To answer the first question, sorry I keep breaking it into smaller components but again, separating it out makes it clearer. If we look at:

• what the IDF intentions are

• what their actions are

• what the effects of their actions are

What people think kind of depends on how well we think it matches up and whether we think the first one is actually an okay justification for the third one.  Like when is it okay shoot when you can see there’s someone in the crossfire.

What their intentions are

The IDF and mainstream Israeli politicians publically stated intention is to “destroy Hamas” in order to protect the safety of Israeli citizens both in Israel and in the part of Palestine that Israel is occupying. Hamas is a broad term encompassing both militant (eg militant) and civil (eg Health Dept) organization. Some politicians have gone a lot further and said their intention is to remove most Palestinians from Gaza. Some have said that no civilians are innocent, but these are minority viewpoints.

What their actions are

This is where it gets tricky, and some of it is contested. What is common ground is that  they have chosen to use an unusually large number of bombs in a built up environment full of civilians, using huge bunker buster bombs, and drone bombing of targets suggested by AI. It also involves a ground offensive, and there appear to be “kill zones.” The IDF has set itself numbers for “acceptable” number of civilians per kill, which may be high, and also permits itself to bomb hospitals and schools. Here is an article which covers some of the AI concerns. They also keep tight control of humanitarian aid and limit what enters. There are allegations that are disputed, of widespread deliberate killing of wounded and civilians and children. We may find forensic evidence in the mass graves. The IDF dispute it.

The effects of their actions

• I’ve covered this already above, but what stands out is the unusually high number of civilians and medics being killed, compared to other modern wars that involved urban warfare. To put the total mortality into perspective, during the Bosnian Genocide 3% of the population were killed over a 2-year period. 1.5% of the Gaza population have been killed in 6 months. The mortality statistics we have are for known deaths, those still buried in rubble are extra.

• Using satellite images of before and after, analysts estimate 57-60% of buildings in Gaza are destroyed, rising to 75% in Gaza City. We also know the hospitals were bombed.

• During the current war monitoring of humanitarian aid entering Gaza has drastically reduced the amount going in. (Before this war, Gaza did not function self-sufficiently.  A significant part of the population (many were refugees) relied on humanitarian aid.

• NGOs on the ground report that the current numbers of starving people will meet the technical threshold for it to be designated famine, by May.

For many of those who are on the side of civilians, there is no possible justification for killing this many people to get to each millitant. International law (eg Geneva Conventions) specifies how to treat civilian populations, and many international experts think that these rules are being breached. Moreover, the blocking of humanitarian aid is problematic, whatever the rationale.

Most of us live in civilisations where we do not find it acceptable to kill innocent people as way to also kill guilty people.

The answer to your second question to some extentit probably depends on which country you’re in.

Generally speaking I think the people with strong opinions about land occupation already had those opinions before this war. The current wave is much more a reaction to what is happening to civilians right now.

I think the general population in the US are more likely to have pre-existing strong opinions about Israel Palestine because it’s regularly in their news, and there is a sizeable US expat population in Israel. For me personally (I live in New Zealand) the human rights situation in Gaza normally sits on my radar alongside the situations in for e.g West Papua and Western Sahara. But right now, there is an active large-scale massacre of civilians taking place in Gaza.

There are reports of Israeli forces sniping children and pregnant women. These are, in each case I’ve seen, denied by Israel but confirmed by aid workers on the ground. There are plenty of confirmed reports of children with high calibre bullet trauma to the head as cause of death. Israel precision-bombed a World Central Kitchen convoy recently. Also a children’s playground. These are just off the top of my head- there are more. I’ve seen too much footage of non-combatants being murdered for my liking. There’s a lot. And there’s no shortage of this kind of incident happening before Oct 7th. It’s a pattern of behaviour.
So, setting aside the question of whether enemy presence is a justification for the killing of civilians, the answer is yes; Israel are almost certainly killing non-combatants outside of staging areas. The sole fact that over thirteen thousand children have been killed is enough of an indicator for me that this campaign is not targeted enough.
I’m trying to keep my language neutral, but it’s difficult because it seems to me that this conflict, by the numbers, is a fight between the IDF, a highly advanced, well trained and supplied modern national military, and the Palestinians in Gaza, a blockaded civilian population. Under these circumstances, it’s hard not to choose a side you want to “win”, when winning for that side simply means being allowed to live under skies which won’t kill you and your family in an instant without warning, cause or explanation.

The question of occupation of Palestine is a very complex subject. For me, the bottom line is that it is illegal, it has always been illegal, and yet Israel keep doing it, despite promising not to. This is part of the background of October 7th, but there’s much more to it. Hamas are just as bad, but it always ends up being the Palestinians that suffer. And I hold (or held) our allies, Israel to a higher standard. I hoped for better from them.

