What, if anything, do you think the US government should do about the Israel/Gaza conflict?

Help Israel destroy Hamas in Palestine.

I think we all know what I’m going to say: the U.S. should cut off all aid to Israel. Israel would not be able to conduct a war without it. We can’t make them hold new elections by “urging” them, but we can threaten to cut off aid, which is the major leverage we have over them. The U.S. is already involved. It’s not a matter of “should we get involved?”; we are involved with the military aid we provide them. We enable Israel’s goal of ethnically cleansing Gaza.

But do I think anything is going to change? No, we are going to continue to provide Israel with billions of dollars of support and then hand-wring over aid and how much we don’t like Netanyahu, but it doesn’t matter. The war will go on, and Palestinians will continue to be killed.

We’re well beyond the point where “stop funding the carpet bombing, starvation of children, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and genocide” is sufficient. We caused this. And by “we”, I mean taxpayers in the US. We give this apartheid ethnostate nearly 4 billlon dollars per year. We have consistently served as the lone vote to veto any UN resolutions against Israel. And when we watched Israel drop US bombs on children, we were so excited that we authorized $14 billion more to fund their crimes.

If the US stops funding and supporting this genocide today, it’s too late. If we were serious about doing something to stop this, we’d have to immediately stop funding Israel, and there would be serious talk about US military intervention to stop the brutal Israeli regime (as in warships and troops on the ground tomorrow).

As @Demosthenes points out, nothing is going to happen. We’ re going to continue to fund this and support this, while pretending that we have “concerns” about certain leaders or actions in Israel. It’s over, people. Not sure how any of us sleep at night. The “what would I have done?” thought experiments are over, and the results are in.

What Hamas did was atrocious, criminal, and horrific.

What Israel has been doing to the Palestinian people is effectively apartheid.

What Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian people is genocide.

WhyTF has $300 billion dollars of US taxpayer dollars been sent to Israel?

Issue weakly worded rebukes, obviously. That seems to be working well.

I think there should be a trusted neutral third party that can tell us what is really happening on the ground. Maybe they cannot give specific details, but if the third party says Hamas is being conquered that might help, or if the third party says there is not enough intel for Israel to be taking such risks with civilian lives that will put pressure on Israel. I hear conflicting information regarding what is happening on the ground.

I want more to be done to help the Gazan people. It might have to be a temporary cease fire, or I wish it could be to get them out of Gaza, but no one will take them. They worry there will be Hamas among them, they worry the people will never leave their country. Letting people starve to death is unacceptable.

I think it would be great if Israel held elections, I am not a fan of Netanyahu. I really doubt there is going to be an election right now.

I think there needs to be a treaty for peace, and the only way I see it working is to give Gaza to Israel and to take land from another part of Israel that will connect West Bank to the sea. Then the Palestinians have connected land from the river to the sea. The Israelis need to stay out of that area, except when it is for good relations, for business, family, it might take years to get to that point. The Israelis have been out of Gaza for almost 20 years, which doesn’t seem to matter to anyone, but hopefully this would be different. People need to understand that if you attack Israel they will attack back. Israel needs to abide by any treaty that is put in place and settlers cannot push their way into Palestinian territory.

I also think people need to be able to hold two conflicting ideas at once to have any sort of discussion about it. It can’t be only sympathy for the Palestinians and none for the Israelis and vice versa. Both groups are very similar. Both have been pushed around. Both have lost family and friends and land over generations to hatred and wars and have generational trauma. Both want peace. Both are shunned to some extent by the rest of the ME. Why has Israel done better than the Palestinian territories? You cannot blame it all on Israel. You cannot say it is all because the US supplies weapons. Most Arabs in Israel are glad to live in a democracy and see the problems with the ME leadership and the theocracies.

One way to help it be over is for Palestinians to help the Israelis get Hamas if that is at all possible.

What if Gaza is flooded with troops from several countries and help the Gazan people and seek out Hamas. Probably better if it is not American troops.

Gaza started the war. Think about it. If Russia started a war with Ukraine and Ukraine fought so well that Ukraine gained Russian territory and won the war, would you be so empathetic to Russians being hurt and starving that you (I do not mean the OP when I say you, I mean the greater you) that you would say Ukraine should stop? What if Ukraine had started a war with Russia and Russia pushed them back and gained land from Ukraine? Any different? Starting a war is a risk. The Israelis were not in Gaza. As far as I know Abbas was not in on the planning for the attack on Oct 7th. Meanwhile, I do not support the Israelis taking over Gaza without it being a treaty that the Palestinians agree to and they get some other land as compensation that will be better for everyone. I am not convinced Israel is trying to take over Gaza.

