Sinwar is dead, what do you think will happen next?

It’s just going to pave the way for another person like him. It really did not change anything.

You know they will just keep bombing.

This will continue until we force Israel to stop.

The goal is ethnic cleansing the land, not returning hostages, which could have been done on day 1 if Israel agreed to return the Palestinian “hostages” being held without trial or charge indefinitely in Israeli prisons. Israel has killed more prisoners than they’ve released through military operations. They’ve functionally obliterated Gaza, and now about ⅓ of Netanyahu’s party are attending a preparing to resettle Gaza conference.

To be completely fair, Hezbollah and Hamas both would ethnically cleanse Israel if given the means. One is succeeding and the others are not. There are no sides to take here, it’s shit all around. It’s not a good guy/bad guy situation. The US should do what it can to stop this if anything, to stabilize the region but mostly to end the needless slaughter.

@Blackwater_Park If Hamas and Hezbollah were successfully slaughtering tens of thousands of Israeli women and kids while our government was giving them the weapons to do it, I would have a major fucking issue with that too.

The reason one is “succeeding” is that the US preventing global action to stop Israel from violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which the US and Israel are both signatories to.

What @gorillapaws said. It will continue because the goal is ethnic cleansing, and that has not yet been achieved. Destroying Hezbollah and Hamas is part of that, and the killing of their leaders is not insignificant, but these movements will not be eradicated simply because their leaders are dead. And Israel knows that, much as they may claim to desire eradication. So unfortunately I don’t think anything will die down, at least as long as Gaza is habitable.

There is a side that should be taken and that is the humanitarian side. The only people that are worthy of our admiration are those bringing in humanitarian aid, those who are risking their lives to report the truth and the medical workers who work in ruined hospitals without proper supplies reminding us of what it means to be human.

I’m just reading about a family who were burned to death by an Israeli strike on a refugee camp, with just one surviving member.

For those people, Sinwar’s death appeared to change nothing at all.

It should be plainly obvious by now that Netanyahu doesn’t give a damn about the hostages. Hamas, the hostages, and the attack a year ago, are all just political capital to carry out a genocide with impunity, and to achieve the irredentist fascist ambitions of the nationalist Israeli far-right.

What happens next? I think Israel continues to kill Hamas fighters and Palestinians who shield them voluntarily or involuntarily.

@mazingerz88 Were Hamas fighters hiding in the refugee tents where IDF burned to death families? I guess children being sniped in the head were because Hamas fighters were in the way too.

^^Maybe have some faith in Israeli soldiers to still have souls and not just genocidal maniacs like you believe them to be?

^My faith, is in the IDF (under Netanyahu,) will continue doing such things. Because they are REALLY pissed off, and they aren’t going to stop killing until they are slapped out of it.

These dogs have fought long enough, and one has clearly lost it and it’s time to get the hose out and break it up.

To the question.

Killing “terrorists,” makes exponentially more “terrorists.”

IDF behavior, has led to civil unrest on American shores.
If WE’RE mad about it, how is the majority Muslim Middle East, going to feel?

Israel fell for this trap, and now they are slowly losing the world’s support. They are certainly not making friends, in a ROUGH neighborhood…

@ragingloli The IDF will keep bombing if the hostages are returned? That’s mostly what a mentioned in the OP, but I did also mean overall if things would change at all and how.

The Palestinians, Hezbollah, Iran, will keep bombing Israel even if Israel stops bombing?

Who exactly are talking about?

@mazingerz88 ” I think Israel continues to kill Hamas fighters and Palestinians who shield them voluntarily or involuntarily.”

Riddle me this: how do Palestinian toddlers get shot in the head and heart by sniper bullets if they’re human shields and not being targeted?

Labeling people “terrorist” doesn’t magically remove a country’s obligations under the Geneva convention.

^^So where’s the rest of genocidal IDF maniacs killing all the remaining Palestinian babies right now?

@mazingerz88 Are you claiming that because there are some toddlers that haven’t been killed that the IDF isn’t committing genocide? I’m not following the logic?

@gorillapaws @Demosthenes I do not agree Israel is trying to cleanse the area of an ethnic group. I do want the fighting to stop, I want the Palestinians to have peace, safety, and prosperity as much as I want the Israelis to have those things.

I also felt killing Sinwar likely would not calm things down, but I think it could if the Palestinians did return the hostages and agreed to stop fighting and I guess Iran and Hezbollah need to stop too.

There is every reason to believe that Israel would abide by a treaty or agreement, they have maintained their treaties with Egypt and Jordan.

