Israel / Palestine

[Cap]

US vetoes UN Israel/Gaza cease-fire resolution.

I don’t get the point of vetoing a resolution like this, though I admittedly haven’t read the text. Let it pass. All Israel has to do is cease fire very briefly. When Hamas doesn’t hold up their end by releasing the hostages, Israel is free to go back to work and say, “We tried.”

[Mori Chu]

Here's an article that some folks in this thread would like.

[Mori Chu]

Israel's military releases photos of supposed Hamas terrorists being captured by the IDF, sat on their knees in their underwear. This is being touted as a big victory, catching and forcing all these terrorists to surrender. But ... why are they all in their undies? Why are they kneeling down in the dirt? Is it standard practice to strip the clothes off your prisoners as you capture them? Do we know for sure that these are Hamas baddies and not just random Palestinians? I find these photos a bit uncomfortable. I can't think of any good reason to strip all these guys down and make them huddle in the dirt for photo ops.

[Mori Chu]

[Mori Chu]

We've hit 20,000 dead Palestinians. That's truly awful.

[Mori Chu]

Bibi now openly admits that his intent is to move all the Palestinians out. The US is aiding and supporting this.

[Shabazz]

Bibi now openly admits that his intent is to move all the Palestinians out. The US is aiding and supporting this.

Did you read the article? He says none of those things in it.

I’m no Bibi fan, but he’s talking about working with other countries to set up a system for Palestinians who voluntarily want to leave Gaza.

[Mori Chu]

[Shabazz]

A reminder on who Israel is fighting in case anyone needed it:

[Mori Chu]

I'm curious, how many people did the 20,000 dead Palestinian civilians rape or mutilate?

[Shabazz]

I'm curious, how many people did the 20,000 dead Palestinian civilians rape or mutilate?

Considering your number is coming from the Gaza Health Ministry (Hamas), who have been found to massively inflate the numbers and count every dead terrorist as a “civilian” and considering over 3,000 terrorist and many civilians took part in the Oct 7th massacre before retreating to Gaza, and considering most of the hostages were hidden in “civilian” homes, I’d say quite a few.

How many raped, kidnapped, mutilated and murdered Israelis would make it ok for Israel to defend itself/retaliate?

[Mori Chu]

Lots of sources verify the 20,000+ dead figure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 023-12-06/
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-01-01/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/2 ... sses-22000
https://time.com/6328885/gaza-death-toll-explainer/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/07/midd ... index.html

How many raped, kidnapped, mutilated and murdered Israelis would make it ok for Israel to defend itself/retaliate?

I say this unequivocally: There is no amount of suffering that justifies retaliation by indiscriminately killing civilians. None. This is literally in the Geneva Conventions; you don't just start killing random civilians because you were attacked. Even if some of your people were "raped, kidnapped, mutilated and murdered", which is of course horrible and unacceptable.

Just because some bad guy / terrorist goes and hides in some neighborhood, doesn't mean it's okay to bomb that whole neighborhood to smithereens. Just because they go stay in some house (how do you know that the people of that house support such a thing? Maybe they were scared to say "no" to the man with the machine gun?), doesn't mean it's okay to bomb all the family living in that house. You don't indiscriminately kill civilians. Certainly not tens of thousands of them.

[In2ition]

Lots of sources verify the 20,000+ dead figure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 023-12-06/
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-01-01/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/2 ... sses-22000
https://time.com/6328885/gaza-death-toll-explainer/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/07/midd ... index.html

How many raped, kidnapped, mutilated and murdered Israelis would make it ok for Israel to defend itself/retaliate?

I say this unequivocally: There is no amount of suffering that justifies retaliation by indiscriminately killing civilians. None. This is literally in the Geneva Conventions; you don't just start killing random civilians because you were attacked. Even if some of your people were "raped, kidnapped, mutilated and murdered", which is of course horrible and unacceptable.

