Israel Hamas War, West Bank, Etc. | Hostilities resume

[farce©]

It is unfortunate for the civilians of Gaza that Hamas has put tunnels under essentially every aspect of civilian infrastructure.

It is unfortunate for the civilians of Gaza that the Israelis are intent on genocide.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

So if there was an alleged terrorist tunnel under your kid's school with maybe a terrorist in the tunnel, you would be fine if it got bombed while the kids were there because it's just unfortunate that the terrorist built a tunnel under it? Blowing up kids would be sad but justified?

Of course I wouldn't be OK with my kids being blown up because a terrorist group built a bunker under their school. I'd be mad at the terrorist group for building a bunker under the school and I'd be mad at the enemy military for blowing up the school. Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields and Israel doesn't give much care to Palestinian civilians. That's why the Palestinian civilians have it rough right now.

Unfortunately, in war nothing is ever perfect. This isn't 1860 or 1917 where armies simply line up and charge each other. We literally incinerated hundreds of thousands of civilians in a matter of days in Japan because that was a better option than a land invasion.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

It is unfortunate for the civilians of Gaza and Israel that Hamas is intent on genocide.

Fixed it.

 

[farce©]

Fixed it.

Fuck you. Don’t “fix” my words.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

Thank you.

Happy to help.

 

[RaiGuy]

Of course I wouldn't be OK with my kids being blown up because a terrorist group built a bunker under their school. I'd be mad at the terrorist group for building a bunker under the school and I'd be mad at the enemy military for blowing up the school. Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields and Israel doesn't give much care to Palestinian civilians. That's why the Palestinian civilians have it rough right now.

Unfortunately, in war nothing is ever perfect. This isn't 1860 or 1917 where armies simply line up and charge each other. We literally incinerated hundreds of thousands of civilians in a matter of days in Japan because that was a better option than a land invasion.

So, tell me this. I have asked this from the start to pro-Israel supporters and have yet to get a clear answer. How does Israel win this? They keep saying that they won't stop until Hamas is destroyed, yet all they've done is made it easier for Hamas to recruit. Is the end game to completely destroy Gaza? Is it to kill everyone because there could be Hamas members amongst the people? How does it all end? Wars against guerilla groups are rarely successful. Just look at Vietnam and Afghanistan. When does it all end?

Israel keeps evacuating civilians into "safe zones" and then repeatedly bombs the safe zones. Why send them to areas that they claim has Hamas areas and then bomb them? You know why? Because they're making shit up. They aren't held accountable and people like you will justify every move they make because of Hamas. They have been bombing Gaza for nearly 20 months now, against an opponent that doesn't have a military, no jets or tanks. Where do you expect the people to hide? Nearly every area in Gaza has been bombed. Do you actually believe that Hamas was able to build tunnels under all of Gaza? Or that there are that many Hamas members spread out around all of Gaza? Use some common sense.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

So, tell me this. I have asked this from the start to pro-Israel supporters and have yet to get a clear answer. How does Israel win this? They keep saying that they won't stop until Hamas is destroyed, yet all they've done is made it easier for Hamas to recruit. Is the end game to completely destroy Gaza? Is it to kill everyone because there could be Hamas members amongst the people? How does it all end? Wars against guerilla groups are rarely successful. Just look at Vietnam and Afghanistan. When does it all end?

Israel keeps evacuating civilians into "safe zones" and then repeatedly bombs the safe zones. Why send them to areas that they claim has Hamas areas and then bomb them? You know why? Because they're making shit up. They aren't held accountable and people like you will justify every move they make because of Hamas. They have been bombing Gaza for nearly 20 months now, against an opponent that doesn't have a military, no jets or tanks. Where do you expect the people to hide? Nearly every area in Gaza has been bombed. Do you actually believe that Hamas was able to build tunnels under all of Gaza? Or that there are that many Hamas members spread out around all of Gaza? Use some common sense.

Good questions. How does Israel win this? I don't think either side can "win" in this current escalation. The best Israel can hope for is that Hamas's military wing is decimated and its ability to wage another 10/7-type attack against Israel, or to launch thousands of rockets into Israel, is destroyed. So far, I believe Israel has accomplished this. I think ideally a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel patrolled by international peacekeepers would be a good interim outcome, although I can't think of many countries that would jump up and down at the idea of sending armed forces to the Gaza Strip.

A long-term outcome ideal outcome would be similar to the Marshall Plan in Europe and Japan after WWII, where foreign investment in rebuilding Gaza is tied to the elimination of Hamas there. You said that Israel is likely radicalizing people through this war, but I don't believe that is as much of an issue as it is made out to be. Japanese soldiers were literally turning themselves into suicide bombers against Americans in World War II, and Germans fought us to the death and yet within a decade we were the best of friends. At the end of the day most people just want to live and live without excessive worries, and if given the option of peace and prosperity or revenge and continued destruction, most will choose the former.

