# DID YOU KNOW THERE'S SEVERAL COUNTRIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA?
It's true! And both China and the US are trying to win over them. We discuss this in [this "week's" NCDip Podcast Club](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDiplomacy/comments/1ciy2uz/ncdip_podcast_club_9_americas_report_card_on/?). You nerds keep talking about a pivot to Asia and China US Strategic competition, well here you go, this is an episode on that in probaly the most contested region in the US China competition
[Want to know what the fuck in the NCDip podcast club is? Click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDiplomacy/comments/17edrm6/introducing_the_rnoncrediblediplomacy_podcast/)
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Yea, At that point we were buying stuff, and they were just denied from us mid shipment (talking about weapons) like we had with france, and later the freeze in trading with the Comintern, the US didn't really like Israel too much untill the 70s mostly, and other countries generally not being so supportive or trusting at all.
Israel is straight up losing the political front of the war. Israel overestimated how legitimate it appeared on the international scene, and has undone two decades of moderating it’s worst tendencies.
But I think people also ignore what actually happens if Hamas is successfully purged by Israel. The whole reason why Hamas was allowed to grow was in order to delegitimize the Palestinian cause at a time where revelations on Israel’s paramilitary "Geneva checklist" had them in hot water. A Palestine that isn’t stained by Hamas’ reputation would be a stronger opponent on the international stage, one fueled by a revitalized sense of struggle and greater international sympathy than ever before. We might actually be seeing the tide turn for the first time since the start of this war in 48 (ok maybe not but still, interesting times)
I think it's interesting that people commonly assume that Israel is overestimating the amount of support and legitimacy is has internationally, but I actually think that it's the opposite. Israel actually underestimates the amount of genuine support it has, and so they act as if they have very little in that department to lose. From their perspective, a lot of the support they do have, especially in the US, can be chalked up to fear of Islamist terrorism, when a good portion of it is genuine support.
For example, the famous Biden quote from the 90s when he says 'if Israel didn't exist, the US would have to create an Israel' is pretty representative of the general attitude to Israel in the west. From a western perspective, that looks identical to full support of Israel, but if you look at that from the Israeli perspective, it looks like support based on the fact that they are just a non-muslim country in the middle east, conditioned on the fact thye are more stable and globally integrated than their neighbours.
I would argue that is a result of both past Israeli actions biting them in the ass, and the current party in power actively trying to make things worse internationally.
I suspect that the universal conscription into the IDF has made everyone in Israel far too comfortable/intimate with the military, to the point where they will take the IDF’s word on what’s going on over everything else. If everyone is in, or has a family member involved in the operation, they’re going to assume that operation is going to be conducted morally. When in reality, I have a sneaking suspicion you don’t actually need that many corrupt military leaders to turn a modern military into a force for genocide.
One of the things that concerned me about the starvation in Gaza is that cutting Gaza off from food would be one of the best ways to co-opt a military that is ostensibly supposed to refuse genocidal order into killing large numbers of civilians. You don’t need death squads, all you need is good soldiers who spend too much time holding up aid with inspections. You could kill off thousands without needing to actually convince your army to be onboard with mass murder.
Same with the air strikes and even with how the ground invasion goes. You don’t need Nazis flying the planes. You just need bad intel, and the pilots will drop bombs wherever you want. You don’t need death squads, you just need conscripts who are terrified and fed propaganda about how everything that moves is a threat, and they’ll start shooting wildly.
Add to that, I think part of the reason Israel has been so aggressive is that Bibi and Likud are *trying* to turn the world against Israel. Hamas was their boogeyman for a decade, but now it can’t fill that role anymore, since they’ve shown themselves to be unable to cage it like they’ve claimed for so long.
They need a new outside force to threaten Israel so they can go “Look how the world is turned against us! Only we can save you!”. The problem is, they are already on notice with the Israeli public, so they can’t start an outright war of aggression.
So instead they keep poking every enemy they can find (and many allies) to get them to attack, and make Israel look like a victim, at the expense of every single diplomatic tie Israel has gained in the past 60 years.
Unfortunately for them, Biden has done a frankly impressive job keeping the Middle East from erupting into an outright interstate conflict, and maintaining positive Israeli public opinion of the U.S.
But Biden has only accomplished that at the expense of Palestinian lives, and it’s yet to be seen if that tradeoff is worth it.
Yea, plus it's the fact that arguibly the pro Israeli Community isn't loud
Pro palestinian propaganda, protests, riots, events, boycotts, social media influence and more, has been cultivated for fucking ages, I mean since nearly the start of the war in 1948 there was already groups getting popular support from other nations to palestine, which was mostly from other middle eastern nations up untill the 1990s when it rapidly shifted to either radicalize or agendize mostly the left in the western political world where it reigns supreme establishing itself as a helpless victim in the eyes of many regardless of the truth or the facts, alongside with the pretty obvious mass muslim support, Pro palestinian s have gatherd millions upon millions of mostly islamic or semi radical left support which they use to just attack and deface Israel on every turn
that's just the facts, weather it's justified or not it's what has and has been happening
If they went in quick after October 7th killed just a few thousand people instead of 10s of thousands and declared victory no one would have looked twice and all the horrors Israel has committed against Palestinians would have stayed mostly unknown
>I actually think that it's the opposite. Israel actually underestimates the amount of genuine support it has, and so they act as if they have very little in that department to lose.
A little of both IMO, Israel presumes it has very little support, and that the support it does have is much harder to lose than it actually is (ours for example)
It’s for this reason I don’t think they’ll actually destroy Hamas entirely.
Or more likely, they will, but will then use the “threat” of a “resurgent” Hamas, or their remnants, as an excuse to justify whatever actions they’ll do to put down everyone they’ve radicalized by killing family members this time around
>Or more likely, they will, but will then use the “threat” of a “resurgent” Hamas, or their remnants, as an excuse to justify whatever actions they’ll do
Bingo.
What a *coincidence* this also forces a lot of Israelis into the political situation then on having to vote with security on the mind versus any political resolution to the conflict - *I just couldn't imagine this chiefly benefits Likud and the settler parties, my word*
I think what has really damaged Israel in the long term is that for the longest time criticism of Israel would be met with counterclaims of you being a nazi or antisemitic. They never got any true peepee smacks for the shit their forces would pull. They just got to keep on keeping on with whatever they wanted to do creating more animosity with Hamas and Palestine.
Now it’s trendy to shit on Israel with their actions being exposed to where they can’t be ignored.
I’m not saying this as someone who supports Hamas, my stance is way worse in that I don’t really give a shit.
I think you are overestimating social media manipulation in this case. A lot of protestors were already organized the moment that the situation stabilized after the initial attack. People that somewhat followed the conflict before, knew exactly what kind of reaction Israel would give.
I am not sure why you would think that these opinions are just manipulation instead of actually having to do something with what is actually happening. You can't point to the initial attack indefinitely to excuse any action. Especially when it also came out how much of a failure it was from the national security apparatus and probably can't be repeated. And don't forget comments from people like Ben Gvir which paint a different picture than just trying to have a proportionate response.
people were organized at the time of the attack because they were cheering hamas on. screaming "genocide" after an extremely brutal attack on 1000 jews that hasn't even been responded to yet is a 21st century blood libel
Hm, I looked it up here. Some were indeed supporting the attacks as resistance and others were focussing on the potential Israeli attack.
I am not sure why it would be a blood libel. The people supporting the action at the very least fit in the pattern of the longer conflict that already exists and understood it as part of a longer conflict.
they're calling it a genocide by israel right after hamas has done something beyond terrible. their "genocide" (israeli responce) had not even begun yet. this reminds me of jews in europe being brutally attacked and then accused to stealing blood.
I still don't see how that would equate it with blood libel in the case that it was true
I also don't see how you cannect to state of Israel to jews in general. Israel has a predictable pattern and is more predictable when you actually take into account who is governing it. With people like Ben Gvir in power, it wouldn't say that it is far fetched to predict that there is a decent probability of a genocide happening as reaction.
They’re not being ignored, they’re just not relevant anymore. October 7th was 7 months ago, what matters is the human suffering happening right now. We don’t have a time machine.
Human suffering of Russian soldiers never mattered even though Ukraine war footage sub was basically only posting Russians getting killed. No Jews, no news.
Well I was sympathetic to Israel after October for a few months. But once they reached an eye-for-20-eyes proportions of retaliation (ie when the civilian toll count passed 20k in Gaza) that’s when I lost my sympathy.
And I follow this conflict not via tiktok but mainly via Reuters headlines. And Reddit I guess but the pro Palestinians on Reddit are pretty psycho so I don’t think they helped in my change of heart.
I think that's kind of missing the point considering Hamas wants to kill people, not Israel. Wars have goals and killing is not a legitimate one. This one is to remove the ability of Hamas to be a government so they're reduced to just another PIJ (because people can die in the future, October 7 was not the only attack Hamas has done recently), and to get hostages back. If Hamas decides to put 30,000 people in the way (only 1% of the population, this includes fighters BTW), that is their problem. When Hitler told the Hitler Youth to defend Berlin the Allies didn't stop their attack just in case they'd kill a child soldier. 30k people dying in urban warfare (at a 1:2.5 combattant:civilian ratio using Hamas's self reported numbers, which is very far from the roughly 1:10 that the UN says is average for urban warfare) does not make something a genocide, considering 100k people died in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine alone. I've heard people calling Russia genocidal, but "people die in war" was not one of the reasons. Hamas is at fault here for not agreeing to Israel's peace deals (they just want their hostages but Sinwar knows he's screwed since he's surrounded by 12 at all times) so their excellent PR team got the genius idea of making a bad counter proposal and calling it "accepting" to make Israel look bad. Also Reuters frequently makes stories that correct their previous ones, but news algos don't promote them. Remember when Hamas immediately said "500 people died in al-shifa trust me bro" and everyone reported it until al fucking jazeera proved them wrong? They're taking advantage of western journalists' duty to provide info as quickly as possible by spreading misinfo and hoping most people don't see the retractions. The real underestimation that Israel did was that of Hamas's PR capabilities.
"1 death on camera and posted to TikTok is a tragedy, one thousand+ Jews, 10+ Muslims and 2+ million Gazans suffering under Hamas is a statistic"
For me, the turning point was the slow-walking of aid deliveries into the strip (especially Kerem Shalom). Collateral damage is one thing, but preventing the delivery of food into a place that isn't food secure can only be interpreted as either reckless indifference or active malice towards millions of noncombatants.
I think a strong motivator is posts from Israeli soldiers, poltiicans, commentators etc. about the war. And it's not even random people, just look at what kind of stuff Ben Gvir slings into the world.
If Hamas is thoroughly destroyed but the PA isn’t completely reformed in a way that makes it look at least vaguely like a state (border control, armed police and actual army, and an economy Israel can’t siphon under the guise of “sanctions”), then we get a new Hamas within the next 10 years.
That is assuming Hamas can even be destroyed without completely decimating the Gazan population. If we go by the IDF's "males of military age" definition of who is a legitimate target then that could very well be what happens.
I think Iraq and Afghanistan kinda prove it’s near impossible to force regime change when a good portion of the population despise you. You can’t bomb a place into having a civil society and educated tolerant population. The Israelis already tried building up Gaza for over a decade but it all amounted to squat. The Israeli government surely knows this can’t work and if I were guessing probably are just using this to boost support for the current ruling party at this point. I’m not saying there’re any easy way to solve this but Netanyahu definitely isn’t trying to create a better government for the people of Palestine.
the far right nutcases running the country at the moment dont want that either. they want a steady stream of attacks on israel from hamas that allows them to get away with their oppression and ethnic cleansing of palestinians. the minister of defence even resigned in 2022 after netanyahu was caught funneling suitcases full of cash from qatar to hamas, saying that israel was funding terrorism against itself.
oct 7 was way larger with a far higher death toll than what they wanted, though.
