Remember when the war was supposed to end when all the hostages were released?
I wonder what all the people who told me that the objective of this war was to free the hostages are going to tell me now?
Remember when the war was supposed to end when all the hostages were released?
I wonder what all the people who told me that the objective of this war was to free the hostages are going to tell me now?
Not sure who you were listening to, but I seem to remember from the beginning that one of Israel’s stated goals was to remove Hamas from power. The hostages getting released was a condition for any pauses or ceasefires.
Their true goal is to erase Palestine period. Hamas could be removed tomorrow, hostages freed and that wouldn’t stop them. They would say the new regime is “backed by Hamas” or “contains remnants of Hamas” or is “influenced by Hamas” and they’ll continue. Until the international community condemns them completely for this, they will continue to their true goal.
Condemns? No they give a shit what
says in public, as long as they’re receiving the weapons and money they need to carry on.
US aid accounts for about 15% of the Israeli military budget. They can carry on without it, unfortunately.
Source? Every report in the last 6 months contradicts your claim.
https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts
Do you need me to explain why you are incorrect or do you already know?
Presumably you’re going to talk about additional aid sent since Oct 7th.
My counter-argument would be that there are more inexpensive ways to kill Palestinians than using expensive munitions, that are well within Israeli capability to attempt.
Regardless, the point of the article is Israel doesn’t need us, so we should start backing out now. Just don’t expect that to magically stop Netanyahu, who can just switch to lower-tech warfighting.
We should start backing out but israel most definitely needs us to continue. Almost all of their aerial related gear is American and a boatload of mortar and tank shells too.
You can bet that israel isn’t fending off those Iranian drone barrages anymore when America stops supplying interceptor missiles either. Hezbollah would gain the upper hand in the north too.
There was an intercept article detailing that meantioned a leaked estimate that israel would run out of ammo in around ~5 months were they not being resupplied by NA.
That was never stated as official policy. Nor the actions aligned with it. You confuse Israel with Hamas, who both stated and acted upon it.
If you step back and try to take emotion out of your consideration, Israel’s actions don’t support that statement. Israel has enough military power to have completely erased Gaza months ago, without sending in a single ground troop, and there would have been absolutely nothing Hamas could do about it.
The situation as it stands right now is basically a textbook example of why the concept of war crimes exists. Taking hostages is a war crime, as is having your fighters not wear a distinct uniform. That second one is critical here, because when that law is broken, it turns civilians into targets.
“An estimated 45,000 bombs were dropped during the first 89 days of conflict (Source: Gaza Media Office). It is 505 bombings a day, 21 bombings per hour.
Gaza is razed and emptied of its inhabitants by 5 months of relentless bombing. 85% of Gaza’s population – 1.7 million people – have been forced to flee bombing and shelling.
1.5 million have taken shelter in Rafah, South Gaza, that has normally a population of 250,000 inhabitants. “
https://www.hi.org/en/news/bombings-in-populated-areas--a-new-extreme-reached-in-gaza
^for a nice update, Israel is now murdering everyone in Rafa too.
It is crystal clear you don’t know what you are talking about, Israel has dropped a nearly unprecedented amount of bombs on a tiny area and for no other reason than to erase Palestinians from the landscape of their homes.
It takes a long time to murder an entire city, especially when the world is watching. Israel is doing it as absolutely fast as it can however.
……
No I will not take my emotion out of my consideration, the difference between you and me is that my emotions are a warning light indicator for when my ideologies and beliefs are wrong and I have strayed too far off the course of love and empathy for others. My emotions connect me with the immense amount of suffering happening in the Palestinian genocide, even if it is just a little bit that connection categorically denies adopting a heinous lack of empathy or care for the Palestinians people as you have.
My emotions are what makes me a wholistic and intellectually consistent person and to be honest it kind of alarms me when people like you seem to have everything backwards like this and treat their emotions as superfluous entities to be discarded in favor of “cold hard rational analysis”.
