Israel/Palestine thread

I'm sure you find it very satisfying but but your justifcation was mostly just rhetoric?

It has been obvious for awhile that Israel is incapable of killing all of Hamas. Even if they are "just terrorists in tunnels", it's been proven that those tunnels are extremely difficult to get rid of and also extremely effective. Eventually Israel will withdraw and Hamas will be allowed to reconstitute, as they have already done in the "cleared" areas that Israel abandoned. Eventually Israel will need to face this reality.

i dunno if that's true

they've killed tens of thousands of militants so far if the mainstream press are to be believed, and the hamas terrorists' information security seems to have fallen apart in recent weeks. i read these as positive signs

there is the rhetoric, and there are also the rapes and murders on oct 7, the promises to keep doing oct 7s (but bigger and better) until river to the sea, there's the tens of thousands of rocket attacks over the years, the ongoing hostage situation, the proudly stated goal of the destruction of israel..

there's a few reasons

^ It is also against the stated guidelines of this thread. It is not appropriate to conflate Israel with all Jews. Further instances of this will be moderated.

Glad we’re on the same page that the U.S. is an effective deterrent. Kind of makes the whole bombing kids is worth it to protect Israel argument weaker though.

Glorification of violence itt

Of course it's possible, it's just going to take the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people to accomplish it. With Lebanon, Iran, and Syria next in line.

ok, for the purposes of this thread we'll go ahead and proceed on the basis that any link between jews and the state of israel is purely coincidental

my point, however, remains - a lot of people that barely survived the holocaust, and their descendants, happened to end up israeli, and the nation's zero tolerance policy re additional oct 7s may be in part due to this history

havent the Jewish people been around for thousands of years? you think that a "policy" from the last 80 years directed at people who did not do the holocaust is the reason for that?

furthermore, do you know who said this?

yes you've posted that quote a bunch of times itt

You suggesting anything about Holocaust victims is extremely disrespectful.

Once he rose the ranks enough to where zeros were getting added to his bank account he probably was pretty moderate. Keep situation on a low simmer and the aid checks flowing in.

Seriously, think about it. This guy has been a top leader in Hamas for decades. What is the evidence, in anything he has said or done, to indicate he is moderate? What does being a Hamas moderate even mean?

Clearly, someone is pushing a narrative this guy was a moderate, without bothering to provide any evidence this is the case, or even what this means. And the western media is buying this narrative hook, line and sinker; without doing any real journalism to investigate this narrative or ask any hard questions. So now we have to ask ourselves why?

As far as to who is pushing a narrative Haniyeh was a moderate, I think the recent Chinese visit between the PA and Hamas lends a clue. The breadcrumbs seem to be leading towards the Axis of Resistance and China trying to maneuver a post Sinwar world where Hamas was in charge of both Gaza and the West Bank (as they are overwhelmingly more popular in Palestinian and Arab society as a whole than the PA), with the "moderate" Haniyeh the figurehead.

As far as to why the WEstern media is buying this narrative hook, line and sinker with zero pushback I think there is a couple things going on.

1. First, there is a large contingent of journalists who just support the IRI, its proxies, and its mission to destabilize the Arab world and weaken Israel.
2. Even those journalists that dont overtly support the IRI, they want to believe there is a "moderate" Palestinian faction to work with, because the alternative is very depressing.

So they uncritically accept the narrative there was his moderate Hamas leader named Haniyeh who was working towards a legitimate ceasefire, despite there being no actual evidence either of these are true; and decades of evidence neither is likely true.

I'm wondering if perhaps Hezbollah and Hamas leadership is starting to realize that it's not a great idea to attack Israel.

First, we really dont know how much of the impetus came from Russia/Iran. Of all parties that have benefited from 10/7 and the aftermath, I would say #1 has been Putin; as the West has been understandably distracted from the defense of Ukraine by this conflict, giving him room to maneuver. I have no doubt that Hamas military wing planned the actual invasion, but we dont know how much of a push they were given by Russia/Iran; and we may never know.

