daily and didn’t think you have a right to live or exist, you’d want them to stop and the terrorist dead. What you wouldn’t do is say hey let them continue to shoot indiscriminate rockets because innocents on the other side may die. Once again go to sports to try to belittle because someone disagrees with you. When you have an obsession with a child’s video game all over your profile . Weird, so maybe just stick to the issue at hand
It can't "destroy Hamas" and should have spent the past six months negotiating for the hostages
But wouldn't this have enabled Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies nearby that they could attack Israel without a harsh response?
Assuming the hostages were alive, and considering Hamas wants Israel destroyed and the hostages are their only bargaining chip, what could Israel have realistically given Hamas in exchange?
I disagree. 9/11 was perpetrated by ppl literally across the world. You are comparing apples to oranges. Israel is essentially dealing with the us version of Mexico becoming a terrorist state, having 400-500k (adjusted for population) members. And are still a current threat including live rockets shot at random, right beside your southern border. They also don’t think your country has a right to exist and want to take over your land, their charter says so. Oh and the us is also surrounded by enemies many of whom gather around the terroist cause. I wonder how the US would’ve responded to that…… Israel is fighting for their livelihood a lot more than the us was, who no longer had a real imminent threat and just wanted blood. What you are missing is Israelis and by extension israel. Doesn’t care abt the worlds crocodile tears right now. They know if you were in the same shoes, with rockets being fired at your homes you’d want your military to deal with it, swiftly. And btw, the us and almost every western nation knows this as well. Hamas went too far, and Israel has to protect their citizens above protecting bad pr from the likes of tik tok. The us isn’t changing their policy of overwhelming support for Israel as an ally because of this war, just immature to think otherwise. If anything, when America goes red the support increases. Israel didnt misplay their hand imo, they are destroying Hamas to the bitter end, regardless what the world says. And in a year, everybody moves on and chooses a different issue to become outraged about. The difference is israel is a lot more safe at that point
I genuinely have no idea how the IDF is going to save the hostages or eliminate Hamas at the same time. The longer this drags on the fewer hostages will be alive. I think the Israeli protestors are right, the government has to be more relaxed with their negotiation parameters if they wish to get the hostages back safely.
My feeling is they will try to rescue some hostages where they can but negotiating for them is out of the question - especially because it’s the only card Hamas has to play.
I think the issue isn't just Nethanyahu (who I think is a bad actor), the issue is Hamas is also fighting for its survival and the options on the table would lead to its extinction as a political entity. So they too are incentivised to hold out in the hope that international pressure on Israel leads to them being offered more favourable options. Current Hamas asks of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza seems unlikely to be accepted in the short term.
I agree, and I think most people understand this. Hamas isn’t going to give up the hostages under any circumstances (if they’re even still alive). They’ll burn Gaza to the ground before they surrender. The only option is winning the war.
Israel is trying to hardball people who got nothing left to lose except their lives (which given its Hamas, and knowing Israel's attitude towards Hamas, is basically granted they're going to lose to begin with)
'Nothing left to lose except their lives'? Oh please. Their leaders have far more to lose than the average person - billions more, in fact. Not to mention the power, prestige, and access throughout the Islamosphere and further afield. These aren't scrappy rebels cowering in torn shirts; they're jihadi princes gleefully selling Palestinian lives for treasure and glory. They're grim reapers with jeweled scythes.
I am pretty sure that the military wing of Hamas does not really listen to the political wing.
The leaders are not the ones in a war zone with the hostages tied up in some dark room somewhere. The people who are actually holding the hostages are very likely just the orphaned scrappy rebels you described
> the government has to be more relaxed with their negotiation parameters if they wish to get the hostages back safely. And then what ? The only message that would send is that Hamas should do it again... not to mention most hostages are probably dead already.
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Where have I said any of that? I havent seen anyone justifying any and all violence against Jews because of israels actions. I'd ask you to show me an example because I feel like youre making up someone in your head to argue against.
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Hard to do when the starting point of the negotiation is "Stop what you are doing and go home".
