The Israeli government on Monday screened for 200 members of the foreign press some 43 minutes of harrowing scenes of murder, torture and decapitation from Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, in which over 1,400 people were killed, including raw videos from the terrorists’ bodycams.
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The footage was collected from call recordings, security cameras, Hamas terrorists’ body cameras, victim dashboard cameras, Hamas and victims’ social media accounts, and cellphone videos taken by terrorists, victims and first responders. Over 1,000 civilians were slaughtered by the terrorists, and at least 224 people were abducted.
In semi-related news, the IDF claim to be holding over 1000 bodies of Hamas terrorists who entered Israeli territory on October 7th.
I dont want to defend Israel BUT, let’s do a small thought experiment. If you could snap your fingers and reverse the roles, give Hamas the military power of Israel, what do you think Hamas would do? Do you think they would do worse things than Israel currently does? The same? Better?
It is very obvious that Israel is holding back. Not because they give a fuck about the palestinians but because they care about the political fallout.
So your plan is to reward the palestinians for their attack? And you think this is a likely outcome? Do you think there is a single country who would do that? Of course not. All these are good suggestions and a position to have. But this attack by its nature will delay any peaceful solution for at least a decade.
Also the devil is in the details. What do you mean by “returning” the land? Which land? Because for many people, the stolen land is the entirety of Israel. Which is why Hamas’ goal is the destruction of Israel. Israel cant be charitable towards entities whose main purpose is Israel’s destruction, especially while having the holocaust ptsd.
So before we go into the nitty gritty details of a solution, let’s start with some basic and somewhat meaningless gestures. Like for example the palestinians accepting the existence of Israel in Palestine(region). And then we can talk about israeli settlements and settlers and which of these need to be returned to Palestine(state) and how.
Do you think black people got rights in the US because of black people violence? Violence can accelerate things but it can also delay them. Imagine if Black Panthers indiscriminately killed 1000 white people, while kidnapping hundreds in the 60s. Do you think that would have led to more racial equality?
Or would that event have delayed racial equality for decades?
You are not wrong but you do realize that this attack only empowered the right wing israelis, right? It’s harder to convince your average israeli to be charitable and care about palestinian human rights after what Hamas did.
This is deliberate. Hamas wanted things to escalate. Because Hamas is funded by Iran. Saudi Arabia(KSA) and Israel were about to become best friends forever(well their governments, saudis still hate Israel), because MBS wanted to make his shiny city(NEOM).
As part of that deal, the US would also sign security deals with both Israel and KSA, similar to the ones it has with Japan and South Korea. And Israel would give back to Palestine(state) some israeli settlements, so that MBS would have something to justify the deal.
But Iran doesnt want KSA/Israel to become stronger/more stable, so they nuked this relationship by getting Hamas to do what they did. Not all powers want stability and peace. Some powers think that the current situation is fucked/unfair and they want to keep the world in flux in order to have a chance “to make things right”. There is a reason why Russia keeps talking about a new world order and have allies like Iran and North Korea. China isnt happy either but they also not necessarily willing to risk the current status quo.
Okay, let’s go with your hypothetical.
If Hamas had all of the political power in Israel (and let’s call it Hamasitan just to avoid confusion), and had stolen land from Jews that had lived in Hamasistan for hundreds of years, had corralled them into Gaza, et cetera IT WOULD STILL BE WRONG. You seem to think I’m defending the Palestinians because they’re Palestinian. I’m not; I’m defending them because Israel is committing atrocities from a position of power. If Hamas had the position of power, and was doing the same thing to Jews, it would be every bit as wrong as it is now.
Your plan is for the Israelis to continue to hold on to what they have unjustly, illegally, and immorally taken?
It’s not a “reward” to return a thing to someone after you have stolen it from them.
Go back to the 1947 UN lines. That would be a compromise that both sides would be equally unhappy with.