For Hezbollah, reports are they were given explicit instructions to open a second front in the North, and weaken Israel without initiating a full blown war. And they weren't thrilled with the idea, but they followed orders. Is this true, I have no idea?

Second, at this point Hamas/Hezbollah are stuck in that they dont have a way to extricate themselves without losing honor and status, which is literally not an option. In the culture they operate in (which western leftists would deride as The Patriarchy or toxic masculinity if their melanin concentration was lower), they would lose tremendous face if they tried to make peace. All across the Arab world where it is allowed people are in the streets demonstrating for total war against the Jewish infidels. There is no populist peace movement. That is just what the culture demands.

Hamas literally offers peace every day

I would say right now Sinwar can be a good barometer for moderate or extreme in the context of Hamas and probably a lot relies on whether he knew about Oct 7th or not. Recent years the rocket attacks were down, more work permits being issued to work across the border, obviously relaxed border security for importing goods. In the realm of Hamas it's like AOC was running the place. Did he and the old boys know in advance and actively facilitate Oct 7th?
Mainly I think he was a grifter and enjoying his life of luxury and probably not happy about the Oct 7th attacks as it disrupted the good life and resulted in his sons and family in Gaza being killed.

So does Israel

He wasn't particularly shy. He gave a lot of statements and interviews. Did he ever say anything to indicate he was interested in normalization of relations or supported them before 10/7? It just seems like the argument he was "moderate" involves a lot of speculation and wish casting, and very little evidence, which shouldn't be that hard to produce if it was true.

As far as his family dying in the war, he said he was grateful they died as Shahid. Do you have any evidence he was being insincere in his faith? I certainly dont.

From a meta perspective I just find it real interesting how the media is pushing this "moderate" angle, with absolutely no evidence to support it. They dont even go to the level of speculation you do to support the argument. Their strategy seems to be to just make it true by saying it enough times.

And I dont for a second think this was an organic process. This was a narrative that was constructed for a reason. And I gave my speculation what the reason was (I admit I didn't come up with it completely on my own, but from reading the speculation of various people more knowledgeable than me)

I cant speak for the peace talks that took place during the Clinton administration that may have been sincere. But at this point I think it is fair to say the 2 state solution exists only in the imagination of the western world; and neither side entertains it as something that can or will actually happen. At this point both sides have just accepted they are playing for broke and when he smoke clears the land will be either completely a completely Arab Islamic state "from the river to the sea" that may or may not be called Palestine; or a pluralistic, liberal, diverse society dominated by a Jewish majority called Israel (a flawed democracy if you will).

And the Western world's meddling isn't accomplishing anything other than stringing things out by making sure Israel doesn't win the conflict while it can.

I don't know what the media is pushing, Grizy's statement was the first I heard anyone calling him moderate, I'm just playing devil's advocate but seems like there are points there. Of course he needs to play to his base death to Israel, river to the sea but in terms of Hamas/Israel relations, the couple of years leading up to Oct 7th seemed to be the most peaceful. So can't be a huge stretch to call him moderate in comparison to the past.
I said shortly after Oct 7th, Israel should simply make a statement that being in the presence of Hamas leadership in Qatar or really within 500m of them is not going to be good for your life expectancy. Call their hotel and tell them if they don't want a cruise missile hitting the floor where these guys live, they better kick them to the curb. This would be part of a well thought out campaign of retaliation that wouldn't include bombing hospitals and overall carpet bombing Gaza.

Well Qatar is completely off limits to Israel because of being a US "ally". And everyone knows this. But Israel did explicitly say part of their war strategy was to assassinate all Hamas leaders. Which they have done. They have just done a lot more other stuff on top you dont approve of.

But you will notice Hamas didn't fire one rocket at Israel in retaliation for the assassination. It is fairly probably they cant. Except for some small arms ambush type stuff, Hamas seems to have no military capabilities. And as long as Israel controls the border they have no way to replenish the war machine.

Capturing the Egypt border definitely seems to have been a game changer from a military perspective. And we shouldn't forget how much we (the US) resisted Israel doing this. I doubt Israelis have forgotten.