If Hamas surrenders and releases all hostages....

You're as much as saying the Japanese were stupid. Japan was developing its own atomic weapons, so they had a good idea they were facing an opponent with more than uranium bombs. We could have hit them with a dozen atomic bombs by the end of 1945, and we had 400+ larger, more powerful bombs by the end of the decade.

The subtext of the chilling messages accompanying the two bombs we used was that we would just keep hitting them with nuclear bombs until they gave up.

 

Oh? Is that all? LMAO

 

I’ve only just returned from a prolonged break from the forum. Doubt I have posts on any subject from that timeframe. Guess I stand unable to defend myself in your eyes. Which ultimately isn’t a huge loss.

If you wanted to engage in a good faith argument with me, I’d think you could take my word that I’m an honest interlocutor, but you don’t have to. You are free to make assumptions, which always reflects well on all parties involved in my experience.

 

Hamas are humans too. So... does that make humans evil? Should we kill them?

 

Other religions have evolved and even many Muslims in the west have evolved their practices while still sticking to most traditions. Its way more radical in places in the middle east. Why do you guys seem to think this is a big ask? Why do other religions have to evolve yet Islam gets exemption status. That is BS. NO SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR ANY RELIGION!!

 

My assumption was that your position towards Israel has likely not changed much since the early days of this conflict.

You asked how you could prove that assumption wrong. I have no idea how else this could be accomplished other than seeing what your position was when this conflict began.

If your true desire was for me to just take your claim on good faith, why didnt you just say that instead of asking me how you can prove it? You asked how, and I gave an accurate answer how that could be shown, and I know of no other way at the moment but am open to suggestion.

Lets start anew. I will take you at your word that you were apparently down the middle in this conflict from the beginning. How do you think Israel should have responded to the atrocious attacks in October on top of the daily drip drip of civilian aimed bombings/murders they have faced for decades?

 

Because of how you phrased it.

As if that's something we can do and end this conflict.

1. It isn't ISLAM. Its this particular subset of Islam. Indonesian muslims are doing ok, thanks.
2. It isn't just a religious conflict. If these people weren't muslims, and were treated as Palestinians have been treated by Israel, you'd still have a major conflict here.

 

Great points. Seems like you conveniently left out the from the river to the sea mentality of Palestine. I think you got one of those talking points wrong. I believe its more like No matter what Israel does, they will still want to eradicate them.

 

And Likud has the same mentality. That's a big problem here.

I think that could change. The West Bank is different from Gaza. And the Muslim Arabs who are Isralis are different still. They are all to some extent products of their envornments.

 

War crimes none the less . Targeting innocent women and children is abhorrent and surely the acts of a genocidal maniac.

 

I appreciate you taking me at my word!

Israel’s most appropriate response would have been a boots on the ground campaign, for two reasons.

One, if their true goal was rescuing hostages, and it was not just an excuse, a ground campaign would present fewer risks of hostages dead at the hands of the IDF.

Two, given the population density of Gaza a ground offensive, while difficult, would have been less guaranteed to kill uninvolved civilians.

Israel’s instant response with bombings clearly demonstrated that hostages were an excuse and that mass civilian casualties were acceptable, if not an outright goal.

 

Very funny question, like - do you believe that if all US billionaires decide to pay taxes in the US and not in the tax heaven, the US government will reduce the US debt or spend it on cleaning environment?

And to your original question: people who hate Jews and Israel will say Israel will continue to attack Gaza and people who support Israel will say Israel will stop attack Israel.

My opinion - I don't know, but I believe what Hamas is telling the truth when it is saying:


So it Hamas will surrender and release all hostages tomorrow it will not guarantee there will be no more Oct 7 attacks. We need some kind of compromise.

 

Interesting.

I am not aware that their true goal was rescuing hostages. I see that as a strong desire but not the purpose of their response. To me, their purpose is to dismantle Hamas' ability to kill Israeli citizens daily.

Being that Hamas is not uniformed and they hide amongst the civilian populous complicates this goal greatly. It is my opinion that they should not incentivize hiding amongst civilians by just giving them the tactical advantage of not being able to be retaliated against if they are amongst civilians. It seems to me if you do this, you only invite more of this tactic which is the last thing that anyone needs, including civilians.

The situation is unfortunate indeed, but in my mind the blame lies solely with Hamas, and to a lesser extent the Palestinian people if we are going to assert they are spearate entities. Being that they have employed this tactic for decades, I see it as incumbent upon the Palestinian people to rise up against these monsters that are using their children as human shields. To not rise up against this injustice, in my mind, is to support it. My gut feeling is that they support Hamas more than they oppose them. I believe they are happily playing the victim, while simultaneously encouraging the bad guys to attack Israel on a daily basis. To me, this makes them complicit, and ultimately responsible for any collateral damage that occurs as a direct result of hamas aggression aimed at civilians.

I have no doubt that there are some amongst the Palestinians who despise Hamas and are oppressed by their inhumane tactics, but at some point, they need to rise up against their oppressors. I have not seen or heard from many Palestinians over the decades that they feel like they are being oppressed by Hamas. The only thing I ever see is their fervent opposition to Israel.

