Refusing to condemn Hamas when they intentionally target civilians for atrocities won’t win Palestinians any supporters outside largely irrelevant internet communities. Israel does things that are clearly in the wrong all the time, and so does Hamas. It would be nice if people could hold the extremists on their own side to a minimal standard, even when it’s uncomfortable, but that lack of accountability is why we’re here.
Alright, cool! What is your strategy for the Palestinians to get their land back?
They peacefully protest - they get shot. They don’t even protest at all - they get shot. Do you want them to vote? Should the Palestinians call their representatives in Tel Aviv and say that they won’t be voting for them if they don’t end the occupation? Oh, I know - they should try to elect a third party to the government!
I don’t know at this point. But I know one thing: pouring gasoline on fire is not a strategy for extinguishing it.
I’ll ask you a non-rhetorical question: What were Hamas’ leaders hoping to accomplish when they sent gunmen to shoot civilians attending a rave party? What’s their strategy?
It was already being razed in slow motion. It was an open air prison in desperate poverty. It was a concentration camp that the demons in charge of Nazi Germany would have given their fullest approval.
Dunking on them, or doing idiotic “play stupid games, win stupid prizes!!!” shit is like watching Jewish people trying to escape the Warsaw ghetto in an uprising and then watching the Nazis exterminate them and then saying “Well! If they didn’t want this to happen, the Jews shouldn’t have resisted! They should have calmly and peacefully allowed themselves to be taken to the concentration camps!”
Palestine had the choice of a guaranteed slow death by drowning, or a quick end to the conflict - one way or another. Decades have gone by and nobody outside of the Middle East (apart from the DPRK and a couple others) really give a shit about Palestine. All the back and forth of “ohh where should we put our embassies? ohoho, should we acknowledge that Palestine is a state? ohoho!” achieved nothing. Ten million people could have protested across Europe every single day for decades for the liberation of Palestine, and it would have accomplished less than a single Palestinian soldier making a single rocket to be shot down by the Iron Dome. All the diplomatic shit means nothing. It has meant nothing for decades. Even peaceful protest of Israel in the form of BDS is basically outlawed in some places, and largely ineffectual regardless.
Palestinians shouldn’t, and almost certainly don’t, give a shit about the condemnations of western countries. About what western politicians are saying about them. It means nothing. Their strategies should be independent of “how it looks to outsiders”. A Palestinian could throw a pebble in the vague direction of an Israeli soldier and receive more condemnation from the media than Israel murdering a hundred thousand Palestinian civilians in bombing raids in retaliation. “If you didn’t want the bombing raid, you fucking stupid idiot, then MAYBE you shouldn’t have thrown that pebble! Play stupid games!” Who gives a shit about “how it looks” anymore.
I do have a question for you: let’s say Russia takes, say, Kramatorsk, surrounding it such that no civilians could escape. Imagine those civilians resisted, made Molotovs, fired improvised explosions at the Russians, and the Russians responded by carpetbombing Kramatorsk. Hundreds of civilians dead every single day. I then say “Well, looks like the civilians have guaranteed their own deaths, then. Well done, fucking idiots. Shouldn’t have fired those rockets at the Russian military if you wanted to live.” Would you be in my position, angry that you could possibly think that about a group of people valiantly resisting? How you could possibly look at the buildings being toppled by Russian bombs and think that was justified?
It’s not as black and white as this though. The Jews never claimed to want to genocide the Germans as Hamas does with Israel. Arafat had been using violent methods since he came to power in 1969, and Hamas continued his legacy.
It is no surprise that the other party also responds with violence. But Israel is not any less moral. It is simply more capable of violence.
Someone is stabbing you in the stomach. Do you struggle and fight back or do you lay down and die? If you fight back you might have a chance to make them stop, or you might get stabbed more and die quickly. If you lay down and die, you are sure to bleed out and die. You want to guarantee the genocide of the Palestinians by telling them to not resist.
Someone is stabbing me in the stomach, I don’t pick up an AR-17 and murder 200 random people. If this is hard to understand for you, we don’t have enough in common to continue this conversation.
I don’t know what hamas’ strategy is. I will say this attack will absolutely make settlers second guess whether they want to leave their comfortable life in Brooklyn to set up a new life on stolen land. Is that a good enough reason? I don’t know for sure, but to pretend that this is completely pointless violence is bullshit
Yes, everyone in the world on any side of any conflict wants power and power only. They have no picture of what they will do with that power or broader projects other than to have it. I say this over and over and over every time anything happens ever. It’s just a hard, thought-terminating truth but I’m willing to repeat it.
Not that I supposed attacking civilians, but there's basically nothing else to do. Terrorism has proven time and time again to be a tool of the oppressed who can't win in a straight fight.
Settlers aren’t civilians. They are non combat support for the occupation that the international courts have declared illegal. They are paid by the state of israel to squat on land they have stolen.
