How many Gazan civilians do the Israeli government have to kill in order for us to say that they are equivalent or worse than Hamas?
Simply counting them doesn't work. No one is going to agree on who is or is not a civilian.
Is it perhaps style of killing and torture that matters?
That's a good start.
Is it perhaps that Israel are killing from a distance as opposed to the personalised violation of women that Hamas committed?
This also shouldn't matter, but, it probably does to some.
My take is that they are both bad for different reasons. And if Israel just massacred Hamas alone I would say good riddence, even with a few civilian casualties. But that isnt what is happening now.
We need to deconstruct it and analyze it in pieces, one step at a time in order to evaluate what is happening now.
1) Israel was attacked by individuals in a manner which is so inhumane that they are a danger to anyone and everyone within their range. Humans who behave this way are unpredictable and should not be underestimated. The evidence shows that Hamas has produced a small army of these individuals. They are not outliers. They are producing human-monsters.
2) The attack on Israel exploited tunnels not only to move fighters into Israel's border, but also to collect weapons for a small army to carry out the attack. 5000 rockets were fired at Israel within 20 minutes of the invasion inspite of a multi-national blockade intended to prevent these weapons from entering Gaza after Hamas executed a coup, forcibly seizing power and executing their rivals in 2007. The current attack on Oct. 7th was coordinated in a manner which took advantage of soft targets spread out through the nation including a music festival. This shows a level of sophistication, military intellegence coming from sources inside israel's border.
3) Because of #1 and #2 Gaza must be cleared immediately and completely. All weapons caches need to be eliminated. All tunnels need to be sealed. All who are suspected of ties to Hamas inside Israel need to be quarantined and interrogated. There can be no hesitation. It needs to happen now.
4) How can this be accomplished?
5) The citizens of Gaza are warned, they need to leave. It is no different than a bomb threat in an airport. The entire area needs to be cleared. Why do they leave? Because they know, with 100% certainty that bombs are coming. If they doubt that bombs are coming, then they do not leave.
6) Many people did leave. 1.8 million people left. Why did some stay? They think that Israel is going to steal their homes? They want to support Hamas against israel? Israel cannot do anything about their attitude in the short term. If the fact that some chose to stay delays the bombs, or prevents them, then, the next time, the citizens won't leave.
7) Gaza absolutely must be cleared of all weapons caches and all tunnels must be sealed. Now. The best thing to do is to compel the citizens to leave immediately and in any future conflict. That is accomplished with bombs. It cannot be accomplished any other way. If they go in with ground troops, history shows that the citizens will stand in the way and provoke attack on themselves throwing rocks, obstructing the israeli military from clearing the area of weapons and tunnels. Or, if they have rifles, they may fight back. Israel would stomp them, completely if that happens. It would be a blood-bath.
8) The best course of action is to do precisely what Israel did. Alert the public, compel them to leave. The ones that stay would have probably been the ones blocking the invasion troops and would have gotten themselves killed. There might be some who are old and sick who cannot leave. Hamas attacked, Hamas is to blame for those lives. Why doesn't Hamas move these citizens to safety? because they want them to die.
None of the innocent who are left in Gaza can be allowed to interfere with the clearing of the area. If they do, then the next time, the citizens won't leave. As stated above, this leads to a bloody disater for the Gazans. They would be annihilated.
Have you as a Jew and Zionist (I assume) asked yourself what criteria you have for determining whether Israel commits war crimes or are a terrorist government? At what point would Israels methods of eliminating the enemy be dispicable and intolerable to you?
Yes. Certainly. I have considered it. Kidnapping and hostage taking are a good measure. Some try to point to the detention of palestinians inside Israel as kidnapping, when I research them, they do not come close to what I would consider a war crime. The allegations are unsubstantiated rubbish. The prisoners are released and complain of being abused, but there is never
any evidence. With the high volume of those who are detained and released there should be something, anything, substantiating their claims.
If they did not give any warning and targetted all their enemies without provocation, that consittues a war crime. Certain types of interrogation methods are war crimes. Certain types of ordinance are war crimes. The occupied territories are complicated for me. The international community seems to think what's happening in the those territories are war crimes. I need to do more research on it.
No. Not even close.
If you go and look at third party sources what you'll see is a consistent effort by Israel to make peace and end the fighting. What triggered the 2nd intifada? Ariel Sharon, a Jewish elected official went to pray at the temple mount. The temple mount is shared space, neither israeli nor palestinian. A Jewish politician goes there, goes to a place. That's it. Nothing threatening. Boom. That's what triggered like 10,000 rockets and terrorist attacks. That's it, that's all it takes. Israel is NOT the aggressor. They put up walls to isolate and protect to avoid killing. None of that works.
If you look into this specific conflict, it's a similar story, slightly more extreme. A group of religious jews petitioned the government to have a holiday event at the temple mount. From the video, I'd expect it was 500+ people. They
did march there in a sort of military formation. They were not carrying weapons, they were carrying lulavim which kind of look like kind of like swords made of palm fronds. It's part of the holiday. But, it is a bit militant. A few Muslims were forcibly evacuated, but, that's the way it goes. It's a shared space. They were asked to leave, they refused, they were carried away.
That's what triggered all the death and carnage that is happening now. Yes, Hamas had been planning the attack, but, they named the attack after the Al-Aqsa mosque ( Al-Aqsa-flood ) in retribution for the ... parade. These are the sort of militants that are attacking Israel and have been attacking Israel since it was granted land by British mandate. No one complains about the same British mandate which simultanelously created Jordan.