> has undone two decades of moderating it’s worst tendencies
what in the fuck are you talking about lol. they've spent most of those two decades being run by far-right whackjobs and formalising the shit that libs and lefties hate the most about israel (the settlement program, the apartheid aspects of how they treat arabs, etc).
the biggest news out of israel over the years before oct 7 was their massive democratic backslide, the blatant criminality of their current leader, and his support of the guy who attempted a fascist coup in the USA.
I think most Israelis would welcome this idealistic Palestine you are describing. They don't care about Palestine "winning" the sympathy vote. They just don't want to have to live under constant threat of rocket attacks, kidnap, rape, and torture.
Mass civilian casualties in an age of social media is always a bad look. This is like the French army blaming the defeat in Algeria on the press leaking info about the organized torture squads, you can only spin so much.
They could’ve did promotional campaigns on atrocities from Palestinianists like the genocide on Darfuris and how ‘Palestinians’ bring war and chaos everywhere they go from Jordan to Lebanon, instead of arguing with clowns like Jackson Hinkle on Twitter
Truw they shouldve just gone and said the most racist shit they could think of about those sub human palestinians, truly only then would public opinion be on their side
No-no, that guy has a point. Tankies cry about russian civilians killed in terrorist attack, which apparently caused by Ukraine. And russian propaganda is pushing a narrative that UAF would do Gaza treatment on russians if they push back to the borders, and push same ceasefire crap.
They really couldn't do anything
The war they were dragged into was MADE for civilian casualties, you might think it's bullshit but it's unironically impressive it's actually not that high as it shouldv'e been if Israel was more reckless in the war
the numbers though are there, gaza is probably a top 3-5 most densly populated places on earth, and from it is operating a terror group that has been organizing and arming itself for the past 20 years (hence the blockade) and doesn't fear the idea of radicalizing their own people by hiding behind them and causing much of the escelation in the first place, Israel doesn't have the liberal hoards, or the mass muslim users in social media to support it, so as far as it could do it's doing ok, not good but not bad considiring what it was given
Could’ve at least tried putting the issue of Kurdistan and Darfur into public consciousness as well as Iran’s human rights situation, there’s no reason why the world should care about some Arab irredentists getting pummelled more than other real atrocities in the Middle East
ohh yea definetly, I always see pro palestine posts, and I sometimes think "why is it just palestine ?" because there are so many other conflicts that are just as if not more horrible, there is persecution in countless countries of countless groups, wars in sudan syria yemen and probably more, countless human crisis happen probably all over africa, and it doesn't seem to get as much treatment, because people don't care, palestine has gotten trendy with the mass hoards that scream their lungs out and don't know anything, you can easily tell on maybe instagram or tiktok they will just call you a zionist or say "educate yourself" which is funny considiring they most times aren't as well educated on the topic, it's like a beehive stuck to it's hive essentaily, ignoring the other completly free and open hives all around it that need it's bees
What happens when you staff your media people with trolls, because the government elected is full of trolls.
They're not going to spend their days trying to put the best foot forward. They're going to spend their days getting into pissing matches with other trolls.
Somehow this sub has a much more realistic view of the conflict than the other NCD. The replies on this post are far more nuanced than anything from there, which usually amounts to a "israel good, 100% justified for any action it may take". I know that there's been a lot of allegations of astroturfing, but it's getting ridiculous at this point.
Most of the other NCD got into it during the Russian war, which for all intents and purposes is much closer to being a black and white conflict. It's sad but not surprising that they're not used to approaching conflicts with nuance.
I suspect that over the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the other NCD gradually went from an ironic neocon circlejerk to an unironic neocon circlejerk. It wasn’t (as) noticeable before October 7th because they were mainly focused on the Russo-Ukrainian war, in which Russia is unambiguously the aggressor and is clearly in the wrong. When the focus shifted to the Israel Palestine conflict, in which the side backed by NATO is shelling apartment blocks because they might be in the same general area as a Hamas fighter, the other NCD’s unironic warmongering became a lot harder to ignore
Honestly that sub has gone way too far off the deep end. It's full of edgelords who at this point have committed to the belief that there are no civilians in Gaza. I had to unsubscribe because instead of getting defense shitposts on my front page, I started getting some really unironically deranged and cruel shit from that subreddit
I honestly miss the old NCD. There were always jokes about civilian casualties but it was stuff like the 3 gorges dam, something that hasn't and will never happen
Three gorges dam was honestly when the sub started to go downhill. It went from obscure defense shitposting to the same "Haha guys what if war crime but funny because Chinese" joke over and over and over again until the mods had to literally ban dam posting because it became so low effort. The sub grew too quickly.
I don't nessecerly think it's true, although it probably is to a degree, probably the more nuanced or interesting point of view and conflict is why they are dead and the roots of the conflict and other such
There’s been a few posts making fun of Israel which was refreshing but you’re right it’s quite biased, I still like the subreddit because of the Russia memes.
Yeah, I mean... its almost all like some of us were warning against celebrating and defending a government prone to rash, vengeance-based decision making, playing off of trauma and racism to pitch brutally violent, indiscriminate outcomes for unrealistic objectives solely to keep itself in power...
Naturally I can't imagine that line of dialogue being ignored at all. Or being called Hamas-lovers for offering it. What a good thing we all don't live in such a world!
Its a pity no one's memed the Israeli UN Ambassador's speech on Friday, because that was easily in the Top 10 of most unhinged diplomatic moments at the UN.
[Hell yea brother.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cAHZ8wl8L8)
Master class on persuasion is insulting your audience, and then shredding the charter.
[Still arguably holds the gold.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/23/muammar-gaddafi-general-assembly-speech)
100 minutes, topics as diverse as from criticizing the UNSC veto power to JFK assassination conspiracies, with the cherry-on-top being his fabulous fashion choice.
If only I could be so lucky...
For fucks sake.
I'm famous with my friends for being real bad at persuasion but never have I considered just outright insulting the people I'm trying to persuade
He is not trying to persuade anyone (the UN always has and always will have an automatic majority against Israel). He is trying to go viral, and was successful at that.
>He is not trying to persuade anyone
Most definitely.
But I don't think he was gunning for clicks. Most of the Israeli foreign affairs folks haven't exactly been hired by the current government for their competency so much as their obnoxious qualities. His audience is purely the domestic right in Israel, that's it.
Of all the shit Israel would pull to further dig themselves deeper, that one wasn't on my bingo card. I'm waiting with bated breath what's next.
I'm still wondering, did they think people wouldn't notice due to there already being a frontpage war going on? Or did they bank on people seeing them as another "downtrodden"country fighting for survival? What was the thinking here?
>What was the thinking here?
Hubris and short-sightedness.
Years of the most right-wing government in the country's history, unresolved conflict's impact on society, and a solid media focus on October 7th just like how it was in the States following 9/11. You got the worst folks imaginable leading the country and doing so largely for their own political survival, and a deeply traumatized population - its a bad mix.
Like all the shots at the UN especially aren't long-term bargaining - some folks really do drink the kool-aid on it being staffed by nothing but Hamas-supporters.
It's a lot easier to say "don't invade" when the country in question is 5000 miles away and didn't actually attack you (Iraq. Afghanistan technically didn't attack but they did harbor al Qaeda).
Totally a reasonable justification then to ignore any and all advice, and instead plunge headlong into something with no end, and international marginalization because cruelty is driving policy.
I think Israel’s actions in Gaza have been pretty justified. Former Israeli ambassador to the US and bookwriter/historian Michael Oren uses the term “icebox” to describe the relative state of peace that comes about between Arab-Israeli wars.
He talks in his book *six days of war* about how after each war, the area will fall into a relative peace for around 5-10 years.
This is a pretty accurate assessment, and has held true since he published the book in 2002.
1948-56 is 6 years
56-67 is 11 years
67-73 is 6 years
73-78 is 5 years
78-82 is 4 years
82-87 is 5 years
Oslo accords seemed to buy a longer stretch of relative peace
2000-2006 is 6 years
In Gaza, 2008-2012 is 4 years
2012-2014 is 2 years
2014-2023 is 9 years
When Israel goes to war with a territory, whether it be Gaza, Lebanon, Egypt, or whatever, it generally results in temporary peace and the conflict going back into the icebox, even if territorial lines don’t change. I’d imagine the Israelis have calculated that an invasion of Gaza on this scale will cripple Hamas and its infrastructure for a significant amount of time and once again return the conflict to the icebox.
This is a reasonable long term strategy, as it only results in potential gains in territory and power for the Israelis and cripples the Palestinians further. And in terms of long term peace, Israel being able to calm the conflict down for a few years at a time gives Israel the ability to wait for Iran to either get bored or the ayatollah get overthrown. If Israel doesn’t return the conflict to the icebox and doesn’t respond strongly to October 7th, it allows iran and its proxies to maintain regular and consistent large attacks against Israel, which will degrade its defensive capability and demand more western support (which Israel is struggling to maintain).
Yeah, I tend to take a dim view on the solely quantitative approaches.
I'd agree the perspective is to cripple the territory - but I'd highlight that does nothing as far as either actually affecting a positive political outcome that ensures security, while severely damaging the country's regional and international standing. States can absolutely target populations with indiscriminate retributional actions; they also get judged for that behaviour as well. Israel's simply decided to opt for a Bashar al-Assad approach, that has consequences.
The Iranians aren't going anywhere. If anything, this episode has raised Iran's interest in sinking Israel into a quagmire; they've benefited quite extensively from Israel marginalizing itself from the other Arab states. As for the Palestinians, you've guaranteed now decades more conflict. They'll fight with rocks if they have to - that's largely what they did during both Intifadas. All so that the state earns the reputation of South Africa during Apartheid - nothing long-term about this, the country simply gave in to some dreadful passions.
Security ultimately means getting along with your neighbours. You don't get that through force of arms - you certainly don't get that through indiscriminate cruelty. At a certain point, sure... the conflict will freeze. But as for going back to the previous circumstance of stability, that's probably not going to happen. Especially with the threat of West Bank annexation, an insurgency in Gaza, and continued extremism in the Knesset.
Welp, it seems to be working. Israel has been gaining control and expanding settlements since forever now. And you still don’t have a better solution or action that Israel could take after October 7th. I’m not sure if you realize this, but Hamas and other Palestinian militants will not stop fighting until Israel is completely gone. They don’t want liberation for solely Gaza and the West Bank, they want the complete removal of Jews and anyone they see as a settler colonialist or whatever from the region.
>And you still don’t have a better solution or action that Israel could take after October 7th.
Arm the PA, send them into Gaza. Doing that when Hamas had savaged its reputation would've politically marginalized the group further. Having a moment where the PA could demonstrate itself rescuing Gaza would've boosted its legitimacy, especially if the Israelis gave concessions and there'd been a push for new leadership. Could've been a real moment to put the conflict on a better footing, especially de-escalating wider regional tensions, while taking the most militant Palestinian organization out of the picture.
Instead of that, Hamas is boosted amongst the population. Israel's settlements now mean greater confrontation with no solution save for ejecting all Palestinians into Jordan and causing a genocide. And an insurgency in Gaza that'll continue bleeding for the foreseeable future. Job well done.
The point with political outcomes isn't to fixate on all your opponents being the worst people you think they are. Its to be strategic with taking the worst **outcomes** out of the equation. That means not treating all Palestinians as the same, but working to isolate the extremism Hamas represents by offering better alternatives by working with more agreeable Palestinian political representations. That forces those organizations to make choices in either moderating themselves to get into the political process, or marginalizing themselves further by opting for violent extremist strategies. Taking them up on their offer of further violence simply means extremists on both sides getting their way.