This is not Putins war on Ukraine. There’s no clear victim and aggressor here, and any time someone talks about it as if it’s not extremely complicated, they just make it sound like they have no idea what they’re talking about in the first place.
Forcibly taking land from one group and giving it to another is not cool but neither is randomly lobbing rockets onto the civilians.
Things seem pretty cut and dry from that article. What part explains the complexities that the rubes shilling for Palestine cannot wrap their head around?
The part where people have been living in a place for hundreds of years only to have someone else come in and take it and then put them in the worlds largest prison?
I don’t have a plan. Probably owing to the fact that I am a nobody living in Asia. Guess that means I just have to conjure imaginary moral complexities and minimise the atrocities that Israel has been carrying out without consequences with US and EU backing.
No one is minimising the atrocities that Israel has been carrying out.
It’s you who was questioning my statement, that it’s a complex issue, and now your failure to come up with anything even remotely sounding like a solution seems to indicate that it indeed is.
But it’s not a complex issue. Palestine has been reduced to a concentration camp by settler colonialists for decades. An armed uprising is the logical next step for them if the rest of the world has failed them. What’s complicated about that? You are just handwringing about civilian casualties without a hint of irony from your .uk domain and comparing Hamas (which Israel helped create btw) to Nazi Germany like a goddamned fool.
The worst crimes of Hamas that you will hear of today will not even be a drop in a bucket compared to what Palestine has had to go through. And it’s not even a contest. You can spout settler apoligia while hiding behind the shield of moral purity like a coward all you want. It doesn’t make the situation complicated because either you haven’t bothered to investigate it or you just wanna cheer on for the settlers.
I don’t pretend to be any kind of an expert on the subject. This is one of those things, that the more you read, the less it feels like I know.
I used to default to the Israeli side, but then I heard Netanyahu on a podcast and that guy could not sound more like an aspiring dictator so I looked into it a bit more, and now I just choose to observe this fiasco from the sidelines and not form strong opinions about a subject I don’t understand.
Because my understanding was that they were just trying to live their lives peacefully while their neighbours are lobbing rockets onto their side for apparently no reason.
What are you talking about? The Palestinians have been emprisoned in an open air concentration camp for 70 years, their children being regularly bombarded, their houses stolen, their women raped, their food and water taken away by the occupying military.
It’s crystal clear who the aggressor here is, the situation in Palestine is very straight forwards compared to the one in Ukraine.
The Palestinians have been emprisoned in an open air concentration camp for 70 years, their children being regularly bombarded, their houses stolen, their women raped, their food and water taken away by the occupying military.
This is all true. What is also true is that Hamas has been firing rockets indiscriminately towards the Israeli civilian population and to my knowledge they would like to wipe out all jews off the face of the earth very much like the nazies would have. That’s just few reasons as to why this is extremely complex issue and I can’t take seriously anyone who claims otherwise.
I’d love to hear how you think this conflict is more straight forward than the one going between Ukraine and Russia. What could possibly justify what Russia is doing?
I’m done with both sides; I’ve sympathised with the Palestinian people in the past - to a large extent Hamas is not the Palestinian people but is still the goverment the people voted in. Both sides have committed atrocious acts of violence and its got them nowhere in 75 years.
The situation cannot continue as is and Hamas has burned bridges it couldn’t have afforded to burn.
Israel is very capable of walking over the Palestinian territories and occupying them indefinitely, the only thing holding them back has been international pressure - which has now been released due to the recent attacks.
I’m ready as is most of my generation I believe, to see the next iteration of the middle east however that turns out.
I just feel sorry for those who are going to be rolled over.
However, recent data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows that since 2005, 96% of deaths have been Palestinian.
Every time the oppressed fight back, libs immediately start to create a false equivalence with the oppressors.
Exactly. The continuing conflict is what’s condemnable. And only Israel has the means to end it permanently. In the long run, that’s the better solution now. Just get it over with.
just ignore it. there’s nothing we can do about it anyway
plant a doomsday device that will go off at any new hostility. Like a huge nuclear bomb that will turn entire Israel into radioactive desert if any side launches any new attack. Give them a week to figure out how they will work together to prevent it. If they can than great, no more aggression. If they can’t than great, radioactive desert and no more aggression.
Palestinians have the right to revolution just like the Americans, French, and Chinese did. That revolution might be bloody, but the fight for sovereignty and equality is rarely peaceful.
"The partition of both Ireland and Palestine was ushered in by Britain" far more than that and more than just britain. All the colonial countries ended up making artificial borders. I mean the india/pakistan thing is from it. Pretty much all of africa, america, and a lot of asia are all sorta artificial borders dictated by colonies and then rearranged in war.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Israel did it and covered it up. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Palestinians accidentally blew it up or did it on purpose. No way of knowing. Everyone involved is gonna lie.
