More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the month since Hamas’ terrorist attacks inside southern Israel, the group’s health ministry in Gaza says.
But Hamas officials say the mounting death toll, believed to include thousands of children, has not caused the group to regret its actions in southern Israel, which Israeli officials said killed 1,400 people.
In fact, Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war. It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.
Hamas, these officials say, is more interested in the destruction of Israel than what it sees as the temporary hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli bombardment.
“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s governing politburo, told The New York Times in an interview.
What choice did they realistically have? Be strangled out slowly by Israel while watching settlers pushing borders slowly but surely? No one has given a shit about Palestine since before ISIS / Syria, by my recollection.
That said it’s also, of course, completely inexcusable to kill and take hostage civilians no matter the underlying justifications they might have.
This is just a shit storm about 80 years in the making. And there just isn’t a solution in sight.
Victim blaming as it is. The choice was not to murder people.
The choices were: 1. die slowly while no one is looking 2. make it quicker and put it on full display, hoping that something might happen
What would you choose? The West bank shows that peace isn’t and was never an option.
As I said in an earlier comment:
"Hamas is not Palestinians. Hamas steals aid meant for Palestinians. They embed themselves in civilian areas. They take investments that other groups make to improve Palestinian lives, and dismantle them to use for weaponry. They stockpile food, medicine, and water and don’t share it with civilians when Israel cuts off those crucial resources.
The leaders of Hamas are rich fucks living cushy lives in the UAE and could not care less about Palestinians. This isn’t some freedom fighter group that’s out of options. It’s terrorists who purposely co-opt language from peaceful protestors to make them sound like extremists."
Don’t confuse Palestinians with Hamas, they deserve so much better than that.
WOW, Hamas sure don’t sound like lovely folk. It’s very sad that they’re the only choice Palestinians have. of course, ignoring the option to make peace with the bulldozer currently wrecking your home, and the soldiers about to burn your field and abduct members of your family to be tortured in their prisons.
I don’t think I’d word it that way. Hamas is hardly looking out for them, and we both know Israel isn’t at all. There are no good guys in this war. They’re all using the Palestinians in some way or another – or bombing them. The only good people are the civilians caught between all the warring parties.
I understand what you’re saying though. Hamas is no freedom fighter group and doesn’t deserve any defense you’d give one – but I can understand why a Palestinian would throw in their lot with them. Like you said, they don’t have much of a choice. The other alternative is just not picking any side at all, and trying to just survive.
I suspect however that Hamas doesn’t enjoy as much Palestinian support as they’d like. They’ve had to crack down on people protesting against them in the somewhat recent past. I think if Hamas were eliminated, we’d see a lot of them quite happy, and hopeful about the future.
We can hope, at least. The Palestinians need to be free to govern themselves, without being under Hamas’ rule nor being bombed constantly by Israel.
Yes, we do agree on all of that, but knowing that there are no good guys solves nothing. As you’ve said Hamas is at least not trying to kill and displace Palestinians, out of the two choices Palestinians would absolutely not prefer to be at the mercy of the occupation government.
Palestinians are powerless, and at this point are just cycling through everything around them and blaming it. First blaming the occupation, then the Fatah government for not taking action, and now Hamas for taking action. Everything around them is using them at best, or trying to get rid of them.
No matter what they change their situation will stay the same, because while they are (or were) able to change who governs them, the occupation is a constant thing. If it’s not wrecking their houses and murdering them, it’s blockading them and making any development impossible.
Now what you’re suggesting is for the occupation government to take Hamas’ place, which will make the situation better somehow. This only makes sense if you think that the situation in the West bank is better than the situation in Gaza.
That’s not likely, but yeah, we can at least hope.
Not at all. I want the UN to govern the area as a protectorate while the pillars of government are built, and a global coalition serving as the military. Discourage Israel from bombing unless they want to kill soldiers from all nations, and build up the functions necessary for a healthy democracy.
Even if this was to happen, do you think killing soldiers of every nation would discourage them? That’s just another disgusting act to add to the pile.