“Arm the PA and have them overthrow Hamas” *could* work, but I’d say the odds of it leading to peace are maybe 5% at best.
Essentially what you are doing is supplying a semi-radical political group that wants, to some extent, control territory that you (the supplier of arms, Israel) currently control. I see this working about as well as supplying the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Could it work? Maybe. But I think squashing terror groups until international backing for Palestinian militants stops is a more reliable solution. Sure, it’s less efficient and leads to lots of potential bloodshed, but uprooting the status quo could turn out soooooo much worse
It’s not like Israel hasn’t fought insurgents either, not to mention this is closer to just Fallujah than Afghanistan or Iraq more broadly.
The Israeli situation isn’t particularly comparable to the broader GWOT just due to the fact that it’s almost exclusively urban combat but is also hardly the first time these two groups have gone at it.
You respond by killing 1000 random militants and civilians and then stop to reflect on how to move forward. Also maybe don’t spend decades cultivating a dumbass rebel government that wants to kill you in the first place.
It's where you draw the line though
It's line people saying they want Ceasefire, What ceasefire ? what conditions ? what terms ? all of these are the make or break and people just ignore the fine lines that mean the world.
they also ignore the bad of the side they support, Pro palestinians ignore the fact that hamas started this conflict and brought much of the destruction knowingly in order to use the dead civilians to gain support
while Israel has been in a small yet significant role inviting this behaviour by not stopping settelers and other extremist groups that slowly take control of the government and only cause more conflict and death or the haredi that are literally a money sucking machine
>It's line people saying they want Ceasefire, What ceasefire ? what conditions ? what terms ? all of these are the make or break and people just ignore the fine lines that mean the world.
To be frank though, that's not what is being said. The rhetoric is "*If you advocate for a ceasefire, you're on Hamas' side, because you want them to genocide Israel*". The mere suggestion that the Israelis have gone way too far, and that a political solution is needed is tantamount to being an Islamist.
As far as this conflict starting on October 7th... I don't think even members of the IDF would agree with that if you poked them hard enough. There's always been an active state of hostility between Hamas and the Israelis - that's how we've had [Cast Lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)) in 2008, [Pillar of Defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Israeli_operation_in_the_Gaza_Strip) in 2012, [Protective Edge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War) in 2014, and [stuff as recent as 2021](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis). And lets remember here that the Palestinian Conflict isn't some new thing - you'd have to go back at least to 1967 when Israel took-over the remaining Palestinian territories from the Arab states.
As far as folks forgetting Hamas did October 7th, sure. But... I would point out, this is the most right-wing government in Israel's history. The "small yet significant" role that has not only includes deliberate encouraging of extremist settlers at the expense of the rest of Israel's population within the last two years, but nearly 30 years of catering to that demographic with extremist policies, all aimed at not finding a just solution with the Palestinian people... but crushing them and scattering as much of them to the wind. Just about the worst possible leadership you can ask for with a crisis like this.
>To be frank though, that's not what is being said. The rhetoric is "*If you advocate for a ceasefire, you're on Hamas' side, because you want them to genocide Israel*". The mere suggestion that the Israelis have gone way too far, and that a political solution is needed is tantamount to being an Islamist.
I agree to a degree, the thing is there is a difference between calling for moderation and presevation, and calling for complete withdrawl, Israel has every right to be in gaza considiring it still has it's citizens there captive, and the enemy that attacked it too, you can suggest maybe... a decent and reasonble deal to everyone with a brain that being release of hostages and surrendur of hamas officials but I highly doubt that will happen.
>As far as this conflict starting on October 7th... I don't think even members of the IDF would agree with that if you poked them hard enough. There's always been an active state of hostility between Hamas and the Israelis - that's how we've had [Cast Lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)) in 2008, [Pillar of Defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Israeli_operation_in_the_Gaza_Strip) in 2012, [Protective Edge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War) in 2014, and [stuff as recent as 2021](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis). And lets remember here that the Palestinian Conflict isn't some new thing - you'd have to go back at least to 1967 when Israel took-over the remaining Palestinian territories from the Arab states.
Sure, but an active state of hostility is nothing compared to the escalation after october 7th, there were of course skirmishes, terror attacks, retaliation bombings and other such, but it was never even 5% of what it is now, and hamas probably knows that which is why Israel due to also being politically unstable was a vunurble target, it was ready for a skirmish, not a full invasion, and sure the war goes even all the way back to 1948 or even 1936 but that's a whole other topic, and un 1967 they took majority of those lands as per claims and due to arab hostility from fedayeen attacks, or like stationing hundreds of thousands on the israeli border, Soviet assistance, and blockading Israeli ports (something they knew was a decleration of war and was the reason for the 1956 war) and most likely if Israel had not acted they would have been attacked like they were in 1973.
>
As far as folks forgetting Hamas did October 7th, sure. But... I would point out, this is the most right-wing government in Israel's history. The "small yet significant" role that has not only includes deliberate encouraging of extremist settlers at the expense of the rest of Israel's population within the last two years, but nearly 30 years of catering to that demographic with extremist policies, all aimed at not finding a just solution with the Palestinian people... but crushing them and scattering as much of them to the wind. Just about the worst possible leadership you can ask for with a crisis like this.
Don't get me wrong I agree with you, the right wing government has constantly been pushing extremists like Haredim and the Settelers that often costs Israel more than it benefits them, but on the same page this war really helped netanyahu keep his power for another 2 years maybe, he was going to lose the next election, considiring the gigantic protests dating back from last year till october 7th that shut down much of the education system, justice system, completly tore apart much of the populice and heavily destroyed Bibis credibility, beside the fact that a leftwing/rightwing Gantz and lapiz government was already a thing that happened and likley to happen again, this war didn't help the stop of right wing radicalism which often started due to said attacks and terror actions but the same can be same of the radicalization of palestinians due to israeli attacks so there's that.
and yea they don't really want a solution that is just a solution, that was attempted but never really possible, the fact is both sides like themselves too much, have alot of radicalism, and are very patriotic considiring the situation and the history, the best solution was probably a saudi arabia settelment for peace and alliance agianst iran for additional rights and support for a palestinian state, that was very much possible and might still be although much less
>
crushing them and scattering as much of them to the wind. Just about the worst possible leadership you can ask for with a crisis like this.
that was the only option keeping them in power though, a hard stance on what people saw and often experianced as ruthless barbaric terror attacks that shouldn't be allowed or promoted by any idea that they acheive additional stuff and goals for palestine, it's not the right way at all for peace but it's probably the one resonating the best "crush our enemies" just... sounds cooler and most think it is a better way considiring the october 7th attacks they really had no negotiations, Hamas often asked for too much, like a 10-1 exchange ratio which is just obsured
>Israel has every right to be in gaza considiring it still has it's citizens there captive, and the enemy that attacked it too, you can suggest maybe... a decent and reasonble deal to everyone with a brain that being release of hostages and surrendur of hamas officials but I highly doubt that will happen.
Right, but part of that comes out the vengeance bit. You're at the point now where the government is literally pitching "*fuck the hostages, their deaths are worth more killing*", with most of Likud's supporters now actually buying that out in the open. This isn't going to get better because that's the realm of thinking ultimately that is occurring in leadership.
You're quite right that October 7th was severe. And indeed, the war is politically beneficial to the government. Ultimately that is why this isn't going to get better. There were better political outcomes, but they require working with the Palestinians and not opting for extremists in Israel. Nonetheless, that is something the country will have to wear for the foreseeable future.
"Crushing your enemies" has appeal. Trust me, I watched the Iraq and Afghan Wars play out. The point is though that such a strategy isn't pitched in good faith - it doesn't achieve anything because its unrealistic as far as actually preventing further violence, and because it simply appeals to cruelty. Inevitably someone else has to take over, find the situation is fucked because the leadership wasn't interested in accomplishing anything, and make far more difficult choices than what could've been done had cruelty not been driving the wheel to begin with.
>Right, but part of that comes out the vengeance bit. You're at the point now where the government is literally pitching "*fuck the hostages, their deaths are worth more killing*", with most of Likud's supporters now actually buying that out in the open. This isn't going to get better because that's the realm of thinking ultimately that is occurring in leadership.
I mean in some way, but I think it's mostly due to the reluctance of a fair and reasonble deal from hamas that doens't involve them reciving their fallen soldiers or leaders back from captivity, and most likley majority of the hostages are probably already dead and hamas is just trying to track time hoping some sanctions will come on Israel or something helps them which really isn't a thing anymore, the fact is that as long as hamas says there are living hostages and wants something for them, Likud leadership doesn't care and will just destroy gaza more and more untill they return, they are in many ways a scapegoat for the destruction and sure vengence that's done often on the infastracture, buildings, and much of the construction of gaza which at times is blown for fun.
>
You're quite right that October 7th was severe. And indeed, the war is politically beneficial to the government. Ultimately that is why this isn't going to get better. There were better political outcomes, but they require working with the Palestinians and not opting for extremists in Israel. Nonetheless, that is something the country will have to wear for the foreseeable future.
but you can't work with the palestinians, because they either don't control hamas or at times [straight up support them](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/) with some gazan citizens being involved in the october 7th attack, and most of the negotiations can be summed up to hamas wanting like 10 of theirs released for 1 hostage or somewhere in that ratio, demanding Israel to evacuate from gaza, and by that principal still retaining control, which is just impossible for israel to allow, Hamas signed it's warrent on itself the moment it enterd on october 7th and thus israel has set itself to destroy hamas.
>
"Crushing your enemies" has appeal. Trust me, I watched the Iraq and Afghan Wars play out. The point is though that such a strategy isn't pitched in good faith - it doesn't achieve anything because its unrealistic as far as actually preventing further violence, and because it simply appeals to cruelty. Inevitably someone else has to take over, find the situation is fucked because the leadership wasn't interested in accomplishing anything, and make far more difficult choices than what could've been done had cruelty not been driving the wheel to begin with.
Basically yea
Eh... its the current government. Like there's a reason why they've spread a lot of hatred of international institutions - builds a siege mentality. That's their political outlook.
Even then, any person who would describe themselves as a Eurovision fan will be annoyed at the number of undeservèd votes some pretty generic pop song got, rather than them goïng to Norway who was ROBBED!
IDK man, it was fairly generic but had good vocals and a decent preformance, but I will still take that over the screaming witch from ireland, or the weird rap pop hybrid switzerland had and such that are kinda weird IMO, or finland which only came to sexually touch the audience
I mean to each their own. I liked Switzerland, and Croatia and Ireland. Not all people who regularly watch it will actually consider themselves to be “Eurovision fans” (or Eurofans) and identify with the label. I mean the sort of people who might watch the national finals of other countries than their own or Italy’s.
It's very easy to recruit a bunch of homeless young orphans with nothing to lose if their housing blocks just got indiscriminately shelled for being near Hamas maybe.
[Yeah, fun fact about all the unaccompanied minors in the strip now.](https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/stories-loss-and-grief-least-17000-children-are-estimated-be-unaccompanied-or)
They destroyed their infrastructure, which was the point. Out of all the Iranian proxies only Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are important because they have infrastructure and act like a pseudo a government. Nobody in the Israeli government is stupid enough to think they can kill every last Hamas member.
>Nobody in the Israeli government is stupid enough to think they can kill every last Hamas member.
That is what they are pitching.
They know its unrealistic, but that's kinda the point. You get a perpetual conflict that chiefly serves the interest of the right in the country. As far as terrorizing the civilian population, targeting civilian infrastructure, deliberately plunging the population into famine... it boosts extremism and guarantees this goes on forever.
