Trump: "We will take over Gaza and move all Palestinians out"

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ZZLPHeels said:
I think that most people can agree that skirmishes that result in a few fatalities here and there over a period of several months in a region that has experienced intermittent conflict for generations are expected. A major attack that kills over 1,200 people in one day and results in 200+ others being held hostage is a massive escalation of hostilities. Sort of why no one expected us to invade Afghanistan after the 1993 WTC bombing but no one was surprised at all when we invaded after 9/11.
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Do you think it would have been the same if Hamas had killed 200 Israelis over that time period? How many fatalities are acceptable before one reacts? Would it have been less tragic if Hamas killed 1200 Israelis, but over 2 years instead of in one attack? I'm just trying to understand where the threshold is before it is no longer "expected"
 
RaiGuy said:
Do you think it would have been the same if Hamas had killed 200 Israelis over that time period? How many fatalities are acceptable before one reacts? Would it have been less tragic if Hamas killed 1200 Israelis, but over 2 years instead of in one attack? I'm just trying to understand where the threshold is before it is no longer "expected"
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Hamas tried to kill thousands of Israelis over that time period. Unfortunately for Hamas, and fortunately for Israel, Israel has a solid air defense system. I'm having a hard time understanding why some people can't comprehend the magnitude of a terrorist attack almost on the scale of 9/11 generating a different response than a typical skirmish that has been happening every other day for years.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
Thanks super. I'm not absolving Israel at all. I'm simply stating, reasonably IMO, that Israel would not have launched its massive invasion of Gaza had 10/7 not occurred.
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1. This is not only reasonable; it's incontestable. The pushback you're getting is that you seem to be drawing other, unwarranted inferences from that fact.

2. Al-Qaeda had many legitimate grievances against the United States. There was no reason for the US to station troops in Saudi Arabia after the first Iraq war. But we did, because we were basically uninterested in the opinions of anyone else but the House of Saud. There were other indignities as well.

Did the US military bases in Saudi Arabia cause 9/11? I mean, yes it did, in the "but for" cause sense. But most people hold Al-Q responsible for its decision to blow up buildings, as well they should. On the other hand, we've subsequently tried to pursue policies (more under Obama than W) that take greater account of the impact of American foreign policy on the people who live in a region and not just the heads of state. We've not had a 9/11 since then.

We also invaded Iraq at tremendous cost of lives (both American and Iraqi). Did Al-Q "cause" that by blowing up the Trade Centers. I would say no, using the same principle that I applied above: there was nothing necessary about what happened in Iraq. We did that. We chose to do that. The state and defense departments either turned a blind eye to many of the abuses (Abu Ghraib) or actively supported torture. To single out 9/11 as the cause for the Iraq War or the forever war in Afghanistan is neither logically sound nor helpful in any way to preventing further attacks. And of course, the legit grievances of Al-Q pale in comparison to the legit grievances of the Palestinians in Gaza.

3. I sense that you want the world to be simple, because when it's complicated it's hard to understand. A lot of times on this board, my contributions to threads are to say, "actually, this is really complicated." Sometimes I know about the complexities but it's too long to get into, but more frequently, the inference I draw from "it's complicated" is the recognition that I can't reliably assess the situation. Whatever I think I know is probably not correct, and/or doesn't go very far.

And I admit, that sucks. "It's complicated" is rarely a satisfying answer to anything. The rational response, of course, is to vest policy decisions in experts who do understand the complications, but that sucks too. For one thing, it sucks for the expert. It makes their world very small. I know a guy (husband of an ex-gf) who was fairly prominent in the field of hunger policy in Africa. He did a lot of work with the Gates Foundation, and for a while he was running their African hunger programs. The cost was that he didn't know much about infectious disease in Africa, or hunger in Asia or North America for that matter. He became interested in hunger programs from the world of agricultural technology (he had a PhD in biochem, I think, or something similar), but after 20 years of hunger work, his degree and previous technical experience were useless.

It also sucks for the public, who have to trust the experts and it's hard to evaluate their work because we know none of the complexities. On the whole, though, wouldn't you think it's better for the experts to be making the decisions rather than the public at large -- even though we know that the experts will occasionally make mistakes because a) it's complicated; b) nobody is perfect; and c) sometimes experts, like people in any organization, ascend to a role that exceeds their competence. And you can't really know that until the person is incompetent.

This is the way the world works. Burning it down because you think, on the basis of shallow knowledge at best, that some experts made bad decisions is irrational and destructive.