The UN would absolutely not be able to protect Palestine from sabotage and sanctions when the US is on the sabotaging side.
Ok so violence IS justified after all
No, of course. That’s why the IDF is currently having a tea party, even after Hamas attacked them, they knew that violence is never the answer, and everyone lived happily ever after. Now close those sleepy eyes and wander to the land of dreams.
I hope you enjoy whatever time you have left
I hope that you don’t turn the other cheek when punched, so you can enjoy yours too :)
Do you tell the Ukrainians this too when they resist the Russians occupying their land?
Oh no only white people are allowed to fight colonists, brown people should just lay down in a ditch and die right?
Did you really just label the Israeli Jewish population as ‘white people’?
Over half of them are of mizrahi ancestry you fuckwit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews_in_Israel
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Hamas isn’t the Palestinian people, their leaders are wealthy and living abroad. Stop muddying the waters and acting as if Hamas is an oppressed group, they’re not, they’re terrorists. They are NOT representative of the Palestinian people.
Is there a reason why we make this distinction for Gaza? Not every country gives its people the ability to elect its leadership, and my understanding is that the ruling party in Gaza is Hamas.
Why is this conflict not portrayed as state on state violence when it’s two state actors?
Because neither Gaza nor the whole of Palestine are a state. That’s been the end-goal of the peace process for a few decades now, but it isn’t the current reality.
It’s the Palestinians in Gaza paying the price regardless. Right or wrong they haven’t ousted Hamas and thus, right or wrong, Israel sees them as one and the same as proven by their indiscriminate bombings.
I didn’t state Hamas represents all Palestinians.
Likewise I didn’t state Hamas is oppressed, a terror organization can’t by definition be “oppressed” in the sense that we should pity them.
What I did state was that driving someone into a corner like Israel has been doing with Palestinians for decades leads to attacks. And it’s not like 100% of Hamas members are non-Palestinians.
Hamas is not Palestinians. Hamas steals aid meant for Palestinians. They embed themselves in civilian areas. They take investments that other groups make to improve Palestinian lives, and dismantle them to use for weaponry. They stockpile food, medicine, and water and don’t share it with civilians when Israel cuts off those crucial resources.
The leaders of Hamas are rich fucks living cushy lives in the UAE and could not care less about Palestinians. This isn’t some freedom fighter group that’s out of options. It’s terrorists who purposely co-opt language from peaceful protestors to make them sound like extremists.
I agree in general, but let’s not pretend they have 0 support from Palestinians, or that there are no Palestinians active in Hamas. Israel sees them as one and the same as evidenced by their indiscriminate bombings. Just as Hamas sees all Israelis as violent settlers and directly responsible for massacres like Deir Yassin and the Nakba in general. Neither which is true, of course. All military, paramilitary and terrorist organizations work hard to dehumanize and generalize their opposition to ruthless brutes when that in reality is only a small part of the actual people involved and impacted by the conflict. For every ruthless murderer killed on either side hundreds or thousands of innocent die.
To me it’s immaterial that some Palestinians support and are part of them. You would need a significant level of support for it to be significant. Israel tries to paint everyone the same to justify their acts, but it’s absolutely incorrect.
What I mean in general though is Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a liberation front. They aren’t freedom fighters with their backs against the wall and out of options. They’re just craven butchers.
Sure. I agree on your description of Hamas.
Glad to hear it!
You’re talking about israel not Hamas.
Even if one believes that violence was the only option that the Palestinians had left, how can anyone justify their indiscriminate targeting of civilians instead of going after military and political targets? (I don’t mean you btw, I mean in general.)
Nobody ever won a revolution by killing their oppressor’s grandma and taking children hostage, so it’s clear that Hamas are less freedom fighters and moreso simple terrorists.
I agree
I don’t think it takes a military tactician to figure out that going after a concert was one of the dumbest moves Hamas could’ve made. They could have gone after any number of Israeli Military or government targets and still had understanding and maybe even support from some Western powers. By going after a bunch of innocent civilians, they made it so they will have far fewer allies, and made it so countries like the US can easily justify sending weapons to Israel.