 

What is happening right now didn’t start on October 7th. I get it if you’re not looking for a history lesson, but the Palestinians in Gaza attempted peaceful solutions through Fatah which were largely unsuccessful. When peace is no longer a solution, war is inevitable.

 

If your position is that Hamas is the true peacemaker here, I disagree. If you want to argue some peace measures they have proposed that was rebuked I am happy to respond.

Until that time, I in no way am going to accept in any fashion that those monsters that purposefully target civilians for death are peacemakers.I dont mean collateral damage to civilians. I mean targeting civilians for the express purpose of killing civilians.

If they sought peace, you can rest assured that it entailed Israel caving into their demands.

 

You misunderstand my post. My apologies, let me clarify.
Prior to Hamas, Fatah was the elected leadership of Gaza. Their engagement with Israel was much more diplomatic and peaceful in nature. They were voted out due to their efforts proving ineffective. If Israel wanted peace, they squandered the opportunity they had with Fatah. Now they have Hamas to deal with.

 

The primary problem here is that there is no peacemaker. Hamas is the most violent and hateful government Palestine has had. Nettanyahu's regime is one of the most hardline and brutal to Palestinians regimes Israel has ever had. The two feed off of each other to sustain themselves.

Any resolution of the conflict requires both to be gone, and replaced by more reasonable people.

 

Operation Downfall - Wikipedia

As early 1944 they concluded that;
We can no longer direct the war with any hope of success. The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight

No, the Russian changed nothing, they would still have fought to preserve the home islands which would still have to be invaded

 

While I do not know which efforts at peace you are saying that they offered, but my assumption would be that there are very concrete reasons why Israel did not accept them. If you want to provide their efforts, I will happily go look up why they were rebuked. I am confident there will be a good reason.

Looking at this philosophically, Israel is the only Jewish country in a sea of mostly Muslim countries that consider them an adversary. They may have a few countries that stay out of it, but we can all agree they are pretty universally despised in that region. As such, my logic tells me that the only thing in that situation they could possibly want is peace. This would be like being the only white family in an otherwise all-black ghetto. The absolute LAST thing that white family would want is a race war. That white family in a sea of black only wants peace, and the Jewish country in a sea of adversaries similarly only wants peace.

 

I come from the menatlity that you do not negotiate with terrorists/terrorist tactics, or you incentivize and create more terrorism, not less.

If peace is sought, the Palestinian people need to openly and loudly rebuke Hamas in their midst and even assist Israel in ridding Palestine from Hamas' grip. I do not see that happening in any way. It appears to me that Hamas enjoys far too much support among the Palestinian people. Therein lies their primary problem IMO.

 

I agree. But that doesn't mean being brutal to civilians, cutting of water/food, bombing/shooting indiscriminately to the point that you end up shooting your own civilians people who escaped from being hostages, or saying the things Nettanyahu's regime has been saying about Palestinians as a group.

How are they supposed to do that? And how would you know if they did?
Would Palestinians attempting to assist Israel be shot and killed by the IDF, as escaped hostages have been?
Moreover, why would Palestinians help Israel when Israel has declared them animals and enemies of Israel, and seems to be tryng to kill them?
Note that when the Americans did their wars in the middle east, some care was taken to assure the local civilians that they were not targets and that if they cooperated with the Americans they would be protected. That protection wasn't great, it was often very lacking, but it was at least part of the rhetoric, rather than the oppsite being said.

How could you know how much support Hamas has from Gazans in general? Did you take a survey? And if you did, would you expect the vulnerable Palestinians to answer it honestly?

 

Lol, that would be ****ing stupid. Just don't invade the islands. Der.

 

I’d say that’s a history lesson I am not really qualified to give. Here is a pretty good write up on the differences between Fatah and Hamas though:


HAMAS VS FATAH

• Ideology:
  Hamas – Islamist
  Fatah – Secular
• Strategy towards Israel:
  Hamas – Armed resistance
  Fatah – Negotiations
• Objectives:
  Hamas – Does not recognise Israel, but accepts a Palestinian state on 1967 borders
  Fatah – Recognises Israel, wants to build a state on 1967 borders

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/features/2017/10/12/hamas-and-fatah-how-are-the-two-groups-different

 

How did the American colony rise up against their far more powerful oppressors? They just did it because it needed to be done. They risked life and limb and made it happen. If there were a group that were purposefully surrounding themselves with my children so they can be killed when the retaliation for their violence comes, I would be more than willing to risk my life and limb to stop them. You rise up against your oppressors. Palestinaians see Israel as their oppressor and they habe no problem rising up in defiance against them.

If they truly see Hamas as their oppressor, why are they all of a sudden incapable of rising up in defiance when they have no such problem when it is Israel? In my mind, that indicates that Hamas is NOT their oppressor.

 

Wasn't Fatah a part of the old PLO run by Arafat?

They were murderous thugs. Without specifics as to how they attempted to create peace and looking at why it was rejected by Israel, why would I assume that the murderous thugs wanted a lasting peace?

Color me skeptical.