Hamas's tunnel network in Gaza has been extensively covered. Yes, I believe that they have been able to build tunnels in every part of Gaza and this has been confirmed by media and foreign intelligence reports. This is not saying that there are tunnels under every building. That said, I don't believe there is a city or populated area in Gaza that doesn't have tunnels underneath.

 

[4thgenheel]

What if reference depends on what I'm saying. I wouldn't accuse just any Muslim of being a terrorist/Jihadist. However, I, as I did above, would probably reference "Muslims" when saying "they just want their land back". Again, nearly 75% of all Palestinian Muslims supported the actions of Hamas on October 7th.

again, there are @ 2 BILLION muslims on the planet.

your wording in that initial post was inappropriate and inflammatory and islamophobic, period.

 

[ZenMode]

What’s the excuse for targeting these civilians in a hospital courtyard? Are these also human shields?

They aren't targeting civilians. The used "bunker buster" bombs, which are used for underground targets.

The question you should be asking is why Hamas is using international aid to build tunnels and why are they using civilian buildings, like hospitals, as military facilities.

Israeli 'bunker buster' bombs used in Gaza hospital strike, experts say

CCTV footage obtained and verified by the BBC shows the moment before impact and the immediate aftermath. Munitions experts told BBC Verify that the strikes and destruction are consistent with the use of so-called "bunker buster" bombs - designed to hit underground targets. BBC Verify's Merlyn...

www.bbc.com

 

[RaiGuy]

They aren't targeting civilians. The used "bunker buster" bombs, which are used for underground targets.

Israeli 'bunker buster' bombs used in Gaza hospital strike, experts say

CCTV footage obtained and verified by the BBC shows the moment before impact and the immediate aftermath. Munitions experts told BBC Verify that the strikes and destruction are consistent with the use of so-called "bunker buster" bombs - designed to hit underground targets. BBC Verify's Merlyn...

www.bbc.com

Ohh, I see. Those bombs magically avoid the people walking above ground to reach the bunkers. That makes it fine. They totally don't cause significant damage above ground. Wow, Israel is so thoughtful. Thank you, Israel.

 

[ZenMode]

@RaiGuy

Here's another question that I think you should be asking.. What is an acceptable number of civilian casualties at this point in the war? Given that Hamas killed a thousand civilians in 8 hours, using nothing more than knives and handheld guns, what, and your opinion, is an acceptable total number of civilian deaths in Gaza at this point?

 

[ZZLPHeels]

Ohh, I see. Those bombs magically avoid the people walking above ground to reach the bunkers. That makes it fine. They totally don't cause significant damage above ground. Wow, Israel is so thoughtful. Thank you, Israel.

At least they are guided and targeted, unlike the thousands of missiles that Hamas and PIJ have launched at Israeli civilians. Hell, one of those missiles even blew up a Palestinian hospital.

 

[RaiGuy]

@RaiGuy

Here's another question that I think you should be asking.. What is an acceptable number of civilian casualties at this point in the war? Given that Hamas killed a thousand civilians in 8 hours, using nothing more than knives and handheld guns, what, and your opinion, is an acceptable total number of civilian deaths in Gaza at this point?

The answer to any question about "acceptable" civilian deaths should be 0. Even if there was a Hamas leader hiding underground, it is not worth killing dozens of people in a bombing to reach him. That makes no sense. And this isn't a once time thing, it's been happening for nearly 20 months. You also continue to focus on Oct 7th as the start date, but there were hundreds of Palestinians killed leading up to Oct 7th in 2023. Do they not matter?

 

[RaiGuy]

At least they are guided and targeted, unlike the thousands of missiles that Hamas and PIJ have launched at Israeli civilians. Hell, one of those missiles even blew up a Palestinian hospital.

Ah yes, how many of those missiles have actually killed any Israeli civilians? How much damage have those thousands of missiles caused? Now compare that to Israeli missiles. There is no comparison.

and lol at you still believing that it was one of those missiles that blew up a Palestinian hospital after Israel has bombed every hospital since then multiple times.

 

[superrific]

You also continue to focus on Oct 7th as the start date, but there were hundreds of Palestinians killed leading up to Oct 7th in 2023. Do they not matter?

You've asked this question dozens of times now. I think the answer is clearly no. Those hundreds of deaths are inconvenient for the current narrative and thus will those deaths be ignored. They will be given lip service, like, "it was definitely wrong to do that but . . . " There will be no meaningful effort to synthesize these other facts and realities into the narrative that has been spun.