Interesting, it does seem like that's what Bibi and gang are trying to do. His popularity has decreased significantly though, probably because of how prolonged they're making it given that's what the Tel Aviv protests were complaining about. Personally I think there's no way the voters will buy it unless the perpetual war is to rebuild Gaza Marshall plan style and by some miracle it actually works. Elections are probably happening next year so we'll see if his strategy works.
He's buying time, that's ultimately what all of this is.
Longer this drags out, bloodier it gets, more of siege mentality that gets put on the country... the more Likud and Settler voter that come back to supporting his coalition. He doesn't need the voting majority, that's not what got this current government elected. Just needs the voters that count within the electoral system that'll get him the necessary seats. So dragging this out, and offering unrealistic but extremist pitches only benefits him in the meantime.
>not faster than they die.
Good Ken Burns doc on the Vietnam War where there's a village chief talking about collateral damage. In-spite of all the body counts getting met, he noted "you kill a VC, you kill one VC. You kill a civilian, you get 10 VC".
You never run outta dudes. Its the political outcomes you're able to get - not the rounds you've had to expend. And if the enemy is still willing to throw rocks if that's all they have, all you've accomplished is stacking corpses.
the dude supply is a lot more limited in gaza than in vietnam. and like I said even so they don't have any equipment for them. they can't stop the idf from occupying the city. they can fight, but they can't win.
>they can't stop the idf from occupying the city. they can fight, but they can't win.
just like in afghanistan and iraq with the USA lol
this isnt hoi4 mate
my entire point was that you can't compare an entire country to one city, and you just repeated your point from before and completely ignored what I said?
The flow of arms has stopped due to the heavier restrictions, but those measures are not sustainable in the long term.
If the status quo is maintained eventually arms will start to come in, Hamas will rearm and they'll have a supply of tens of thousands or people eager to hit back at Israel.
Right now Hamas is crippled, and even if you can wipe them out that will be nothing more than a band-aid unless the post-war brings about a paradigm shift on how Israel deals with Gaza and the Palestinian independence movement.
So yeah, you'll have riots and eventually you'll have gun and bomb attacks as the strip rearms. If the current level of restrictions are kept reconstruction will never take place and the population will just become more radicalized as the "open air prison" rhetoric slowly becomes real as 2 million people are forcefully kept underfed and living in rubble.
> my entire point was that you can't compare an entire country to one city
no it wasnt, it was that the dude supply is more limited. its irrelevant though, what israels doing is just going to keep generating armed resistance. they could kill every hamas militant in palestine and in 20 years it will be like it never happened. they will not run out of dudes unless israel is willing to commit open genocide.
"if i pretend that he said something completely different then he's wrong!"
i'm saying they cant murder their way into not having an armed resistance movement unless they go all in, and they wont go all in because their existence requires international support and that wont survive another dier yassim in the age of the cellphone camera.
thats not even what netanyahu and his mob of crazies are even trying to do, btw. in fact they're desperately trying to avoid a peaceful and stable palestine.
they want to ethnically cleanse the land before settling it with their own population, they dont want millions of arab citizens who will vote against their supremacist agenda.
by israels own estimates they radicalise multiple palestinians for each civilian killed and are killing more civilians than militants.
we are watching the largest and fastest hamas recruitment drive in history.
I’m Ukrainian and I very much understood why people become radicalized and become terrorists when Russia looked like they’d do urban warfare in Kyiv (where I’m from). Everyone’s one bad day away from becoming a terrorist I think.
radicalizing isn't the same as having actually join Hamas. the rate at which Israel kills Hamas member is greater than the rate at which people are joining Hamas. and again, nobody is addressing my other point that they have no equipment, they could not fight the idf if they had twice as many members.
> radicalizing isn't the same as having actually join Hamas
if like 1 in 6 radicalised people end up joining hamas then the numbers are bad for them, especially considering that at some point the mass killing in gaza will stop and the net growth of hamas will explode.
>nobody is addressing my other point that they have no equipment, they could not fight the idf if they had twice as many members
its a fuckin insurgent militia mate. they dont need to win a single stand-up fight against israel to win, no insurgency ever did.
Well, there are many ways invented, like filling them with water, filling them with hardening foam and other methods, yes it's hard while there are hostages, but still.
people talk about it like Israel was funding hamas to attack them
things change, goals divert, people can change, and other such.
Hamas at first started as a civic organization and was funded to a fairly small degree in order to fight Fatah which was constantly launching Terror attacks, the more time passed on, the more funds came from iran, the more Hamas just changed, It's like I give the vendor 5 bucks for a hotdog, and he just gives me shit, I didn't pay for Shit, I paid for hotdogs, but I didn't get them, that sucks, but am i really to blame for what the Vendor did ?
They let Qatar fund Hamas because people would complain about "look Israel is starving Gaza" otherwise. They didn't expect Hamas would post this lie on social media and people wouldn't fact check it. Can't win against whoever runs Iran's PR team.
Yeah, they kind of murdered away any good will that might have gotten them by the fucking bloodbath they've cut through the orders of magnitude higher number of civilians since then sport.
It's almost like that was Iran's plan from the beginning of the beginning or something. Launch a proxy attack against Israel, wait for the response, then immediately start accusing Israel of "genocide".
They aren't doing genocide but I am not sure they're limiting civilian casualties either. There's AI system which evaluates information and selects bombing targets with links to Hamas. There are 10-30 permissible civilian casualties for one junior hamas militant.
That's unhinged, they basically allow blowing up whole apartment block with civilians if that means they kill 3 hamas militants.
Honestly if that were the case I'd expect a lot more casualties. I'm not saying it's not terrible, but at the same time it doesn't seem like they truly act upon it. The number of dead has barely risen in the past 3 months.
They very much are limiting civilian casualties. Israel has killed 15,000 combatants and 15,000 civilians in more than 7 months of war.
You don't think the IDF is capable of killing more Palestinian civilians than that in 7+ months of war?
You don't fight a war to be fair or sporting. You fight to win. If your enemy hides in residential areas, then you have to fight them there. Losing a war does not automatically make you the victim. Look, this isn't good to watch. It's heart wrenching, war is a blight upon mankind, but that doesn't make it a genocide.
If you want to see a genocide, check out what Muslims have done to Hindus and Sikhs in afghanistan. That's a genocide where the entire population has been wiped out.
It's a one sided war because only one side considers the death of its own civilians to be a desirable goal and has therefore adopted a strategy intentionally designed to get as many of its own civilians killed as possible.
It’s a one sided war because Hamas is barely a militia, it poses no actual threat to Israel. And Israel decided it’s a good excuse to bomb as many Palestinian civilians as possible.
Oh, no. 1% of reddit subs are not Hamas apologist. Subs that have nothing to do with politics now have mod notes at top with Hamas propaganda. I think you'll be alright if not 100% of subs on reddit are pro hamas.
Tbh probably most of the people voting for Israel for political reasons are doing it to "own the libs" (the lefty pro-Palestine activists) rather than out of any real feeling for Israel itself. It's all identity politics and navelgazing
We don't "own the libs" in europe, it's an americanism. A lot of people on europe just support israel. Not everything has an ulterior motive. It sends a message if you need armed military to protect synagogues because the people there would be harrased and possibly attacked otherwise.
"We" absolutely "own the libs", only they're called "left-liberals" or "green-liberals" or "globalists".
That being said in this instance antisemitism from Arab/Muslim immigrants has also no doubt increased sympathy for Israel, at least through decreasing sympathy for Muslims, and as usual much of our politics revolves around migration.
I don't, I'm just using the phrasing the above commenter used. Orbán is an especially prominent example, but you can just as well go to any other country, even more moderate ones like Finland the far-right absolutely goes on about leftists, liberals and even talks about "wokeism" and "cancel culture" in their programme. The exact terms and phrases used may differ by country and language, but the basic principle of it is the same. Europe is by no means immune to such idiocy.
I don't like Israel being in the contest but objectively Hurricane was a good song and the singer had a great vocal range. IMO if she'd have been from a non controversial country it would still be a contender
That said I liked the winning song too. At least it wasn't Croatia's trash
I didn't say that, but it's definitely a strong factor. If you look at what conservative politicians and other public figures are saying about the topic, it's maybe 10% about Israel itself and 90% outrage at the pro-Palestine protests.
It feels like Israel is pulling a Putin here. Can’t back down because it’d be the end of some political careers. They are really running themselves down here, but there’s no end game in sight. They are forcing their allies to put a stop to it. Can’t see the sense in sacrificing alliances that are necessary for your existence.
Was really dumb to participate in the Eurovision as well. They are really pushing their luck. Agitating the issue throughout the European continent. They should have stuck to their original plan placing a song that would be DQ’d. It was greedy to participate.
Regardless of Israel’s relationship with the west, it’s still mind boggling that Israel still afforded the room to operate. It’s the same problem as with Ukraine. No one wants to be in a decisive role so the situation keeps on tracks that don’t lead anywhere.
I don't know much about israel palestine war. But it seems weird to me that israel not destroying hamas when they had so many chances. Also why us supporting israel becoming one state instead of agree with two state solution and win over arab world
People say that, but like when ? A destruction of hamas post 2006 was impossible essentialy without this type of war, you can't root out the tree without getting to it's roots, it will just regrow.
Most of the Arab world also doesn’t support two state solution… that’s kind of the problem. The only people who support two state solution are all living on completely different continents and not in the Middle East.
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Houthi flag meme
That flag is so awful it doesn't need to be memed
You should add something like "the most internationally isolated you have ever been"
Oh no, it was way worse before the detente with Israel's neighbours during the 1980s and especially before 1973.
Yea, At that point we were buying stuff, and they were just denied from us mid shipment (talking about weapons) like we had with france, and later the freeze in trading with the Comintern, the US didn't really like Israel too much untill the 70s mostly, and other countries generally not being so supportive or trusting at all.
Israel is straight up losing the political front of the war. Israel overestimated how legitimate it appeared on the international scene, and has undone two decades of moderating it’s worst tendencies. But I think people also ignore what actually happens if Hamas is successfully purged by Israel. The whole reason why Hamas was allowed to grow was in order to delegitimize the Palestinian cause at a time where revelations on Israel’s paramilitary "Geneva checklist" had them in hot water. A Palestine that isn’t stained by Hamas’ reputation would be a stronger opponent on the international stage, one fueled by a revitalized sense of struggle and greater international sympathy than ever before. We might actually be seeing the tide turn for the first time since the start of this war in 48 (ok maybe not but still, interesting times)
I think it's interesting that people commonly assume that Israel is overestimating the amount of support and legitimacy is has internationally, but I actually think that it's the opposite. Israel actually underestimates the amount of genuine support it has, and so they act as if they have very little in that department to lose. From their perspective, a lot of the support they do have, especially in the US, can be chalked up to fear of Islamist terrorism, when a good portion of it is genuine support. For example, the famous Biden quote from the 90s when he says 'if Israel didn't exist, the US would have to create an Israel' is pretty representative of the general attitude to Israel in the west. From a western perspective, that looks identical to full support of Israel, but if you look at that from the Israeli perspective, it looks like support based on the fact that they are just a non-muslim country in the middle east, conditioned on the fact thye are more stable and globally integrated than their neighbours.
