Remember that an advisor to Natanyahu tweeted that the Al-Arabi Hospital was bombed by Israel because it was being used by Hamas.
No, I'm not saying that the hospital was actually bombed by Israel; I'm saying that everything that Israel bombs is labelled with the "used by Hamas" tag as justification for what this really is.
No one actually believes that all or even most of the buildings destroyed in this campaign was "used by Hamas" if you are being honest with yourself. It's obviously collective punishment and revenge with a little bit of show ("we dropped leaflets" or "we sent warnings by SMS") for those who need it in order to go to bed at night.
> No one actually believes that all or even most of the buildings destroyed in this campaign was "used by Hamas" if you are being honest with yourself. It's obviously collective punishment and revenge with a little bit of show ("we dropped leaflets" or "we sent warnings by SMS") for those who need it in order to go to bed at night.
Sorry, no. I don't believe that.
Granted, I'm Israeli, and have far more trust in the Israeli public and soldiers than most people in the world. But it really is true that Hamas uses human shields. It really is true that they place bases in places like hospitals.
And it also is really true that many, hopefully most Israelis, wouldn't comply with an order to bomb a building only to kill civilians with no military value.
I understand why that might be a statement that outsiders wouldn't trust. And I'm sure there have been plenty of mistakes and even many times where people did do the wrong thing, like in every conflict in the world. I just don't think that as a matter of policy, Israel is bombing buildings with no military reason.
So you look at the aerial and satellite photography and you really believe that every last building was justifiably destroyed as a legitimate military target?
If that's the case, then the government propaganda has done its job. There's nothing more to say.
What could possibly ground your faith in the Israeli government, given the intelligence failure of massive proportions we all witnessed on 10/7? How can you believe that the same government which failed to foresee a massive Hamas offensive on its own border just weeks ago, is now suddenly aware of the exact positions of underground Hamas bases deep within the Gaza strip, and is even privy to phone calls between Hamas operatives?
That's also not to mention the many times Israel has been caught lying to cover its own military actions. You only have to look as far back as the targeted killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
> Then don't fucking bomb it. You're defending war crimes and terrorism.
1. It's not a war crime. If one side places their militants in a hospital, the hospital is no longer afforded protection. If anyone is commiting war crimes, it's Hamas, by placing their HQ in a hospital.
2. As much as I'd love to not bomb anybody, they are actively at this moment shooting rockets at me. What exactly should I do? Just wait until they inevitably manage to kill me?
2. Who are "they" shooting rockets at you? The children you're killing? The civilians in a hospital getting treatment form previous bombings?
I stand by my statement. You're defending war crimes and terrorism. It's what it is, no matter how justified you believe it is to kill these innocent people.
> Who are "they" shooting rockets at you? The children you're killing? The civilians in a hospital getting treatment form previous bombings?
The Hamas militants that are using hospitals as a base of operations.
If you honestly want to discuss this, then here's my suggestion - let's set aside the factual question for a second. If it's true that Hamas is firing rockets from within hospitals and/or using hospitals as a base of operations, would you then consider it justified to attack back?
If yes, then we just have the factual matter of whether it's true or not and we can check that.
If no, then my followup question is - so what should we do? What other option is there if someone is firing rockets at you right now, if you refuse to fire back? I'm asking in all sincerity, I'm literally running to a bomb shelter multiple times a day as rockets are fired at me, is there something you think is ok for my government to do to try and defend me?
I'll preface this with the fact that I appreciate the opportunity for discourse without degenerating to our base/tribal/Neanderthal brains. And, also, a chance to converse with someone outside my own echo chambers. Most of my circle is non-Israeli, and non-Jewish.
> I'm literally running to a bomb shelter multiple times a day as rockets are fired at me
I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, constantly in mortal fear of attacks from the other side. I will be the first to admit that I cannot relate to this, I've always lived in peaceful/stable environments (touch wood).
Can I pose a completely hypothetical counter-question, based on your own question with one variable changed: If it were somehow true that Hamas was firing rockets from _within Tel Aviv_ hospitals and/or using _Tel Aviv_ hospitals as a base of operations, would you consider it justified for the IDF to bomb that hospital?
> I'm sorry to hear this. This must be a terrible way to live, constantly in mortal fear of attacks from the other side. I will be the first to admit that I cannot relate to this, I've always lived in peaceful/stable environments (touch wood).