You talk about the US funding and supplying Israel, so does the real treaty need to happen between the US and Iran?

@JLeslie “I do not agree Israel is trying to cleanse the area of an ethnic group.”

Why do you think Palestinian toddlers are getting double-tapped with high velocity sniper rifles from the IDF snipers? Is it to defend Israel?

@gorillapaws It is almost impossible to bomb a Palestinian area and not hit children. They have a very high birth rate. I’m not ok with babies and children dying, but the population there is made up of a high percentage of young children. I understand that attacking children is a way to eliminate a population, the Nazis did it to the Jews, they killed 90% of Jewish children. I am not oblivious to that method to eliminate the possibility of the group having a next generation. The Gaza strip is nowhere close to having all of the children killed. One is too many, but I am just talking numbers. I think the stat is 40% of the population is under age 14 in Gaza, feel free to check me, I might be wrong. That would be around 800,000 children under age 14. How many have been killed? 15,000? I hate to even say it like that, it sounds like a person is just a number, and that is not how I feel about it. I care about any innocent people dying because leaders decide to make war, it could be any of us at the mercy of decisions made by our leaders. They are not “them” to me. We can all be “them.” I even include soldiers, because they too are at the mercy of the decisions of leaders.

My point is, the amount of children killed are a fraction of how many children there are in Gaza, but my guess is you, or many others anyway, are picturing it as half the children are dead, because people don’t care about numbers that are not being readily given, they just hear what is given and frame it in their minds what fits with their own narrative.

We could argue that the IDF could have used more specific and targeted bombs, we can agree we don’t want so many people to die, and especially not young children, but to say they are hoping to get rid of the population in Gaza altogether doesn’t play out with what has happened there. Israel could have easily killed many many more people. All they had to do was bomb without telling the people to leave the targeted areas. I realize Israel still sometimes bombed places they told people to go to, but overall they did not. People were saved by leaving.

I keep hearing talking points to try to frame Israel as committing war crimes, but I think for the most part the courts will find Israel as having worked within the law. I hear people talk about war crimes without even really understand the laws, and I myself only have a small understanding. I hear proportionality used incorrectly, I hear occupation used incorrectly, or not understanding that military occupation can be legal after an aggression or a war, just like we saw in Germany after WWII, but other types of occupation are not, people don’t seem to know the difference.

What I care most about is stopping the war and getting to peace.

@gorillapaws I forgot to address the link about the sniper like shots. Your link didn’t work for me, so I googled and found an article about doctors testifying caring for children suffering from single shots that killed young children. I want to know what happened in those situations too. I find that troubling also.

@gorillapaws I think the world should have EQUAL condemnation of Palestinians and Israelis if one is going to criticize Israel of genocidal acts. If anyone is giving out opinions and suggestions with peace as intention.

The Palestinians are committing self-genocide. While waiting and probably praying for a time when the tables are turned and they can kill all Jews in Israel.

@mazingerz88 “I think the world should have EQUAL condemnation…”

Why equal and not proportional condemnation? If someone shoots a kid in the head, and another guy shoots ten thousand kids in the head, do they deserve equal condemnation? or proportional condemnation?

It’s not an equal fight, so no, I won’t condemn them equally.

^^This is the real world guys, not a Hollywood movie. If someone wants to kill you, your family and your entire race, you will do everything to get your would-be killers first.

@Demosthenes So are you saying we should always be for the country or people who have less military capability regardless of anything else? I’m not sure I understand the equal fight statement.

^^It might be “equal fight at the moment it is happening” thing. Like boxing fans watching a ring fight.

Or peacemakers trying to set rules while their own lives are not at stake. But their taxes and sense of morality are.

@mazingerz88 Every genocide in history has been justified with “we have to kill them before they kill us”. You’re not making the point you think you’re making.

@JLeslie The entire history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is lopsided, with one side always suffering greater casualties and seeing their territories shrink. No part of it is equal, and I simply won’t “both sides” it into meaninglessness.

^^Exactly what Palestinians are doing. They’re doing the best with what they have. Killing their own children indirectly to gain some sort of victory.

@mazingerz88 “you will do everything to get your would-be killers first.”

Everything, except of course not trying to illegally annex land, colonize, occupy and oppress the local people. If my existence required committing genocide then I’d have to look into other options.

^^Like that would matter if most of the world thinks Israel legally got the land.

Especially to Palestinians and their allies who let’s be honest simply want Jews either dead or out of those lands, legal or illegally claimed.

@mazingerz88 Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived in the land for hundreds of years in relative peace. It was when the Zionists explicitly colonized the area that the tensions began.

