Israel Declares War After Hamas Attacks

[Left Coast]

If people were given straight answers there would be less confusion.

No one is confused by what antisemitic means. Enough.

 

[Copernicus]

It would be nice if you would stop trying to pedantically nitpick word choice when you (should) know what's being said.

...

Left Coast is right in that "antisemitism" is used almost exclusively for hatred or prejudice against Jews, not other Semitic groups. I think that the hatred and prejudice against Muslims generally, and against Palestinians specifically, that I've observed in some Jewish and Israeli acquaintances is a similar phenomenon, but we usually use words like "islamophobia" to refer to it. I don't know of a specific term for prejudice or hatred of Palestinians, but I've seen what it looks like in practice.

 

[Bthoth]

No one is confused by what antisemitic means. Enough.

I have noticed that bigots sling that term. Trying to discredit a person for not accepting the narrative of israel.

Israel does not rule mankind, nor do the children of Jews control the definition or terminology of what is Jewish.

 

[Copernicus]

Things are impenetrable...till they're not. This is not Hamas or Israel's first rodeo. What October 7th made clear is that when Israel leta down its guard, Hamas uses that breathing room to plan and carry out attacks by exploiting whatever weaknesses they can find. They'll continue doing that until their power to do so is taken away.

Since Israel ignored warnings in advance of the attack, I think that the Netanyahu government deserves a lot of the blame for what happened. So do many Israelis think that, apparently. However, the situation is very different now. Israel has largely eliminated the threat of another such attack in the near future. The task now is to root out and destroy Hamas. Missiles and bombs don't seem to be the best way to accomplish that, since they are actually causing Israel to lose a considerable amount of support from the international community.

...and all Hamas has been able to do is launch their homemade rockets, most of which are wiped out by Iron Dome. Moreover, Israel had been experiencing such attacks daily before October 7, so, if Israel had no immediate or compelling need to use such lethal force then, it doesn't now.

Clearly it did have that need, or October 7th wouldn't have happened. Think through what you're saying.

Israel could have stopped the October attack easily, if had had advanced warning. Oh, wait. It did, but it didn't heed the warnings. The bombs and missiles would not have been needed to stop the lightly armed terrorists, and Iron Dome was sufficient to stop rocket attacks before October 7. It was only briefly overwhelmed during the surprise attack, but Iron Dome had never been 100% effective in the past either.

Put them at risk? The only thing that has compelled Hamas to release the hostsges they've released so far has been the military force exerted by Israel. Why do think they started releasing hostages the day before Israel went in with ground troops. These folks respond to the incentive of force.

Actually, they weren't compelled to release any hostages. They did so at the urging of the Qatar government as an attempt at confidence-building towards negotiations. Israel ignored those releases, and I think you are very mistaken to think that they were just responding to force. If so, why are they still holding more than 200 hostages? Hamas still considers them to be bargaining chips.

And it is exactly the political strategy of Hamas to expect that Israel's will to fight them will be broken by international pressure due to the deaths of civilians they use as shields.

If so, that strategy seems to be very effective. It has already caused a lot of people to forget how brutal and cruel the October 7 attacks were. Now we are seeing pictures of bloody and dead Palestinians, including especially children. The pictures of what Hamas did have been overshadowed by more recent atrocities. The US has already warned Israel that they can't go on like this.

...meaning Israel is allowing that to happen. Correct.

No, meaning that Israel needs to start allowing more than a trickle of humanitarian supplies. Gaza needs massive amounts of humanitarian aid now more than ever, and Israel has been deliberately blocking it.

...Israel is within its rights to disable and destroy Hamas, but it has a responsibility to do so in a way that protects civilians living there who are not part of the Hamas terrorist organization.

I am curious to know what you think that actually looks like, more than what Israel has already done.

It could take several forms other than simply bombing neighborhoods in the pursuit of elusive terrorists and the death of anyone who happens to be within blast radius of them. Ground operations with advice from American military, who had learned many lessons about how to conduct urban warfare in Iraq. More effective, perhaps, would be to bring in Arab governments that would be willing to help once Israel stopped the indiscriminate bombings and expressed some willingness to receive their help.

A raw comparison of lives taken is not sufficient to understand the moral (let alone legal) dynamics at play here.

It strikes me as relevant to the question of the proportionality of Israel's response to October 7. Right now, it looks like pure revenge against the entire Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, not just Hamas.

