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What are Hamas' leaders thinking?

B

Bthoth

Well-Known Member
Mock Turtle said:
What might the word be for what Hamas are doing?
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Cruel and inhumane just as all indiscriminate killing is.

Nothing substantiates what HAMAS has done and is doing. What is clear, is they are a very small group.

Israel is retaliating and has far more resources to do even worse but not as ruthless on the individual instances.
 
icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Bthoth said:
Cruel and inhumane just as all indiscriminate killing is.

Nothing substantiates what HAMAS has done and is doing. What is clear, is they are a very small group.

Israel is retaliating and has far more resources to do even worse but not as ruthless on the individual instances.
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If that's true, why haven't the Palestinians kicked Hamas out?
 
Mock Turtle

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
ImmortalFlame said:
Well, one idea may be to stop the seventy-years long exercise of settler colonialism, displacement, the bombardment of Gaza and the humanitarian crimes against the people of Palestine. I mean, I'm not saying that this would make religious extremism evaporate overnight, but it may at least give a lot of people a lot less reason to believe they have to rely on supporting explicit militaristic religious extremists in a desperate bid to survive.


Yes, both Hamas and the Israeli government are - to say the least- "selective" in their morals. The point is that the logic you employed in that post can be just as easily employed to justify what Hamas did as much as what Israel is doing.
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Not really logic, but one can see how it inflames people. It is rather circular too, but I'm sure Hamas must have known what the Israeli response would be this time. I've not seen any interviews of Palestinians expressing sadness over the Israeli deaths.
ImmortalFlame said:
Personally, I believe both are unjustified. I don't believe the Israeli people should suffer for the ongoing colonial efforts of their government, and I don't believe the people of Palestine should suffer because of a controlling military extremist group committing terrorist atrocities in the name of alleged "resistance". I'm not selective in my condemnation. I can recognise that the atrocities committed by Hamas as both morally disgusting and utterly contra-effective to the goal of Palestinian emancipation (because, frankly, I don't think Hamas give two hoots about genuinely freeing the Palestinian people), while still acknowledging that Hamas' power and militancy is a direct consequence of Israeli expansion that is in contravention of international law. And I can certainly say that committing a war crime does not justify committing another war crime.
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As per usual, when land is at stake, and decisions are made to parcel such up, we usually get problems down the road. And this is made worse because of religious issues attached to such things.
 
Drunk_Uncle_Bob

Drunk_Uncle_Bob

Member
Mock Turtle said:
Very sad. And often the case when people are fighting against a superior force. Along with this must be added all the rockets and such sent into Israel, hence there side not being blameless.
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No one is blameless in almost any given situation. Violence in and of itself isn't the problem. It is the type of violence that commences.

Though my main point is that Israel has all the power in the world to fix the situation and will actively choose not too. I hope I am wrong but time will tell. And just to clarify I mean the Israeli government not the people of Israel. The civilians on either side are equally innocent.
 
ImmortalFlame

ImmortalFlame

Woke gremlin
Mock Turtle said:
Not really logic, but one can see how it inflames people. It is rather circular too, but I'm sure Hamas must have known what the Israeli response would be this time. I've not seen any interviews of Palestinians expressing sadness over the Israeli deaths.
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I feel that's one of the main reasons Hamas did it. Inflaming tensions on both sides benefits them, and as explicit Jihadists they're hardly likely to consider their own longevity as a factor. It's a dangerous thing to be someone who feels that a) deaths of innocents is justified, and b) your own death in service to this specific goal is actually desirable.

Oh, and being MASSIVELY antisemitic helps, too. Can't forget that.

Mock Turtle said:
As per usual, when land is at stake, and decisions are made to parcel such up, we usually get problems down the road. And this is made worse because of religious issues attached to such things.
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I think that there are two things we can and should avoid doing above all else:

1) We must not conflate the violence committed by either Hamas or the Israeli government to the people, nor conflate acts of Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians as revolutionary acts (I have seen a lot of this on the left, unfortunately...).

2) Commit ourselves to the idea that violence is always inevitable, or that peace between Israel or Palestine is impossible due to the complexity of the issue.