The Palestinian suffering was ignored too long before Oct 7th. The reasonable countries of the ME need to help broker a plan. I don’t think it should be the US is the leader of the negotiations, that makes no sense to me. We are seen as being on the side of Israel, not as a neutral party. The Saudis and some others seem to be coming around to the idea that Israel has done some good and maybe it is not so bad having them in the region, and also they see the Muslim terrorist groups need to be dealt with for their own safety in their own countries. Maybe some European leaders can help with it.

1) We have to ensure the continued existence of Israel.

2) We have to protect the population of the Gaza from the war between Israel and Hamas.

The U.S. building a dock where the U.S. can offload and distribute food and medicine is a good start. Rebuilding Gaza is daunting, but necessary.
Pursuing the supporters of Hamas may be required, but we should start by convincing the populace to reject them.

@hat “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

This was apparently Aaron Bushnell’s final post. The only real answer to the “what would I have done?” thought experiments.

—Give the Israeli West Bank settlers cell phone alerts to vacate within 48 hours (similar to what the Israelis do to Palestinians).

—Bomb the territory to dust.

—Enforce 1967 borders

Rafah, is in Egypt.
This has gone WAY too far, for WAY too long.
Biden needs to get on the fucking phone, on national public TV, and TELL BB, to just stop.
Lots of action has taken place.
It’s time to stop, and think.

If America is supposed to be the place I was taught about in school, we are obligated to both the Palestinians and Israelis to get between them.
We shouldn’t have to do more, than tell Israel to do whatever we want.
If BB has any sense left, he would be forced to listen to us.

If your neighbors get into a fight in the street, that’s their business. But if it comes into my yard, or someone is done, I step in. The neighbor needed someone to hold them back.
The other neighbor wasn’t even fighting, just dying.
War is only for accomplishment.
What does further agitating the region accomplish?

The air drops, and docks, are pathetically inadequate for the situation. From a country with OUR resources, the world knows we can do better. So do I.

By the time BB calls it quits, intentions aside, the results with have been genocidal.

What should the US do with the Israel/Hamas conflict? Absolutely nothing. There have been conflicts with Israel since the establishment of Israel. It 100% of the time is some group of Arabs attacking Israel. The situation is not really Israel/Hamas…that is a symptom. It is the hatred that so many Arab nations have towards Israel that is the problem. Us getting involved is a no-win situation for us. If we help Hamas, Israel gets irritated with us and causes us problems. If we help Israel, many Arab nations get irritated with us and cause us problems.

@hat What is the “we” Paleface? My American Israeli relatives are organizing protests against Israel’s actions, I am donating to Palestinian relief organizations. What are you doing?

1. Tell Netanyahu to immediately stop or else (and mean it). To allow all aid into Gaza, unfettered and fully cooperate with international aid groups and investigators.
2. Fund UNRWA
3. Stop all shipments of military weapons to Israel except Iron Dome related munitions.

Here’s the Or Else:
4. Expel all diplomats from the Israeli embassy.
5. Add Israel to the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list.
6. Stop vetoing UN resolutions related to Israel.
7. Cease all aid to Israel (except Iron Dome)
8. Establish a no fly zone over Israel and a naval blockade of the country until they fully comply with international law. No goods in or out of the country except what its neighbors allow via land routes.
9. Send in special forces to extract Israel’s nuclear weapons. Explain that if they’re met with resistance, Israel will no longer have an airforce and navy.
10. Guarantee Israel’s security from an invasion by neighboring nations.

@gorillapaws So you want to support the terrorists and push genocide for Israel. Got it.

@seawulf575 I wish I had your childlike ability to see things so clearly. It must be wonderful going through life seeing things in black/white and always knowing with absolute certainty that you’re right about everything.

Lets be honest the US is only supporting Israel as they feel bad for providing Nazi Germany with assistance in persecuting Jews.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvc774zw#:~:text=On%20September%2023%2C%201935%2C%20eight%20days%20after%20the,by%20the%20Association%20of%20National%20Socialist%20German%20Jurists.