I’m not entirely discounting the possibility that it was a Hamas rocket accident, but claiming that an Israeli attack on Gaza was actually a hamas misfire is SOP for the IDF. The idea that hamas would do this intentionally is absurd though.
Don't know... maybe the same kind of propaganda bullshit we always hear in such conflicts.
Oh, wait. No. Because they don't need to when Israel is indeed contradicting itself constantly and links to sources and screenshots of quickly deleted official social media post are entirely sufficient without needing to spin the story...
Firstly, Palestinian representatives including Hamas have tried to come to the negotiating table, ever since the beginning. The response from Israel is bombing runs, artillery fire, and bad faith claims that Hamas will not negotiate.
Secondly, Palestinians do not want to exterminate anyone, they simply want to be free. The extermination/genocide thing is common myth presented by settlers who can’t imagine anything but genocide, as it’s how their own society has been built, and they project this on to all other societies.
Alleged genocide? Hamas isnt even hiding that their biggest goal is to eradicate Israel and all Jews living there. They openly say it since they came into existence. Their goal in the war they started now was to kill as many people (doesnt matter if they were civilians or even foreigners) as possible. What is alleged here? Its all official.
On the other hand, Israel’s goal is to kill Hamas, not civilians (even if edgelords on the internet wont see it that way and will scream apartheid and genocide without even know what that means), but that’s pretty hard to do when they’re cowardly hiding behind children.
Yes, Clyde… an alleged genocide - you know, the one that only exists in your white supremacism-addled mind? You know… unlike the very real genocide Israel has been perpetrating since 1949? Complete with applause from fascist garbage-peddlers like you?
Israel’s goal is to kill Hamas, not civilians
Riiiiight… and I suppose next you’ll be telling me the Nazis were only targeting “Jewish-Bolshevism” and not all Jewish people, eh fascist?
Israel won’t negotiate with peaceful protestors and won’t negotiate with hostage takers and won’t negotiate with passive captives. Just an idea, but maybe Israel is the one at fault for there being no negotiations.
Are you trying to suggest that Hamas were some how justified
I can’t speak for the person you were responding to… but yes - Hamas (and every other organisation Palestinians choose to support) has every goddamn right to fight Israel in whatever way that works. And no… I am in no way suggesting that - I’m stating it outright.
And offering nothing but slap-on-the-wrist apologetics for Israel’s decades-old genocide while demonising Palestinians when they fight back makes you (somehow) less of a monster?
If you think those 2 things are the same, then you might have brain damage.
Riiiight… those of us who know better calling attention to the fact that you libs only began worrying about the “slaughtering of innocent civilians” as soon as Israel was handed a miniscule taste of it’s own medicine are doing so because… “brain damage”.
Riiiight.
Here. This wasn’t written for you - it was written to satirize you.
It’s funny, because you have to invent those things about me, while I can link to where you actively advocated for the slaughtering of innocent civilians.
I guess that’s the best someone with your level of brain damage can do, though. So sad.
When you are trying to accuse someone of supporting the slaughtering civilians, and they aren’t supporting Israel in this particular conflict, then by definition they aren’t supporting the slaughtering of innocent civilians.
On the other hand, if you are criticizing Hamas for attacking valid Israeli targets in their fight for freedom, you are implicitly supporting the slaughter of civilians. i.e. you support the fact that Israel regularly bombs hospitals and evacuation routes.
You’re entitled to your opinion. I do wonder if it would change if it was your mum or brother or some other loved one that gets killed while minding their own business but whatever. In your mind, Hamas would be justified for it.
I do wonder if it would change if it was your mum or brother or some other loved one that gets killed while minding their own business
I am perfectly capable of understanding the point of view of a person who has had their entire family and/or community murdered, imprisoned or forced to flee - but having that happen to one over and over again for almost 80 years while privileged scum runs interference for the perpetrators because it’s simply more convenient to swallow the well-funded propaganda… that stretches the limits of even my imagination.
After hearing earlier in the week that Israel was demanding the evacuation of all hospitals in Northern Gaza, it was clear that this hospital was bombed as promised. Claims that Hamas did it are clearly diversionary propaganda.
This source might not be the best but I’m following these details and I think a more reputable source will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the situation Israel and this hospital has painted. There seems, to me, a good chance this hospital bombing was faked / or the details were heavily skewed as a propaganda piece.
Reuters said IDF fired a strike at a Palestinian hospital causing 500 deaths.
Comms come out where a “Hamas agent” spills the beans about details saying Hamas did it, and other Hamas agents are confused.
Israel has posted and asserted misinformation about this situation. They may just be lying reflexively.
Videos of this hospital parking lot seem to show a lot less damage than the reported ammunition (JDAM) And the size of the explosion. We see a few cars worth of damage. Some cars seem fine. There was fire in the hospital though too?
Nonetheless this bomb went off in Northern Gaza, where Palestinians have been ordered to evacuate. Which is logistically impossible and there’s nowhere for them to go.
electronicintifada.net
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