So wait, it shouldn't have withdrawn from Gaza in 2005? It shouldn't have allowed Gazans to vote for their own leadership?

Israel still held all the power back then, so they had other options for dealing with Hamas rather than to treat them as a legitimate government. Instead, settlements in the West Bank became paramount. Netanyahu formed his first right wing coalition government in 2009, having previously been the opposition leader in the Knesset. Israel had been slowly colonizing areas of the West Bank since 1967 under the pretext of historical entitlement. The Likud governments pursued them even more avidly against all international pressure to stop. Hamas became part of the strategy.

It's possible that Arab states may be used to act as peacekeeping forces. The UN would be a less sustainable solution.

Right now, I think that Israelis would feel very nervous about letting Arab states take over the occupation and administration of Gaza, since they could help to rearm Hamas clandestinely. Moreover, I think that most Arab states are now in a position where it is politically impossible to be seen as doing anything at all to help Israel out of its self-created mess. Before October 7, Israel had been making progress in rapprochement with other Arab states. Israel's continued massacre of Palestinian civilians makes that all but impossible. A ceasefire, only if temporary, might open the door to some kind of solution. The continued bombing of Gaza is unsustainable.

 

[Mock Turtle]

In smaller settings--when the police surround a building where hostages are being held--they call in hostage negotiators, who actually have expertise and training at defusing the situation and getting the hostages released. The situation with Hamas is very different because of the unique circumstances that led up to it. However, the way it could have worked without all of the bombing of densely populated neighborhoods, would have been for Israel to use the international horror and revulsion felt towards what Hamas did and then try to engage other countries to help with the negotiations to get those hostages released. I feel that there was an opportunity lost, in part, because Israelis have become used to a status quo in which they did not need to acknowledge the legitimate concerns that Palestinians have over being forced to live in an apartheid state.

I think that there was no way that Israel could have answered the attack other than as they have done, since it was either lunacy or pure cynicism on the part of those who organised this, given they must have known what the result would be. And if the following is correct, then even many in Hamas might have questioned the wisdom of doing this. Relying on the outpouring of anger and grief for the likely civilian casualties is just pathetic too. I hope what they have done reflects on all who use such tactics.

Top Hamas commander exposes 'infighting and real plans for October 7 attack'

The military commander, who goes by the codename of Abu Mohammed , said that the exiled political leaders, who live a life of luxury in Qatar and Turkey, made suicidal decisions because they don't have to face the consequences of Israel's wrath

www.mirror.co.uk

A high-ranking Hamas commander has broken ranks to criticise what happened on October 7, claiming that Israeli civilians were not originally their targets. The military chief - who is responsible for a battalion of 400 militants and goes by the code name Abu Mohammed - claimed the initial plan targeted Israeli soldiers and there were designs to abduct some of the troops as hostages. But at the last minute, Hamas' political leadership who are exiled outside of the territory changed the operation, telling commanders to rape, torture and slaughter Israeli civilians.

There is a peace movement in Israel that seeks reconciliation with Palestinian Arabs and resolution to the conflicts, but the Netanyahu governments have consistently opposed it. And it isn't favored by the majority of Israelis, apparently. The gradual absorption of the West Bank into Israel and some vague ideas about how to get the Palestinian problem to fade away seems to have been what they were aiming for, as best I could make of it. Somehow that was all gradually going to work out in Israel's favor. If only the surrounding Arab states would absorb the Palestinian population, then everyone could live in peace. Even now, I think that a lot of Israelis believe that that is where this is all going to end up--Jordan and Egypt will help solve their Palestinian problem for them, just as the British once helped Europe solve its Jewish problem after WWII. Egypt and Jordan don't seem too eager to agree, but they don't have a bunch of outsiders running their countries and making them do it anyway.

No idea as to the future, but violence as I've stated, usually just gets one response.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Primary responsibility lies with the more powerful
party to the hostility...the one doing the oppressing,
& that is Israel. It could unilaterally decide to achieve
peace. Palestinians, an unorganized group of victims,
lack that unity & ability (ie, they're not the ones doing
the oppressing).

To weigh in on one side does
require understanding the other.

If this below is true, would it alter your viewpoint, and any answers as to why they would have done this?

