Israel And Hamas At War

Tomorrow there will be a Pro Palestinian rally in London. Having attended many counter rallies across the years I can tell you that nobody will be protesting Hamas and their cruel brutality of both Palestinian and Israelis. They won’t be looking for a change in regime. They will targeting all their ire at Jews. Not Israel but Jews. That’s why Jewish schools have shut today. Their hatred of the Jew is greater than their love of an Arab living in Gaza

never again in my lifetime will we stand for this

 

No, they won’t be condemning Hamas and they should, but neither side will simply condemn the behaviour of those who hold their power. It’s the hardest cycle to break when people are being killed. Each others words can be replaced with each others.

I appreciate that’s trite, because Israel has to ensure the safety of its citizens who face an existential threat. But nevertheless, both Palestinians and Israelis feel the same fears of annihilation right now.

 

I agree with that but I just can’t fathom out how people globally don’t come out and protest Hamas!

Anyway the wheels are now in motion and it’s not going to be pretty. Our only hope is that the the combined biggest threat to Israel and Gazan Arabs can be eradicated and all people live in peace from that moment onwards

 

I don't agree. Nowadays people won't believe anything they haven't seen with their own eyes. The flip side of a healthy scepticism from propaganda is often an open acceptance of propaganda which confirms our biases. Sometimes this needs challenging in the harshest ways.

 

Agree but even "evidence" is no longer reliable. What started with Photoshop has now evolved into AI generated videos and fake recordings.

Even this week a "recording of Starmer" berating his staffers circulated social media. It was even reposted by Tory MPs desperate for any dirt on Labour.

Of course it was a clever fake but, as you say, confirmation bias made those who wanted it to be true very accepting and unquestioning.

 

Well I have now seen the pictures thanks to the Israeli official Twitter account posting them as adverts on my feed.

Wish they hadn't.

 

I read an interesting piece this morning. I’ve only got it in print form so I can’t cut and paste it so here’s a summary.

In a speech on 3 October Iran’s leader Imam Khamenei, gave what some have interpreted as an early warning. Quoting some mumbo-jumbo from the Quran (of course) the old beardy said: “die of your rage!” That’s right. Be angry, and die of your rage. And this will happen. They are dying. With God’s help, this matter of ‘die of your rage’ is happening now as regards the Zionist regime.”

Essentially, this is being seen as evidence that Hamas planned their attack in a way that they knew would trigger massive Israeli retribution.

Hamas calculate that, enraged by the barbarity of the attacks, Israel would unleash unprecedented collective punishment against Gaza - prompting both Hezbollah and West Bank militants to join in the fight. In turn this will set off a wave of anti-Semitic demonstrations in western cities that will stretch some countries' traditional support for Israel. Meanwhile combat losses and anger over the complete failure of Netanyahu’s strategy of ‘managing’ the conflict, will divide Israeli society causing the country to implode from within.

So, in short, Israel’s inevitable heavy response will lead to the country’s downfall.

If you're interested I shall be walking up and down Rickmansworth high street staring manically, while ringing a bell and shouting this all afternoon

 

If you’re anti Israel, you will see Hamas as being a product of Israeli violence and apartheid policies.

Reinforcing the philosophical view that nothing matters as long as the subjective ends justify the subjective means however is bonkers, as that mindset, adopted by the other side, enables you to be subjected to similar cruelty.

 

Part of it is definitely the lack of curiosity or awareness of events beyond the end of their own nose that a lot of people have these days. But at the same time, are Hamas really that different when we zoom out and look globally? There's terrorist groups all over the world who have perpetrated atrocities against civilians. Not sure really in a league table of despots if I'd know enough to put them above or below Boko Harem, Al Qaeda, Al Shabbab, the Lord's Resistance Army or the Taliban. Of course, a wise person might spot a common dominator running through most of those groups... maybe that's what we need to protest against?

 

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities"

 

Wtf were they advertising? Why are you on Twatter?

 

That's really not cool. I don't need to see those pictures to believe it happened - I find the reporting credible. I have no desire to dehumanise myself by viewing that kind of thing.