@gorillapaws I have to scoff at American politicians insisting with a straight face that Israel is not a puppet state of the U.S. I beg to differ. Although none of the things on your list will be done, they could be done, as the U.S. has a tremendous amount of leverage over Israel and their military and economy depend a great deal on U.S. funding.

@janbb: ”@hat What is the “we” Paleface? My American Israeli relatives are organizing protests against Israel’s actions, I am donating to Palestinian relief organizations. What are you doing?”

Same. But I’m fairly certain that you and I are – and have been – paying federal taxes. I’d also bet that you have been voting for the people who have supported this. When I say that “we” are responsible, I mean that we’re literally paying buying the bombs and handing them to Israel as they drop them on children.

We don’t get out of this if we are objectively the reason for Israel and its 75+ years of brutality. We can hold a bake sale and send over a couple of bags of flour to the survivors if that makes us feel better. Or we can go out with the millions of us who hit the streets to call for an immediate ceasefire. But most people of a certain age have no idea that it’s been going on due to tight ideological controls in corporate media. And the 2 right-wing parties are not going to listen to their consituents anyway. > 70% of Democrats wanted a ceasefire in October, while the Dem party was opposed to such talk and supported the carpet bombing of children.

So get offended. You should be. But make sure you don’t fool yourself into believing that holding a vigil or sending aid to Palestinians while bombing them into non-existence is ok.

@seawulf575 Out of curiosity, how many more years did the US need to spend in Afghanistan to finally defeat the Taliban? How many more bombs did we need to drop? We weren’t able to pull it off in 20 years (4 of which were with your buddy in the Whitehouse), so did we just need an extra few months? few years? few decades? How many bombs does it take to bomb someone into loving you?

@Lightlyseared Can you explain how that book makes your point? (I actually have the book)

It 100% of the time is some group of Arabs attacking Israel.

Ridiculous statement. To claim this is a one-sided hatefest shows profound ignorance of the facts.

Israel has killed 30,000 Gazans, mostly women and children. The October Hamas attacks were equally evil, but not more so.

Israel has kept its thumb on the territories in a way that’s guaranteed to bring on desperate reactions like suicide bombings. Hamas is in power only because Israel and specifically Netanyahu funded it to destabilize the occupied territories.

Israel and Palestine are controlled by evil people who stay in power by facilitating the murder of their citizens.

@gorillapaws I guess it depends on your view point. My viewpoint is that we should never have gotten involved in Iraq or Afghanistan. But your last statement is the real question: How many bombs does it take to bomb someone into loving you? You are the one supporting the group that started the attack. You have never once really held Hamas accountable for starting the entire conflict or from using civilians as human shields, for hiding in tunnels under hospitals, or from taking humanitarian aid earmarked for civilians for themselves. How many terrorist attacks does it take for people to love you? Apparently when the people are like you, it’s only one.

@Call_Me_Jay Name me one conflict that Israel has been involved in that wasn’t initiated by some Muslim group? Look at the current one as a perfect example. You are all set to jump on Israel killing people. Yet who did the initial attack? Hamas. Who killed civilians indiscriminately? Hamas. Who took hostages? Hamas. Yet when Israel retaliates you suddenly want to blame the whole thing on them. THAT is the ridiculous statement.

As for Israel keeping their thumb on the Gaza strip, that is, again, a patently ridiculous statement. If you are keeping an area under your thumb, do you allow that area to hold their own elections, to determine who is to rule them? Even when they elected Hamas to lead them, a known terrorist outfit that has the sole purpose of the genocide of Israel, Israel did not jump in. In fact, the Gaza has some real issues like the fact they destroyed their own drinking water supply. And who stepped in to help? Israel. They were supplying fresh water to the population.

@hat I agree with what you are saying. American complicity in the genocide in Palestine is criminal.

@seawulf575: ”@gorillapaws We are two of a kind. Except you support terrorism and genocide.”

This is @seawulf575‘s schtick. Being anti-genocide is supporting genocide. Being anti-racist is racist. Not murdering someone is murder. Up is down. It would be interpreted as trolling, except I think he honestly believes it. There is little use in engaging.

I would ask Jimmy Carter for one more year of diplomatic service to stop the war.
I would do anything that he says.

Name me one conflict that Israel has been involved in that wasn’t initiated by some Muslim group?

The current destruction of Gaza.