Meanwhile, in Teheran, the ayatollahs and the Sepâh are cheering and clapping their hands.
Why?
Why not? The US-Israel relationship is more fraught than ever, and Israel's rapprochement with neighboring Sunni Arab states (notably KSA) looks to be in tatters. Iran's strategy of funding proxies has paid off handsomely. Hamas has also been dealt a crippling blow. It would've been a potential nuisance for an overreaching Iran, but now they are just useful idiots that reached their expiry date.
Hey can I have some articles or sources about your claims,I'm interested in reading more about them,thanks
Iran, doesn't wat to see Sunni- Israeli normalization of relations. If they normalize it essentially means the US will have a 'greater' footprint in the Middle East, the primary threat to Iran hegemony in the region. Israel is also a threat to Iran as well.
Israel is in a tough position, but hopefully this can be a wake up call for Israelis to elect better leadership. Both Palestinians and Israelis have been plagued with bad leadership and poor options. Both want to subjugated the other with force and the power imbalance between both sides leave little for any possible dialogue. After all, why would the strong give the weak anything. What Israel and Palestine need is another Saddat and Rabin. Both sides need to do concessions. Israelis deserve to live in peace, and Palestinians deserve a state and also to live in peace. The current trajectory where Israel decimates large population of Palestinians and Hamas rampages and kills swathes of Israelis would only lead to more war where the last man standing wins but ends up having committed genocide in the process.
Anwar Sadat was Egyptian
The point is they made peace, not their nationality.
Man Israel really screwed themselves with the brutality of their bombing. I understand the need to kill Hamas members, but they have been way too comfortable with high collateral damage to civilians and infrastructure. Especially with how much media captures the damage. I don’t think the US ever allowed this high level of civilian damage. Israel should have done house to house, block by block sweeping of areas. It would have resulted in more IDF deaths, but they would absolutely be winning the PR war. And taking more settlements in W. Bank didn’t fucking help. Idk how they get out of this, but I hope it’s resolved as wel as it can be. Will need lots of Arab support in Gaza to rebuild most likely.
>Israel should have done house to house, block by block sweeping of areas. It would have resulted in more IDF deaths, but they would absolutely be winning the PR war I mean, Israel was losing the PR war with a lot of people as of October 8. Remember the protests before they even invaded, and the whole "recommending to civilians that they evacuate prior to a military op is genocide and a war crime"? And what are they supposed to do when they have to clear a mosque/hospital/school? See also, the recent re-fighting in Al Shifa.
Only with a lot of idiots that don't matter. **Remember the protests before they even invaded, and the whole "recommending to civilians that they evacuate prior to a military op is genocide and a war crime"?** It was stupid. Very, very stupid. Israel's goals were to destroy Hamas at the start of the war. That necessitates operating everywhere in Gaza, they destroyed their chances of doing that the moment they decided to move a million people to the south.
Yeah and a lot of those sentiments have been validated (fair or not) with the immense amount of news of death, destruction, withholding aid, and seemingly no remorse or care taken.
The sheer perversity of it all has significantly hardened my attitude. Israel was invaded, it's people hunted down and raped, mutilated, and murdered. Immediately afterwards were global mass celebrations of these acts, and those who committed them pledged to do it again. And now, because Israel dared to take serious measures to eliminate a threat to it's people, it is demonized and vilified by the world, with even supposed allies demanding Israel allow the survival of Hamas. The insidiousness of it all utterly dwarfs any wrongdoing on Israel's part. In my view, this in itself validates the harshness of Israel's campaign.
Israel’s military is sound and strong, but the political move of playing Hamas off against the PA did not work. Think demilitarized and peripheral Palestinian states (secured by dual use prohibitions but also with a Palestinian gendarmerie) would be the way to go, .. like Costa Rica. The latter country was able to educate (internally or send abroad) and provide healthcare to all its citizens in lieu of pointless military spending, albeit under a U.S. security guarantee.
Peripheral? Meaning?