^^I don’t know enough about the history of Zionism. How and why it came about.

What if Zionism came about as a strategy for self-preservation in ancient times?

Now that Saudi Arabia did not go through with the planned relations with Israel and instead formed an alliance with Iran ( a Hamas victory brought on by October 7 and its indirect killing of Palestinian children ) to compel Netanyahu to agree to a two-state solution, would that include Hamas leaving Gaza or if not just simply changing its goal to commit genocide on Israel?

Jews, Christians, and Muslims live peacefully on the land. Only a portion of the people, the Palestinians, never accepted Israel as a state. The Druze and Bedouins live in Israel just fine. Even many Palestinians inside of Israel live ok there with some complaints that should be addressed. They identify as Israelis with Israeli passports. It’s because the Palestinians (as a group not all of them) never accepted Israel as a country that the conflict continues.

@mazingerz88 It came about in the late 1800’s. European Jews in particular were getting killed and oppressed all over Europe, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe. They were much better treated in the Ottoman Empire (though it wasn’t perfect by any means). It wasn’t that they wanted a homeland, but that they wanted to rule over the territory and implement an explicit ethonstate that created the problems. When you’re a minority in the territory you want to rule and then pretend to want to be a democracy, the math just doesn’t work out. Either you’re an apartheid state or you have to cull the local population. The early Zionists did both with brutal tactics to make way for an ethnostate.. You can read the interview with the early Zionists who describe the horror they perpetrated on the locals. So yeah, the Palestinians weren’t particularly chummy with their new colonizers. Over 100k had been evicted from the territory before the state of Israel was officially created.

@gorillapaws Israel is no longer “the early Zionists.” A lot of history has happened in-between. It’s time to make borders and abide by them. If in 50 years the Palestinians and Israelis have common goals and trust, then maybe one state could happen, but I don’t see how it could work now. I wish it could.

Most of the EuroAsian continent were ethnostates at that time. Even still today many countries are predominantly one group.

Israel is very diverse in race and ethnicity.

@gorillapaws Are you ok with all of the Israeli Jewish people staying in Israel as long as it is one Democratic state? I don’t think most Palestinians are.

@JLeslie “Israel is no longer “the early Zionists.””

I’m explaining why “the Palestinians, never accepted Israel as a state.”

It’s because the Palestinians were betrayed by the British, and the international community at the founding of Israel. They were violently evicted and many innocents were butchered, and there’s NEVER been redress from this, and the descendants of those victims are continuing to be victimized by a psychopathic nation who are hellbent on taking over the land for themselves.

Listen to this Zionist from Texas talk about colonization of Gaza. “It’s not ‘ethic cleansing’ because Palestinians aren’t an ethnicity.” This kind of thinking is straight out of the Hitler Youth playbook for dehumanization. Where are they being brainwashed?

@JLeslie _“Israeli Jewish people staying in Israel as long as it is one Democratic state?”-

I think it’s the only viable solution. There needs to be accountability for the genocide, but the status quo isn’t tenable. Also, I think the death toll will be WAY HIGHER than what you’re talking about. Israel killed the journalists and the record-keepers as one of their first priorities and haven’t allowed independent reporting that doesn’t go through them. They have bulldozed graveyards and there are mass graves with people being shot their hands bound. The IDF abducts Palestinians, dressss them up as IDF and literally force them at gunpoint to enter tunnels ahead of the IDF forces as literal human shields. They rape detainees and at least 53 have died while in custody. Death tolls are official direct deaths, the indirect deaths are much greater.

@gorillapaws I have always acknowledged the Palestinians as a people. If they identify that way I accept it. The term was “made up” at one point to only mean one group in Palestine prior to ‘48, but that’s ok, there are tons of examples of this as language evolves. It certainly does not mean deaths don’t count, that’s ridiculous and disgusting.

We could compare the language thing to people not thinking about the Jewish people as a people only as a religious group. As though we have a choice regarding our ancestry.

Also, how most Americans for 20 years used Asian to be synonymous with Oriental, only recently broadening their usage to mean the continent of Asia, which is where I always was with it.

The “differences” (pretty much religious/ethnic,) between Israel, and their “neighbors,” are irreconcilable.

I’d LOVE to see peace, in the ME.

Peace cannot have a chance, if people do not believe themselves to be on equal footing. That’s a problem in the ME.
Coexistence.
That is the key, to peace.
Clearly, they cannot coexist.

I’m not trying to be reductive, but if this were a few people in a bar or event that just can’t stop fighting I would remove the most agitating variable.
Often, that meant “stay away, from each other.” But that almost never works.