If you pretend that it sprung from October 7 without context, there’s no point in discussion. You’re not qualified to address the subject. Whether it’s dishonesty or ignorance, I don’t care. I have learned to not joust with those arguing in bad faith,

@hat No, if you go back and look, I’d suggest we stay out of it altogether. That is my schtick.

What I cannot stand, though, is a bunch of virtue signalers that are supporting terrorists. Why have I NEVER heard you denounce Hamas? They are, after all, the ones that initiated the attack, that killed civilians including children, that took hostages, and that hid behind civilians and hospitals to avoid retaliation from Israel. Funny how you never call them out, only Israel for responding to a fanatical attack. I’m not suggesting killing civilians is the right thing to do for either side. However, who hides behind their own people? Oh yeah, Hamas.

All of you idiots that refuse to call out the terrorists in the room are a huge part of the problem.

@Call_Me_Jay Nice. Make a claim that is bullshit and then try running me down to stop the answer. Yes, 10/7 was initiated by Hamas. There is no debate there. If you pretend otherwise, there is no point in discussion. You are not qualified to address the subject. I’m not sure why since it requires you to avoid reality in every form. You have to ignore the Hamas charter that calls for the complete extermination of all Israelites. You have to ignore the coordinated attack on Israel. But hey, your feigned ignorance allows you to support terrorism and try to sound like you care about human lives.

@seawulf575 “virtue signalers that are supporting terrorists”

“Terrorism: The use of violence or the threat of violence, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political goals.”

That’s exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza. the ICJ has found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide and is moving forward with a full process on the matter that will take years to finally adjudicate.

“You have never once really held Hamas accountable for starting the entire conflict”

Hamas are terrorists. I’ve acknowledged it multiple times. They certainly didn’t start the ENTIRE conflict though. Hamas are a symptom of Israel’s decades long campaign of terror, apartheid, occupation and ethnic cleansing. If Hamas is ever successfully destroyed (unlikely) they will immediately be replaced with the next entity that represents violent resistance to occupation and dispossession.

IMO the first acts that “started it” were when Richard Meinertzhagen flew his plane to conduct arial photography reconnaissance to survey Palestinian villages that were used in planning attacks as well as sending in spies to Palestinian villages to document the local Palestinians. This was well before 1948. These examples prove that the goal of the original Zionist leaders was never just the peaceful acquisition of land via purchasing it (such a project would have been entirely unfeasible) and always had the intention of conquest by force and significantly reducing the indigenous population so they could have a majority in the territory. Incidentally, these same spies returned to these villages after the Nakba with hoods to conceal their identity and they pointed out leaders in the village who the Israelis executed on the spot.

As further evidence, The early Zionists rejected the Peel Commission’s plan which when compared to the land they owned vs. what the indigenous people owned was actually quite generous. Why did they reject it? Because their ambitions were about seizing the entire territory and ensuring they had a majority of the population (which necessitates ethnic cleansing).

Can you name an example in history where an occupying colonial force wasn’t resisted violently by their occupiers, especially as they continually expanded further into their territory?

The way people like seawulf make themselves comfortable with supporting genocide is to construct their own reality, and that requires the belief that October 7 happened without context. The real genocide apologists know who they are, and for them 30,000 dead Palestinians still isn’t enough. Because if you believe that Palestinians are inherently, genetically antisemitic, then there is no choice but to exterminate them.

I don’t believe that supporting Israel, is the same as supporting genocide.
Supporting Palestinians, isn’t supporting Hamas.

I think Israel is in a terrible neighborhood, for Zionists.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t think it should exist.
But Israel is in a delicate spot.

I think that if you support Israel, not BB’s IDF, then you want would Israel to ease back for their own good. And the good of their US allies.

Similarly. I would love for it to be sensible to surgically remove Hamas from the Gazan Strip.
I do believe however, that for every Hamas soldier they have killed, they have likely created a dozen more.

None of the current excuses from the IDF, justify how they are conducting this operation.

It is sectarian violence that has turned into a war of attrition.

@gorillapaws I know I’m not going to make myself popular here, but I agree with you, that 10/7 is a result of the treatment of the Palestinians.

“Terrorism,” is in the eye of the beholder. One cause’s terrorist, is another cause’s freedom fighter.

I think we could reflect on the US war for independence, to gain perspective.

