A senior member of Hamas has hailed the systematic slaughter of civilians in Israel
When asked whether this meant the complete annihilation of Israel, Hamas replied: “Yes, of course.”
who still thinks hamas are the good guys?
If you're coming to any international conflict, but specially to this one, from a "good guys/bad guys" framework you're absolutely not helping.
Sometimes (a lot of times, sadly) all you get in a particular issue is just assholes all the way down. Unsurprisingly, deadly military conflicts where both sides have proven at best a callous disregard for civilian casualties practically requires the asshole pile to be expansive and thorough.
The question is how you get the endless, writhing mass of assholes to stop. Which isn't looking great right now.
I made the mistake of commenting on this post where people clearly think that the Hamas are the good guys and have every right to do what they do. Apologies for linking to it.
Of course if you go to tankie central you get tankies. They’re also acting like Putin didn’t order the shelling and capture of Ukrainian cities and it’s all just (insert kremlin talking point here).
They are a specific niche of political mind. The kind that only thinks western nations are capable of propaganda and evil. Don’t take them as representative of smarter people.
Bro even in the world news and the news instance they are all over Hamas. If they could, they would give him a BJ
Yeah, I shouldn’t have commented. That post ended up in my hot/all feed and I didn’t really look at the community. I was frankly quite confused as to what’s up with these people until I saw the upvoted Russian propaganda comment which cleared things up quite a bit.
I think one of my neighbors is a tankie, his car is really big.
Edit: Found this, The Useful Idiots”: How Activists Spread Marxism Across America
Only tankies. Literally no one out here with a braincell is defending Hamas.
They support Hamas? I’m not voting for them ever again. Obama was a tankie.
That isn't what a tankie is at all. A tankie is someone who defends authoritarian governments because the governments are "left wing" or rivals of the US. Having a left wing economic policy isn't even close. Hell you can be a Communist and still not be a tankie.
Like the 90% of lemmy are terrorists apologizers at this point
More like they get accused of doing so even though their comment didn't mention Hamas and they were talking about Palestinian rights, and somewhere someone pops up telling them they sympathize with Hamas.
Yeah it's pretty much this almost every time
Lemmy users: why has Israel intentionally killed 3500+ children in such a short time?
People that support/ignore genocide like Shardikprime: why do you support Hamas?
Who still thinks any state is the good guys? Hamas and Israel are both enemies of the people.
The only way to cut through the propagandistic lies of these groups is to point out that neither truly represents the people they say they do.
I mean, Hamas took power by killing Palestinian civilians. They don’t represent anyone and they openly say they will martyr civilians.
The Palestinian National Authority (Fatah) was the democratically elected government of Palestine before 2007. Hamas staged a coup and executed Fatah officials, which is why Gaza and the West Bank are separate entities today.
Hamas is as much a state as Al-Qaeda. They’re a terrorist group that seized power by way of murder and have openly declared they intend to use their citizens as shields and martyrs.
They’re not a state. They’re a terror cell that deserves to be eliminated. Unfortunately their own admitted tactics of using civilians as shields means that civilians will be killed.
This is a lie. Hamas won the vote. The EU, UN, and the Carter Center all called those elections free and fair. If anything, Hamas was an underdog given that Israel, in collaboration with Fatah, kept arresting the politicians in Hamas as they defined Hamas a terrorist organization. Fatah and Israel wanted to delay the elections, but with the encouragement of the US (GWB in particular who felt Hamas would definitely not win), they decided to keep them as they were. Stop making things up to fit your narrative. Hamas still typically wins the popular vote in polling done since then. You have a fucking computer. Just google it. It's all there in black and white.
I mean they did have conflicts with Fatah. But the biggest fights weren't until after they won the election.
So where is Israel's responsibility there, in sponsoring terrorists? Or do we pretend notiing happened before the last few weeks because then we can sort of pretend Israel has no culpability, you know, if we squint and try to avoid looking at the bombing of civilians?
Yes they are. By their own admission in this article.
Hamas by their own damn admission uses civilians as shields and intends to martyr them.
Your article leaves out the fact that Israel funded and supported several Islamic organizations at the time in both Gaza and the West Bank. One became a terrorist institution.
Take the whole history into account. After the six day war, Israel was in the position that they needed all the support they could get. So they supported anyone that opposed the PLO, which was sponsored by Egypt and Fatah. Because that’s who they just were attacked by.