Do you really think that the Civil Rights movement was peaceful? Did you forget about the Black Panthers, or Malcolm X? Have you forgotten just how many race riots there have been in US history? Or were you simply never told about them? Hey, remember that time when Philadelphia bombed–literally bombed–a few city blocks because of black militant separatists?
There is nothing that doesn’t, because we keep funding them, regardless. The Gov’t of Israel literally funded Hamas and turned them from a tiny fringe group to mainstream, because groups like the PLO and Fatah were gathering too much support. Terrorism is in the best interests of the right-wing gov’t of Israel, because they can use it to justify more and more harms to Palestinians.
I think that it’s more likely that Netanyahu allowed the whole thing to happen, since he’s currently under indictment. And it allows him to push through more of his power-grabs, which he’s already done in part by crushing opposition to his attacks in Gaza. He wants us to believe that an enormous attack caught Israel flat-footed, something that Hamas would have been training militants for for months. But Israeli security services didn’t catch a whiff of it?
And if Iran funds Hamas, what of it? If Israel gets serious about peace, then Hamas’ anger is blunted, regardless of funding. But Israel hasn’t done fuck-all for peace in a decade.
You wont find many people in this site who say what Israel is doing is right. Cutting power, water, food and supplies to a 2mil population is never right. But what i am saying is that it is understandable that Israel has gone full retard. I dont justify it, i rationalize it.
No, i think the international community should pressure them into compliance. As i said, Israel’s is somewhat restraining itself, especially when you consider their current government. If the rest of the world didnt exist, Israel would have literally nuked Gaza by now or at least carpet bomb it to oblivion.
My point is that if Hamas was in a position of power, they would totally carpet bomb Israel. So in that context, Israel is showing relative constraint. We are talking about an israeli government which has some far right ministers, not to mention Bibi in charge.
Ok. My point is that both sides need to accept each other existence in that region. However, both sides need to really tighten security of their own if you want to have a viable plan. I think Israel can control the israelis. Do you think Hamas or the Palestinian Authority can control the palestinians? Even if we magically get peace tomorrow, and everyone agreed to follow the 1947 plan.
What do you think will happen if a palestinian blows up a bus or whatever? Because this has happened in the past. So it is natural for Israel to want to have some extra security assurances by controlling strategic areas. The 1947 plan has some insane security weaknesses from that aspect. A lot of the “newer” israeli settlements are about controlling heights and/or chokepoints. Maybe you can have the UN controlling them but still.
Generally countries really dont like enclaves, look at Azerbaijan. They are an insane security concern, even without the past Israel and Palestine share. The 1949 borders are a bit better in that respect. You still have the Gaza island but i dont think you can do much about that. They can be their own mini country.
I am not an american and while i am somewhat familiar with the events, i am not that knowledgeable. It is important to not overstate events. The bombing was the police dropping explosives from a helicopter, hardly a bombing. Black Panthers and Malcolm X never reached the heights Hamas has reached. They barely killed people(depending on your definition), mostly individuals, not mass murder of innocent people.
But if they did, do you think that would have accelerated race equality in the US? They could have gone to a white only village in the South and kill 1000 people. If they did that, the history of the US would have been A LOT different and not for the better IMO.
I agree but change takes time. Africa’s Apartheid took decades to bring down. I think if KSA and Israel got closer, we could have seen an independent Palestine within the next 10 years. Even Bibi loves money and security assurances and KSA can provide money while the US can provide security. And money/prosperity, often leads to peace(unless you have an authoritarian out of touch leader, like Putin).
While it was an insane intelligence failure, i cant imagine Bibi allowing this. This is too big. Maybe he underestimated its potential but i dont think he knew. And while Israel has gone full retard because of this, i am not so sure this will be a good thing for Bibi in the longrun. Especially if the Gaza invasion starts going wrong.
Actually for years, other groups blamed Hamas for going soft and cooperating with Israel. They were saying Hamas has lost its edge and its leaders are living in luxury in some arab country. Israel even had many programs that gave palestinians employment in Israel, with comparatively good wages, etc. One of the reasons Israel was so complacent was because they thought things were “good” with Hamas.