The colonial armies that fought off the most powerful military in the world, were deemed terrorists by the British. The would be US army wasn’t very powerful at the time.
Francis Marion, was a revolutionary war hero, to Americans.
To the British, he was “The Swamp Fox.” A terrorist who used guerilla warfare, and attacked supply routes, often committing “acts of terrorism,” against the British army.
His small armies used to hide out in the swamps I fish in today.
The most famous being “Hellhole Swamp.”
The name was given by British soldiers who tried to follow him into the swamp.

When facing an exponentially larger more capable force, such tactics are the only real ability of an oppressed people. If they fight their oppressors…

History, is written by the winners.
And so. We have a “Francis Marion National Forrest, and a statue of him.
Later he was played by Leslie Nelson in an old TV series, and arguably Mel Gibson in “The Patriot.”
He is a hero. No question.

If Britain had maintained it’s stranglehold on the colonies, he would certainly have been vilified and hated.

For you northern folks, think about “The Boston Tea Party.”
The “Boston Massacre.”

The raiding of a foreign flagged merchant ship, and destruction of it’s shipment. Sounds like what we kill pirates for, or smart bomb houses for.

The “massacre” in Boston, pales in comparison to today’s news.
Only a few people were killed, or injured.
How many civilians did the IDF kill on that food truck a couple weeks ago?

This whole situation, is a perception thing.

How many of our children would throw rocks at foreign tanks, if they were rolling through our streets?

@gorillapaws You give the definition of terrorism and then act like it is Israel doing that all by themselves. What about the 1200+ civilians that were killed in Israel on 10/7? And yes, they were killed by Hamas, not in retaliation for an Israeli attack, but just because they hate Israel and want to kill them all, erasing Israel from the world. They put it in writing in 1988 and again in 2017. The entire conflict going on right now, the guns, the missiles, the deaths, are all due to Hamas attacking Israel, killing 1200+ civilians and snatching a bunch of hostages. Had they not taken that action, Israel would not be retaliating. You cannot get past the fact that your beloved Hamas actually started the entire thing.

I don’t agree with Israel killing civilians, but they aren’t targeting them as Hamas did. They are attacking the Hamas military strongholds which, oh yeah, Hamas built in tunnels under hospitals. Everything that is going on comes back to the radical views and behavior of Hamas.

You are trying to go back through history to somehow make this Israel’s fault. Wanna go back in time? It goes back to 1948 when Israel first declared independence. As soon as that happened war broke out because ARABS ATTACKED ISRAEL. That has been the defining theme of this region since then. Arabs attack, Israel retaliates until things cool down, there is a short period of relative peace and then Arabs attack again. The 6-Day War was when Egypt, Syria, and Jordan (and a few others) got together to attack Israel, trying to get rid of the country once and for all. Israel defended themselves and beat them so badly they had taken over the areas that are now the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, effectively making them part of Israel. Subsequent peace negotiations had Israel releasing these areas again. When Hamas took control, with their uber-radical views, Israel set up the blockade to control what went into and out of the area. And the best part of that blockade? It wasn’t just Israel. It was Egypt too. Funny how, if you are going to say that is why Hamas felt entitled to attack Israel, they didn’t include Egypt. Hamas also has other grievances they lay at Israel’s feet, but really even those grievances come back to their radical views and hatred of Israel and Hamas’ stated goal of eradicating Israel.

Every war in this area since 1948 has been because Arabs attack Israel, not the other way around.

@Demosthenes No, the way people like me justify their views is by understanding more than the current propaganda. People like you, who fully support terrorists are, and always have been, the problem. You encourage terrorism. I have made the claim that every major conflict in the area has been because Arabs attack Israel. All of you that support Hamas have not once actually tried to address that. Wanna take a swing at it? Of course you don’t. If you did, you’d see it was a fact and that might make you have to rethink your stance.

If you have no curiosity about how Israel was founded, what it has done and continues to do to the people it displaced in its founding and its continued existence, then there is no possible discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Your conception of the violence in the region is that Arabs attacking Israel is the product of some kind of deep-seated hatred that has no discernible origin, that Arabs are inherently violent perhaps due to their religion, and that the attack on October 7 was random and without any historical context. And any attempt to explain why Hamas exists, why Palestinians are not content with their situation and violence flares up occasionally, is making excuses for terrorists, as well as antisemitism.

That makes discussion and evaluation of the situation (including whether there is any possibility of peace) impossible.

And terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. That is something the failed war on terror fundamentally misunderstands. And it is something apartheid apologists refuse to understand.

I would opine that the IDF’s strategy of how they are taking on Hamas, is akin to a pest control expert leveling your house over the roaches under it.

The IDF enjoys a very modern, sophisticated, and capable military. Obviously, in no small thanks to America.
Their actions thus far, have been indefensible for the most part.

I can recall when they found like three AK-47s in a hospital, and that proved that it was a Hamas headquarters.
Their special operation video recorded in a hospital was in fact a war crime. There are other incidents that have allegedly involved targeting/killing ambulance drivers, people with white flags being shot, and obviously a lot of journalists have been killed as well.

It is NOT, a crisp, technical approach. It was not thought out well. Worse, Israel seems unaware, or indifferent of the effects that this revenge mission has had.
And it is, a revenge mission that is also apparently viewed as an opportunity for all out destruction of Palestine.

IDF claims of it being in part, a hostage rescue operation, are clearly lies. Netanyahu counted the hostages as already gone, from the beginning. Absolutely NONE of their actions have indicated that returning the hostages is a priority.

If all violence stopped today, and emergency personnel flood the strip with food/water medical help, the former Gazan Strip will NEVER be the same.
THAT was BB’s priority.
If that means killing as many Palestinian people as they can, apparently that is acceptable.

There is nothing genetically wrong with either side. They hate each other, over religious differences. Irreconcilable differences.

We can blame the Ottomans, for the layout of the religious lines.

Blame is less important, at this moment, than peace.

@Demosthenes I’m the only one that has been discussing the history of the region. You have not. You have been focused only on the current events. You do want to dredge up part of the past, but only as far as it is convenient for your arguments. You do not want to look at the whole picture. And yes, when you do that, you make having any rational discussion about the events impossible.

Terrorism is a tactic right up until you put it in writing as Hamas did. Then it becomes an ideology. You have stated that you will use any means necessary to gain your end goal and that includes terrorism.

@MrGrimm888 Your analogy of the exterminator leveling your house puts a pin in the entire argument you and the others have made about the goals of Israel. Israel wants to kill all the pests and take over the house to make it a better analogy. But there’s another aspect of your analogy that makes it even funnier. Somebody has to call the exterminator to come deal with the bugs. Who called the exterminator? Why the bugs did!

To put the current situation into your terms, fire ants built a nest outside your house and started making forays into your house to sting you and to grab stuff from your pantries. You then go out and attack the nest. But wait! You are killing ants that didn’t do anything to you! They were helpless civilians, not the combatants that actually attacked your house. You need to go into the nest to only kill those ants that actually attacked you.

And while you are defending Hamas and denigrating Israel, let me ask: what happened to all the hostages Hamas took? Were they treated with respect? Were they given 3 hots and a cot? Or were they treated as prisoners of war? According to Human Rights Watch Hamas is guilty of war crimes because of the treatment they have shown already. And just a reminder, there were quite a few children in the group of hostages.

And just curious: how come you are not actually calling for Hamas to release the hostages? If they did, it might be used as a way to end the conflict. But that would mean that Hamas was the problem all along and it would put a pin in your claims of how horrible Israel is.

^I had to use analogies that conservatives would understand.
Seeing as how you see so many people as “vermin.”

But. I can poke holes in your analogy if you want.

Red ants, are an invasive species. They are not native to North America.

The red ants out-compete most native ants. They actually kill about 30 Americans a year, and send many more to hospitals or ERs.

As the Arab population of the ME is exponentially greater than Israel’s, and events of a World War are why there even is a Jewish state there, I’m tempted to call the Zionists the “red ants.”

Do you know how some people get rid of red ants, in an interesting way?
If you have say two any hills in your yard, you take a shovel and scoop a huge pile of one ant hill up and throw the thousands of ants on top of the other hill.
This starts a war, between the two hills. While the war naturally culls their numbers, the yard owner can then go about their preferred business.

One could view the creation and founding of Israel, as dropping a shovel of red ants on an area already with it’s own ant war.

In the first few threads about 10/7, I vehemently supported Israel negotiating for their hostages. In fact, it became clear in the following weeks, that I cared more about the hostages than BB’s IDF.

This easily observable fact, has not been lost on Israeli citizens.
They have been protesting how BB is handling this problem, because it does not prioritize the hostages. Netanyahu has counted those people as dead/martyrs since the beginning.