I don’t know WHAT to do about the region. If we somehow teleported Israel to the America west, I strongly believe that the remaining actors in the ME would still have military conflicts and wars.

I know it’s ultimately none of MY business. I would LOVE for everyone to get along, but I think that their ancient hatred of each other, has been exponentially worsened by the past several decades, and now has grown almost like a fire.

Yes. I believe, many people on each side would like to kill off the other side. Historically, that’s the war almanac in that region.

The roots of this hatred, are a product of both sides passing their hate from one generation to the next, to this point.
I think we obviously add attrition to the mix now.
Netanyahu may not stop with Gaza, and Lebanon.
Recently some highly classifieds documents was leaked, essentially showing that the US has been spying on Israel and that Israel has been planning on going to war with Iran for the past 20 years. The news was first revealed by Axios, I believe.

The details are being redacted for public purposes, but the summation of the attack is there.
Israel has been planning on attacking Iran, for 20 years.
I think that fits VERY nicely, with the planted explosive pagers and walkies in Lebanon. That plan, was rumored to have been in place far before the attack on October 7th.

10/7, was a infamous and terrible thing. But. I think Netanyahu couldn’t have been more pleased (strategically.)
As the ferocity of the attack, gave him a license for revenge.
I believe that he is enacting a plan, that has been in the works for some time.
October 7th, was an opportunity, for Netanyahu.

I’m not saying I have a problem with Israel attacking Iran. Especially, if they are mainly targeting their military and nuclear capabilities. I would rather it not happen. But I can understand it.

Ultimately. I think the events of the past year, have made this a problem that has no current diplomatic solution.

I do think the Palestinian identifier lets Jordan off the hook from including all Palestinians in their country. From what I understand Jordan has even stripped some Palestinians of Jordanian citizenship. I’m not well versed in the history and dynamic regarding Jordan.

Just adding, Oct 7 approx 1,200 killed and 8,000 injured, and also the hostages who were taken. Usually, the US reporting doesn’t mention the total injured.

^To me, the number is almost inconsequential. The acts, that I am unfortunately aware of, are abhorrent enough for me to feel sick.
I’m also angry, at ALL the different people in that region.
Ethnicity, is a huge issue, in the ME. People have been taught to think of others as subhuman, for thousands of years.

I’ve said it before, that the middle eastern people, culturally, are VERY different from western society. It’s difficult to even have a diplomatic relationship, with them.
I think that America’s “try to bring democracy to the ME” idea, was a mistake born mostly of ignorance and perhaps arrogance as well.

I really wish, that the US wasn’t involved in ANY affairs in the region. Trade with the ME. Visit the ME. Love the ME.
But NEVER, think that the ME needs western help.
We don’t understand how, to help the region. Frankly, we’re bordering on Civil War in our own country right now….

I wanted to return to a few points you made earlier:

@JLeslie “Israel could have easily killed many many more people. All they had to do was bomb without telling the people to leave the targeted areas. I realize Israel still sometimes bombed places they told people to go to, but overall they did not.”

What if, for arguments sake, Israel rounded up the Palestinians, put them in death camps and gassed them? Would you have supported Israel? would the US? I would argue that Israel knows it can’t exterminate the Palestinians as overtly as other historical genocides and maintain protection from the US and support from Zionists abroad. So, no, Israel must maintain a narrative that they’re trying to prevent civilian deaths while dropping bunker buster bombs on tent cities of refugees on beaches without bunkers beneath them.

Instead, Israel’s strategy was to create a humanitarian crisis that left no option but for the people to be transferred to “temporary camps” in the Sinai “for their own safety” and would “certainly be allowed to return” after the conflict, which of course would never come (what would their recourse be?). There was actually a document leaked from inside Israel describing this exact strategy.

@JLeslie “The term was “made up” at one point to only mean one group in Palestine prior to ‘48”

When did that happen? The earliest reference I could find mention of was from ~3,200 years ago in ancient Egyptian. Here is an article debunking the propaganda that Palestinians are a modern idea.

@JLeslie “Just adding, Oct 7 approx 1,200 killed and 8,000 injured, and also the hostages who were taken. Usually, the US reporting doesn’t mention the total injured.”

How many were killed by the IDF invoking the Hannibal Directive? How many of those killed were soldiers or police? You are aware that these are legitimate war targets under international law? The Palestinian people have a right to violently resist occupation when targeting soldiers and police.