I would argue that is a result of both past Israeli actions biting them in the ass, and the current party in power actively trying to make things worse internationally. I suspect that the universal conscription into the IDF has made everyone in Israel far too comfortable/intimate with the military, to the point where they will take the IDF’s word on what’s going on over everything else. If everyone is in, or has a family member involved in the operation, they’re going to assume that operation is going to be conducted morally. When in reality, I have a sneaking suspicion you don’t actually need that many corrupt military leaders to turn a modern military into a force for genocide. One of the things that concerned me about the starvation in Gaza is that cutting Gaza off from food would be one of the best ways to co-opt a military that is ostensibly supposed to refuse genocidal order into killing large numbers of civilians. You don’t need death squads, all you need is good soldiers who spend too much time holding up aid with inspections. You could kill off thousands without needing to actually convince your army to be onboard with mass murder. Same with the air strikes and even with how the ground invasion goes. You don’t need Nazis flying the planes. You just need bad intel, and the pilots will drop bombs wherever you want. You don’t need death squads, you just need conscripts who are terrified and fed propaganda about how everything that moves is a threat, and they’ll start shooting wildly. Add to that, I think part of the reason Israel has been so aggressive is that Bibi and Likud are *trying* to turn the world against Israel. Hamas was their boogeyman for a decade, but now it can’t fill that role anymore, since they’ve shown themselves to be unable to cage it like they’ve claimed for so long. They need a new outside force to threaten Israel so they can go “Look how the world is turned against us! Only we can save you!”. The problem is, they are already on notice with the Israeli public, so they can’t start an outright war of aggression. So instead they keep poking every enemy they can find (and many allies) to get them to attack, and make Israel look like a victim, at the expense of every single diplomatic tie Israel has gained in the past 60 years. Unfortunately for them, Biden has done a frankly impressive job keeping the Middle East from erupting into an outright interstate conflict, and maintaining positive Israeli public opinion of the U.S. But Biden has only accomplished that at the expense of Palestinian lives, and it’s yet to be seen if that tradeoff is worth it.
Yea, plus it's the fact that arguibly the pro Israeli Community isn't loud Pro palestinian propaganda, protests, riots, events, boycotts, social media influence and more, has been cultivated for fucking ages, I mean since nearly the start of the war in 1948 there was already groups getting popular support from other nations to palestine, which was mostly from other middle eastern nations up untill the 1990s when it rapidly shifted to either radicalize or agendize mostly the left in the western political world where it reigns supreme establishing itself as a helpless victim in the eyes of many regardless of the truth or the facts, alongside with the pretty obvious mass muslim support, Pro palestinian s have gatherd millions upon millions of mostly islamic or semi radical left support which they use to just attack and deface Israel on every turn that's just the facts, weather it's justified or not it's what has and has been happening
If they went in quick after October 7th killed just a few thousand people instead of 10s of thousands and declared victory no one would have looked twice and all the horrors Israel has committed against Palestinians would have stayed mostly unknown
>I actually think that it's the opposite. Israel actually underestimates the amount of genuine support it has, and so they act as if they have very little in that department to lose. A little of both IMO, Israel presumes it has very little support, and that the support it does have is much harder to lose than it actually is (ours for example)
It’s for this reason I don’t think they’ll actually destroy Hamas entirely. Or more likely, they will, but will then use the “threat” of a “resurgent” Hamas, or their remnants, as an excuse to justify whatever actions they’ll do to put down everyone they’ve radicalized by killing family members this time around
>Or more likely, they will, but will then use the “threat” of a “resurgent” Hamas, or their remnants, as an excuse to justify whatever actions they’ll do Bingo. What a *coincidence* this also forces a lot of Israelis into the political situation then on having to vote with security on the mind versus any political resolution to the conflict - *I just couldn't imagine this chiefly benefits Likud and the settler parties, my word*
can't switch horses midstream, so the best strategy for a shitty horse is never get out of the water
unless they're willing to attack qatar they arent going to be able to destroy hamas.
I think what has really damaged Israel in the long term is that for the longest time criticism of Israel would be met with counterclaims of you being a nazi or antisemitic. They never got any true peepee smacks for the shit their forces would pull. They just got to keep on keeping on with whatever they wanted to do creating more animosity with Hamas and Palestine. Now it’s trendy to shit on Israel with their actions being exposed to where they can’t be ignored. I’m not saying this as someone who supports Hamas, my stance is way worse in that I don’t really give a shit.
they had a hard time sayinng you’re anti semetic when someone like Bernie Sanders says that what they are doing is bad
I think Israel underestimated how just pictures and stories form Gaza on social media would mobilise otherwise sympathetic publics against them
And how much same pictures and stories from Oct 7 victims would be completely ignored. I blame TikTok and other social media algorithms on this one
I think you are overestimating social media manipulation in this case. A lot of protestors were already organized the moment that the situation stabilized after the initial attack. People that somewhat followed the conflict before, knew exactly what kind of reaction Israel would give. I am not sure why you would think that these opinions are just manipulation instead of actually having to do something with what is actually happening. You can't point to the initial attack indefinitely to excuse any action. Especially when it also came out how much of a failure it was from the national security apparatus and probably can't be repeated. And don't forget comments from people like Ben Gvir which paint a different picture than just trying to have a proportionate response.
people were organized at the time of the attack because they were cheering hamas on. screaming "genocide" after an extremely brutal attack on 1000 jews that hasn't even been responded to yet is a 21st century blood libel
Hm, I looked it up here. Some were indeed supporting the attacks as resistance and others were focussing on the potential Israeli attack. I am not sure why it would be a blood libel. The people supporting the action at the very least fit in the pattern of the longer conflict that already exists and understood it as part of a longer conflict.
they're calling it a genocide by israel right after hamas has done something beyond terrible. their "genocide" (israeli responce) had not even begun yet. this reminds me of jews in europe being brutally attacked and then accused to stealing blood.
Why does it remind you of that?
anti semetic attack, immediate accusation of jews committing crime
I still don't see how that would equate it with blood libel in the case that it was true I also don't see how you cannect to state of Israel to jews in general. Israel has a predictable pattern and is more predictable when you actually take into account who is governing it. With people like Ben Gvir in power, it wouldn't say that it is far fetched to predict that there is a decent probability of a genocide happening as reaction.
They’re not being ignored, they’re just not relevant anymore. October 7th was 7 months ago, what matters is the human suffering happening right now. We don’t have a time machine.
Human suffering of Russian soldiers never mattered even though Ukraine war footage sub was basically only posting Russians getting killed. No Jews, no news.
It was never relevant.
Well I was sympathetic to Israel after October for a few months. But once they reached an eye-for-20-eyes proportions of retaliation (ie when the civilian toll count passed 20k in Gaza) that’s when I lost my sympathy. And I follow this conflict not via tiktok but mainly via Reuters headlines. And Reddit I guess but the pro Palestinians on Reddit are pretty psycho so I don’t think they helped in my change of heart.
I think that's kind of missing the point considering Hamas wants to kill people, not Israel. Wars have goals and killing is not a legitimate one. This one is to remove the ability of Hamas to be a government so they're reduced to just another PIJ (because people can die in the future, October 7 was not the only attack Hamas has done recently), and to get hostages back. If Hamas decides to put 30,000 people in the way (only 1% of the population, this includes fighters BTW), that is their problem. When Hitler told the Hitler Youth to defend Berlin the Allies didn't stop their attack just in case they'd kill a child soldier. 30k people dying in urban warfare (at a 1:2.5 combattant:civilian ratio using Hamas's self reported numbers, which is very far from the roughly 1:10 that the UN says is average for urban warfare) does not make something a genocide, considering 100k people died in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine alone. I've heard people calling Russia genocidal, but "people die in war" was not one of the reasons. Hamas is at fault here for not agreeing to Israel's peace deals (they just want their hostages but Sinwar knows he's screwed since he's surrounded by 12 at all times) so their excellent PR team got the genius idea of making a bad counter proposal and calling it "accepting" to make Israel look bad. Also Reuters frequently makes stories that correct their previous ones, but news algos don't promote them. Remember when Hamas immediately said "500 people died in al-shifa trust me bro" and everyone reported it until al fucking jazeera proved them wrong? They're taking advantage of western journalists' duty to provide info as quickly as possible by spreading misinfo and hoping most people don't see the retractions. The real underestimation that Israel did was that of Hamas's PR capabilities. "1 death on camera and posted to TikTok is a tragedy, one thousand+ Jews, 10+ Muslims and 2+ million Gazans suffering under Hamas is a statistic"
For me, the turning point was the slow-walking of aid deliveries into the strip (especially Kerem Shalom). Collateral damage is one thing, but preventing the delivery of food into a place that isn't food secure can only be interpreted as either reckless indifference or active malice towards millions of noncombatants.
I think a strong motivator is posts from Israeli soldiers, poltiicans, commentators etc. about the war. And it's not even random people, just look at what kind of stuff Ben Gvir slings into the world.
I unironically supported Israel at first because it could give us a Palestine that isn’t stained by Hamas’s reputation.
If Hamas is thoroughly destroyed but the PA isn’t completely reformed in a way that makes it look at least vaguely like a state (border control, armed police and actual army, and an economy Israel can’t siphon under the guise of “sanctions”), then we get a new Hamas within the next 10 years.
That is assuming Hamas can even be destroyed without completely decimating the Gazan population. If we go by the IDF's "males of military age" definition of who is a legitimate target then that could very well be what happens.
[удалено]
Yeah, that is a wack as fuck take to actually have
...they were right to ban you
It’s not the 1960s, communist revolutions are out of fashion and a communist Hamas is essentially identical to the current one
But if it's communist then the US will support Israel even harder lol
I think Iraq and Afghanistan kinda prove it’s near impossible to force regime change when a good portion of the population despise you. You can’t bomb a place into having a civil society and educated tolerant population. The Israelis already tried building up Gaza for over a decade but it all amounted to squat. The Israeli government surely knows this can’t work and if I were guessing probably are just using this to boost support for the current ruling party at this point. I’m not saying there’re any easy way to solve this but Netanyahu definitely isn’t trying to create a better government for the people of Palestine.
israel dont want to do that lol, that would legitimise them and hamper israels efforts to push the palestinians out of gaza and the west bank.
I thought that they thought that would nake there be fewer attacks overall.
the far right nutcases running the country at the moment dont want that either. they want a steady stream of attacks on israel from hamas that allows them to get away with their oppression and ethnic cleansing of palestinians. the minister of defence even resigned in 2022 after netanyahu was caught funneling suitcases full of cash from qatar to hamas, saying that israel was funding terrorism against itself. oct 7 was way larger with a far higher death toll than what they wanted, though.
> has undone two decades of moderating it’s worst tendencies what in the fuck are you talking about lol. they've spent most of those two decades being run by far-right whackjobs and formalising the shit that libs and lefties hate the most about israel (the settlement program, the apartheid aspects of how they treat arabs, etc). the biggest news out of israel over the years before oct 7 was their massive democratic backslide, the blatant criminality of their current leader, and his support of the guy who attempted a fascist coup in the USA.
I think most Israelis would welcome this idealistic Palestine you are describing. They don't care about Palestine "winning" the sympathy vote. They just don't want to have to live under constant threat of rocket attacks, kidnap, rape, and torture.
no you see they are evil zionists whom must be decolonized, it is apartheid for them to not want to be dead
It’s also genocide, but otherwise I agree 100%
The Israeli government’s PR and information department to be fired for losing the war of public opinion against a few Iranian puppets
Mass civilian casualties in an age of social media is always a bad look. This is like the French army blaming the defeat in Algeria on the press leaking info about the organized torture squads, you can only spin so much.
They could’ve did promotional campaigns on atrocities from Palestinianists like the genocide on Darfuris and how ‘Palestinians’ bring war and chaos everywhere they go from Jordan to Lebanon, instead of arguing with clowns like Jackson Hinkle on Twitter
This argument is not racist, racism is the argument.
I don’t think saying Palestinians are inherently destabilizing will make them seem less racist
Truw they shouldve just gone and said the most racist shit they could think of about those sub human palestinians, truly only then would public opinion be on their side
Ukraine showed that it can kill several hundreds of thousands of russians and not lose public sympathy.