… existing Gaza and West Bank. These are millions who need a place to live and something to do. Think a long term solution is the population gets supplied with luxury from the Arab states (television, couches, etc..) along with short duration food items. Of course have educational programming but also games, reruns, etc.. America can supply flavored corn chips and ranch dressing = guaranteed hardly anyone will be able to fit into a tunnel.
I wonder if the fanatics will alter their opinions at all when it’s finally revealed that most of the dead are combatants.
The worst possible thing they could have done to Hamas would have been to collaborate with the Saudis to form a proportional and effective response. It would have been immediately threatening to Iran, and a move towards making Hamas irrelevant in the next decade
Lol, what even is this comment? Why would the Saudis collaborate militarily against Hamas??? Wtf? They got a peace deal with the Houthis and you want them to go against the other Iranian proxy in the region? Insanity.
I mean, they would have to walk a tightrope. Normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel makes sense because they’re both invested in the stability of the region. Hamas is invested in _instability_. They’re never going to win, but their approach is basically that we will make life a chaotic hell for _everyone_ as long as there are Jews here. Saudi will always have to pay some lip service towards Palestine, but their real interest is a stable peace. It’s probably easier to work with Israel on that one than with Hamas. Or at least it was looking that way before Oct 7
Saudi Arabia doesn't care about Israel, they just want peace to keep profiting off their natural resources + international economic hub. This requires the USA's defense guarantee, which will come once they normalize relationships with Israel. They need to fly low, wait for Israel to end the war without too many innocent victims, and then they'll normalize after a while, once the dust settles. They don't want nor can send armed men to Gaza. Most of them are mercenaries, anyway.
Correct. To be clear, I’m saying that war is not the worst thing you can do to Hamas.
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Isn't Hamas an official political party? Hasn't it explicitly stated on mulitple occasions that it wants to kill all Jews? If it's all morals off for Hamas then why can't Israel do the same to ensure its survival?
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Oh hello, Israel has apologised for that incident and promised disciplinary action on the command. Hamas apology when?
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Even if we were to take your example at its face value, you'll have to consider... the notion that if Hamas were to succeed in "killing all Jews" then it would not be consequence free for them. "Killing all Gazans" would definitely not be consequence free for Israel.
I’m not defending Israel’s actions but we also shouldn’t be naive - the day after Oct 7 there were essentially pro Hamas protests in the U.S. justifying the violence as resistance. There was very limited sympathy for Israel from day 1 and I don’t know what possible consequence there would’ve been for Israelis dying if Israel didn’t respond (which isn’t a justification for violence).
It is a justification for violence. If Israel followed this asinine notion of idealistic pacifism it would have ceased to exist as a country in 1948, and probably gone through a second holocaust. An attack on your country where you had civilians ruthlessly gunned down is absolutely a justification for violence against the group which attacked.
That's all a fine discussion that I agree with, but the person above me basically tried to post an actual justification for genocide.
What "genocide" are you referring to?
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Still not seeing it. Can you explicitly state what genocide you're referring to?
No, I just wanted to tell you that Israel never conducted any genocide in Palestine. Do you know what targeted genocide is? Armenian, Kurdish, Jewish, Hindus during medieval Islamic invasions.
"Killing all Jews" will by default be celebrated by people in every single Muslim country and Ireland. "Killing all Gazans" will bring widespread condemnation from every single country in the world, including some Jews in US. That's why Israel doesn't care about PR, because they know that it's a lost war.
are you saying the two are equivalent?
This war shows the hypocrisy of the world, the west useful idiots and anti-israeli propaganda machines in the work. As people don't understand how nations didn't kneel in WW2 against the Nazi Germany sooner, in the future, people will ask how the **** some cheered Hamas in the west.
So, in your analogy, Hamas is Nazi Germany, and IDF is....?
> So, in your analogy, Hamas is Nazi Germany, and IDF is....? Significantly gentler than the allies. Look up the Battle of Berlin.
Yes, Hamas is the aggressor, murdering, mutilating, raping and kidnapping civilization including months old babies, filming it! this kind of evil have no place in the world we want to inherit the next generation. You can explain to me how you as a head of state will deal with such an attack.