Thank you. I will say that there are people in much worse situations, we still feel relatively normal, except for running to bomb shelters a few times a day and except for the worry that worse is coming. But we're in the center. Many Israelis have had to evacuate their homes and probably won't be back for months.
And of course, the Palestinians in Gaza have it much worse than us, even on a good day.
> Can I pose a completely hypothetical counter-question, based on your own question with one variable changed: If it were somehow true that Hamas was firing rockets from _within Tel Aviv_ hospitals and/or using _Tel Aviv_ hospitals as a base of operations, would you consider it justified for the IDF to bomb that hospital?
An interesting question. I suggest you think about it the same way as what would happen if bank robbers took over a bank in New York, and were firing rockets at the population - would you consider bombing the bank justified? If it were the only way to prevent mass casualties outside the bank, then yes, I think it would be (and would be effectively what the police/army would do.)
But here's what makes this situation unrealistic/different: If Hamas had taken over a hospital in Tel Aviv, the hospital wouldn't continue to operate like normal. The people in the hospital would either evacuate, or would fight Hamas. If Hamas somehow managed to take over the hospital anyway, we'd be talking about a hostage situation where Hamas had a hospital-full of hostages. Then probably what would actually happen is we'd send in soldiers and/or police to try to root them out by force.
If they were somehow holed up in there, and were actively firing rockets that were killing people, then I assume there'd be some determination of whether the army/police were able to remove them quickly, before the death/damage from their rockets proves too much. If not, then for sure there'd be a discussion of whether bombing the hospital is the right choice, though it would have to be a pretty extreme situation (since ground troops probably would be able to get in, and the hostage casualties would be far too high in directly bombing it.)
The difference with the situation in Gaza is obvious IMIO. Whereas in a hospital inside Tel Aviv, Hamas is surrounded by an endless amount of Israeli ground forces that have access to it, inside Gaza that's not the case. I imagine this is actually one of the reasons for the large bombing campaign - to prepare the way for ground forces to invade, so that among other things we can surround any building with troops.
I think it suffices to say that quite a bit of thought and justification would precede striking a hospital in all of these scenarios. I do hope that this level of thought and consideration is standard operating procedure in the retaliations right now. Mainly to restore some morcel of faith I have in humanity. But I, and those disconnected from internal Israeli military comms (ie most of us) can't be sure.
The political optics/rhetoric aside, the images that I see of wounded children are heartbreaking. The recounts I've read about what happened on October 7th are horrifying. If the stats are accurate, they are depressing as hell. This war has amassed almost a fifth of the total civilian death toll of the 20-year long US War in Afghanistan. In. One. Month.
Collectively I think we can agree that this needs to stop. I hope it stops. But given the track record of skirmishes and hostilities in the region, I'm losing faith.
If the statistics of civilian and children deaths are even 50% accurate, even if Israel succeeds in destroying Hamas, I fear the collateral damage and the cost of human life will just create a future generation of armed boys who all lost their parents in air strikeS in October 2023. They might just call themselves something different.
And so the cycle continues.
I know many people on both sides alike want peace. But it will take a truly superhuman person to walk across that border and say "I forgive you."
When that day comes, a person who's death would be mourned by both sides, we may have some hope.
Until such a day, stay safe. I'll go give my kids a hug now.
What your government could do? Perhaps stop the occupation and killings of Palestinians. I think you would find that the innocent people being killed by your bombs don't really want to fight, they just want to live their life in peace. I can't fathom how you can justify bombing thousands of children just because some operation is carried out from somewhere in the city. I mean, what is it now, 3000 children in a matter of days being killed by Israel? But sure, killing them is probably "defending you"..
Perhaps Hamas could stop using their own population as human shields, vacate from hospitals, let Palestinians leave the north of Gaza and release the hostages. But they will never do that. They will keep using Palestinians as meat shield and their deaths as propaganda, diverting humanitarian aid to fund terrorism, using women as terrorist bombers, telling children to thrown rocks (which are deadly) at IDF soldiers so they as "martyrs" and sabotaging any possibility of peace because peace is an existential threat for Hamas.
Then I resort to my original comment: Then just not fucking bomb the children. Their blood is on Israeli hands just as much as Hamas, don't try to weasel out of it.
That you're comparing children throwing rocks to using advanced military equipment to bomb them back says a lot about your values. As if doing the first in any way excuses doing the second.. A child being told to throw rocks doesn't know any better, and doesn't deserve to die for it. Holy crap some of you are out of touch with humanity.