Because Ukraine almost never hits Russian civilians. It also helps that Russia has done a lot of war criming in Ukraine.
Those are soldiers. How many russian civilian casualties did Ukraine cause?
No-no, that guy has a point. Tankies cry about russian civilians killed in terrorist attack, which apparently caused by Ukraine. And russian propaganda is pushing a narrative that UAF would do Gaza treatment on russians if they push back to the borders, and push same ceasefire crap.
They really couldn't do anything The war they were dragged into was MADE for civilian casualties, you might think it's bullshit but it's unironically impressive it's actually not that high as it shouldv'e been if Israel was more reckless in the war the numbers though are there, gaza is probably a top 3-5 most densly populated places on earth, and from it is operating a terror group that has been organizing and arming itself for the past 20 years (hence the blockade) and doesn't fear the idea of radicalizing their own people by hiding behind them and causing much of the escelation in the first place, Israel doesn't have the liberal hoards, or the mass muslim users in social media to support it, so as far as it could do it's doing ok, not good but not bad considiring what it was given
Could’ve at least tried putting the issue of Kurdistan and Darfur into public consciousness as well as Iran’s human rights situation, there’s no reason why the world should care about some Arab irredentists getting pummelled more than other real atrocities in the Middle East
ohh yea definetly, I always see pro palestine posts, and I sometimes think "why is it just palestine ?" because there are so many other conflicts that are just as if not more horrible, there is persecution in countless countries of countless groups, wars in sudan syria yemen and probably more, countless human crisis happen probably all over africa, and it doesn't seem to get as much treatment, because people don't care, palestine has gotten trendy with the mass hoards that scream their lungs out and don't know anything, you can easily tell on maybe instagram or tiktok they will just call you a zionist or say "educate yourself" which is funny considiring they most times aren't as well educated on the topic, it's like a beehive stuck to it's hive essentaily, ignoring the other completly free and open hives all around it that need it's bees
What happens when you staff your media people with trolls, because the government elected is full of trolls. They're not going to spend their days trying to put the best foot forward. They're going to spend their days getting into pissing matches with other trolls.
Somehow this sub has a much more realistic view of the conflict than the other NCD. The replies on this post are far more nuanced than anything from there, which usually amounts to a "israel good, 100% justified for any action it may take". I know that there's been a lot of allegations of astroturfing, but it's getting ridiculous at this point.
Most of the other NCD got into it during the Russian war, which for all intents and purposes is much closer to being a black and white conflict. It's sad but not surprising that they're not used to approaching conflicts with nuance.
I really miss the pre ukraine war ncd. It was ok for that war, but, as you said, the same attitude has been applied to this war.
I suspect that over the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the other NCD gradually went from an ironic neocon circlejerk to an unironic neocon circlejerk. It wasn’t (as) noticeable before October 7th because they were mainly focused on the Russo-Ukrainian war, in which Russia is unambiguously the aggressor and is clearly in the wrong. When the focus shifted to the Israel Palestine conflict, in which the side backed by NATO is shelling apartment blocks because they might be in the same general area as a Hamas fighter, the other NCD’s unironic warmongering became a lot harder to ignore
Honestly that sub has gone way too far off the deep end. It's full of edgelords who at this point have committed to the belief that there are no civilians in Gaza. I had to unsubscribe because instead of getting defense shitposts on my front page, I started getting some really unironically deranged and cruel shit from that subreddit
I honestly miss the old NCD. There were always jokes about civilian casualties but it was stuff like the 3 gorges dam, something that hasn't and will never happen
>and will never happen China doesn't have the best reputation for building quality infrastructure, you know.
Three gorges dam was honestly when the sub started to go downhill. It went from obscure defense shitposting to the same "Haha guys what if war crime but funny because Chinese" joke over and over and over again until the mods had to literally ban dam posting because it became so low effort. The sub grew too quickly.
I don't nessecerly think it's true, although it probably is to a degree, probably the more nuanced or interesting point of view and conflict is why they are dead and the roots of the conflict and other such
There’s been a few posts making fun of Israel which was refreshing but you’re right it’s quite biased, I still like the subreddit because of the Russia memes.
I think it is just much more difficult for pro-palestinians to accept differing views, so they dismiss them as "unrealistic".
Yeah, I mean... its almost all like some of us were warning against celebrating and defending a government prone to rash, vengeance-based decision making, playing off of trauma and racism to pitch brutally violent, indiscriminate outcomes for unrealistic objectives solely to keep itself in power... Naturally I can't imagine that line of dialogue being ignored at all. Or being called Hamas-lovers for offering it. What a good thing we all don't live in such a world!
Surely everyone must have seen how reasonable that position was! *awkward silence* :(
Its a pity no one's memed the Israeli UN Ambassador's speech on Friday, because that was easily in the Top 10 of most unhinged diplomatic moments at the UN.
Could you link it ?
[Hell yea brother.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cAHZ8wl8L8) Master class on persuasion is insulting your audience, and then shredding the charter.
Didn’t, uh, Gaddafi do something like this?
[Still arguably holds the gold.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/23/muammar-gaddafi-general-assembly-speech) 100 minutes, topics as diverse as from criticizing the UNSC veto power to JFK assassination conspiracies, with the cherry-on-top being his fabulous fashion choice. If only I could be so lucky...
For fucks sake. I'm famous with my friends for being real bad at persuasion but never have I considered just outright insulting the people I'm trying to persuade
He is not trying to persuade anyone (the UN always has and always will have an automatic majority against Israel). He is trying to go viral, and was successful at that.
>He is not trying to persuade anyone Most definitely. But I don't think he was gunning for clicks. Most of the Israeli foreign affairs folks haven't exactly been hired by the current government for their competency so much as their obnoxious qualities. His audience is purely the domestic right in Israel, that's it.
Of all the shit Israel would pull to further dig themselves deeper, that one wasn't on my bingo card. I'm waiting with bated breath what's next. I'm still wondering, did they think people wouldn't notice due to there already being a frontpage war going on? Or did they bank on people seeing them as another "downtrodden"country fighting for survival? What was the thinking here?
>What was the thinking here? Hubris and short-sightedness. Years of the most right-wing government in the country's history, unresolved conflict's impact on society, and a solid media focus on October 7th just like how it was in the States following 9/11. You got the worst folks imaginable leading the country and doing so largely for their own political survival, and a deeply traumatized population - its a bad mix. Like all the shots at the UN especially aren't long-term bargaining - some folks really do drink the kool-aid on it being staffed by nothing but Hamas-supporters.
So what do you do if you’re Israel after October 7th?
Listen to the country that fought insurgents for 2 decades and not go out of your way to make more while losing all of your newfound sympathy.
It's a lot easier to say "don't invade" when the country in question is 5000 miles away and didn't actually attack you (Iraq. Afghanistan technically didn't attack but they did harbor al Qaeda).
Yeah that’s easy to say when said insurgent group is on a different continent.
Totally a reasonable justification then to ignore any and all advice, and instead plunge headlong into something with no end, and international marginalization because cruelty is driving policy.
I think Israel’s actions in Gaza have been pretty justified. Former Israeli ambassador to the US and bookwriter/historian Michael Oren uses the term “icebox” to describe the relative state of peace that comes about between Arab-Israeli wars. He talks in his book *six days of war* about how after each war, the area will fall into a relative peace for around 5-10 years. This is a pretty accurate assessment, and has held true since he published the book in 2002. 1948-56 is 6 years 56-67 is 11 years 67-73 is 6 years 73-78 is 5 years 78-82 is 4 years 82-87 is 5 years Oslo accords seemed to buy a longer stretch of relative peace 2000-2006 is 6 years In Gaza, 2008-2012 is 4 years 2012-2014 is 2 years 2014-2023 is 9 years When Israel goes to war with a territory, whether it be Gaza, Lebanon, Egypt, or whatever, it generally results in temporary peace and the conflict going back into the icebox, even if territorial lines don’t change. I’d imagine the Israelis have calculated that an invasion of Gaza on this scale will cripple Hamas and its infrastructure for a significant amount of time and once again return the conflict to the icebox. This is a reasonable long term strategy, as it only results in potential gains in territory and power for the Israelis and cripples the Palestinians further. And in terms of long term peace, Israel being able to calm the conflict down for a few years at a time gives Israel the ability to wait for Iran to either get bored or the ayatollah get overthrown. If Israel doesn’t return the conflict to the icebox and doesn’t respond strongly to October 7th, it allows iran and its proxies to maintain regular and consistent large attacks against Israel, which will degrade its defensive capability and demand more western support (which Israel is struggling to maintain).
Yeah, I tend to take a dim view on the solely quantitative approaches. I'd agree the perspective is to cripple the territory - but I'd highlight that does nothing as far as either actually affecting a positive political outcome that ensures security, while severely damaging the country's regional and international standing. States can absolutely target populations with indiscriminate retributional actions; they also get judged for that behaviour as well. Israel's simply decided to opt for a Bashar al-Assad approach, that has consequences. The Iranians aren't going anywhere. If anything, this episode has raised Iran's interest in sinking Israel into a quagmire; they've benefited quite extensively from Israel marginalizing itself from the other Arab states. As for the Palestinians, you've guaranteed now decades more conflict. They'll fight with rocks if they have to - that's largely what they did during both Intifadas. All so that the state earns the reputation of South Africa during Apartheid - nothing long-term about this, the country simply gave in to some dreadful passions. Security ultimately means getting along with your neighbours. You don't get that through force of arms - you certainly don't get that through indiscriminate cruelty. At a certain point, sure... the conflict will freeze. But as for going back to the previous circumstance of stability, that's probably not going to happen. Especially with the threat of West Bank annexation, an insurgency in Gaza, and continued extremism in the Knesset.
Welp, it seems to be working. Israel has been gaining control and expanding settlements since forever now. And you still don’t have a better solution or action that Israel could take after October 7th. I’m not sure if you realize this, but Hamas and other Palestinian militants will not stop fighting until Israel is completely gone. They don’t want liberation for solely Gaza and the West Bank, they want the complete removal of Jews and anyone they see as a settler colonialist or whatever from the region.
>And you still don’t have a better solution or action that Israel could take after October 7th. Arm the PA, send them into Gaza. Doing that when Hamas had savaged its reputation would've politically marginalized the group further. Having a moment where the PA could demonstrate itself rescuing Gaza would've boosted its legitimacy, especially if the Israelis gave concessions and there'd been a push for new leadership. Could've been a real moment to put the conflict on a better footing, especially de-escalating wider regional tensions, while taking the most militant Palestinian organization out of the picture. Instead of that, Hamas is boosted amongst the population. Israel's settlements now mean greater confrontation with no solution save for ejecting all Palestinians into Jordan and causing a genocide. And an insurgency in Gaza that'll continue bleeding for the foreseeable future. Job well done. The point with political outcomes isn't to fixate on all your opponents being the worst people you think they are. Its to be strategic with taking the worst **outcomes** out of the equation. That means not treating all Palestinians as the same, but working to isolate the extremism Hamas represents by offering better alternatives by working with more agreeable Palestinian political representations. That forces those organizations to make choices in either moderating themselves to get into the political process, or marginalizing themselves further by opting for violent extremist strategies. Taking them up on their offer of further violence simply means extremists on both sides getting their way.