Mate, i have seen enough justification for 7/10 by calling every Israeli a legitimate target. And Hamas themselves called for the eradication of jews in their founding manifesto. Nowadays, that language isnt used on the new manifesto, but Hamas leaders (who just happened to sit comfortably in Qatar and Iran) have called for repetitions of 7/10, again, considering every israeli a valid target.

So, according to your numbers, 20-12 percent of israelis don’t support what the government is doing? Doesn’t sound like israelis completely supports what the government is doing in Palestine. Thats a majority sure, but there’s a not insignificant amount of people that don’t support what the government is doing in Palestine.

Well, we are nearing 100 years of Israel occupation of Palestine. I would very easily argue that Israel runs an apartheid state that discriminates against Palestinians. If you’d like I can prove that to you. And of course south African president Mr. Mandala himself believed the two to be similar. Quote.

“But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

There’s a reason south Africa today was the one to bring international charges against Israel for genocide. South Africa sees the Israel colonization and apartheid of Palestine and palastinians to be a shared struggle, identical to their oppression and their apartheid.

Thanks for the corrections. My knowledge about early Israel is fuzzy at best.

Thank you for the nice words. I just felt like with all the discussion of who did what in the last few years, people are forgetting why Israel and Palestine are fighting in the first place.

Of course there is a lot more to this. For example the fact that Jerusalem is considered a sacred place by three different major religions and so the question who controls it is not only political but also symbolic. It was literally the (official) reason for the crusades during the middle ages. In that way, a neutral Jerusalem might have actually been a good idea. Though of course we don’t know what other problems that would have caused.

real life lore has multiple videos around the entire Israel Palestine complex, this one for starters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jyc-LzXqk0

It can simultaneously be true that Palestinians should not be evicted from their homes and also that nearby countries (including Israel by the way) have an obligation to assist with the refugee crisis. There is no perfect solution to this crisis, and given the lack of collective consensus, each individual actor should be pursuing the least bad option available to them. I think for neighboring countries this includes letting in refugees at a minimum.

Yeah this was the first video of his that I’ve seen, but I’ve also been going through his backlog. He does seem to have his head on straight.

I used to be more in the “Israel has a right defend itself after they were attacked” camp, but then there was continuous reporting about aid being blocked, and people being shot when trying to collect aid, and reporters being obviously targeted, and an apparently wholesale leveling of buildings… and then I saw Shaun’s video, and well that pretty much wrapped it all up.

I think it’s pretty clear now that Israel is using the attack as an excuse to just take over all of that territory, and they don’t care at all about killing everyone there.

Why would anyone accept the creation of a state inside of an already populated region? Now the circonstances are different Israel is already established state and most current Israelis are born there. So we have the choice between a one state solution or a real two state solution not a two state solution that benefits Israel the most. A two state solution where Palestine doesn’t have a right to defend itself will never work. There is always a chance for Palestine to win in long term. Algeria got it’s independence after over 100 years and i believe the longest colonization in history was 1000 years.

I’d spend my life trying to wipe out a country that was founded by evicting nearly a million people from their homes with no right to return, declaring the religion of the colonizers as God’s “chosen people” whilst openly planning to occupy nearly all of its neighbours with the ultimate goal of demolishing every Muslim landmark in your territory to replace them with said Colonizer’s religion.

Israel is clearly perpetrating a genocide right now.
I am not saying Hamas wouldnt do the same if they had the opportunity to, but Israel is doing it right now.

Oct 7 was an attack. It was violent. We still don’t know the casualties caused by hamas. Israeli government has admitted that some of their response killed Israeli citizens. They refuse to cooperate with the UN investigation into the Oct 7 attacks. There’s also been some credible reporting refuting the scale of rape on Oct 7. I’m not trying to minimize an individuals trauma, but the Israeli government’s rationale for bombing Gaza has been the scale of rape.
In short, we know there was a horrific attack on Oct 7.

Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

The Oct 7 attack was about taking hostages. It was not about destroying Israel and its citizens.

Now the bombing of Gaza… If you can’t see that it’s genocidal, try living in Gaza as a Palestinian in 2024. Seriously. Just move there. I’m so fucking tired at seeing these ghoulish fucking hot takes. ‘Actual genocidal acts accompanied by actual genocidal language with actual genocidal social media posts but perpetrated by the team I’m cheering for isn’t genocide because the other side is racist’
Of all my Jewish family and friends, it’s only the people that had parents or were directly impacted by the Holocaust that still support Israel. All of the others acknowledge that that trauma explains their support for that flavor of Zionism. I can’t fathom why someone that is far removed from those events can support this particular genocide. Especially considering some Holocaust victims have spoken out about how fascist the Israeli government is. Does that not make you question anything? Or do you just take everything that’s been spoonfed to you with a smile and a thankyou?
Omfg your references are about things that happened 100s of years ago! The islamization of Jerusalem happened over a period of over 700 years, and stopped over 100 years ago! People are being bombed right now! You’re justifying a genocide over something that stopped over 100 years ago!
What the actual fuck.