Israel funded dozens of Islamic organizations that were opposed to Fatah, including mosques and schools. Hamas came out of one of them.
That article has such a stupid take. It takes tiny pieces of quotes from a couple of ex-Israeli officials and with one of them is clearly omitting context. Did Israel permit Islamist groups to do stuff like build mosques and have charities? Yes. Did he also say, but it is not mentioned in the article, that they were completely peaceful at the time and that Israel didn't want to be viewed as attacking Islam? Also yes.
See, what you are saying is that Israel created Hamas by not using more oppression to stop these groups at a time when they were not attacking Israel, but the PLO was. And that is just such a simple naive take that it is ridiculous. Yeah if Israel could redo things, they might have decided that was a good idea. But then again, what if it just caused more attacks from the surrounding countries after they were claimed to be "attacking Islam." Then would we also blame Israel for those attacks due to them repressing the Islamist movements?
It even does the same by using cherry picked foresight about Afghanistan. It entirely ignores the situation in Afghanistan and just implies that the US caused Al Qaeda. Things just aren't that simple. It's entirely possible that had the US and other countries not interfered in Afghanistan that the soviet union would've lasted longer and Afghanistan might've been another Chechnya.
At the time, Israel was having to fight against the PLO. They were not fighting against the religious Islamic groups. And knowing the history of the time period and the politics in the region, the very religious groups were not nearly the force that they are now. So they made choices for reasons that absolutely made sense at the time. And we have no way of knowing how things would be different if they made different choices.
We can say that places that aren't Israel still have issues with the Muslim brotherhood or are friendly with them all over the middle east. And Israel certainly didn't create the Muslim Brotherhood. And if Israel didn't exist and it was all a Palestinian state with a secular government, it isn't a stretch to say that they would be in that area too, calling for an Islamist government. As they have done in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and more.
If I could I'd give you an award or some kind of thing this is great
Difference is, Israel isn't meant to represent palestinian people, Hamas is. And they are doing a great job of it, if their job is getting civilians killed.
Edit: Just think about the massive protests against Netanyahu earlier in the year. Do those show how in tune the Israeli government and people are? No. But the very fact they could protest mostly peacefully differentiates Israel's treatment of its population from all of its neighbours.
The... what? I have no idea what you're even trying to say.
The IDF is still dropping bombs on civilians. You can invent whatever bullshit you feel like, it doesn't make that somehow okay.
The IDF is dropping bombs on (suspected) Hamas holdouts, which are all conveniently located next to civilians.
Yeah... but they're still bombing civilians. The "human shields" thing makes no sense. Israel was bombing apartment buildings before they helped create Hamas.
Doesn't change the fact that in this conflict, the IDF are trying to get Hamas targets with their attacks. And that the Hamas are the ones that built their infrastructure next to civilians, that Hamas did kill Israeli civilians indiscriminately and that the Hamas knew full well, that by building their infrastructure next to civilians and by mindlessly raiding Israeli territory, the IDF would respond and kill palestinian civilians while doing so. Israel wants to crush Hamas. Hamas wants as many people to die as possible, so that Israel is made a pariah internationally.
Right... so it's so predictable that the IDF would bomb civilians that any provocation makes the provoker guilty of their murders?
So basically the IDF are so irredeemable in your eyes they're just a force of nature or something?
Again, you're also ignoring the fact that Israel created Hamas.
And Israel SHOULD be a pariah. The only reason they've gotten away with this genocide for so long is because they've had unconditional US state backing.
What do you think Israel should do then with Hamas? Let them get away with murdering more than 1200 Israelis? Conduct small-scale incursions at best? The fact of the matter is simply that the situation was fucked long before and the palestinian civilians were in accute danger of becoming collateral the moment the Hamas broke into Israel. If you are looking for a clearer good-guy bad-guy situation, look to the westbank. There, the Israeli settlers are clearly the ones in the wrong.
All the outrage in the world won't stop Israel from continuing to bomb Hamas in Gaza. On the other hand, Abbas and Fatah got Palestine the recognition of most UN member states. And unlike Hamas, Fatah isn't getting their civilians killed in droves.
I'm not looking for a clearer good-guy-bad-guy situation. I said in my first comment that both Hamas and Israel are enemies of the people.