“Arm the PA and have them overthrow Hamas” *could* work, but I’d say the odds of it leading to peace are maybe 5% at best. Essentially what you are doing is supplying a semi-radical political group that wants, to some extent, control territory that you (the supplier of arms, Israel) currently control. I see this working about as well as supplying the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Could it work? Maybe. But I think squashing terror groups until international backing for Palestinian militants stops is a more reliable solution. Sure, it’s less efficient and leads to lots of potential bloodshed, but uprooting the status quo could turn out soooooo much worse
It’s not like Israel hasn’t fought insurgents either, not to mention this is closer to just Fallujah than Afghanistan or Iraq more broadly. The Israeli situation isn’t particularly comparable to the broader GWOT just due to the fact that it’s almost exclusively urban combat but is also hardly the first time these two groups have gone at it.
Suck Hamas’ dick according to that guy
Fundies here are funner. They work for a living at least.
?
You respond by killing 1000 random militants and civilians and then stop to reflect on how to move forward. Also maybe don’t spend decades cultivating a dumbass rebel government that wants to kill you in the first place.
It's where you draw the line though It's line people saying they want Ceasefire, What ceasefire ? what conditions ? what terms ? all of these are the make or break and people just ignore the fine lines that mean the world. they also ignore the bad of the side they support, Pro palestinians ignore the fact that hamas started this conflict and brought much of the destruction knowingly in order to use the dead civilians to gain support while Israel has been in a small yet significant role inviting this behaviour by not stopping settelers and other extremist groups that slowly take control of the government and only cause more conflict and death or the haredi that are literally a money sucking machine
>It's line people saying they want Ceasefire, What ceasefire ? what conditions ? what terms ? all of these are the make or break and people just ignore the fine lines that mean the world. To be frank though, that's not what is being said. The rhetoric is "*If you advocate for a ceasefire, you're on Hamas' side, because you want them to genocide Israel*". The mere suggestion that the Israelis have gone way too far, and that a political solution is needed is tantamount to being an Islamist. As far as this conflict starting on October 7th... I don't think even members of the IDF would agree with that if you poked them hard enough. There's always been an active state of hostility between Hamas and the Israelis - that's how we've had [Cast Lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)) in 2008, [Pillar of Defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Israeli_operation_in_the_Gaza_Strip) in 2012, [Protective Edge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War) in 2014, and [stuff as recent as 2021](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis). And lets remember here that the Palestinian Conflict isn't some new thing - you'd have to go back at least to 1967 when Israel took-over the remaining Palestinian territories from the Arab states. As far as folks forgetting Hamas did October 7th, sure. But... I would point out, this is the most right-wing government in Israel's history. The "small yet significant" role that has not only includes deliberate encouraging of extremist settlers at the expense of the rest of Israel's population within the last two years, but nearly 30 years of catering to that demographic with extremist policies, all aimed at not finding a just solution with the Palestinian people... but crushing them and scattering as much of them to the wind. Just about the worst possible leadership you can ask for with a crisis like this.
>To be frank though, that's not what is being said. The rhetoric is "*If you advocate for a ceasefire, you're on Hamas' side, because you want them to genocide Israel*". The mere suggestion that the Israelis have gone way too far, and that a political solution is needed is tantamount to being an Islamist. I agree to a degree, the thing is there is a difference between calling for moderation and presevation, and calling for complete withdrawl, Israel has every right to be in gaza considiring it still has it's citizens there captive, and the enemy that attacked it too, you can suggest maybe... a decent and reasonble deal to everyone with a brain that being release of hostages and surrendur of hamas officials but I highly doubt that will happen. >As far as this conflict starting on October 7th... I don't think even members of the IDF would agree with that if you poked them hard enough. There's always been an active state of hostility between Hamas and the Israelis - that's how we've had [Cast Lead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009)) in 2008, [Pillar of Defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Israeli_operation_in_the_Gaza_Strip) in 2012, [Protective Edge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War) in 2014, and [stuff as recent as 2021](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis). And lets remember here that the Palestinian Conflict isn't some new thing - you'd have to go back at least to 1967 when Israel took-over the remaining Palestinian territories from the Arab states. Sure, but an active state of hostility is nothing compared to the escalation after october 7th, there were of course skirmishes, terror attacks, retaliation bombings and other such, but it was never even 5% of what it is now, and hamas probably knows that which is why Israel due to also being politically unstable was a vunurble target, it was ready for a skirmish, not a full invasion, and sure the war goes even all the way back to 1948 or even 1936 but that's a whole other topic, and un 1967 they took majority of those lands as per claims and due to arab hostility from fedayeen attacks, or like stationing hundreds of thousands on the israeli border, Soviet assistance, and blockading Israeli ports (something they knew was a decleration of war and was the reason for the 1956 war) and most likely if Israel had not acted they would have been attacked like they were in 1973. > As far as folks forgetting Hamas did October 7th, sure. But... I would point out, this is the most right-wing government in Israel's history. The "small yet significant" role that has not only includes deliberate encouraging of extremist settlers at the expense of the rest of Israel's population within the last two years, but nearly 30 years of catering to that demographic with extremist policies, all aimed at not finding a just solution with the Palestinian people... but crushing them and scattering as much of them to the wind. Just about the worst possible leadership you can ask for with a crisis like this. Don't get me wrong I agree with you, the right wing government has constantly been pushing extremists like Haredim and the Settelers that often costs Israel more than it benefits them, but on the same page this war really helped netanyahu keep his power for another 2 years maybe, he was going to lose the next election, considiring the gigantic protests dating back from last year till october 7th that shut down much of the education system, justice system, completly tore apart much of the populice and heavily destroyed Bibis credibility, beside the fact that a leftwing/rightwing Gantz and lapiz government was already a thing that happened and likley to happen again, this war didn't help the stop of right wing radicalism which often started due to said attacks and terror actions but the same can be same of the radicalization of palestinians due to israeli attacks so there's that. and yea they don't really want a solution that is just a solution, that was attempted but never really possible, the fact is both sides like themselves too much, have alot of radicalism, and are very patriotic considiring the situation and the history, the best solution was probably a saudi arabia settelment for peace and alliance agianst iran for additional rights and support for a palestinian state, that was very much possible and might still be although much less > crushing them and scattering as much of them to the wind. Just about the worst possible leadership you can ask for with a crisis like this. that was the only option keeping them in power though, a hard stance on what people saw and often experianced as ruthless barbaric terror attacks that shouldn't be allowed or promoted by any idea that they acheive additional stuff and goals for palestine, it's not the right way at all for peace but it's probably the one resonating the best "crush our enemies" just... sounds cooler and most think it is a better way considiring the october 7th attacks they really had no negotiations, Hamas often asked for too much, like a 10-1 exchange ratio which is just obsured
>Israel has every right to be in gaza considiring it still has it's citizens there captive, and the enemy that attacked it too, you can suggest maybe... a decent and reasonble deal to everyone with a brain that being release of hostages and surrendur of hamas officials but I highly doubt that will happen. Right, but part of that comes out the vengeance bit. You're at the point now where the government is literally pitching "*fuck the hostages, their deaths are worth more killing*", with most of Likud's supporters now actually buying that out in the open. This isn't going to get better because that's the realm of thinking ultimately that is occurring in leadership. You're quite right that October 7th was severe. And indeed, the war is politically beneficial to the government. Ultimately that is why this isn't going to get better. There were better political outcomes, but they require working with the Palestinians and not opting for extremists in Israel. Nonetheless, that is something the country will have to wear for the foreseeable future. "Crushing your enemies" has appeal. Trust me, I watched the Iraq and Afghan Wars play out. The point is though that such a strategy isn't pitched in good faith - it doesn't achieve anything because its unrealistic as far as actually preventing further violence, and because it simply appeals to cruelty. Inevitably someone else has to take over, find the situation is fucked because the leadership wasn't interested in accomplishing anything, and make far more difficult choices than what could've been done had cruelty not been driving the wheel to begin with.
>Right, but part of that comes out the vengeance bit. You're at the point now where the government is literally pitching "*fuck the hostages, their deaths are worth more killing*", with most of Likud's supporters now actually buying that out in the open. This isn't going to get better because that's the realm of thinking ultimately that is occurring in leadership. I mean in some way, but I think it's mostly due to the reluctance of a fair and reasonble deal from hamas that doens't involve them reciving their fallen soldiers or leaders back from captivity, and most likley majority of the hostages are probably already dead and hamas is just trying to track time hoping some sanctions will come on Israel or something helps them which really isn't a thing anymore, the fact is that as long as hamas says there are living hostages and wants something for them, Likud leadership doesn't care and will just destroy gaza more and more untill they return, they are in many ways a scapegoat for the destruction and sure vengence that's done often on the infastracture, buildings, and much of the construction of gaza which at times is blown for fun. > You're quite right that October 7th was severe. And indeed, the war is politically beneficial to the government. Ultimately that is why this isn't going to get better. There were better political outcomes, but they require working with the Palestinians and not opting for extremists in Israel. Nonetheless, that is something the country will have to wear for the foreseeable future. but you can't work with the palestinians, because they either don't control hamas or at times [straight up support them](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palestinians-back-oct-7-attack-israel-support-hamas-rises-2023-12-14/) with some gazan citizens being involved in the october 7th attack, and most of the negotiations can be summed up to hamas wanting like 10 of theirs released for 1 hostage or somewhere in that ratio, demanding Israel to evacuate from gaza, and by that principal still retaining control, which is just impossible for israel to allow, Hamas signed it's warrent on itself the moment it enterd on october 7th and thus israel has set itself to destroy hamas. > "Crushing your enemies" has appeal. Trust me, I watched the Iraq and Afghan Wars play out. The point is though that such a strategy isn't pitched in good faith - it doesn't achieve anything because its unrealistic as far as actually preventing further violence, and because it simply appeals to cruelty. Inevitably someone else has to take over, find the situation is fucked because the leadership wasn't interested in accomplishing anything, and make far more difficult choices than what could've been done had cruelty not been driving the wheel to begin with. Basically yea
Based yegguy
Occasionally have some moments of sobriety and sanity.
Humans love extremes and popular media plays to both sides. It's a thing that will always happen, unfortunately.
Eh... its the current government. Like there's a reason why they've spread a lot of hatred of international institutions - builds a siege mentality. That's their political outlook.
Even then, any person who would describe themselves as a Eurovision fan will be annoyed at the number of undeservèd votes some pretty generic pop song got, rather than them goïng to Norway who was ROBBED!
IDK man, it was fairly generic but had good vocals and a decent preformance, but I will still take that over the screaming witch from ireland, or the weird rap pop hybrid switzerland had and such that are kinda weird IMO, or finland which only came to sexually touch the audience
I mean to each their own. I liked Switzerland, and Croatia and Ireland. Not all people who regularly watch it will actually consider themselves to be “Eurovision fans” (or Eurofans) and identify with the label. I mean the sort of people who might watch the national finals of other countries than their own or Italy’s.
>no realistic path to victory ?? there's like 10 Hamas members left how will they win
I love when folks forget these kind of groups recruit...
It's very easy to recruit a bunch of homeless young orphans with nothing to lose if their housing blocks just got indiscriminately shelled for being near Hamas maybe.
[Yeah, fun fact about all the unaccompanied minors in the strip now.](https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/stories-loss-and-grief-least-17000-children-are-estimated-be-unaccompanied-or)
Hahahaha yes, *very fun*
They destroyed their infrastructure, which was the point. Out of all the Iranian proxies only Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are important because they have infrastructure and act like a pseudo a government. Nobody in the Israeli government is stupid enough to think they can kill every last Hamas member.
>Nobody in the Israeli government is stupid enough to think they can kill every last Hamas member. That is what they are pitching. They know its unrealistic, but that's kinda the point. You get a perpetual conflict that chiefly serves the interest of the right in the country. As far as terrorizing the civilian population, targeting civilian infrastructure, deliberately plunging the population into famine... it boosts extremism and guarantees this goes on forever.