There were, without question, horrific acts and war crimes committed by Hamas on 10/7. There were innocents killed in cold blood. There were innocents wounded. Innocents were kidnapped and held hostage against their will, which is a war crime. There were likely incidents of rape that may have occurred, though in the hundreds (thousands?) of hours of footage from the event there was no video evidence of that occurring. There was no forensic evidence of rape ever submitted for independent verification by the UN or other bodies that investigate such crimes that I’m aware of. The famous “Screams Without Words” piece has been discredited. There were no beheaded babies. There were no unborn fetuses cut from their mother’s womb. In fact, much of what we “know” about 10/7 turned out to be fabrications made as a pretext for genocide.

Furthermore, how many of the crimes were perpetuated by Hamas combatants and how many by random people who found themselves outside of their concentration camp for the first time in their lives? It really is a profound thing to consider what it must be like to be born into a tiny strip of land, assigned a number and never being allowed to leave unless Israel decides to grant you permission. No hope, no future. Peacefully protest and be shot by snipers, or be kidnapped and held without charge indefinitely.

The thing is though, ultimately, according to international law, this is Israel’s fault. Their “act of aggression” in their preemptive strike on Egypt that kicked off the 6-day war is the “supreme international crime.”

Under international law: “War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole (War of Aggression).” [Emphasis added]

In other words, because Israel’s 6-day war and subsequent occupation was declared illegal (UN Resolution 242) all of the accumulated war crimes that result from it’s ongoing occupation are ultimately the fault of the State of Israel. So yes, individuals committed war crimes and should be held accountable for their actions, but ultimately it’s Israel itself that is responsible for the accumulated evil of the whole resulting from their actions, and you cannot claim “self defense” when you’re the aggressor and occupier. And Israel is the legal occupier because they control the land air and sea around Gaza. They control the water, food, electricity and overfly the territory. They are classified as occupiers.

@JLeslie “Most of the EuroAsian continent were ethnostates at that time. Even still today many countries are predominantly one group.

Israel is very diverse in race and ethnicity.”

I forgot to address this point as well. Which countries are explicitly ethostates? Here’s a list of current Ethnocracy nations. It’s one thing for lots of Japanese people to live in Japan. Nobody would claim this is problematic. It’s another for Japan to invade China, and make laws that favor the Japanese over the Chinese.

Here’s a thought experiment: what would happen in Israel if by some horrible natural occurrence the Jewish population in Israel plummeted (maybe a virus that happened to affect the Israelis at a much higher rate) and the Palestinians living in Israel simultaneously had an explosion in births, such that there were more Palestinians in Israel than Jewish Israelis? And they wanted to end the Jewish supremacy law, and possibly make it a Palestinian supremacy law? What should happen? Is Israel ultimately a Democracy? or is it about ethnic supremacy and would require a minority population to rule the majority based on ethnicity in an apartheid system?

@gorillapaws I didn’t say Palestine didn’t exist before ‘48, and in turn the people living there were Palestinian. I’m saying Jews would have been Palestinians, but now the word is not used to include Jews. Palestine was an area, as far as I know, it was not a country, but I am completely fine with Arabs from Palestine identifying as Palestinian.

You tell me what the Jews in Europe did to be rounded up and murdered? Go ahead. They were not collateral damage during a war, they were literally targeted to not exist anymore.

The Palestinians caught in crossfire are victims of war. I’m not ok with so many suffering and dying. I am ok with questioning Israel’s tactics, but you can’t expect zero deaths when the Palestinians CONSTANTLY attack Israel and then Oct 7th.

Oct 7th was not the way to get attention and make positive change.

The two state solution is to let Palestinians have their own state. That’s what most of them say they want. Maybe they are lying because they don’t feel they can speak freely.

@JLeslie “The Palestinians caught in crossfire are victims of war…”

If you think these people are dead because they’re “caught in the crossfire,” then you’re clearly uninformed. This is what Israel’s leaders have themselves been saying:

”Bring down buildings! Bomb without distinction!! Stop with this impotence. You have ability. There is worldwide legitimacy! Flatten Gaza. Without mercy! This time, there is no room for mercy.”

Tally Goltiv
Member of the Israeli Knesset

”Those are animals. they have no rights to exist I am not debating the way it will happen, but they need to be exterminated. This [attack] is not enough, there should be more, there should be no limits to the response, I said it a million times, until we see hundreds of thousands fleeing Gaza, we, the IDF has not achieved its mission.”

Yoav Kisch
Israel’s Education Minister

”Erase Gaza. Nothing else will satisfy us. It is not acceptable that we maintain terrorist authority next to Israel. Don’t leave a child there expel everyone.”

Nissim Vaturi
Deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset

”It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime.”