The more time we have to spend understanding any specific problem, the less time we have for understanding other problems. We can know a little bit about a lot of things, or a lot about a few things. Both are unpalatable choices, but that's the way our world works after centuries of industrialization and scientific discovery.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
Hamas tried to kill thousands of Israelis over that time period. Unfortunately for Hamas, and fortunately for Israel, Israel has a solid air defense system. I'm having a hard time understanding why some people can't comprehend the magnitude of a terrorist attack almost on the scale of 9/11 generating a different response than a typical skirmish that has been happening every other day for years.
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I'm having a hard time understanding why some people can't comprehend that this wasn't a random, isolated incident and they ignore the months and years leading up to this. It's also ironic that the killing of nearly 50,000 Palestinians is justified because Hamas killed 1200. I mean, sorry, they were "collateral damage" because shit like that happens in war, amiright?
 
RaiGuy said:
I'm having a hard time understanding why some people can't comprehend that this wasn't a random, isolated incident and they ignore the months and years leading up to this. It's also ironic that the killing of nearly 50,000 Palestinians is justified because Hamas killed 1200. I mean, sorry, they were "collateral damage" because shit like that happens in war, amiright?
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Sorry Rai, sounds like "victim blaming" to me. We can go back and forth about Israel's conduct in the war, but the bottom line and indisputable truth is that without 10/7, the invasion of Gaza simply doesn't happen.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
Yeah yeah, we get it. You are deflecting because you know that you don't have an argument.
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lmao.

i wasn't really making an "argument," just pointing out how laughable and cruel your position on Palestinian lives is but regardless, you quite clearly aren't in a position to criticize anyone else's arguments, Mr. It All Started on 10/7.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
but the bottom line and indisputable truth is that without 10/7, the invasion of Gaza simply doesn't happen.
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I've tried to engage with you reasonably, but your position here is becoming exceedingly frustrating. You can't be simultaneously "just saying that the assault doesn't happen without 10/7" and also be drawing the inferences that you are. It sure sounds like you're absolving Israel when you tell us that our criticisms are just "victim blaming." It sure seems as though you're trying to halt the causal chain; that you're blaming the electrical spark for the whole warehouse fire instead of looking at the totality of circumstances.

You can't have it both ways. Yes, obviously 10/8 doesn't happen without 10/7 -- not in that direct form. But if that's your only point, then everything that happened after 10/8 is also on Israel. And if you're trying to say that the buildup to 10/7 is irrelevant, then you are saying something completely different than what you purport to be saying.
 
4thgenheel said:
lmao.

i wasn't really making an "argument," just pointing out how laughable and cruel your position on Palestinian lives is but regardless, you quite clearly aren't in a position to criticize anyone else's arguments, Mr. It All Started on 10/7.
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Never said it all started on 10/7. Simply stated that the invasion of Gaza wouldn't have happened without 10/7, which is indisputable unless you are incredibly misinformed.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
Sorry Rai, sounds like "victim blaming" to me. We can go back and forth about Israel's conduct in the war, but the bottom line and indisputable truth is that without 10/7, the invasion of Gaza simply doesn't happen.
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10/7 doesn't happen without all the things that happened leading up to it. There are tons of events that built up to it.
 
superrific said:
I've tried to engage with you reasonably, but your position here is becoming exceedingly frustrating. You can't be simultaneously "just saying that the assault doesn't happen without 10/7" and also be drawing the inferences that you are. It sure sounds like you're absolving Israel when you tell us that our criticisms are just "victim blaming." It sure seems as though you're trying to halt the causal chain; that you're blaming the electrical spark for the whole warehouse fire instead of looking at the totality of circumstances.

You can't have it both ways. Yes, obviously 10/8 doesn't happen without 10/7 -- not in that direct form. But if that's your only point, then everything that happened after 10/8 is also on Israel. And if you're trying to say that the buildup to 10/7 is irrelevant, then you are saying something completely different than what you purport to be saying.
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We're not debating the entirety of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Obviously that has gone on for generations and cannot be tied to any one date. However, the massive escalation that occurred starting on 10/7 and has persisted until today would not have been possible without 10/7. That's not saying that everything was hunky-dory prior to 10/7. It wasn't. Palestinians were being killed by Israelis and thousands of missiles were being launched at Israel by Palestinians. However, that uneasy status quo would not have escalated into full-scale urban warfare with Gaza being largely destroyed without the major terror attack that happened on 10/7. The things that are happening today are more of a direct result of that date than anything else.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
Never said it all started on 10/7. Simply stated that the invasion of Gaza wouldn't have happened without 10/7, which is indisputable unless you are incredibly misinformed.
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and 10/7 wouldn't have happened without decades of Israelis raping and pillaging and murdering Palestinian people.
 
RaiGuy said:
10/7 doesn't happen without all the things that happened leading up to it. There are tons of events that built up to it.
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10/7 didn't have to happen at all. Hamas decided to FAFO. Unfortunately, the Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire are also squarely in the "FO" stage.
 
ZZLPHeels said:
Way to blame the victims. As I said earlier, FAFO. We're in year 2 of FO, thanks to Hamas.
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10/7 was horrific but the people being murdered, raped, pillaged and colonized on a massive scale for decades by Israel are the primary victims here.
 
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