It's fine if people want to seek it out because they need to see for themselves; that is their personal decision. But thrusting it into someone's face isn't really acceptable.

 

it’s for people like Clive who want to spread doubt about what really happened…

 

I think some people have a morbid curiosity about these things. Personally I can't think of anything I'd like to see less

 

I certainly didn't want to see it and now I can't unsee it.

I've blocked the Israeli Twitter feed in the hope that it will prevent any future "ads".

It's a shame as I do prefer to get information from official sources such as that.

 

Look, this insulting is going too far, really. There are always untruths that fly about in these situations. Like others, I have no wish to dig into it too much myself. I can manage very well with not seeing such barbarity.

Like for example when they put those beheading hostages videos up on the internet a few years ago. I believed they were there posted and that's what happened - but I chose not to see them myself. Thar is why I asked whether anyone had seen the video and could verify it.

Other sources that I had seen online - things like novara media and Owen Jones (I think) had claimed that the only source for the story was one Israeli soldier telling a journalist. They also said the Israeli Defence Force had been cagey about confirming it.

I just wanted more info on what actually happened from people on here - who seem pretty knowledgeable in general and who know a whole lot more about the situation than I do. I started out by saying that I am not a student of that history or situation.

I would like to ask serious and enquiring questions of the contributors to this thread. I'd like to do it without getting insolent and offensive insults from you.

I hesitated to post anything on this thread because I flippin' knew that someone would be along to accuse me of being a supporter of Hamas or anti-semitic ot whatever.

And look at that. Here you are.

 

"Armed sieges, obstruction of humanitarian access, pillaging of agricultural machinery and harvests, shelling of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, and the blockade of ports and grain, are among barbaric starvation tactics being used by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and his forces to break the Ukrainian people," the investigators said.

 

One other thing to say is that I also had a friend for a few hours who was in the Israeli Defence Force.

I met him in a coffee shop in Amsterdam and he was with two Israeli girls who didn't speak too much English. We had a nice smoke and a good chat. He was only a young lad. They laughed at me for my sparing use of the white widow of whatever it was we were puffing. They loaded up theirs with hardly any baccy. Girls too. They laughed and said mine was a 'joint lite'.

Anyway he told me he was doing his military national service and that he was sick of it. He really sounded it too. It was in his voice. Somebody had been killed - shot - while he was on duty and it had affected him. He was really sick about it.

He swore in seriousness that he wasn't going back. No way. He was going to stay in Amsterdam.

Well maybe he did or maybe it was just the smoke. He seemed very determined about it.

Well anyway, they left after a couple of hours. Or I left. I can't remember. I'm afraid I was very, very stoned.

 

Human Rights Watch verified videos taken in Lebanon and Gaza on October 10 and 11, 2023, respectively, showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Israel-Lebanon border, and interviewed two people who described an attack in Gaza.

White phosphorus, which can be used either for marking, signaling, and obscuring, or as a weapon to set fires that burn people and objects, has a significant incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The use of white phosphorus in Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, magnifies the risk to civilians and violates the international humanitarian law prohibition on putting civilians at unnecessary risk.

White phosphorus ignites when exposed to atmospheric oxygen and continues to burn until it is deprived of oxygen or exhausted. Its chemical reaction can create intense heat (about 815°C/1,500°F), light, and smoke. Upon contact, white phosphorus can burn people, thermally and chemically, down to the bone as it is highly soluble in fat and therefore in human flesh. White phosphorus fragments can exacerbate wounds even after treatment and can enter the bloodstream and cause multiple organ failure. Already dressed wounds can reignite when dressings are removed and the wounds are re-exposed to oxygen. Even relatively minor burns are often fatal. For survivors, extensive scarring tightens muscle tissue and creates physical disabilities. The trauma of the attack, the painful treatment that follows, and appearance-changing scars lead to psychological harm and social exclusion.

 

Fewer.

 

I thought that stuff was banned generally? An outlawed weapon? Because of its awfulness.

This world really is going backwards rather than forwards, isn't it?

 

If Clive wants to see it, Clive can seek it out.

Proactively pushing the images out to people not seeking to see them, as Sydney described, is an entirely different thing.