Just because some bad guy / terrorist goes and hides in some neighborhood, doesn't mean it's okay to bomb that whole neighborhood to smithereens. Just because they go stay in some house (how do you know that the people of that house support such a thing? Maybe they were scared to say "no" to the man with the machine gun?), doesn't mean it's okay to bomb all the family living in that house. You don't indiscriminately kill civilians. Certainly not tens of thousands of them.

Every source is referencing the Gaza Health Ministry, so I'm not sure that Shabazz's questioning of the number is verified in any of these.

[Mori Chu]

[Nodack]

Lots of sources verify the 20,000+ dead figure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 023-12-06/
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-01-01/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/2 ... sses-22000
https://time.com/6328885/gaza-death-toll-explainer/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/07/midd ... index.html

How many raped, kidnapped, mutilated and murdered Israelis would make it ok for Israel to defend itself/retaliate?

I say this unequivocally: There is no amount of suffering that justifies retaliation by indiscriminately killing civilians. None. This is literally in the Geneva Conventions; you don't just start killing random civilians because you were attacked. Even if some of your people were "raped, kidnapped, mutilated and murdered", which is of course horrible and unacceptable.

Just because some bad guy / terrorist goes and hides in some neighborhood, doesn't mean it's okay to bomb that whole neighborhood to smithereens. Just because they go stay in some house (how do you know that the people of that house support such a thing? Maybe they were scared to say "no" to the man with the machine gun?), doesn't mean it's okay to bomb all the family living in that house. You don't indiscriminately kill civilians. Certainly not tens of thousands of them.

The bad guy hiding in the neighborhood is the Government of the people in that neighborhood. He’s not some bad guy. He is 30,000 fighters strong who have all swore to kill Jews and wipe them off the map. This conflict has been going on for longer than anyone here has been alive.

[Mori Chu]

The bad guy hiding in the neighborhood is the Government of the people in that neighborhood. He’s not some bad guy. He is 30,000 fighters strong who have all swore to kill Jews and wipe them off the map. This conflict has been going on for longer than anyone here has been alive.

You don't murder civilians because of the actions of their government or military. That'd be like saying, the US people elected Trump, who authorized attacking (whatever country), so the people must be okay with Trump's war. Therefore it's okay to bomb US civilians.

[Cap]

The bad guy hiding in the neighborhood is the Government of the people in that neighborhood. He’s not some bad guy. He is 30,000 fighters strong who have all swore to kill Jews and wipe them off the map. This conflict has been going on for longer than anyone here has been alive.

You don't murder civilians because of the actions of their government or military. That'd be like saying, the US people elected Trump, who authorized attacking (whatever country), so the people must be okay with Trump's war. Therefore it's okay to bomb US civilians.

Well, that’s pretty much how Bin Laden and company justified 9/11. Not saying it’s right, but it’s very human.

[Shabazz]

The bad guy hiding in the neighborhood is the Government of the people in that neighborhood. He’s not some bad guy. He is 30,000 fighters strong who have all swore to kill Jews and wipe them off the map. This conflict has been going on for longer than anyone here has been alive.

You don't murder civilians because of the actions of their government or military.

Interesting. How would you suggest dealing with an adversary that advocates doing just that as part of their charter?

I’m also not conceding your main point. I don’t believe Israel is “indiscriminately” killing civilians. Whatever the death count is, it’s awful, but Israel is taking measures, often at the expense of their soldiers’ lives and strategic objectives to minimize or avoid civilian casualties. I’m sure you can point to several instances where that wasn’t achieved and again, it’s truly tragic. But civilian deaths is neither their intention, nor objective, unlike the terrorist group they’re fighting. This is war, under a microscope, in a densely populated area.

I also haven’t heard any ideas about how to better deal with Hamas.

[Nodack]

I haven’t heard and ideas about how to deal with Hamas either. Hamas will never stop trying to kill everyone in Israel on their own and no one on planet earth is going to make any effort to stop them other than Israel. No one likes what Israel is doing to Gaza and yet no one has an alternative that stops Hamas other than what Israel is doing. It’s beyond sad.

[Superbone]

There is no good answer. War is hell. The only answer is don't start one.