Standing With Israel and Condemning Hamas

[erimir]

Originally Posted by michio

*shrug* You have a pre-determined conclusion it was Hamas.

Well, unfortunately, I didn't put down a flag last night as 1. I'm not posting here constantly and 2. I was reserving judgment!

My conclusion is based on the evidence that has come out, including the fact that the statements from last night just don't look at all consistent with the images of the aftermath today.

But also that Biden is saying that the USDOD doesn't think it was Israel and so on.

I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I don't really have time to be going through a bunch of videos from amateur rocket experts.

What I do know is that the story from last night was wrong. And it doesn't look like a missile explosion.

You're right, he has made statements, but not condemning Israel specifically for their actions. Everyone is side-stepping that detail.

Well, as I said, there are more considerations than just saying what is emotionally satisfying in the moment.

Personally, I'd be more interested in what is going to deescalate the situation rather than making the right condemnations publicly.

Yeah, it's not reason, but if you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

I don't view either side as unequivocally correct.

I've generally been more sympathetic to the Palestinian side, but I do have to admit that over the past week I've seen that the people who want Israelis to just "go back to Europe" or wherever they supposedly "belong" instead of Israel (never mind how many Israelis are actually Mizrahi Jews who can't exactly go back home to the now very friendly Muslim majority countries they left) and view murdering children as just "what anti-colonialism looks like" were perhaps more numerous than I was inclined to believe in the past.

And there's simply not going to be a peaceful resolution that involves the Israelis going away.

And I also think that the Israel-Palestine conflict has a lot of people very strongly invested for reasons of their own and who prioritize certain outcomes over peace and prosperity for the people living there. Who wish that the Israelis could be driven out to deny them a "victory" or for Greater Israel to be "restored" and don't mind the human cost. From Christian fundamentalists who think the Jews need to be there so Jesus can come back and wipe them out, to Arab dictators who find this something more useful for their people to focus on than their own failings, religious people on both sides who think that various holy sites should belong to them and them alone, etc.

How is it that when the US denies asylum to refugees, we're bad (and I agree: that's bad!), but when Arab countries say to a Palestinian who wants to flee to safety that they can't come, somehow that's supportive? "Well, Gaza is an open-air prison, but I'm supporting Palestinians by forcing them to stay in it."

Meanwhile, Israelis have been pushing a fantasy of a two-state solution for a long time even though it's clear that they'd never allow Palestine full sovereignty (since they will never be convinced that the 1948 or 1967 borders are defensible or that Palestine can be trusted), while other Israelis steal more and more land. And have done plenty of heinous things themselves in terms of killing innocent civilians.

And as an atheist, of course, I find the religious claims on both sides utterly uncompelling, and the religious laws and special treatment both have or would want to put into law make them both unsympathetic in varying degrees.

So tbh I find the conflict more exhausting than a case where I can get righteous anger exclusively on behalf of one side.

Kinda cringe with the tone-policing when there's a genocide in progress.

It's not tone-policing when my point is that your emotions are leading you to incorrect conclusions.

The problem there is that the conclusions are incorrect, not that you're being too forceful in stating them. That would be tone-policing.

And I know, kind of cringe to be definition-policing when a genocide is in progress.

Ultimately this hospital bombing isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.

You called it manufacturing consent for genocide, didn't sound unimportant.

And it already had an effect on international diplomacy in the region. If there had been more accurate information last night, it probably would not have.

[fragment]

Israel-Hamas war: State Department official resigns, citing Biden administration's 'destructive' decisions - POLITICO

“I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse,”

[viscousmemories]

I'm so sick of the "it's Hamas' fault we're slaughtering civilians because human shields" argument. For one thing, shields protect people. Israel has made it clear that the presence of civilians provides no protection. Besides, if you know there are civilians in a building and you target that building with a missile, you are targeting civilians. Whether or not there are also Hamas militants in there. There was a time when "collateral damage" was recognized as Orwellian doublespeak that it is, but now people throw it around like it's a rational justification for intentional massacres.