The choice was really simple. Not opposing a two state solution would have been a great start. All their actions have been to subvert peace or compromise using violence at every turn.
Now you can twist that however you like, but will you really deny that having an independent internationally-recognized Palestinin state is better than endless war, thousands of civilians dead, etc? Albeit perhaps less than they want or think they deserve? It would be a start.
Face it, their “all or nothing” approach is exactly responsible for the current state of affairs. They don’t deny that, they are proud of it. Read their own words.
Hamas or Israel? Hamas actually announced support for a two state solution back in like 2006, and also in 2017:
Israel, on the other hand, has never granted Palestinian statehood on terms they could possibly accept. Look at the Oslo Accords - all kinds of concessions for Palestine, this insane military framework going through the West Bank - but no statehood. Basically every time there’s a “peace process” they pose these decreasingly compelling terms.
One state solution is making more and more sense to me these days. It sounds like a radical solution given the polarization and history, but there’s a lot more opportunity for a workable solution that way that actually allows reparations.
that’s advocating for a single state (theirs) and Israel to cease to exist. how very reasonable of them
The concern is exactly the opposite. Israel has been procedurally annexing Palestinian land for decades - the concern, if anything, is that a one state solution would abrogate the rights of Palestinians, because that’s precisely what Israel has done with annexations repeatedly in the past. It’s in fact a requirement to abolish the religious/ethnic supremacism inherent in the Israeli state, in which political parties are even banned from even opposing a Jewish nationalist identity (the 2018 “nation-state” law), and start from scratch with a constitution that actually guarantees equal rights across ethnic groups, in order to achieve equal rights in the region, barring something like the bottom half of Israel being given up to allow a contiguous, fully independent state between Gaza and the West Bank.
The problem most of you aren’t dealing with is that Israel was founded fairly recently (75 years) on the ethnic cleansing/expulsion of the Palestinian population. These endless repeated claims about “Israel’s right to exist”, “Israel’s right to defense”, “Israel’s right to sovereignty” - many of them aren’t even true under international law in the first place, and they ignore the problem that the land they currently claim was unlawfully obtained, and that the people it was stolen who still live under Israeli rule have been oppressed, starved, murdered, poisoned, etc. for decades, under a dehumanizing system of apartheid. There is no just solution attainable in this conflict without concessions from Israel.
so you are saying the only solution is for Israel to not exist. sounds like you want peace as much as hamas does
Differentiate the state of Israel - a religious and ethnic supremacist state from its beginning, by definition - and the inhabitants of the state. Getting tired of that little rhetorical trick where disagreeing with a state actively committing a genocide is supposed to make you sound “antisemitic”.
Settlers weren’t in Gaza
The solution: Change the material conditions of the people in Gaza with an influx of Capital. But alas, there’s a reason the Tulsa Race Massacre happened.
There are non-violent solutions. They could come to terms with the fact they lost this conflict a long time ago, pacify themselves, and sue for a viable peace; that’s the best path out of this long conflict I can see. Constant attacks against an enemy they cannot defeat is what led to their current miserable situation.
There aren’t any non-violent solutions that would make any impact, Israel has made sure of that. Protests in Israel and Palestine are suppressed and ignored by the increasingly far right Israeli state. Protests in the west are dismissed as anti-semitism and both parties continue to send aid. Boycott divestment and sanctions have been made illegal. Every vote in the u.n. or attempt to try the Israeli government on human rights abuses is vetoed by the u.s.
If you want to see what happens when they give up on violence look at the west bank. Fatah has long ceded military control to Israel and have they been rewarded with any degree of autonomy or rights for Palestinians? No just continual encroachment and violence from settlers and the IDF.
So your solution is for the palestinians to just give up? Constant guerrilla attacks are what drove the US out of afghanistan and iraq and vietnam. So how is that not going to work for Hamas? Hamas has a network of tunnels below Gaza so that entire region will become a kill zone and Israel won’t be able to hold it. History doesn’t repeat itself but it sure does rhyme.
