Israeli troops are fighting with Hamas militants on the edges of Gaza City, as the Palestinian death toll rises above 9,000. U.S. and Arab leaders are raising pressure on Israel to ease its siege and at least briefly halt its attacks in order to aid civilians.
At its root it’s actually pretty simple. If it involves killing children, do not do it. If you’d like we can get into the more in depth discussion of slowly forcing more and more people into a terrible situation and how that drives them into the arms of Hamas, but at its root, don’t shoot kids.
Given that one cannot see the future, there’s always a chance of collateral damage with any military action, and a decent chance it will be a child in Gaza where the inhabitants decided to have a lot of them, it sounds like you’ve ruled out any sort of reprisal. Let them slaughter your civilians with impunity, then? Great plan.
Listen man, I get you’re not arguing in good faith here but here goes. The Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens are inexcusable, but they did not and do not excuse the indiscriminate bombing of one of if not the most densely populated areas on the planet. One that I might add has a population that is on average 14.
Is this an easy or quick thing to resolve? No, absolutely not. Is doing nothing a good option? No. Is killing thousands and forcing the rest into the fucking sea the correct response? Fuck no.
I resent that characterization, just because you don’t like what I have to say doesn’t mean I’m not arguing in good faith.
According to Israel the bombings are not indiscriminate, they target valid military objectives.
No one is being driven into the sea. It seems like you’re implying that the consequences of Gazans having lots of children then provoking war against a superior force should be to bind Israel’s hands regarding how they can respond, denying them access to common military tactics that minimize their own losses. You’ve ruled out doing nothing and airstrikes. The only viable option I can see that remains: the IDF should now have to sacrifice lots of soldiers and hand Hamas a victory by going in without air support, because Gazan forces are hiding among Gazan children. That’s a tremendously bad move in terms of military strategy.