So what do you suggest? That Israelis do nothing? It doesn't matter if it's a huge rock to the head or a laser beam as both are lethal. Unless you have a realistic suggestion of the IDF should do differently you're just being a coward, signaling virtue without having to be virtuous from the comfort of your home.
> Then just not fucking bomb the children.
Do you think the IDF is purposefully looking for children to bomb so they can look bad? Hamas use children as human shield and their deaths as propaganda.
Do you want to help Palestinian children? Condemn Hamas for using children as shield. Condemn Iran & Russia for funding Hamas. Condemn Qatar for giving asylum to Hamas leaders. Stop romanticizing "Palestinian resistance" (evil adults sending children to stupid deaths).
I've condemned Hamas multiple times in these comments. But not once have I seen you condemn IDFs killing innocent children. I've actually mostly seen you defend it. Which to me is sickening. I'm not gonna reply to you anymore, as I don't want to engage with terrorist sympathizers.
I wouldn't count on anything coming from the circle of Netanyahu. He is the absolute worse. But Israeli mainstream press is generally better sourced.
Notice that Israel also used phone tracking to check that civilian population moved away from the target. No county that ran a campaign of this type in the past used such an approach to avoid civilian casualties.
I think the bombings are very problematic. But from current reports it seems the ground invasion will be worse in terms of casualties (on all fronts). So it seems like a lesser evil when a building goes down.
> I wouldn't count on anything coming from the circle of Netanyahu.
It's not about whether I trust them or not (I don't!). It's that everyone is following the same playbook. Israel can do whatever it wants and blame Palestinians with impunity.
Every teenager shot on the street is a militant. Every house that is flattened was used by terrorists. Every journalist that was dies while working was actually killed by the Palestinians themselves.
The power imbalance is not just military in nature. Israel has command of the message as well and the is frighteningly effective because it's just plausible enough.
>Notice that Israel also used phone tracking to check that civilian population moved away from the target. No county that ran a campaign of this type in the past used such an approach to avoid civilian casualties.
What about all the people who can't charge their phones because Israel only allowed 4 hours of electricity per day before the most recent campaign? Or whose phones were lost when their homes were destroyed?
This is a great example. The IDF can make claims about how they "avoid civilian casualties" but why do you believe that it's anything more than for show?
>> Notice that Israel also used phone tracking to check that civilian population moved away from the target. No county that ran a campaign of this type in the past used such an approach to avoid civilian casualties.
> What about all the people who can't charge their phones because Israel only allowed 4 hours of electricity per day before the most recent campaign? Or whose phones were lost when their homes were destroyed?
If they were trying to answer the question "how many people are in this area?" it could make a big difference, but to answer the question "what fraction of people who were here have recently left this area?" sampling just people with powered on phones just be enough to figure it out, assuming Israel has decent statisticians to analyze the data.
> > I wouldn't count on anything coming from the circle of Netanyahu.
> It's not about whether I trust them or not. It's that everyone is following the same playbook. Every teenager shot on the street is a militant; every house that is flattened was used by terrorists; everyone who has any criticism whatsoever is an antisemite.
I was specifically indicating that my information came from a reputable paper. Not from an a*hole on Twitter. Social media is full of nonsense and terrible people, I don't take part in that.
There is a lot of rage there and a lot of grandstanding.
> What about all the people who can't charge their phones because Israel only allowed 4 hours of electricity per day before the most recent campaign? Or whose phones were destroyed when their homes were destroyed?
This works based on numbers. There are still enough mobile phones to get a sense of movement patterns and target areas that are mostly empty. The army demoed the system to foreign press where areas are marked on a map indicating "safe to bomb" areas. It isn't a perfect system by any stretch but it's the best that can be done in this situation.
I wish there was a way to resolve this without violence. I don't think even the heads of Hamas should be killed. I hope they can be captured and would stand trial if possible. No one should die, especially not the many civilians that are there. But there's absolutely no choice. Every time the Hamas was given leeway it used it for attacks.
Israel released 1000 prisoners, many of them terrorists with blood on their hands as part of a trade a few years back. Most of those terrorists took part in the October 7th attack. They can't help themselves, they are religious fanatics. They are clever enough to manipulate the sentiments we liberals have. Our knee-jerk reaction is to stop violence and they appeal to that. They even manufacture violence against their own people for that purpose.
> Its impossible to "pick a side" in this conflict, there are good people and a*holes in both countries.