Have you absolutely no shame? Or are you naïvely trying to sound authoritative? Unlawful combatants existing in an area, does not mean that civilians are greenlight for deliberate targeting.
Nor does it excuse the atrocious and callous 1:10,1:20,1:100 ‘acceptable collateral damage’ Hamas:Civilian ratio the IDF has self assigned and modified up and down based on international outcry.
I’m talking about what actually happens, not what is “right” or “allowable”. In a warzone, if your enemy looks like civilians, then civilians start looking like the enemy. That’s the reason why not wearing uniforms became a war crime in the first place. It drives up civilian casualties.
Cop - But he looked like the perp!
Citizen - How?
Cop - His skin was darker than mine.
Same goes for soldiers killing for nationalistic purposes.
Yes, because in a war, you totally have plenty of time to stop and do a thorough investigation into which one of the five guys within sight just shot at you. Everyone will just pause everything while you figure out who you are supposed to shoot back at.
Isreal’s not exactly shooting at folks “within sight” who “just shot at you”. They’re bombing people from a very comfortable distance.
It was a metaphor to continue a conversation about why having your combatants looking like and mixed in with the civilian population is bad. We’re talking in the abstract, not literal. Keep up.
Statistics for civilian to combatant death are like 9-1 and 7-1, there’s having no choice and then there’s committing warcrimes out of convenience. Bibi says its juuust 2-1, so according to him the majority of Hamas combatants are women and children right?
You know, we’d have better and more accurate statistics about casualties on the ground if the IDF weren’t actively trying to keep a journalist/aid worker kill high score too. You don’t have to support Hamas or the Palestinians but please don’t try to justify the IDF’s actions.
I’m not justifying anything. I’m saying “Hamas is commiting war crimes and that is bad.” That is all I’m saying. There’s been no justifiable actions on either side for decades now.
Or maybe, here’s a thought: You stop reacting capriciously, and asses the situation to make an informed decision for shoot/no-shoot. Retreat to safety and investigate. Israel likes to flout their ‘world class’ ISR and HUMINT capabilities and superior and accurate weapons, but then keeps making “tragic mistakes” that kill civilians, reporters, and aid workers. Hamas et al are definitely not respecting the laws of war, but that’s not license to turn neighborhoods into free-fire zones.
Of course that requires the forces involved respecting civilian life and showing restraint.
Israel actions do support that. What else would happen if Israel completely erased Palestine in a few months? Do you think a single government would support them? The US would break ties overnight .
Genocide doesn’t mean instant or even quick eradication. It can by systematic and slow. Calculated, walking a fine line so they can call it something else. It can even be eugenics, stopping future generations.
There are people in Israel who want to iradicate Palestine, and are very open about it. Some Israeli gov officials are saying similar things. Anyone in the government with half a brain isn’t going to openly state they want to bomb a country out of existence. But we can look at the evidence and see that thie goal is to take that land for themselves and drive out the native population.
mf you say this:
but then blame Palestinians for defending themselves - so kidnapping settlers is a war crime - but ethnically cleansing and bombing children isn’t?
so if I came into your house, squatted in your living room and locked you up in your closet - it’s your fault if you break out and attack me? most sane warcock guzzler ever…
In what fucking universe do you live in where only one side of a given conflict commits war crimes?
Hate to break it to you, but there are no good guys in this conflict to cheer for.
nobody is cheering for the “good guys” - but when one side is actively displacing the other and your response is to just let it happen because of both sides being bad it loses the nuance of the conflict and the people just living there. especially when we’re on a thread about one side asking about a military ceasefire in exchange for the only leverage it has - while the other refuses and actively chooses to continue it’s current onslaught.
if you actually care about lives you wouldn’t argue pedantic points about which side commits war crimes but instead influence policy towards there being less war crimes in general. (maybe starting from the ones causing the most damage…)
Israel’s Defense Chief Says Only Way to Free Hostages Held by Hamas Is to Keep Up Military Pressure in Gaza
Many israelis only recently discovered that Hamas offered a hostage exchange since the very beginning.