[slimshady2357]

Same, I'm sick of both sides saying "they made us do this" for the fucking awful shit they're doing.

[ShottleBop]

Al-Ahli Arab hospital: piecing together what happened as Israel insists militant rocket to blame | Israel-Hamas war | The Guardian

[michio]

@erimir

I didn't read any of that, you wasted your time. If it makes you feel better, since you're here for a dopamine / serotonin hit, you won the debate, so you can stop typing now.

Frankly, people like you disgust me, like violently disgust me. I should have just silently blocked you as soon as you self-admitted to being an "Israel partisan" instead of taking the bait.

I've been on the internet for 25 years. I've been good about not getting sucked into charged debates for a decade because it's a bad use of my time. I already know how it's going to go down. Israel-Palestine is about as bad as it gets. Everyone gets their day ruined, and people just come out of it with their heels dug in.

What I hate the most about liberals like you is how smarmy, annoying, and dishonest you are. Even if you don't peg yourself as a lib and regardless of how you present yourself, I've read enough to know you're a stereotypical neolib. You don't care of course and there's no way I'm getting under your skin at all. You're way harder than that given the way you confidently and articulately write. I'm not being sarcastic, you're a good writer. I also presume you're 45+. Beyond my level for sure. It's not like you're going to change your mind at this point. I'm talking to other people reading this.

Libs are the worst because they're shameless two-faced class traitors that fervently advocate for the status quo while presenting themselves as open-minded "progressives" that are for the working class when they're anything but. I'm starting to view modern American liberals as indistinguishable from fascists.

I do have a lot of rage, and by that I mean this is something I've talked to therapists about over the years. I've been having a hard time dealing with it in the past week, given the death and destruction I've witnessed when I should really be going hermit-mode right now and turning off absolutely everything.

Rationality? Overrated. Rationality is for smarmy intellectual debate perverts that think they're the smartest person in the room. Rationality will lead you to the voting booth, it won't inspire you to make any substantial changes in this fucked up world.

I've randomly cried a few times in the past week thinking about how fucked up things are and how much worse things can and will get given our history as a species.

I've observed people mocking the crocodile tears of terrorist-sympathizers, leftists, and brown-skins. It's impossible for me to relate to people who do that. My brain cannot comprehend how a person can believe it's not possible to feel genuine empathy and sadness thinking about innocent people, almost half of whom are children, being slaughtered. Their only crime was rolling snake eyes and being born into an unfathomable nightmare hellscape.

When I see a doctor holding a child with no head, having a complete mental collapse, screaming, crying, and asking over and over, "What did this child do to deserve this?" and then in the next browser tab, I see someone typing a massive wall of text a thousand miles away from danger in their air-conditioned room and a full belly, performing 10-dimensional linguistic gymnastics to justify this insanity, as if this is the best we can do, my brain short-circuits. I have no response.

We have so much unrealized potential as a species, and when I take a moment to think about what we've settled for vs. what we could have, I feel rage, frustration, depression, and disgust. If you don't feel these things, I think you're the irrational one. I think you've lost your fucking mind.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by michio

Frankly, people like you disgust me, like violently disgust me. I should have just silently blocked you as soon as you self-admitted to being an "Israel partisan" instead of taking the bait.

Case in point of your emotions making you come to incorrect conclusions.

That's not tone policing, that's about you being unable to think straight.

Re-read what I said: it was the exact fucking opposite.

I was saying if you read my posting history, you will not find that I'm an Israel partisan.

But for what it's worth, tone isn't always irrelevant. If you're interested in convincing people (which you should be: most Americans disagree with you and if you want the US to shift its policies in a pro-Palestinian direction, you need many Americans to change their minds), the tone you're taking will not be effective. The people here are mostly sympathetic to the Palestinians, but it's probably worth it to refine your arguments for people less so.