 

[ZenMode]

The answer to any question about "acceptable" civilian deaths should be 0.

In a perfect world, yes, there would never be war to cause civilian deaths.

We don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world where war happens and civilians are part of the collateral damage of war. So, given that the war IS happening and there IS collateral damage, some of which is in the form of civilians deaths, how many do you believe is an acceptable number at this point?

Even if there was a Hamas leader hiding underground, it is not worth killing dozens of people in a bombing to reach him. That makes no sense. And this isn't a once time thing, it's been happening for nearly 20 months.

Yes, it has been happening for nearly 20 months and will likely continue until Hamas is destroyed or as close to being destroyed as possible.

You also continue to focus on Oct 7th as the start date, but there were hundreds of Palestinians killed leading up to Oct 7th in 2023. Do they not matter?

Yes, because October 7th is by far the largest escalation of violence in the ongoing dispute and is the reason for the current war.

 

[ZZLPHeels]

Ah yes, how many of those missiles have actually killed any Israeli civilians? How much damage have those thousands of missiles caused? Now compare that to Israeli missiles. There is no comparison.

and lol at you still believing that it was one of those missiles that blew up a Palestinian hospital after Israel has bombed every hospital since then multiple times.

The only reason Israelis haven’t been killed en masse by those missiles is because Israel invested in a missile defense system. I know it is surprising to learn that one of the two parties in this war actually cares about the lives of its people.

And every single western intelligence outlet independently confirmed that the hospital was blown up by a PIJ rocket. Shame the Palestinians are being bombed by their own people like that.

 

[ZenMode]

You've asked this question dozens of times now. I think the answer is clearly no. Those hundreds of deaths are inconvenient for the current narrative and thus will those deaths be ignored. They will be given lip service, like, "it was definitely wrong to do that but . . . " There will be no meaningful effort to synthesize these other facts and realities into the narrative that has been spun.

What are the alternatives to Israel doing the best they can to minimize civilian deaths? Should they just not respond to the October 7th attack and 'hope' that Hamas has a sudden change of heart and stops being terrorists?

 

[superrific]

What are the alternatives to doing Israel doing the best they can to minimize civilian deaths? Should they just not respond to the October 7th attack and 'hope' that Hamas has a sudden change of heart and stops being terrorists?

1. Well, India did that after the horrifying Mumbai massacre. They responded diplomatically, but did not give the terrorists the big counterattack the terrorists wanted.

The terrorism died down almost immediately thereafter. Then Modi came in with his race- and religion-baiting and tensions gradually increased and now they have come to a head. but the "non-response" to the Mumbai attacks stands as probably the most effective response to a major escalation this century.

2. The thing that the "hit them back" crowd doesn't seem to grasp is that the terrorists know it's coming. Not only that, they want it to come. It's not as if they are idiots who think, "we'll infiltrate, and kill 1000 of their people, and they will do nothing to us." They kill 1000 people in order to start a war, because war serves their purposes. This isn't to say that retaliation is never in order, but it just shouldn't the default, go-to position every time. As Gandhi said, eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

3. We don't get enough study (or reporting on) the sociology of terrorism. To understand terrorism, of course, you have to understand the terrorists. We usually approach this from the perspective of the young recruited suicidal bomber. But what about the top brass?

Here's something worth thinking: both the military wing of the IRA and Hamas REALLY did not want to disarm. It took almost a decade for Sinn Fein, having recognized the need for peace and an end to the troubles, to convince the terrorists to lay down arms. Same with Hamas, probably considerably more so. Is that because the IRA and Hamas are similar organizations? Not at all. Their enemies are very different; their complaints very different; their identities very different. And yet. Throw in the PKK into the mix as well. Why can't these leaders see the right thing to do?

When you think about the terrorist leaders as human actors, the answer becomes obvious: they are soldiers, and what is a soldier when the war is over? Nothing. Hamas leaders have given their lives for the struggle. To call off the struggle, then, requires a huge act of self-sacrifice. Are the people who ascend to the top of terrorist organizations likely to be invested in self-sacrifice? I would think not. Thus do they keep fighting; they literally have nothing else in their lives.

This also explains the bizarre persistence of tiny factional groups that persist in their fight even after history had long abandoned them. I'm thinking here about Shining Path in Peru, among other splinter groups. Shining Path has been engaged in an insurrection against the imperialist lackey Peruvian government since 1980. Fine -- in 1980, the prospect for revolution was bright enough to spawn many insurgencies in various places around the globe. I wouldn't have agreed with them, but whatever. Anyway, Shining Path has had less than 500 members for over a decade. And yet they are still out there in the mountains, doing some kidnappings and preaching against capitalist oppression and even the occasional bombing. Why? What are they hoping to achieve? I would say: nothing. They are just doing what they do. They're finishing their careers, so to speak.