Isaac Herzog
Israel’s President

”Destroy a neighborhood in Gaza everyday the abductees are in their hands. If we blink, we run out of global credit. Every day that the abductees are with them, a neighborhood must be destroyed on its inhabitants.”

Almog Cohen
Member of the Israeli Knesset

”Without hunger and thirst among the Gazan population, we will not succeed in recruiting collaborators, we will not succeed in recruiting intelligence, [or]... in bribing people with food, drink, medicine, in order to obtain intelligence.”

Tally Goltiv
Member of the Israeli Knesset

“Nakba to the enemy now! This day is our Pearl Harbor. We will still learn the lessons. Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. A Nakba in Gaza and a Nakba for anyone who dares to join”

Ariel Kaliner
Member of the Israeli Knessei

”I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”

Yoav Gallant
Israel’s Delense Minister

”Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter Gaza until the Israeli abductees are returned. No one will preach morals to us.”

Israel Katz Israel’s then Economy Minister and current Foreign Minister

”I don’t care about Gaza. I literally don’t care at all. They can go out and swim in the sea. I want to see dead bodies of terrorists around Gaza.”

May Golan
Israel’s Minister for the advancement of the status or women

”We cannot go back to the same conception… we need to exact a territorial price from them, including returning Jewish settlements at least to the north of Gaza Strip.”

Ohad Tal
Member of the Israeli Knesset

In international law, we call these statements “specific genocidal intent.” The civilians killed are not “collateral damage.” They’re the objective.

^^let me help you. https://law4palestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2-Database-of-Israeli-Incitement-to-Genocide-15th-January-2024-LEGISLATORS.pdf

A lot of those were said immediately following Oct 7, but aid has been let in and even sent directly from Israel many times. I’m not excusing some of the very extreme men in the Israeli government who probably do want to take over all of Palestine and don’t care who gets hurt, I’m completely against that. Most Israelis are against that too. There were protests in the street against Netanyahu before Oct 7th. Hamas disrupted a sea change in Israel and the ME. I believe they did it on purpose.

Overall, the actions of Israel are not as extreme as it could have been, not as extreme as many of these statements you listed that’s all I wrote before. Part of the problem is Hamas will continue to martyr their people, they like it. Hamas has said so.

Israel doesn’t try to kill their 2 million Arab citizens in Israel. 2 million! Then another 2 million in Gaza. I am not even counting the West Bank, I don’t know the population there. How does killing 40,000 significantly help Israel in total numbers in killing all Palestinians forever? It doesn’t. Estimated over 15,000 were Hamas soldiers. If they are even considered soldiers.

We could list just as many statements from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran to rid the ME of Israel and the Jewish people.

You have to look at the actions more than anything.

On the continuum of genocide, I put Israel at indifference after Oct 7th.

Even if we say Israel is genocidal, if the hostages were returned the pressure on Israel to stop would have been and would still be enormous. So, in essence, Hamas could have released the hostages in trade for stopping the bombing, but they chose not to. How can you not also see blood on their hands. Now that Sinwar is dead, it was another opportunity to put incredible pressure on Israel, but Hamas chooses to keep the hostages.

@JLeslie “How does killing 40,000 significantly help Israel in total numbers in killing all Palestinians forever?”

1. The numbers are way higher than that. That’s direct deaths. Indirect deaths are many times greater than direct deaths. Also, when you liquify families with 2k lbs bunker busters, there are no remains or people left to report them missing. When you target journalists and the record keepers, there may not be anyone to report the missing to.

What will you say when after the dust settles it turns out hundreds of thousands of women, kids, medics, nurses, doctors, journalists, aid workers, teachers, poets, bakers, fishermen, farmers, musicians, etc. were killed directly or indirectly (from starvation, disease, lack of healthcare for otherwise treatable conditions, etc.)?

2. Genocide doesn’t require the goal to be “killing all Palestinians forever.” That’a a straw man. Genocide requires 1 of 5 conditions to be met:

… any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole OR IN PART, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole OR IN PART;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[8]

My understanding is experts who specialize in crimes against humanity believe Israel is guilty of all but the last. The UN has found it plausible and is moving forward with the process to prosecute Israel (it takes years).

3. The goal is to take the territory. The land has always been the objective since the beginning of the Zionist project in the 1800’s. They create a humanitarian nightmare and force the people to the Sinai “for their safety” because “Israel is the most moral country and actually cares about the people of Gaza unlike Hamas who likes killing its own people.” And then they have completed the purge of the Gaza Strip. Just like that they’ve annexed the territory. And the settlers can move on in. It’s literally in the plan they wrote that leaked. Government officials are attending conventions on how to settle Gaza.