Saying someone "violently disgusts" you because they think that when evidence comes out that nearly completely discredits the story you were passionately pushing the night before, you should just hold off and wait for more evidence rather than assuming that everything else that fits with the original story was still credible.

Is it possible that a doctor lied about the ceiling collapsing? Yes. It's also possible that Hamas or PIJ impersonated a doctor to deflect responsibility. When it's already apparent that the original claim was extremely exaggerated, I would be more skeptical that everything else was on the up and up.

As you said, there's plenty of other shit to criticize Israel for (in this war and in previous actions), this isn't necessary to make the point that their actions are extreme... yet you went on to do amateur rocket science to try to make this still Israel's fault.

What I hate the most about liberals like you is how smarmy, annoying, and dishonest you are. Even if you don't peg yourself as a lib and regardless of how you present yourself, I've read enough to know you're a stereotypical neolib.

If anyone wants to know, I would identify as a left-liberal who favors social democratic/market socialist policies generally.

As for the neolib bit, not to be definition-policing or muddled-emotional-thinking policing, but neoliberalism is commonly defined to include support for privatization of government services, deregulation and austerity, positions that you're welcome to try to find examples of me being passionately in favor of.

I'm more likely to support nationalization than privatization, although political constraints in the US make that a difficult proposition.

Libs are the worst because they're shameless two-faced class traitors that fervently advocate for the status quo while presenting themselves as open-minded "progressives" that are for the working class when they're anything but. I'm starting to view modern American liberals as indistinguishable from fascists.

Jesus fucking Christ dude.

Way to make my point about you being unable to think clearly. I'm indistinguishable from a fascist?

It's not like you're going to change your mind at this point. I'm talking to other people reading this.

A bit of advice that presumably you won't read since you've probably blocked me: if you're writing for others, your rant here is more likely burning your credibility than mine.

Rationality? Overrated. Rationality is for smarmy intellectual debate perverts that think they're the smartest person in the room. Rationality will lead you to the voting booth, it won't inspire you to make any substantial changes in this fucked up world.

Now, see, the thing is that for politicians, that's absolutely not true.

If Israeli leaders were being rational, they would've been trying to make the most out of being clearly the victims and having the moral high ground, instead of immediately engaging in actions that burn off their good will.

in the next browser tab, I see someone typing a massive wall of text a thousand miles away from danger in their air-conditioned room and a full belly

I'm sure they appreciate you typing a massive wall of text a thousand miles away from danger in your air-conditioned room with a full belly.

We have so much unrealized potential as a species, and when I take a moment to think about what we've settled for vs. what we could have, I feel rage, frustration, depression, and disgust. If you don't feel these things, I think you're the irrational one. I think you've lost your fucking mind.

You don't really know what my feelings are. We all have to cope with the dread that, for example, climate change is going to fuck up the rest of our lives. It's not like I'm a climate change denier. But it won't improve anything for me to adopt a fatalistic "we're all fucked" viewpoint.

There's a difference between having feelings about those things and wallowing in them and using them as an excuse to indulge irrational thinking and counterproductive behavior.

[Ari]

I really have to think that we've gotten 'lucky' the Russian Ukraine war isn't mostly in english, and we've been spared the majority of panic and propaganda.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by erimir

If Israeli leaders were being rational, they would've been trying to make the most out of being clearly the victims and having the moral high ground, instead of immediately engaging in actions that burn off their good will.

It's an aside from the main points in erimir's post, but I'm pretty skeptical of this reasoning. I think Israeli decision-makers are likely as rational as any others in the world, they just don't consider that any hits to the goodwill of the world to be either unmanageable or important to their capabilities for achieving their goals.

[erimir]

That may be.

I suppose we'll see.

But it seems to me that if we assume Hamas is also being rational (and given that that was a well-planned operation, not an impulsive thing, not like a gathering that turned into a riot or something, it probably had a purpose beyond randomly killing people) then the most obvious motivation for their attack on Oct 7th was to disrupt Israel's diplomacy with Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, that appeared to be making progress.