Top Hamas commander exposes 'infighting and real plans for October 7 attack'

The military commander, who goes by the codename of Abu Mohammed , said that the exiled political leaders, who live a life of luxury in Qatar and Turkey, made suicidal decisions because they don't have to face the consequences of Israel's wrath

www.mirror.co.uk

A high-ranking Hamas commander has broken ranks to criticise what happened on October 7, claiming that Israeli civilians were not originally their targets. The military chief - who is responsible for a battalion of 400 militants and goes by the code name Abu Mohammed - claimed the initial plan targeted Israeli soldiers and there were designs to abduct some of the troops as hostages. But at the last minute, Hamas' political leadership who are exiled outside of the territory changed the operation, telling commanders to rape, torture and slaughter Israeli civilians.

 

[Mock Turtle]

How about Israel not ignore the historical reality that what they are doing is creating their own worst enemy (a bad trait they learned from Uncle Sam, maybe?)?

Israel has committed war crimes of their own volition. What they are doing is not self defense, it is not an act against Hamas. They are the punishing the Palestinians for existing and living under a sham of a government that so very many of them did not vote for.

That is entirely on Israel. There is absolutely no reason for their bombing and killing of civilians as they have, no reason for blocking the entry of necessary supplies, and absolutely no damn reason to make regular Palestinians suffer as they have.
Israel apparently knows who they are looking for. Why not let others flee the violence rather than herding them even closer together to bomb them in order to allegedly one Hamas target?
It is entirely Israel's fault amd responsibility for making things worse, such as bombing refugee camps and where they told civilians to go to. What they (amd so many others) are doing is holding all Palestenians guilty and they are indiscriminately slaughtering. That is a war crime.

In war civilians get killed, and especially when the attacker embeds itself within the civilian population. Hamas by doing their particular action were either lunatics or nasty, cynical, and pathetic - so as to get the public anger and sympathy. They are as much responsible for this carnage as Israel.

Whatever built up to this might have been solved. This has made it almost impossible.

PS See the article in the Mirror posted in other replies.

 

[Revoltingest]

If this below is true, would it alter your viewpoint, and any answers as to why they would have done this?

Top Hamas commander exposes 'infighting and real plans for October 7 attack'

The military commander, who goes by the codename of Abu Mohammed , said that the exiled political leaders, who live a life of luxury in Qatar and Turkey, made suicidal decisions because they don't have to face the consequences of Israel's wrath

www.mirror.co.uk

I understand the focus upon Hamas. They're easy to
criticize, & inflame emotions against them. But this
is designed to serve the "look over there" purpose
of avoiding actual solution of the problem, ie, the
enduring hostility between Israel & the oppressed.

Israel's tactic has been oppression & violent over-
reaction. The fundamental problem will remain, as
will Hamas, which also exists outside of Gaza.
The old saying that insanity is doing the same thing
over & over, expecting a different result each time.
That's Israel.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In war civilians get killed, and especially when the attacker embeds itself within the civilian population. Hamas by doing their particular action were either lunatics or nasty, cynical, and pathetic ...

More to the point, short of the annihilation of Hamas, they have orchestrated a stunning and multifaceted victory, the magnitude of which defies quantification.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Get Feargal on the case. Apologies if already posted…

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Get Feargal on the case. Apologies if already posted…

<paraphrase>

I wish they knew peace because peace is so peaceful.​

</paraphrase>

Beautiful, if vacuous.

 

[RestlessSoul]

<paraphrase>

I wish they knew peace because peace is so peaceful.​

</paraphrase>

Beautiful, if vacuous.

It might be vacuous were it not spoken by a man who grew up in the midst an intractable cycle of violence, and lived to see the killing stop.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I understand the focus upon Hamas. They're easy to
criticize, & inflame emotions against them. But this
is designed to serve the "look over there" purpose
of avoiding actual solution of the problem, ie, the
enduring hostility between Israel & the oppressed.

Israel's tactic has been oppression & violent over-
reaction. The fundamental problem will remain, as
will Hamas, which also exists outside of Gaza.
The old saying that insanity is doing the same thing
over & over, expecting a different result each time.
That's Israel.

Those who concentrate on Israel are the ones falling into the trap.

 

[Mock Turtle]

More to the point, short of the annihilation of Hamas, they have orchestrated a stunning and multifaceted victory, the magnitude of which defies quantification.

Perhaps, but we will have to wait and see.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Those who concentrate on Israel are the ones falling into the trap.

Or perhaps it’s Israel that’s falling into the trap set by her enemies.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Or perhaps it’s Israel that’s falling into the trap set by her enemies.

So did you have a particular solution - after Hamas attacked, that is?