Additionally, they may realize that Israel could be forced into a 1 state solution, in which case, numbers do matter in elections. Killing 100’s of thousands of potential future voters could “bend the curve” to maintain Jewish supremacy in the territory.

4. You and people like yourself (by that I mean Zionists in the West) are the reason. Israel’s existence depends on support from the West. If they literally exterminated every Palestinian, people like yourself would abandon Israel (I would hope) and it would not survive as a nation. Israel is trying to accomplish a genocide while still maintaining sufficient plausibility that people like yourself can watch a genocide being live-streamed and come away with the conclusion:

@JLeslie ”...On the continuum of genocide, I put Israel at indifference after Oct 7th…”

There are many anti-Zionist Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and that’s a growing movement. Israel understands this is a line they need to balance.

@JLeslie “Estimated over 15,000 were Hamas soldiers.”

How many “non-soldier” adult males have been killed? How many were not engaged in combat when they were killed? How many were restrained with zipties when they were executed?

@JLeslie “You have to look at the actions more than anything.”

I completely agree. Let’s do that:

There are rules for war. When an IDF soldier goes on leave to visit his family in Tel Aviv, that doesn’t mean his parent’s house is now a valid military target for Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran to bomb.

Israel implemented a system called Where’s Daddy? that did exactly that. They were allowed 20:1 civilian casualty ratios for low-level Hamas fighters and multiple hundreds of civilian casualties for senior Hamas officials.

Israel has raped captives.

Israel has killed captives.

Israel has executed restrained prisoners.

Israel has tortured prisoners.

Israel has caused prisoners to have amputations because of their restraints.

Israel has targeted healthcare and aid workers for detention.

Israel has shot toddlers with perfect head/heart shots.

Israel has instructed civilians to flee certain areas and then assassinated those who follow the instructions while carrying a white flag along the designated route with sniper fire.

Israel has blocked aid and people have died of starvation as a result.

Israel has forced Palestinians to be human shields and clear hazardous areas.

Israel has bombed/shelled hospitals (all of them I believe)

Israel has killed more journalists than any other period since at least 1992 according to the Committee to Protect Journalists

Israel has destroyed every school in Gaza. Why did it demolish Israa University with controlled detonations? it was under IDF control and used as a base of operations for the military. Why demolish it if not to ensure there is no future for the people of Gaza?

Israel has destroyed ~80% of the buildings in Gaza. Gaza looks different from space.

Israel has killed over 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since 10/7. Hamas isn’t in the West Bank.

Israel has wounded hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Israel has traumatized/terrorized 100% of the population of Gaza

Israel has bulldozed cemeteries.

Israel has concealed mass graves

This isn’t a war. It’s an extermination. it’s an ethnic cleansing. It’s the price of colonialism and ethnocracy. I can’t fathom how anyone can find Israel as anything but a psychotic rogue nation filled with extremists. Back in May a poll of Israelis found 73% say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza “has been about right” or “not gone far enough.” Only 19% say it’s “Gone too far” with the rest responding “I don’t know.”

If that poll is accurate, then I would say 20–25 percent of Israelis are decent human beings. The rest are morally repugnant degenerates. This is what living in an ethnocratic colonial society does to people. It twists them into racists who dehumanize “the other.”

@JLeslie “Hamas could have released the hostages in trade for stopping the bombing, but they chose not to.”

They offered the hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian hostages and a permanent ceasefire in the first week I believe. Israel refused. They assassinated the people who were making progress on a negotiated release.

Ok, so what will happen if you are right and Israel committed war crimes? It won’t change that Hamas committed war crimes. It’s not like the Palestinian people are more deserving of the land than the Israelis, they both have claims to the land.

The only way to have peace is to have a peace treaty. The Muslim leader extremists are ok with their people suffering and dying and the Israelis have a history of horrors that is beyond comprehension and they don’t feel safe anywhere else.

Stale mate at this point.

^^I had a Jewish friend who passed away who years ago once told me allowing the return of those displaced Palestinians into Israel will be the end of Israel.

@JLeslie “Israelis have a history of horrors that is beyond comprehension and they don’t feel safe anywhere else.”

I have never been more fearful for the safety of my Jewish friends/family/loved-ones as I am now. Israel is a destabilizing force that is committing evil on a scale not seen since the 20th century. The fact that they’re trying to brand these evil acts as representing the broader Jewish people is grotesque, ESPECIALLY given the history of the Jewish people. I have a hard time comprehending how someone can see what’s being done in Gaza, and now Lebanon and think that they’re safer today than before?