Some people are carrying existing trauma, for example. It's extremely irresponsible to force profoundly disturbing pictures on people who didn't go looking for it.

 

Remember: Israel has ordered a “complete siege” on the crowded Gaza strip — including halting supplies of electricity, food, water, and fuel — while also bombarding the densely populated territory in retaliation for Hamas' devastating October 7 terror attacks. At least 1,900 Palestinians have been killedby near-constant shelling in Gaza, according to the health ministry, including journalists, medics and other civilians. The dead include 614 children and 370 women, says the Palestinian health ministry. - CNN

 

In an eye for an eye, what is the acceptable exchange-rate between Israeli and Palestinian civilians eyes?

• The Economist went to press estimates of the number of Israelis killed in Hamas’s attack had reached 1,300, with a further 3,300 injured.

 

Clive doesn't want to see it, as Clive has said over and over.

 

??

Do we think that being raped and kidnapped, dragged into a hostile zone to be used as a human shield and likely end up murdered, is not on the list of internationally banned activities now?

Rape, murder, beheading babies, kidnap. Are they some how lesser crimes against humanity? This world never moved forward mate. Evil is evil. Murder is murder. Seems almost trite to be looking at the situation and saying, ‘Yeah, but they do it so much worse.’ To be scoring atrocities like they were an Olympic sport.

Would it have been better if Israel went in with machetes and a tally sheet until they equalled the score?

People who live in safe comfortable places have the luxury of being able to judge things in such a way.

 

Civillians were supposed to be off limits in warfare in general, so yes "we" do think the things you describe are bestial crimes against humanity.

As was pointed out above, "we" don't even know who it was letting off phosophorus bombs - which side was responsible.

Whoever it is, adding more crimes against humanity on top of the other crimes against humanity, is hardly going to help things. I am in favour of peace, de-escalation and negotiation. So I'm hardly going to support the introduction of a horrific banned weapon into the conflict, am I?

By the way, using the civilian population as 'human shields' is an accusation used in almost every war. The Vietnamese, the IRA, the Cuban independence mambises fighters against the Spanish, the Mau Mau in Kenya - all spring to mind as immediate examples. In the current russia/ukraine conflict for example, it took 2 seconds googling to find multiple examples of both sides accusing each other of human shields. The UN condemns both sides for doing it. https://news.antiwar.com/2022/07/10/un-ukrainian-russian-forces-use-civilians-as-human-shields/

The human shields argument, for me, often translates as "why don't you all come out and stand in military ranks in a field somewhere, so we can drop a massive bomb on you or machine gun you all together, rather than try and find you hidden individually in cellars, caves and forests etc?" Nice idea, but unlikely to happen in reality.

Rape, murder, kidnap and killing children are also, dismayingly, a regulat feature of war. Another reason I am so fixed on calling for peace and negotiation and talking rather tban war.

From a legal point of view, I don't suppose the international laws include an exception clause that allows use of these awful weapons in cases of the other side committing outrages against civilians. But just from a humanity point of view, unleashing horrific banned weapons and ignoring international laws, knowing full well the horrors that will be inflicted on innocent people, should be out of the question for anyone with the slightest shred of human decency and morals.

I was surprised at your reference to machetes. I don't know much about the conflict, but I do know that Israel is not lacking in very many, many, many terrible, deadly and destructive weapons in the range between machetes and an awful banned chemical bomb which burns you down to the bone on contact.

 

Classic Hooter post that starts off by telling another forum member what they believe and queasily moralising them.

It’s not difficult. Hamas committed the most obscene atrocities. No one here is excusing that. That’s not, in itself, a reason to use excessive force on other civilians and other children.

It’s not a policy that may not ultimately help Israel. We should still all be talking about Hamas’s horrific crimes and seeking World unity in isolating and eliminating Hamas. Instead, the attention of the World is focusing on impending humanitarian disaster.

If you think anything goes against civilians, then just be honest about that and what it means.

 

Whilst every Jewish person, many of whom are on this board, have friends and family who have either been murdered, are currently sitting in bunkers avoiding rockets or have their 18 year old sons and daughters called up in battle, I knew there would be the odd person that would come on this board with a whole whataboutery response and look at that. Here you are.