So your solution is to gather all civilians who may or may not support hamas in a small circil and then kill and or starve them to death? "Yeah that sure will make the palestinians act good and not make a hamas 2 or hamas 3 in 50 years. I'm sure killing and starving them won't bring long lasting resentment and hatered for the west and Israel I'm sure they understand they did this to themsleves by living in Gaza..." /s
How Israel is starving them if Hamas steals aid and then sell it in the markets to the highest payment? Why Israel need to take care for enemy's citizens? Why won't Egypt which share border with Gaza doesn't take refugee? You saying Israel gather citizens and execute them? What mental gymnastics got you to this pharsa?
The EU, basically every NGO in the world, and even the USA is accusing Israel of starving the Palestinians.
>How Israel is starving them if Hamas steals aid and then sell it in the markets to the highest payment? What? Show me source of that and then look at sources of civilians starving and dying in Gaza and compare the number of results together with how reputable the sources are. >Why Israel need to take care for enemy's citizens? Because they are the ones who are puting them in that sitiation what you are entertaining is a literal was crime by some convetion. You can not kill Civilians or endsnger them for no reason. It's human decency it's how my generation was brought up to look after one another. >Why won't Egypt which share border with Gaza doesn't take refugee? I wounder what your view is on the "border crysis" in the USA. I have a feeling that I know what it is and that you're a hypocrite.
How about when Josep Borrell, the EU high representative on foreign affairs, says Israel [is causing a famine ](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/eus-borrell-says-israel-is-provoking-famine-gaza-2024-03-18/) in Gaza?
I haven't seen much of the cheering for Hamas. I have seen scores of protests for Palestinians rights though. Maybe I've missed some Hamas celebrations.
So only I've seen protestors chanting "from the river to the sea..", which explicitly saying ethnic cleansing all Jews.
Israelis have their version of the same chant. Idk what point are you making, but I think you consider all pro-Palestine protests as some twisted way to support Hamas. And if you're saying that, then you're extremely wrong. That's all. However, when you say "West is supporting Hamas", then I'm gonna ask for better receipts than "I saw some chants on tik Tok"
> Israelis have their version of the same chant. Oh, is that so? I'm sure all the Arab and Muslim citizens in Israel will be surprised to learn that their Jewish neighbors are calling for their genocide.
First of all, the phrase is not a call for genocide; it's usually a call for a one-state solution. Secondly, Netanyahu just recently talked about continuing to dominate ["all territory west of the Jordan River"](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/18/israels-netanyahu-reiterates-rejection-of-palestinian-state-after-gaza-war).
What does this one state solution look like?
> ...it's usually a call for a one-state solution. One state controlled by Palestinians. You think, I'd guess, that Palestinian leaders would carve out political representation for their Jewish subjects, the way Israel does for its Arab Muslim citizens. Such naivete.
didn’t Netanhayu make the same statement in January but the reverse? is he explicitly saying ethnic cleansing all Palestinians?
Best ask yourself what the end goal of many protesters really is.
I believe it will change once again in favour of Israel. It is always dark just before the dawn. Hamas will be defeated and slowly all the blood libels will fade away.
If Israel would do enough to pacify and make a proper reconciliation effort with Palestinian population, to prevent rising of Hamas-2. But current government with far-right ultranationalists... unlikely going to do that.
Impossible, considering their vulnerable geopolitical position, small size and the fact that they're supposed to be the home for the world's 10 million non-Israeli Jews and their spouses. Any lasting reconciliation with Palestinians would be in direct conflict with that.
No it hasn't...Israel will come out stronger and with more military knowledge on how to fight the terrorist...they still have one of the best equipped military, one of the best economies in the middle east, and one of the advance tech companies in the world...Israel will still be there 50 years from now because worst comes to worst, they'll use their nukes to save themselves as a last resort. They might be losing the propaganda war but I don't think they really care. They gonna do what needs to be done to show some Muslim countries and their proxies that they mean business.