@JLeslie “It’s not like the Palestinian people are more deserving of the land than the Israelis, they both have claims to the land.”

I’m curious what you mean by this.

@gorillapaws I only mean when the UN decision was made many borders were drawn in the ME, and if we accept those borders were legitimate, then Israel was created as a legitimate state, so Israelis have rights to be there. Certainly it’s arguable to question current borders, how borders are controlled, whether there is real equality or not in the country, etc etc.

There are also Israelis who were or whose families were there already at the time of the UN decision.

Then you also have the argument how far back do you want to go? The Jewish people are from those lands, but in history we don’t usually return populations back to their lands from a thousand or more years ago. Israel is probably the only country formed on that idea?Israel in some ways was an attempt at that, but I think mostly Israel was a small piece of land in the huge Middle East that Jews could go to feel safe, to govern themselves. It actually was the one place in the world, not just the one place in the ME. It was not only formed as a return for the Jewish people, but also simply a place to go. If it had been in another place many Jewish people still would have gone there.

As far as myself, my true loyalty in term of national identity is to the United States of America. I’m an American, grateful ro be an American. When I debate with you about Israel, I feel I have a different perspective, an understanding of being the minority that you don’t necessarily “feel” in the same way because you were not born and raised Jewish and because if I remember correctly you are a white male. I do think you are extremely sympathetic to minority issues. I don’t think you see Jewish people, and especially not Israelis, as minorities, but that is how we see ourselves. Not all Jews, but many of us. Or, at least we feel vulnerable. We are the minority in the Middle East, we are a minority in the world. Sure, we also are a part of a majority at times. It depends on the situation.

The Palestinians have claims to the land because many of them have been there for multiple generations. I think most of them don’t think Israel should ever have been created. Many of them feel like they are minorities and second class in Israel. They have stories of violence against them by Israelis, and also Palestinian on Palestinian crimes that are not addressed by the police or not treated fairly in the courts. Much of the Arab world doesn’t want to deal with them.

I think the Israelis and Palestinians both have similar distressing stories.

I find myself always coming back to, do you (not you personally) think Israel has a right to exist when discussing the topic with people. I think a lot of people say they do, but they really don’t, or they outright say they don’t.

Most Israelis I know personally wanted full equality for everyone, they wanted Palestinians to be equal citizens, some talked in terms of two states some one state with open crossings and peace. They believed helping Palestinians be prosperous would help everyone. Oct 7th made them seriously question their idealism.

@gorillapaws Also, I never before considered myself to be a zionist, because I thought of zionism as Jewish people who believed that patch of land belonged to the Jews for historical or religious reasons. I don’t think that. I think it is a Jewish state because of the UN decision. Now, I guess anyone who supports the existence of Israel is called a zionist. So, even people who are not Jewish who support Israel are zionists? Is that right? I don’t even really know how people are specifically defining the word. You calling me that is strange to me, since I have never identified that way ever.

^As I was reading the last umpteen responses, it occurred to me that even after that thread, my ADHD brain had failed to recall the actual definition of a “Zionist.”
A term I was using, admittedly, with ignorance.

As I’ve said, the region has and will always be war torn.
I think that a LOT has changed now though.
The same old hate is there (in the entire ME,) and the geography is the same.
But things can’t just go back to normal, in the near future.
Gaza, is a wasteland. How can anyone go back, and what would Israel’s new role be?
Netanyahu, will unlikely allow Gaza to ever be completely free.
IF world peace was established today, the relationship between Israel and basically all it’s neighbors has deteriorated to arguably it’s worst point ever.

The past dynamic (between Israel and Gaza,) that helped get us to this point, should not be a targeted goal in any plans going forward.
2 state/1 state solutions, would be radically more difficult now.

Iran will keep stirring the shit, and almost nothing Israel can do, will stop Iran from always committing part of their existence to wiping out the Jewish state.
All diplomatic relationships in the region, will have been shaken up by this and will need to be re-discussed, and it will take time and considerable efforts and sustained good faith for hurt feelings to heal.

Many people 100% behind whatever Israel does, have been indifferent to the massive toll and suffering this revenge turned genocide has caused.
As some above have said; we should be concerned for Jewish people too right now.

Worse than however one views the actors involved, is the reality that this could be the cause of a larger conflict, or even world war. I cannot imagine that THAT, is something any of us support.

Rational, genocidal, or whatever, I believe ALL should hope for immediate de-escalation.

That has to start with a cease fire.

The people of that region have been fighting for 4000 years; since the time of the pharaohs and Hittites !