 

[RestlessSoul]

So did you have a particular solution - after Hamas attacked, that is?

No. I don’t pretend to have a solution. But I suspect the wanton massacre of civilians by either side will lead only to more violence, because violence only ever begets violence, as hate only begets hate.

Hamas, murderous death cult that they are, almost certainly anticipated this response from Israel. Which bodes well for no one.

 

[Copernicus]

I think that there was no way that Israel could have answered the attack other than as they have done, since it was either lunacy or pure cynicism on the part of those who organised this, given they must have known what the result would be. And if the following is correct, then even many in Hamas might have questioned the wisdom of doing this. Relying on the outpouring of anger and grief for the likely civilian casualties is just pathetic too. I hope what they have done reflects on all who use such tactics.

Top Hamas commander exposes 'infighting and real plans for October 7 attack'

The military commander, who goes by the codename of Abu Mohammed , said that the exiled political leaders, who live a life of luxury in Qatar and Turkey, made suicidal decisions because they don't have to face the consequences of Israel's wrath

www.mirror.co.uk

That's an interesting article, although it could be just one Hamas terrorist's attempt to shift blame for the horrific events of October 7. It's difficult for me to believe that the attackers would have been so disciplined as to behave with more restraint until they received an order to go on a murderous rampage. I suspect it was always going to be as bad as it got, but I would also not be surprised if it were true that such an order was given by people who knew full well what the Israeli response would be and invited that response. What Israel is doing right now could not be a worse setback for Israel's international reputation.

The Biden administration is just getting into deeper and deeper trouble over their policy of defending Israel's tactics. They appear to be doing what they can to restrain Israel and bring about at least a temporary pause in the slaughter, but they seem to have no influence at all. It is clear that Israel can utterly defeat Hamas in Gaza, so the fighting will gradually come to an end with a full Israeli occupation. But I fear that many thousands more are yet to die before that happens. The main concern of the Biden administration now is that Israel seems to have no idea of what it will do after Hamas is fully removed from power. There will still be Gazans left alive, and Egypt does not appear at all willing to comply with Israel's desire to send them into exile. There will be a power vacuum that someone will need to fill. However, the Biden administration says that Israel actually has no plans in place for what happens when the fighting finally comes to an end.

 

[Mock Turtle]

That's an interesting article, although it could be just one Hamas terrorist's attempt to shift blame for the horrific events of October 7. It's difficult for me to believe that the attackers would have been so disciplined as to behave with more restraint until they received an order to go on a murderous rampage. I suspect it was always going to be as bad as it got, but I would also not be surprised if it were true that such an order was given by people who knew full well what the Israeli response would be and invited that response. What Israel is doing right now could not be a worse setback for Israel's international reputation.

Yes, it seems as if Israel has been drawn into a trap, but I suspect that many might change their minds as to what courses were open to Israel. The one TV interview with a leader of Hamas seemed to make him very uncomfortable, as if it had all gone wrong and not what was intended, and he did end the interview early - he claimed it was a purely military attack. And there are rumours that the attackers took drugs, although this is likely in any such conflict. The wanton slaughter of children and babies seems to accord with what the Israelis have said. This is on a different level than civilians being caught in targeted attacks by the Israelis but where children are too often the victims.

The Biden administration is just getting into deeper and deeper trouble over their policy of defending Israel's tactics. They appear to be doing what they can to restrain Israel and bring about at least a temporary pause in the slaughter, but they seem to have no influence at all. It is clear that Israel can utterly defeat Hamas in Gaza, so the fighting will gradually come to an end with a full Israeli occupation. But I fear that many thousands more are yet to die before that happens. The main concern of the Biden administration now is that Israel seems to have no idea of what it will do after Hamas is fully removed from power. There will still be Gazans left alive, and Egypt does not appear at all willing to comply with Israel's desire to send them into exile. There will be a power vacuum that someone will need to fill. However, the Biden administration says that Israel actually has no plans in place for what happens when the fighting finally comes to an end.

Yes, I've no idea what might happen after this mess calms down, if it actually does.

 

[Mock Turtle]

No. I don’t pretend to have a solution. But I suspect the wanton massacre of civilians by either side will lead only to more violence, because violence only ever begets violence, as hate only begets hate.

Hamas, murderous death cult that they are, almost certainly anticipated this response from Israel. Which bodes well for no one.

Not sure that they did actually - given that they might be held accountable for the civilians deaths as much as Israel.