I think once we meet criteria 1 and 2, we can then go on to talk about and maybe even address potential solutions to historical injustice. Right now, it feels like one side is so outraged by Hamas they can barely acknowledge the humanity of the Palestinian people, and the other side is so resigned to Palestine's doom that they unironically see Hamas as revolutionary fighters against Israeli oppression.

I'm not optimistic about the situation, but I believe there is a virtue to persevering despite pessimism.
 
Mock Turtle

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
ImmortalFlame said:
I feel that's one of the main reasons Hamas did it. Inflaming tensions on both sides benefits them, and as explicit Jihadists they're hardly likely to consider their own longevity as a factor. It's a dangerous thing to be someone who feels that a) deaths of innocents is justified, and b) your own death in service to this specific goal is actually desirable.

Oh, and being MASSIVELY antisemitic helps, too. Can't forget that.


I think that there are two things we can and should avoid doing above all else:

1) We must not conflate the violence committed by either Hamas or the Israeli government to the people, nor conflate acts of Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians as revolutionary acts (I have seen a lot of this on the left, unfortunately...).

2) Commit ourselves to the idea that violence is always inevitable, or that peace between Israel or Palestine is impossible due to the complexity of the issue.

I think once we meet criteria 1 and 2, we can then go on to talk about and maybe even address potential solutions to historical injustice. Right now, it feels like one side is so outraged by Hamas they can barely acknowledge the humanity of the Palestinian people, and the other side is so resigned to Palestine's doom that they unironically see Hamas as revolutionary fighters against Israeli oppression.

I'm not optimistic about the situation, but I believe there is a virtue to persevering despite pessimism.
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Tend to agree with most of this.
 
Kenny

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Debater Slayer said:
My thoughts are that it is utterly unhelpful to try to reduce a complicated decades-long conflict to a blame game about religions or overlook the troubled geopolitical and socioeconomic history of the region to zoom in on just one factor out of many.
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Yes, it is very complicated and a decades-long conflict...

And that is why beheading babies is totally understandable and shouldn't be factored into anything???
 
Debater Slayer

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
icehorse said:
if you don't want to be strawmanned (which might or might not be what happened),
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"Might or might not be"? It's pretty clear that no one in this thread thinks "beheading babies is totally understandable and shouldn't be factored into anything." Where is your "might not be" coming from?

icehorse said:
how about not strawmanning others?
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That's a loaded question. If you think I've done that to any of your points, show where and we can go over it. Otherwise it's a vague accusation that I don't see as relevant to any actual points here.
 
icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
ImmortalFlame said:
What on earth does that have to do with my post?
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you said: Israel has sealed-off Gaza, cut off power and access to food and fuel for 2.3 million people.
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Which seems like a convenient sin of omission. For decades, Jordan and Egypt have also tightly restricted how Palestinians live. I think that we must consider the broader context.
 
icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Debater Slayer said:
That's a loaded question. If you think I've done that to any of your points, show where and we can go over it. Otherwise it's a vague accusation that I don't see as relevant to any actual points here.
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I've debated with you enough to know that you are willing to abandon logic and evidence when it suits you. So it's a complete waste of my time to provide any evidence. You'll either come to understand your less than good-faith debating habits or you won't. On your own time.
 
Debater Slayer

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
icehorse said:
I've debated with you enough to know that you are willing to abandon logic and evidence when it suits you. So it's a complete waste of my time to provide any evidence. You'll either come to understand your less than good-faith debating habits or you won't. On your own time.
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You haven't answered this:

Debater Slayer said:
"Might or might not be"? It's pretty clear that no one in this thread thinks "beheading babies is totally understandable and shouldn't be factored into anything." Where is your "might not be" coming from?
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You made a serious accusation by saying "might not be." What is that based on? This is your chance to back that up.

As for your latest post, it's still a vague and off-topic claim. I have also debated you enough to think that you sometimes make uncharitable and inaccurate claims about positions that disagree with yours, and I suspect that's one reason you have an ax to grind in this case.

People are perfectly capable of using logic and evidence and still finding your opinions problematic and harmful.
 
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