You immediately led with some inane facts about Israelis killing the British. That's said nothing more than as an attack at Israelis. Ask those "old boys" who must be in their late 90s now as, if that event happened, it was certainly pre Israel's formation in 1948

You then immediately referred to concentration camps...a place my grandparents died in...to being a better place than Gaza. I very much doubt you have any clue there in what you are saying and most likely never been to Poland to see a camp

You admitted you have no idea about the situation but then went with a "let's not arm Israel" without any understanding of what that would result in

Then you said you don't need to see the pictures but immediately led with the "has anybody seen these pics" framed in a way of disbelief

Following up with there are two sides to a story about why a terrorist would chop off a babies head or murder kids or kidnap them and put them in cages. Just be outraged without rationalising it

Totally insensitive to the massive rise in antisemitism going on in UK. Where Jewish schools have been closed. Armed guards needed at places of worship.

So come on this board and be outraged at what the terrorists did. Think of it as if it was your children. Ask questions about Hamas, the history, the geography, the politics, the mindset of the region to people that have been there, lived there and understand it well. Like @Since63 and @Moose and others have done. Your lack of understanding was obvious and you went straight to the whatboutery lines which is why, in my view, you have been rightly called out

Now put away your prejudices and ask away

 

What's excessive force though Moose. Post 9/11 did the world turn round and say we will go in and kill the same number as dies in the Twin Towers? Did Hamas give Israelis in the South a warning before murdering civilians?

This is an awful situation and I feel so so sorry for the civilians caught up on both sides. But there is no other way. You can't negotiate peace treaties with a ruling terrorist government who chop off babies heads. You can't radiate that rolling terrorist government who are holding onto hostages without civilian death in a place like Gaza city.

The short term will be tragic but if Israel wants to survive there is no other answer...unfortunately

 

It was an observation on a comment that seemed to indicate that some ways of killing and injuring people are more acceptanle than others. Commenting that our distant separation from the atrocities causes us to consider such horrors in a way that might seem novel to those affected by them.

Other posters may note that the intention of my post was to infer that all such atrocities are equal in their horror, and not an attempt at all to justify the murder of any civilians. Which is a peculiar and non-sequitor conclusion you have come to, without justification, for some obscure reason.

It was an attempt to return to the idea that all such things are odious, and that the idea that the application of degrees of atrocity is a peculiarity of comfortable western views.

Please try not to make this thread another of your personal attacks on other posters, simply because they have an opinion you either do not understand or do not agree with.

If you think what I said was offensive, report it to the mods.

 

You will have your own answer for what is excessive force. Clearly you don’t expect everyone to be slaughtered to achieve security, so there must be a line not to cross.

9/11 is a good example, again an unforgivable act of terrorism, but few would argue now the response was correct. The invasion of Iraq, the brutality inflicted on Iraqis led to ISIS and years of blowback across the globe.

I don’t for a moment think that Israel has no right to defend itself nor that shouldn’t be its priority. But, having contained the situation, it has more time to build coalitions. It could pause and continue its work with other Middle Eastern Governments.

Hamas have nowhere to go and the Israelis can deliver revenge on them served cold.

 

It’s not a criticism but Israel has done that for too long. Now is the time to wipe out Hamas. Now is the time to destroy the terror tunnels. Now is the time to show all of its surrounding enemies that you can’t invade Israel without harsh retribution. Now is the time to stop trying to appease the world. Now is the time for Palestinians to have hope. With a new moderate govt and money invested. With a future. With a state of their own that they can call their own. With future security in Southern Israel secured they can open borders. Create their own gas, water and electricity supplies so they no longer have to rely on Israel

 

We are pretty much in agreement then. I just thought the conversation was drifting off into a discussion on what type of murderous act is worse.

A view, I believe, you will understand more clearly if you read your post again, followed by my post.

I did not mention either side when discussing the atrocities, so that part of your argument, I would suggest, is one you are having with yourself, and not me.

I think it is best I stay away from this thread. It is a terrible and weighty discussion. One to be had in more serious places.