I have NEVER claimed Israel is “horrible.” Those are your words.
What I have been doing, is not allowing Israel to act like an innocent victim, of an unprovoked attack by a inferior race of unreasonable people.

Wait a second here. “Inferior race?” Seriously? Do you seriously mean that?

^That’s exactly how those people think about each other.

It’s in their textbooks at school.

I certainly don’t condone that type of thinking, but it is there.
I find right-wing rhetoric to be the same, regardless of where.
It’s the same in Europe, and Asia.

The Israelis, and Gazans aren’t the only people who treat each other this way.

The Shiites and Sunnis have similar issues. They don’t believe that they are equal people in the eyes of their God.

The region is full of ancient ethnic rivalries, and they’re all kinda “ride or die” about it.

If the Israelis viewed the Gazans as equals, then there would have been a one state solution decades ago.

This can’t be a revelation to anyone who has been paying attention for the past few decades…

@MrGrimm888 Ah. I misunderstood from the syntax of your sentence.

^Apologies.

@MrGrimm888 No need. Thank you for clarifying.

@MrGrimm888 So Israel invaded the Gaza Strip on 10/7, killing civilians and taking hostages? Huh. Funny how you rewrite history.

And you continue to support terrorists. You don’t like that Israel is blasting through Gaza, looking to eradicate Hamas. I get that. Hamas has an easy solution here: give back the hostages. Funny they won’t do that, isn’t it? “Hey Israel, we screwed up. Not sure what we were thinking. How about if we sit down and discuss how we can live as neighbors? We’ll gladly give the hostages back.” Imagine if that happened. You’d have all sorts of people offering to help mediate those talks. The hostages would be released and the non-combatants in Gaza would stop being used as human shields. So why doesn’t Hamas do that? Oh yeah, because it isn’t about living with Israel. It’s about killing Israel. Start thinking for yourself and stop believing all the propaganda.

^History is written by the winners.
Israel has made certain that they will never have to worry about losing to the Palestinians.

Hamas is a radical religious, violent, extremist group.
They are NOT the people of Gaza. They are a burden on Palestinian society, just like Trumpers are here in the US.

Trump talked a mentally ill man into shooting 20+ minority shoppers at a grocery store.
He talked another idiot into attacking a husband of a former Speaker of the House with a hammer.
He lured his sheep to Washington, when he wanted to take over the government.
He almost got Pence, and dozens of members of the government killed.
He speaks of there being a “bloodbath,” if he isn’t elected.
Don’t bother excusing him with context. We ALL know what Trump means.

Should the US military destroy the country looking for you?
You’re a radical. A religious person. A supporter of terrorism.

Or. Should we talk about why you feel the US government needs to be overthrown?

If you honestly think getting the hostages back would stop Netanyahu, you don’t understand the situation.
You’re OK with the dehumanizing of people, I know.
According to American “propaganda,” we don’t tolerate that anymore.
Not accepting whatever politician I worship’s word, IS thinking for myself.

I know that next time

@MrGrimm888 Hamas is not the people of Palestine. Sounds noble, doesn’t it? Yet those same people elected them to represent them. And they support them even today. So yes, Hamas is the people of the Gaza Strip.

And you say “Trumpers” are a burden to the US society. Yet, Trump had the economy in good condition when he left office. He had illegal immigration wrangled into something manageable. He got us out of all wars except the final withdrawal from Afghanistan which he was delaying to do it right. It was the Bidenskis that drove this country into the toilet, killing American soldiers, civilians, and allies in the process. It was the Bidenskis that destroyed the economy. It was the Bidenskis that got us elbow deep into two wars going on. It was the Bidenskis that burned and looted dozens of cities across the country, assaulting and killing people as they went.

So who is the supporter of terrorism? Who is the one that is favoring all the bad in the country?

You are so dipped in the sheep dip that you can’t even admit Hamas did wrong. It would destroy your little fantasy bubble.

^The more you type, the more I think you may not know the difference between Hamas and Hummus.

^And the more you type, the more I think you believe Hamas is hummus…something beneficial for you and that can be enjoyed.

I love Hamas. I always have Hamas in my household. Hamas is the butter to my [flat]bread.

Boy, sounds like someone up there had Biden Derangement Syndrome. Hope I don’t catch it.

@Demosthenes BoarsHead makes a great Sweet Chili Hamas.