Hamas is not in any way representative of Palestinians. They steal aid meant for Palestinians, dismantle humanitarian projects meant to help Palestinians, and hoard food and water and medicine from Palestinians.
This isn’t about “Palestinians giving up”. This is about a terrorist group leeching off of an already oppressed people to commit wanton violence, and then hide behind the civilians to defend themselves.
The solution is to eliminate Hamas, including its leaders who are rich and live it up in the UAE, and liberate both Palestinians and Israelis from their tyranny – and then have the UN provide civil government for Palestine and stop Israel from constantly bombing Palestine.
The people targeting innocent people at a music festival are not fighting for Palestinian freedom. Their cause, as this article shows, is violence and destruction. Don’t confuse them with actual Palestinians.
There was no Gaza occupation. The conflict happens because Hamas goal is to drive Jews to the sea, to completely destroy Israel. Which it shows again and again that it is willing to do with maximum cruelty.
True, there was no direct occupation anymore with Israeli soldiers patrolling the streets. But the whole of Gaza was walled off, blockaded by sea, air, etc. The flow of goods (even from Egypt) was subject to Israeli control. The flow of people was tightly controlled as well. The IDF conducted military operations in Gaza at will. The IDF has killed children, journalists, etc with impunity, even before this operation.
Hamas is terrible, their actions are terrible, and their stated goals are terrible. But the conflict is not solely because of them. The government of Israel is far from blameless in perpetuating the conflict. Especially as some Israeli politicians are on the record as supporting Hamas’ rise to power in order to delegitimize Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, and specifically to derail the two state solution and any chance at a lasting peace.
What particular politician say have no importance, since it is not one or two politician that defines direction of the country. I seriously doubt that there would be blockade if it were not for Hamas. If you do not trust Israel on that, then at least trust Egypt.
As for IDF incursions into Gaza in the past, need I remind what triggered them?
Yeah, this guy has had zero influence on Israeli policy.
And I’m sure the other side would list grievances that necessitated their actions as well. The larger point I was making is that this conflict is not just one side’s fault.
Oh! You are suggesting that attempts to normalize relationships with Gaza such as giving more permits for work in Israel is actually a devious anti-Palestinian plan? The reality you live in… how can you complain about blockade and reduction of blockade at the same time??!
My solution is for Palestinians to surrender and try to achieve their goals diplomatically rather than through violence, that is not the same as giving up on achieving their goals. It’s possible for them to negotiate for right of return, freedom of travel, national recognition, removal of the blockade, autonomy, peace, safety, freedom, economic prosperity, etc., Although it will be a bitter pill for the uncompromising to swallow, the only thing I think they will have to give up on is the annexed lands. Those were lost to them after they declared war multiple times and were defeated, they are unlikely to get them back. Further violence will not change this and would likely leave them with even less.
The US sent military into these places for political ends. When these engagements became expensive and unpopular, the politics shifted and the US withdrew. Israel has no where to withdraw to and their goals are not political, they are existential. Giving up for Israel means being genocided and driven into the sea. Israeli political distaste for this ongoing conflict will not end it.
That’s quite an imagination. At best they will take out some IDF soldiers but still lose this vastly asymmetrical conflict. It seems to me that Israel is just bombing the tunnels and causing them to collapse, because building them under civilians using them as human shields wasn’t the deterrent Hamas thought it was. Furthermore, I expect Israel to annex more lands if that’s what it takes to keep themselves safe.
The sticking point for diplomacy is not the annexed lands but the right to return. Arafat would’ve accepted most of the border changes, except the ones in east Jerusalem, and maybe even Hamas would. But Israel will not accept a deal with the right to return, as it would change the demographics so much as to make Jewish democracy nearly impossible. Palestinians won’t accept a deal without it as so many are still cramped in refugee camps looking to return. Combine that with the fact that Israel has almost all the power and therefore no reason to negotiate and the idea of a diplomatic solution without heavy outside pressure is impossible
A one-state solution is not viable at this point. I meant right of return to Palestinian lands, not Israeli lands. My understanding is that if Gazans leave through Egypt, for example, they cannot return unless they get both Egyptian and Israeli permission at present.