Interesting, it does seem like that's what Bibi and gang are trying to do. His popularity has decreased significantly though, probably because of how prolonged they're making it given that's what the Tel Aviv protests were complaining about. Personally I think there's no way the voters will buy it unless the perpetual war is to rebuild Gaza Marshall plan style and by some miracle it actually works. Elections are probably happening next year so we'll see if his strategy works.
He's buying time, that's ultimately what all of this is. Longer this drags out, bloodier it gets, more of siege mentality that gets put on the country... the more Likud and Settler voter that come back to supporting his coalition. He doesn't need the voting majority, that's not what got this current government elected. Just needs the voters that count within the electoral system that'll get him the necessary seats. So dragging this out, and offering unrealistic but extremist pitches only benefits him in the meantime.
not faster than they die. also, they can't just materialize guns and bullets and training out of thin air
>not faster than they die. Good Ken Burns doc on the Vietnam War where there's a village chief talking about collateral damage. In-spite of all the body counts getting met, he noted "you kill a VC, you kill one VC. You kill a civilian, you get 10 VC". You never run outta dudes. Its the political outcomes you're able to get - not the rounds you've had to expend. And if the enemy is still willing to throw rocks if that's all they have, all you've accomplished is stacking corpses.
the dude supply is a lot more limited in gaza than in vietnam. and like I said even so they don't have any equipment for them. they can't stop the idf from occupying the city. they can fight, but they can't win.
>they can't stop the idf from occupying the city. they can fight, but they can't win. just like in afghanistan and iraq with the USA lol this isnt hoi4 mate
my entire point was that you can't compare an entire country to one city, and you just repeated your point from before and completely ignored what I said?
The flow of arms has stopped due to the heavier restrictions, but those measures are not sustainable in the long term. If the status quo is maintained eventually arms will start to come in, Hamas will rearm and they'll have a supply of tens of thousands or people eager to hit back at Israel. Right now Hamas is crippled, and even if you can wipe them out that will be nothing more than a band-aid unless the post-war brings about a paradigm shift on how Israel deals with Gaza and the Palestinian independence movement. So yeah, you'll have riots and eventually you'll have gun and bomb attacks as the strip rearms. If the current level of restrictions are kept reconstruction will never take place and the population will just become more radicalized as the "open air prison" rhetoric slowly becomes real as 2 million people are forcefully kept underfed and living in rubble.
> my entire point was that you can't compare an entire country to one city no it wasnt, it was that the dude supply is more limited. its irrelevant though, what israels doing is just going to keep generating armed resistance. they could kill every hamas militant in palestine and in 20 years it will be like it never happened. they will not run out of dudes unless israel is willing to commit open genocide.
"Guys no country in history has ever successfully annexed and pacified a population by force it's just not possible"
Israel isn't going to annex Gaza, they don't want it
"if i pretend that he said something completely different then he's wrong!" i'm saying they cant murder their way into not having an armed resistance movement unless they go all in, and they wont go all in because their existence requires international support and that wont survive another dier yassim in the age of the cellphone camera. thats not even what netanyahu and his mob of crazies are even trying to do, btw. in fact they're desperately trying to avoid a peaceful and stable palestine. they want to ethnically cleanse the land before settling it with their own population, they dont want millions of arab citizens who will vote against their supremacist agenda.
You can't defeat an idea. That is why Nazis still run Germany and imperialist Japan is still trying to annex its neighbors.
by israels own estimates they radicalise multiple palestinians for each civilian killed and are killing more civilians than militants. we are watching the largest and fastest hamas recruitment drive in history.
I’m Ukrainian and I very much understood why people become radicalized and become terrorists when Russia looked like they’d do urban warfare in Kyiv (where I’m from). Everyone’s one bad day away from becoming a terrorist I think.
radicalizing isn't the same as having actually join Hamas. the rate at which Israel kills Hamas member is greater than the rate at which people are joining Hamas. and again, nobody is addressing my other point that they have no equipment, they could not fight the idf if they had twice as many members.
> radicalizing isn't the same as having actually join Hamas if like 1 in 6 radicalised people end up joining hamas then the numbers are bad for them, especially considering that at some point the mass killing in gaza will stop and the net growth of hamas will explode. >nobody is addressing my other point that they have no equipment, they could not fight the idf if they had twice as many members its a fuckin insurgent militia mate. they dont need to win a single stand-up fight against israel to win, no insurgency ever did.
Yes, prior to October 7 Hamas was *really* struggling on recruitment. Its a shame Israel had to go and radicalize them.
Yeah but allot of them are in tunnels. Good luck clearing them out.
good luck, like, it's not going to be easy, but it's definitely going to happen
Block off all the entrances. They die. Victory?
Well, there are many ways invented, like filling them with water, filling them with hardening foam and other methods, yes it's hard while there are hostages, but still.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes. Israel is just repeating what happened in Pakistan by Funding Hamas to fuck over the Palestinians.
people talk about it like Israel was funding hamas to attack them things change, goals divert, people can change, and other such. Hamas at first started as a civic organization and was funded to a fairly small degree in order to fight Fatah which was constantly launching Terror attacks, the more time passed on, the more funds came from iran, the more Hamas just changed, It's like I give the vendor 5 bucks for a hotdog, and he just gives me shit, I didn't pay for Shit, I paid for hotdogs, but I didn't get them, that sucks, but am i really to blame for what the Vendor did ?
They let Qatar fund Hamas because people would complain about "look Israel is starving Gaza" otherwise. They didn't expect Hamas would post this lie on social media and people wouldn't fact check it. Can't win against whoever runs Iran's PR team.
Sympathy for what?
For having a lot of their civilians horrifically tortured to death on video, perhaps
Yeah, they kind of murdered away any good will that might have gotten them by the fucking bloodbath they've cut through the orders of magnitude higher number of civilians since then sport.
It's almost like that was Iran's plan from the beginning of the beginning or something. Launch a proxy attack against Israel, wait for the response, then immediately start accusing Israel of "genocide".
They aren't doing genocide but I am not sure they're limiting civilian casualties either. There's AI system which evaluates information and selects bombing targets with links to Hamas. There are 10-30 permissible civilian casualties for one junior hamas militant. That's unhinged, they basically allow blowing up whole apartment block with civilians if that means they kill 3 hamas militants.
Honestly if that were the case I'd expect a lot more casualties. I'm not saying it's not terrible, but at the same time it doesn't seem like they truly act upon it. The number of dead has barely risen in the past 3 months.
They very much are limiting civilian casualties. Israel has killed 15,000 combatants and 15,000 civilians in more than 7 months of war. You don't think the IDF is capable of killing more Palestinian civilians than that in 7+ months of war?
Yep, which is why the genocide claims are stupid. Had Israel wanted, they would have passed the million casualties mark by now.
Not really accusing when they’re actually doing a genocide, no?
They're not actually doing a genocide. That's Iranian bullshit. War isn't genocide.
It’s a pretty one sided war. And bombing the Gaza Strip into nothingness is only gonna do the opposite of eradicating Hamas.
Was the allied bombing campaign in WWII a genocide? Decisively winning a war you're fighting is not committing a genocide.
It’s not even comparable, Hamas to Israel is nowhere near what the Axis was to the Allies in WW2
60000+ French civilians were killed by allied bombing raids in WW2. France wasn't a threat to the allies, were we genociding the French?
You don't fight a war to be fair or sporting. You fight to win. If your enemy hides in residential areas, then you have to fight them there. Losing a war does not automatically make you the victim. Look, this isn't good to watch. It's heart wrenching, war is a blight upon mankind, but that doesn't make it a genocide.
If you want to see a genocide, check out what Muslims have done to Hindus and Sikhs in afghanistan. That's a genocide where the entire population has been wiped out.
It's a one sided war because only one side considers the death of its own civilians to be a desirable goal and has therefore adopted a strategy intentionally designed to get as many of its own civilians killed as possible.
It’s a one sided war because Hamas is barely a militia, it poses no actual threat to Israel. And Israel decided it’s a good excuse to bomb as many Palestinian civilians as possible.
Tell those festival goers, old people and children killed in their own homes, tell the hostages that Hamas poses "no actual threat"
Then why hasn't Hamas surrendered? Isn't that generally what governments do when they're badly losing a one sided war?
Is this Genocide in the room with you now? Maybe under the bed or in the closet?
I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise to me that this NCD is full of Israeli apologists too.
Oh, no. 1% of reddit subs are not Hamas apologist. Subs that have nothing to do with politics now have mod notes at top with Hamas propaganda. I think you'll be alright if not 100% of subs on reddit are pro hamas.
Crazy to think about that both Israel’s treatment of Palestine and Hamas’ whole existence might be bad
Not disagreeing, it isn't a great look
Tbh probably most of the people voting for Israel for political reasons are doing it to "own the libs" (the lefty pro-Palestine activists) rather than out of any real feeling for Israel itself. It's all identity politics and navelgazing
We don't "own the libs" in europe, it's an americanism. A lot of people on europe just support israel. Not everything has an ulterior motive. It sends a message if you need armed military to protect synagogues because the people there would be harrased and possibly attacked otherwise.
"We" absolutely "own the libs", only they're called "left-liberals" or "green-liberals" or "globalists". That being said in this instance antisemitism from Arab/Muslim immigrants has also no doubt increased sympathy for Israel, at least through decreasing sympathy for Muslims, and as usual much of our politics revolves around migration.
Just you lad
I don't, I'm just using the phrasing the above commenter used. Orbán is an especially prominent example, but you can just as well go to any other country, even more moderate ones like Finland the far-right absolutely goes on about leftists, liberals and even talks about "wokeism" and "cancel culture" in their programme. The exact terms and phrases used may differ by country and language, but the basic principle of it is the same. Europe is by no means immune to such idiocy.
No dude its just not possible. Nobody could come to a different conclusion on Israel than me, unless they have an ulterior motive like owning libs.
I don't like Israel being in the contest but objectively Hurricane was a good song and the singer had a great vocal range. IMO if she'd have been from a non controversial country it would still be a contender That said I liked the winning song too. At least it wasn't Croatia's trash
Yes, there is no other reason someone might support Israel except to own the libs.
I didn't say that, but it's definitely a strong factor. If you look at what conservative politicians and other public figures are saying about the topic, it's maybe 10% about Israel itself and 90% outrage at the pro-Palestine protests.
Source: your ass
Well idk a lot of Eurovision fans seem to think all of the chaos was caused by EBU allowing Israel to take part.
Will there be planes?
It feels like Israel is pulling a Putin here. Can’t back down because it’d be the end of some political careers. They are really running themselves down here, but there’s no end game in sight. They are forcing their allies to put a stop to it. Can’t see the sense in sacrificing alliances that are necessary for your existence. Was really dumb to participate in the Eurovision as well. They are really pushing their luck. Agitating the issue throughout the European continent. They should have stuck to their original plan placing a song that would be DQ’d. It was greedy to participate. Regardless of Israel’s relationship with the west, it’s still mind boggling that Israel still afforded the room to operate. It’s the same problem as with Ukraine. No one wants to be in a decisive role so the situation keeps on tracks that don’t lead anywhere.
I am surprised at the support that palestine is getting even after what their terrorists did a while back
I don't know much about israel palestine war. But it seems weird to me that israel not destroying hamas when they had so many chances. Also why us supporting israel becoming one state instead of agree with two state solution and win over arab world
People say that, but like when ? A destruction of hamas post 2006 was impossible essentialy without this type of war, you can't root out the tree without getting to it's roots, it will just regrow.
Most of the Arab world also doesn’t support two state solution… that’s kind of the problem. The only people who support two state solution are all living on completely different continents and not in the Middle East.
Feels like the only one who disagree with it is iran & their allies.