By attacking Gaza in the manner they have, Israel quite possibly has blown up the diplomatic progress they were making.

Maybe it was a suicide mission and Hamas will be removed from power in Gaza and their organization dismantled one way or another. But Hamas may have, in fact, succeeded in their primary aim, and the Israeli response was likely exactly the sort of thing they were hoping to provoke.

But I think it would probably have been to Israel's benefit to instead 1. exercise enough restraint to keep diplomacy with the Saudis and others on track and 2. use their more sympathetic victim status to attempt to get some cooperation from some Arab states they have more normal relations with.

Maybe you're right and this was all a cool-headed response. On the other hand, Netanyahu's support in Israel has cratered, he ignored warnings about this attack and has been more focused on neutering the judiciary to avoid consequences for his corruption, so I'm not so sure he has been thinking through everything as well as you say.

But I can agree that it's possible that he thought this would shore up his support domestically and wasn't even that concerned with the international effects. It doesn't seem to be working, but it may not have been a purely emotional response.

It's also consistent, of course, with simply lashing out in rage. It's not clear to me that they have an actual plan here. Remove Hamas and then what?

Is it your thought that they have rationally calculated that they can simply ethnically cleanse or murder 2 million Gazans and the rest of the world will treat this the same thing as some settlements or shooting a dozen protestors? That wouldn't just blow up their progress with the Saudis, that could also destroy their relations with Jordan and Egypt.

I don't think that'll be a hit that Israel can absorb so easily...

[Ari]

I don't know, every once in awhile a charismatic leader convinces a group feeling downtrodden that if only they massacre the other tribe, everything will be better. It seems like either they murder, rape and then pretend like they were never there or they die in the process.

Hamas has been mostly equipped to murder the surprised and the unarmed, once they met sizable resistance the vast majority of attackers were killed. Now that multiple leaders are dead if their plan was ever anything more than kill the other tribe, it's probably not now.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by erimir

Maybe you're right and this was all a cool-headed response. On the other hand, Netanyahu's support in Israel has cratered, he ignored warnings about this attack and has been more focused on neutering the judiciary to avoid consequences for his corruption, so I'm not so sure he has been thinking through everything as well as you say.

I don't think it's just about Netanyahu though. I'm sure his decisions matter, but I'm also sure as a matter of planning and policy Israel (ETA - meaning the relevant govt leaders, security agencies, IDF etc.) has analysed a bunch of plausible security threats and come up with response plans that include, among other things, sober analysis of political risks associated with certain courses of action. I'm also sure a bunch of high level decision-makers must be closely enough aligned with Netanyahu's decisions to go along with them.

They may turn out to wrong about some of their analyses and decisions, but that's not the same as not rational and responding with impulsive rage.

Originally Posted by erimir

It's not clear to me that they have an actual plan here. Remove Hamas and then what?

Is it your thought that they have rationally calculated that they can simply ethnically cleanse or murder 2 million Gazans

They have quite the range of options that fall short of that, how about we stick with rationality right here and not leap to the most extreme scenario?

[LarsMac]

Hamas and their ilk are not friends to the Saudi Princes, either.
If they did actually get rid of Israel, They would soon be targeting the Saudis and the other "Royalty" of the Mid East. Israel simply served as the "Common Enemy" as long as they exist.

[erimir]

Well, I mean, it certainly wasn't impulsive.

Hamas has nothing left but a desire to massacre Jews because any hope for anything else is gone? But they can spend weeks planning out that operation.

Probably worth noting that some of Hamas most senior leaders don't live in Gaza, so their personal circumstances are not exactly the same as the average Gazan.

Nonetheless, even if we suppose Hamas didn't actually have any deeper motive, most of what I said still stands... Is normalizing relations with their neighbors valuable to Israel?

Support from the US and some European countries is important, and they can get away with a lot without jeopardizing that, but it's probably not limitless. But there are other considerations as well, and I don't know that the cost to Israel is that trivial overall.

