If it’s a fact that Hamas and Israel’s ultimate aim is to annihilate each other, shouldn’t the rest of the world leave them alone to fight to the death?

Is it that simple? I don’t know enough about it to say.

Sure. Hamas has sworn to wipe Israel and the Jews off the face of the Earth, Israel has hit the point where they know that Hamas won’t stop so the only option is to wipe them from the face of the Earth. Sort of silly goals if you ask me. But hey, if my neighbor swore to wipe me and all my relations out, I’d likely be prepared and not afraid to return the favor if push came to shove.

All the interference does is to extend the issue, causing more and more deaths and now more and more physical damage and assaults in other countries.

^^ I agree.

Besides this question lacking any understanding, it has brought up something interesting: So far, 3 people above are for divestment and for the US to stop funding and supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. That’s a good sign.

^^Great that you have total understanding of the situation. That helps you.

The rest of the world won’t allow it.

Look at all the weepy folks supporting the Palestinians today, who tacitly support terrorism and wiping Israel off the map – but when Israel tries to fight back, these same weepy Palestinian supporters cry foul. It’s playing the victim card over and over.

Your theory, @Mazinger, is not a bad one, but politics and propaganda is preventing Israel from what it should have done 50 years ago.

It’s interesting to me that “the U.S. should not get involved and let them fight to the death” and “the U.S. should cut off all support to Israel” are seen as two different things. Makes you think…

But I’ll take what I can get. Yes, I support “America first”. No more money and weapons to Israel. Let the two equal sides duke it out since this conflict is totally random and came out of nowhere without context. That’s the history-independent view, and while it’s completely inaccurate, the outcome is ultimately the one I want to see, so I can get behind it.

^ I’ll take it as a win that @seawulf575 (and @mazingerz88 and @Dutchess_III) are now siding with us and the anti-genocide demonstrators at universities and all over the world. We need them in this fight!

And I’m also glad to see @elbanditoroso being honest, so we understand where these right-wing genocidal Zionists really stand (“but politics and propaganda is preventing Israel from what it should have done 50 years ago”).

It’s not realistic.

The US stays in for geo-political reasons, but let’s say the US and all other countries stay out of it.

There would likely be more death. I guess we could be optimistic and hope without all of the money and arms coming in Israelis and Palestinians might make peace, but that’s doubtful.

So, ok, fight to the death. That means cutting off the food aid coming into Gaza too. I think Israel is probably more self sufficient than Gaza and West Bank, more trained, and then if they conquer those areas then what? The Palestinians who survive finally stop any aggressions once and for all? Doubtful.

If the Palestinians win, then they have rubble left, snd start from scratch, because I feel pretty sure if the Israelis surrendered, on their way out they would blow up Israel’s infrastructure in their wake, which they did not do when they left Gaza in 2005, but giving up Israel altogether that they built from nothing, I don’t see them handing it over easily.

Sounds horrible and probably wouldn’t completely fix the problem, because some extremists will likely still be around.

I can’t tell you how badly I want the war to stop and the Palestinians to be safe and for Hamas to be disabled. I have a fantasy that once Hamas is crippled there will finally be a peace treaty and life gets much better for everyone there.

@hat You have reading comprehension issues. Saying we shouldn’t protest or do anything with the ME is not the same as supporting your protests. The protests are more screwy than that battle itself. Supporting Palestine is tantamount to supporting Hamas and therefore supporting terrorism. Doing it to a university is just plain idiotic.

I have said from the first that we shouldn’t be involved in this battle. Hamas attacked Israel, I believe Israel has every ethical, moral, and legal right to defend themselves. Hamas has sworn to wipe all Jews off the face of the planet, something you apparently support wholeheartedly. So Israel has a decision to make: wipe out Hamas as an organization…wipe it out to the last man…or get things back to a status quo and face this same decision later on when Hamas does this again and again.

Hamas started this battle, let them battle it out. If they want to hide behind the people that elected them, I see that as cowardly.

Personally, the only win in a situation like this is to not play. But that is not an option since Hamas is a terrorist organization. They want the battle. Let Israel do what they need to. MAYBE if they wipe Hamas out conclusively and decisively, it may make other groups with similar mindsets as Hamas think twice about attacking Israel. That MIGHT bring peace to the region, for a while at least.

What is this war about?