It is this obstinance that brought them to here, fighting an unwinnable guerilla war as ever more freedoms and lands ebb away. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but if they don’t they risk losing more lives and potentially all their lands.
Safety is a reason, it is Israel’s stated purpose for this war and historical actions against Palestinians. But you’re right, Israel has most of the leverage and any viable treaty would need to be written accordingly.
They could have abandoned their goal and seek coexistence. But using your logic ask yourself what choice does israel have as a response to an enemy like hamas?
Not bombing the shit out of innocent civilians and not committing war crimes is a great start for coexistence. To late for that now though… the only course from here is either a complete cease fire and the releasing of Palestine back to the plaistinians or complete brutal genocide of an entire group of people. It seems the governments of the world are attempting to choose the later…
This has been developing for longer than recent history. I sort of agree that israel should have continued one of the last 2-3 wars until the fundamentalist extremists surrendered or were killed. Instead of giving land back and attempting to serk peace. I think it was a mistake to try 5-6 times. after 2 or 3 it’s clear the enemy doesn’t want anything less than a war of extermination so they should give them that.
I guess the question remains, Who is the enemy to you? Is it Hamas? Is it the people of Palestine? Is it the children and innocent people being slaughtered in mass? Where does the violence stop? What is the limit of “acceptable losses”? Why do the cries and suffering of one group get listened to more than another group?
Fuck Hamas and fuck the Israeli government. Bring peace, not death and war.
I consider Hamas as the enemy of israel. And i am not sure if I consider hamas an enemy of palestine but they are certainly bad for the ones that are not in favor of a war of extermination.
I understand that palestinians even had a civil war because too many of them were against peace even after they lost the war. I suppose israel had concerns of escalation and didn’t join the war in favor of those who wanted coexistence.
So ideally palestinians should be “telling on” hamas to israel. Hamas is the enemy in general.
What is happening in the West Bank right now where there is no Hamas? Are you purposely ignoring that israel is giving paramilitary terrorists weapons to shoot innocent Palestinians AND protects those Israeli terrorists with their army?
ISRAEL is the party that does not want peace. They have openly stated they want to ethnically cleanse Palestine. Their government has stated wanting to nuke Gaza.
I am sure that they have all sorts of people and some of them were always this way but I suspect they were radicalized with the terrorist attacks. I mean at a personal level if someone kills your family you’d probably don’t care about nuances or context. It just happens that they have more means to carry out their “vengeance”.
My man these terror Zionists have been shooting innocent Palestinians in the west bank wayyy before Oct 7.
Oct 7 was done as a response to these terror Zionists. Hamas cited it as a direct reason for their counter offensive.
You can use your comment to justify the Hamas members, but not the israeli colonists purposely seeking conflict and killing Palestinians.
I know the world didn’t start on October 7. The pogroms have been going on for millenniums.
Don’t blame the Palestinians for the Europeans and Americans which love throwing religious minorities under the bus. If the Zionists want revenge on Germany they seen to have taken a wrong exit on the highway.
Also this.
https://youtu.be/8RVoPZPKxLY?si=H-Cz14daVxpHXSHO
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https://piped.video/8RVoPZPKxLY?si=H-Cz14daVxpHXSHO
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WW2 is recent history in the context of anti semitism. to give you an idea here is a selected list of pogroms of the last 2000 years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom#Selected_list
EDIT: I guess you don’t want to accept that you lack basic knowledge on the issue.
Did the Palestinians do ww2?
The same as Hamas, not kill civilians indiscriminately. But both sides are horrible and I’m not the least bit interested in a breakdown of who’s the worst. They both suck, and have for more than half a century.
That’s why I say this is a shit storm loooong in the making.
So you implied that hamas didn’t have a choice but now you say they did have a choice? Which one is it?
I meant war and conflict in general as what choice do they have. Didn’t you read all of the first post? Killing civilians is always inexcusable.
Palestinians didn’t have a choice on who “leads” them either. Hamas hasn’t held a vote for 20 years.