I do think that Biden is taking a good tack in trying to argue for calm on the basis of Israel's self-interest rather than trying to shame them into de-escalating for the sake of civilians. One would hope that the latter would work, but evidence is that it won't.

[LarsMac]

And some entity among the Arab nations simply convinced Hamas to be the test of the capabilities of the Iron Dome.
Kind of the guys that run through the minefield so the rest of the guys can find the way through.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/12/isra...explained.html

[erimir]

Originally Posted by fragment

They have quite the range of options that fall short of that, how about we stick with rationality right here and not leap to the most extreme scenario?

They don't seem to want to administer Gaza.

Removing Hamas and then getting out is not a real plan.

I've seen plenty of people suggesting that they do want to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

And, of course, that Egypt is right not to allow refugees because then Israel may succeed in driving many of them out of Gaza, never to return. If the border with Egypt were opened, it's not clear to me what would happen.

But regardless, removing Hamas and then just letting Gaza descend into anarchy has a lot of risks.

If you insist on it, I can say that it's merely stupid rather than irrational. I think they had better options.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by erimir

I think they had better options.

For achieving what, though? I think that better options would include restraint, respecting human rights of all, and commitment to active engagement in a lasting and just peace process; but I also think those don't align with the goals of those in power in Israel and are not remotely on the table.

On the other hand, if the goals are containment of security threats regardless of the impact on Palestinians then killing a bunch of Hamas fighters, destroying their infrastructure and withdrawing may well be a plan. It's not clear to me that Israeli leaders see the risks to Israel of anarchy in Gaza as worse than the risks of Hamas managing another large attack if left alone.

[Ari]

This all very much seems like Israel's 9/11 and I'm surprised they're being as restrained as they are. As mentioned before I'm expecting them to destroy Gaza and deal with the political repercussions after. (If they don't, the Israeli government is more level headed than I would give them credit for.)

Originally Posted by erimir

Hamas has nothing left but a desire to massacre Jews because any hope for anything else is gone? But they can spend weeks planning out that operation.

I mean, yes.
If the maps and battle plans shown by Israel are true their plans seemed to be 'Gather enough people with weapons and vehicles to bust through surprised defenses and then cause as much murder and destruction as possible before IDF kills you.'

As far as we're being told (that I've read) that's essentially what happened, a few groups dug in harder than others but there was no secondary rallying point, retreat and regroup or other larger group tactics. I'm not even sure they managed to use any captured military weapons. All fighter that didn't grab hostages and race back to Gaza are dead.

As a larger strategy the goal might have been to anger Israel so much that they are willing to destabilize relations with their neighbors to hit Hamas back.

[viscousmemories]

I heard an analyst say the only reason Israel hasn't launched a ground invasion is because there would certainly be Israeli casualties and that would further deteriorate Netanyahu's popularity. Seems as likely as any other explanation.

I'm embarrassed that I have taken this long to pay close attention to what has been going on in Palestine for the past hundred years but I'm getting up to speed fast. One thing that has not escaped my notice is that Hamas is being touted as the big bad of the region, but few mainstream journalists seem all that interested in the ongoing apartheid in the West Bank, where Hamas has no control. I think a lot of people around the world are coming to the view that Israel is the real aggressor in the relationship, and honestly if the EU and US stick to their unconditional support and supply of the weapons Israel is using to destroy Gaza I see this backfiring on their respective administrations quite dramatically.

In any case here is some testimony of a Palestinian that was very moving:

Doomsday Diaries | Sarah Aziza

It is a sorrow lifetimes larger than words. One wide enough to acknowledge Jewish pain, both recent and historical. As a Palestinian, I refuse to mimic the oppressor by denying the humanity of the deceased. But this sadness sits inside the crater of certainty that the world will still refuse ours. It is a chasm carved by decades of discourse in which only certain bodies bleed. Inside this consensus, there is no violent dispossession of our land, no acceptable form in which we may resist our many slow and instant deaths. It refuses the fact that for decades we have buried hundreds of slain for every one Israeli killed. In this selective, Western gaze, there is only our barbarism, which must be brutally contained.