People don’t give enough credit to the Thunder Dome.

@hat but politics and propaganda is preventing Israel from what it should have done 50 years ago

Yeah, that was particularly revealing and chilling, though it is a bit refreshing to see no beating around the bush and just a candid admission that the Palestinians should’ve been eliminated decades ago and the entirety of the land annexed. We are certainly on our way there (with U.S. help), so the most ardent Zionists may get their wish after all.

The Israeli military depends heavily on funding from the U.S. Our “staying out of it” would make a significant amount of difference.

And saying “we should stay out of it, but Hamas made us get involved!” is not only disingenuous, but simply inaccurate. We didn’t get involved because of “Hamas’ terrorism”. We have been involved for decades because the U.S. is a close ally of Israel. We would be funding their military even if Hamas didn’t exist.

@Dutchess_III What is the war about? Hamas believes they are duty bound to Allah to wipe Israel and all Jews off the Earth. It is in their Charter. Actually this give both their original charter and their revised one. In both, they are driven by their duty to Allah to kill all the Jews and take back the land of Israel for themselves.

Stupid.

Yep. And as Pappy always used to say, you can’t fix stupid. Which is why we ought to just let them duke it out.

But, to be fair, America had world allies as far back as the revolutionary war.
And we had world allies in 1 and 2. I just can’t believe it’s all.over something that doesn’t even exist (IMO.)

@Dutchess_III The problem is that it does exist. Whether there is an actual God or not is up for debate, but the belief is real. Belief and emotions are very powerful things.

^^Did Allah also tell Hamas that they can hide behind unarmed non-fighters in order to survive?

Not surprising that it seems the latest result of the negotiations is Hamas wanting a permanent ceasefire for the hostages, which Netanyahu rejected. Both sides are thinking long term survival.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not primarily a religious conflict. It’s a settler-colonial conflict somewhat unique among current conflicts, but bears some resemblance to what occurred in South Africa’s history. Religion is certainly used by both Israelis and Palestinians to bolster their respective causes and claims, but focusing on religious belief glosses over the extent to which this conflict is about land and stems from how that land was seized to form the state of Israel in the 1940s, and how Palestinians have been relegated to ever-dwindling pieces of that land, and remain under Israeli occupation (especially in the case of Gaza). Hamas didn’t form in a vacuum.

It’s also reductive to claim that the goal of both Israel and Palestine is complete annihilation of the other. That eliminates any possibility of peace and can also be used to justify annihilation of the Palestinians (something much more likely to occur than the reverse).

^^Reductive to whom and for whom, Hamas and Netanyahu? The claim that each side wants the other’s extinction?

@Demosthenes I agree the conflict is primarily over land, but religion is used to control and influence the people. You can’t dismiss that a good portion of the Gazans are very religious and pray to God to get their land back, and that the ultra-orthodox Jews (not all of them) are the most fervent in all of the lands being Jewish land. Moreover, in the ME there are powers who believe the entire region should be Muslim, and those powers fund Hamas.

I realize many Palestinians say they are fine with Jewish people co-existing with them, but at the same time many of them say the Jews from outside of Palestine should return to their countries. Completely ignores Jews were there before the Muslim religion even existed. We can go back and back and back. Plus, it’s many generations since ‘48. Most Israelis were born in Israel, so they are from there.

Hamas would be happy to murder every Jewish person in the world in my opinion. I don’t feel that at all about the average Palestinian. I think Palestinians just want peace and what they consider to be their land. War kills people though, so if the only way to get their land is to kill Jewish people, many of them might be apathetic to those deaths, or, might justify it with their religious beliefs like so many wars. All groups we can see that. Christians do it too. Fundamentalist Christians rationalize death for their ultimate goals.

@Demosthenes Have you read the Hamas Charter? It specifically puts all their efforts on the table as being duties to Allah. You can’t get much more religious than that as a reason. I suggest reading it to get a deeper understanding of the people you are supporting.

@mazingerz88 The pattern has always been some group screws with Israel and when Israel starts responding and kicking their ass, suddenly there is supposed to be a peace treaty. The conflict ends, the peace treaty holds for a minimal amount of time and then trouble flares up again. I suspect Israel, who has had to deal with Hamas several times, is tired of giving in to peace treaties that aren’t going to stop Hamas in the future.