4. In order for terrorist policy to be effective, we need to take better account of this phenomenon. An economist might call this the "agency costs of terrorist organizations," not unlike the agency costs of government officials or corporate executives. I've chosen not to feature that terminology because it seems a bit perverse to think of Hamas as an agency cost issue, but whatever.

I don't have any concrete ideas on what policies need to change as a result of these considerations. I do think it should be a significant consideration, much more than it appears to be now. Two possible lessons that might be taken, which point in contradictory ways:

A. You cannot assault a terrorist group into submission. The terrorists live to fight.
B. The terrorists are likely to continue terror until either some superior political force supplants them (e.g. the rise of Sinn Fein to dominate the IRA) or they are dead.

 

[ZenMode]

1. Well, India did that after the horrifying Mumbai massacre. They responded diplomatically, but did not give the terrorists the big counterattack the terrorists wanted.

Ok.

The terrorism died down almost immediately thereafter. Then Modi came in with his race- and religion-baiting and tensions gradually increased and now they have come to a head. but the "non-response" to the Mumbai attacks stands as probably the most effective response to a major escalation this century.

The difference here is that is that neither October 7th, nor the previous Hamas attacks on Israel, are just one-off terrorist attacks due to "general dislike" for Jews or Western culture or whatever. They are tied the fact that Israel is occupying Muslim holy land.

2. The thing that the "hit them back" crowd doesn't seem to grasp is that the terrorists know it's coming. Not only that, they want it to come. It's not as if they are idiots who think, "we'll infiltrate, and kill 1000 of their people, and they will do nothing to us." They kill 1000 people in order to start a war, because war serves their purposes. This isn't to say that retaliation is never in order, but it just shouldn't the default, go-to position every time. As Gandhi said, eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

3. We don't get enough study (or reporting on) the sociology of terrorism. To understand terrorism, of course, you have to understand the terrorists. We usually approach this from the perspective of the young recruited suicidal bomber. But what about the top brass?

Here's something worth thinking: both the military wing of the IRA and Hamas REALLY did not want to disarm. It took almost a decade for Sinn Fein, having recognized the need for peace and an end to the troubles, to convince the terrorists to lay down arms. Same with Hamas, probably considerably more so. Is that because the IRA and Hamas are similar organizations? Not at all. Their enemies are very different; their complaints very different; their identities very different. And yet. Throw in the PKK into the mix as well. Why can't these leaders see the right thing to do?

When you think about the terrorist leaders as human actors, the answer becomes obvious: they are soldiers, and what is a soldier when the war is over? Nothing. Hamas leaders have given their lives for the struggle. To call off the struggle, then, requires a huge act of self-sacrifice. Are the people who ascend to the top of terrorist organizations likely to be invested in self-sacrifice? I would think not. Thus do they keep fighting; they literally have nothing else in their lives.

This also explains the bizarre persistence of tiny factional groups that persist in their fight even after history had long abandoned them. I'm thinking here about Shining Path in Peru, among other splinter groups. Shining Path has been engaged in an insurrection against the imperialist lackey Peruvian government since 1980. Fine -- in 1980, the prospect for revolution was bright enough to spawn many insurgencies in various places around the globe. I wouldn't have agreed with them, but whatever. Anyway, Shining Path has had less than 500 members for over a decade. And yet they are still out there in the mountains, doing some kidnappings and preaching against capitalist oppression and even the occasional bombing. Why? What are they hoping to achieve? I would say: nothing. They are just doing what they do. They're finishing their careers, so to speak.

4. In order for terrorist policy to be effective, we need to take better account of this phenomenon. An economist might call this the "agency costs of terrorist organizations," not unlike the agency costs of government officials or corporate executives. I've chosen not to feature that terminology because it seems a bit perverse to think of Hamas as an agency cost issue, but whatever.

I don't have any concrete ideas on what policies need to change as a result of these considerations. I do think it should be a significant consideration, much more than it appears to be now. Two possible lessons that might be taken, which point in contradictory ways:

A. You cannot assault a terrorist group into submission. The terrorists live to fight.
B. The terrorists are likely to continue terror until either some superior political force supplants them (e.g. the rise of Sinn Fein to dominate the IRA) or they are dead.

Based on the entirety of your response, I'm left to believe that, in your opinion, Israel should essentially do nothing in response to 10/7?