...

Some readers are waiting for me to denounce violent resistance. They imagine that without this assurance, which they ask of no Israeli, I do not have the right to speak. They believe they are owed a version of Palestinian which surrenders everything white, Western liberalism affords our oppressors, and itself: the right to exist, the right to self-defense. They have criminalized our nonviolent forms of protest, killed peaceful demonstrators, imprisoned our poets, and assassinated our journalists. They do not believe in our historical or contemporary suffering. At the same time, they believe it is our natural state—part of the hazy, brown landscape of abjection in the so-called “Arab World.” It is an abjection we must accept, silently and upon the pain of our deaths.

...

“But what about Hamas?” I grew up with this question whipped at my face every time I declared my people’s right to survive. “What about Hamas?” It didn’t matter if I’d just asked for clean water or the right to return to our stolen land. “What about Hamas?” they’d ask, holding my humanity hostage. Their smug smiles at this question, which they saw as a rhetorical coup. I gave them hours, pages of my words. I filled rooms with my hot breath, panting, “We are not terrorists—Hamas is a symptom of oppression—yes of course I condemn extremism—this is a struggle for human rights—Israel propped up Hamas for years—please look at our children—please, don’t you see our helpless elders?—please, if you don’t respect us as humans, could you spare some pity?”

[erimir]

My impression is that Biden has been pressuring them to delay any ground invasion as well.

I mean, that was basically the explicit point of the speech he gave discussing US mistakes after 9/11. That you can't just invade without a plan for what happens afterwards.

[viscousmemories]

Yeah, he did mention mistakes. Of course he also mentioned unequivocal support for Israel and that he was requesting billions for more bombs to help them level Gaza, too. So I guess I'm not yet ready to carry him around on my shoulders just yet.

[viscousmemories]

After two weeks of non-stop bombing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, so far killing more than five times the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas (and just getting started), the very first legislative action of the new crazy right-wing speaker of the House was to bring to the floor the resolution "Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists", and it won almost unanimous support from the whole House.

[It's Me!]

Israel is in a "no win" situation here ... at least as long as they're forced to figure it all out on their own. The United States cannot help here, other than feed Israel's own war machine, which is only going to perpetuate the hate of Israeli's by Palestinians. If Israel lashes out against Hamas, as they're justified in doing, the Islamic world is going to use it to fuel Israeli hate when civilians die - and they will die because Hamas is using them as human shields. If Israel shows restraint, Hamas and other terrorist groups will see that as weakness and step up their attacks.

It's probably unrealistic, but several powerful Islamic countries need to step up and sign onto peace with Israel, and not just to use Israel as a tool to poke and/or counter their own enemies and increase their own influence (looking at you Saudi Arabia re: Iran). Israel has strategic partners with Egypt and Jordan so it's possible (hopefully?) that it can happen, but I'm not sure Netanyahu is that type of politician.

Or, I'm just being naïve.

[viscousmemories]

Several Islamic countries were already in the process of "normalizing" relations with Israel prior to the Hamas attacks on 10/7, but that process is understandably on hold now that partnering with Israel at this precise moment in time is unambiguously equivalent to supporting the ethnic cleansing (at best) and genocide (at worst) of Palestinians. There is a much higher probability right now of other Islamic nations declaring war on Israel.

[It's Me!]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Several Islamic countries were already in the process of "normalizing" relations with Israel prior to the Hamas attacks on 10/7, but that process is understandably on hold now that partnering with Israel at this precise moment in time is unambiguously equivalent to supporting the ethnic cleansing (at best) and genocide (at worst) of Palestinians. There is a much higher probability right now of other Islamic nations declaring war on Israel.

I wonder if those talks/potential contributed to the planning/execution of this attack.