And, on both sides, its the a*holes (a mild term for people who have engineered decades of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity, including waging war against or actively using inflammatory language to incite the murder of less extreme voices on, nominally, the same side for being less disinclined toward peace) running the war machine and state or state-like apparatus while the good people are trying not to get killed.
Guess which country is the 4th or 5th most secular country in the world... It might surprise you: Israel. Yep.
That's thanks to the "Jews" who are jews in creed, not religion. Israel has its fanatics for sure and they gained more power in the last election. But it isn't controlled by its fanatics by any stretch of the imagination.
Don't have a horse in the race. Isn't Israeli constitution specifically about the Jewish people, as a ethnic, religious group? I read it discriminates against interfaith marriages, etc
Israel doesn't have a constitution. There's the declaration of independence which does explicitly say the Jewish People. But the interpretation of that is varied. The closest thing Israel has to a founding father (who died before the country was formed) is Hertzel and he called it "state of the Jews". Many make a strong distinction between that and "Jewish state" as American TV anchors like to say (that's like nails on a blackboard for me).
Israel doesn't have civil unions. It only has religious marriage any religion is OK but the religions do discriminate. This is both problematic and a blessing. I'm not married to my spouse because I'm an atheist, but Israel has a "known in public" status which gives us the same rights (and some obligations) as married people. That means Gay and inter-religion couples can enjoy all the rights.
Another option some people take is to fly to nearby cypress to have a civil union which is recognized in Israeli courts.
About the broader question. Yes, there are religious elements in the government that have been pushing the secular envelope. This creates a lot of friction within Israeli society. E.g. there's a law against pastries in passover which is just the dumbest thing ever... Unenforceable and just stupid. There's also regulations prohibiting Jews from working on a Sabath (supposedly as a labor protection). Notice that both laws mostly affect people who are listed as "Jews" even if they are secular.
The laws discriminate against non-jews. Below is a list which includes things like restricting who can emigrate or gain residency, who land can be distributed or leased to, restricting commemoration of ethnic cleansing that the state was founded on, etc.
I think we need a different word for "ethnically Jewish" and "belief in the faith of Judaism", the confusion between the people and the faith causes problems.
I believe that 99% of what they're bombing are known or very probably Hamas hot spots. They have no reason to kill regular Palestinians, but they are at war, and war is pretty fkng ugly. They have sat back for decades while Hamas lobbed rockets at them and then turn around and massacre 1400 people as if they were nothing. No I think this is pent-up and they are on a mission to end Hamas with prejudice, they are not on a mission to kill innocent people, but I have no doubt that Hamas will put innocent people between them and Israeli bombs.
7x as many Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than Israelis. And on average, in the West Bank alone, Israel kills a Palestinian every day.
Moreover, to 'sit back' as an occupied in a situation founded on mass expulsion, in which settlers actively continue illegal territorial expansion is an act of real, profound, material violence.
What they are supposed to do? To just do nothing and let terrorists grow stronger and do what they want?
> Israel's retaliation is war crimes, terrorism.
You're wrong but if you repeat it a thousand times maybe it will become truth. A war crime is using civilians as human shield. Terrorism is indiscriminately launching rockets at civilians areas, of which ~30% hits Gaza. Terrorism is killing civilians purposefully in barbaric ways to send a message and incite fear. Hamas and Iran are the architects of what is happening today in Gaza.
I don't support Hamas. They're terrorists as well. But there is no good/bad side here. Don't use one side being bad to excuse the atrocities done by the other side. It's sickening how you and others excuse the killings of thousand of innocent children just because those bombs might also kill a few from Hamas.
All you wrote about war crimes is exactly what Isreal does as well. If you can't see that, you should think hard about what propaganda you're listening to.
But maybe it's a coping mechanism? Because acknowledging the truth about the amount of innocents being killed would be unpleasant?
You're the one trying to create a false symmetry, by saying one either has to support Hamas or Israel. But no, I don't. One can condemn both. What I support is the innocent civilians and kids.
There is no way to support Israels bombings, killings thousands of innocent children, no matter how it's framed. If you do, you might as well spell it straight out instead of hiding behind weak arguments: you support the killing of children.
No, I'm not saying that the hospital was actually bombed by Israel; I'm saying that everything that Israel bombs is labelled with the "used by Hamas" tag as justification for what this really is.
No one actually believes that all or even most of the buildings destroyed in this campaign was "used by Hamas" if you are being honest with yourself. It's obviously collective punishment and revenge with a little bit of show ("we dropped leaflets" or "we sent warnings by SMS") for those who need it in order to go to bed at night.