Israel/Palestine thread

And if this forum represents anything, then it's amazing the gap between Israel's supporters (or at least those who understand the complexity of the situation), and the critics.

Like, it can't be that the entire other side combined doesn't have even a quarter of a functioning cerebral hemisphere. But that's the case

Or you've been dragged down by Netanyahu.

I seriously doubt you would have supported anything like a hypothetical of what has now become reality. You would have berated us for even suggesting anything so terrible might happen.

And netwnyahu ain't done yet.

When you live under an existential threat, when your homes and those of your family are being fired at with rockets every day, when your fields are being burned, when your female friend are being raped, when the hands of one of your best friends' fathers (at age 75) are being cut off and left to bleed to death, you can lecture me about your morality.

I don't support Netanyahu and never have. But I don't care about your "moral" whining, when I'm busy fighting for my right to live.

I wasn't lecturing about my morality.

Even your attempts to justify what happened why claiming not to support netanyahu makes my point. I may be wrong and you may have always supported it but as I i said you would have berated us for even suggesting anything so terrible might happen.

and you talk about what you will do under existential threat - well you know how others feel as well. Nothing about this makes anyone safe.

The main reasons for me not supporting Netanyahu are because he formed a coalition with extremist elements in order to attacks Israeli government institutions. On a political level, I support the two-state solution, so here too I have an ideological disagreement with him.I am also a member of the working settlement (kibbutz) and Netanyahu's policy is a violation of this way of life, and in general a failure to support farmers.

Regarding the war - there is no doubt that Netanyahu prolonged the war for political reasons.

However, I completely disagree with the assumption that genocide was committed in Gaza, or that Israel "exaggerated".

In my opinion, we could and should have done more (just without stalling for time). Anyone who chooses to launch a war of annihilation should know that the price is a war until its surrender or destruction. The fact that Hamas refused to surrender, in my opinion, required continuous and intense activity, until the complete destruction of their military formation. You can't kill an idea. You can destroy military formations.

The only argument on the international level should have been directed at Hamas - why do you refuse to surrender when you have no ability to stop us.

I don't care what others think about the threat Israel faced. The fact that Israel was under existential threat is absolute. The resistance axis prepared massive military formations just to create the possibility of destroying us. We found detailed plans for this in both Gaza and Lebanon and Iran.

Everything else is background noise from people without a moral compass

At this point it is all just cynical ethnic/religious geopolitics.

There are 2 billion Muslims in the world, many/most of whom have been radicalized to some extent to hate Israel/jews for their affronts to the faith. Many third wold states, Muslim and non Muslim, are cynically feeding and using this hate to further their own geopolitical interests.

Western liberal leaders are making a calculation that if they sacrifice 15 million Jews to appease the Muslim street, things will go better for them. We all know this isn't going to work, but history is one of those things where everyone just repeats the same mistakes over and over and nothing is ever learned.

The attacks on Israel are mostly bad faith, hypocritical, and not derived from any first principles. So there is little point in even engaging with them.

or maybe people dont like that Israel slaughtered 100s of thousands of children and bragged about it the whole time. oh and also all the cannibal pedophilia rape torture in the Epstein files.

Why so pissy? You guys won!

I'd have thought Israel had just presented a far more credible existential threat to the people of Gaza than Gaza could ever present to Israel. Israel is too well armed for any likely enemy to overcome. Israel was entitled to decide it wouldn't tolerate Hamas as a neighbour any more, and apparently Israel's leaders, who are given to quite chilling racial views, decided as a matter of policy to 'write down' the civil population of Gaza, to drain the sea in which the terrorists swam. They were fairly successful, but the effects were terrible in humanitarian terms and have made anti-Semitism dangerously fashionable in other countries. Lord knows when that'll die down.

100s of thousands of children?

The Palestinian casualty toll is only limited by Victor’s imagination

no its based on actually studies and documentation, such as was done by the Lancelet that made conservative estimates of nearly 200k killed in mid 2024.

that wasn’t a study, as I told you before. it was classified as a “correspondence”. it wasn’t peer reviewed and wasn’t a study.

a distinction without a difference in this discussion regardless. and now that even the IDF accepts the KHamas Health Ministry numbers in terms of dead by live fire, its very easy to find conservative estimates on total excess deaths based on past conflicts. and really, the true numbers will be at the high end of the scope due to Israel's targeting of all civilian infrastructure and blockade on life saving things.

if you think there’s no difference between a letter and a peer-reviewed study or even a white paper idk what to tell you

The Lancet report is, thus far, far more reliable than any number you guys have provided. You got any evidence to suggest the study is wrong?

It’s not a study.

this is what they do. obfuscate and argue semantics. all in the service of a pedophile rape murder torture cult. the funniest part is that checkraise isnt even allowed to be part of it.

right, you guys make a citation and misrepresent what it is, and then call it semantics to say that it’s not what you’re saying it is.

the opinions of some dudes who wrote to the lancet isn’t as impressive as

I think you need to look up what "such as" means and what "documentation" means.

but dont worry, I dont think you are as dumb as you act. I dont think anyone could be. but I still cant understand why you reflexively go to bat for the cabal of pedophile rape murder torturers. obv you have no principles but you have to know they would never let you in right?

It is a study by any reasonable definition and your cute semantic bullshitting doesn't make your holocaust denial look any less scummy.

You know that makes him worse, right?

lol right, you weren’t trying to imply that the letter a few people sent to Lancet was a study to try to give it authority. you were trying to say it was documentation?

“holocaust denier”, oh yeah if you deny that the thing that was not a study was not a study, you are a holocaust denier.

if it’s just semantics, why are you calling me a holocaust denier just for saying it’s not a study. do you also believe, like Victor, that hundreds of thousands of children were killed on the Gaza-Israel war?