I don't think either of them "should" do anything, but since "should" doesn't factor into either of their decisions, it's irrelevant anyway. They'll keep oppressing people until they are stopped by organised resistance, just like it is with any oppressive system.
Why do you say Israel and Hamas? Not Likud. Not otzma Yehudit. Just Israel. All of Israel is an enemy? But only Hamas when it comes to Palestine. What about the PLO? Are they fine? Yesh Atid? Or is it really just only Hamas but all of Israel?
Israel the state, who does not truly represent their citizens. I think the way I phrased it makes that pretty goddamn clear.
So again, the entire state of Israel? The ones elected in free and fair elections? Don't get me wrong. I am not a fan of Likud and I loathe ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit. Just all of it. And only Hamas. The group that won what was called a free and fair election by the EU and the Carter Center and continues to be ahead in opinion polling since they have stopped elections. What are you defining as "Israel the State"?
It makes sense because it doesn't violate Geneva conventions. If there are combatants hiding among civilians their deaths are 100% on said combatants. What do you expect Israel to do? After a terrorist attack that is equal to 17 (!) times the scope of 9/11 just to shrug it off and send more humanitarian aid to be pillaged by Hamas?
100%. People here scream "genocide" and "war crimes" but have no idea what these words mean. The "friends" of Palestine here make even Reddit look normal.
And? You're allowed to say what you mean, you know.
Where do the civilians being bombed fall on your spectrum of evil? Do they somehow deserve it in your eyes?
Ok, I have to ask. How would you apply this to any other conflict. For example the Allies fighting against Germany. Where did the German civilians fall in the spectrum of evil. Was fighting Germany justified, knowing that German civilians might suffer? If so, how is this situation different?
Strategic bombing - ie, the indiscriminate bombing of populated areas - was ineffective and immoral, and people at the time condemned it as such, and they were right to do so. It was also wrong to use Japanese cities as testbeds for nuclear arms. There was no real strategic reason to do it.
So like... don't do that? Maybe Israel shouldn't do that, because fucking obviously?
Like yes, there were bad states on the allied side in WWII as well. You can see that in how they conducted themselves after the war was over, and at many points before that. In fact the policies of the Nazis were directly inspired by US genocides.
You're not going to trip me up by bringing up the Nazis. I said states are the enemy of the people, and I meant it.
None of what I said should be construed as support for the fascist axis powers, that should just be obvious, but I'm sure I have to say it, because people are just going to try it on.
But you're still ok with using artillery against a city if the city has an army in it?
What? Why? Where did I say that? What the fuck are you talking about?
What? Why? Where did I say that? What the fuck are you talking about?
I asked how this conflict was different and you started talking about a completely different topic like stategic bombing. But Israel isn't using strategic bombing, they're using artillery and missiles. Just like how the allies did against Berlin and other German cities when fighting the Germans. So how is this different?
The difference is that Israel has been colonising the west bank for over 70 years. They are the aggressors. They are more analogous to the Nazis in WWII for that reason anyway.
And yes, just like there were bad actors on the allied side in WWII, Hamas is also a bad actor.
This isn't... COMPLICATED.
This isn’t… COMPLICATED.
Honestly that's a pretty strange thing to say about one of history's most complicated and oldest conflicts. If it was as simple as random dudes online think it is, don't you think this issue would have been somehow resolved by now?
Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have tribal roots in the region dating back thousands of years.
The region also has religions significance to all three of the big western religions.
And to make it even more complicated, the region has been under the control of multiple empires over the last 3000 years: waring tribes, Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, the second Muslim caliphate, the Ottomans, the British, and I'm sure I'm skipping more. Israel and Palestine as nations where effectively created at around the same time post WW1 (see the Mandate for Palestine and the Balfour Declaration).
So sure.. It's possible that you're so much smarter than everyone else that one of the world's oldest conflicts is trivial to you, OR, just maybe it's a little bit more complicated than you and some other people let on...
"Were there not an Israel the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region."
Biden has reiterated this sentiment since this situation has started. His stance is completely unchanged. He admits openly that it is a power play, so any posturing about a "sacred bond" or whatever is bullshit.
It is power politics. The US is propping up Israel as a projection of power, and with that Israel has become ever more fascist without any accountability, and they have perpetrated a genocide because they have the power to, just like any state would in those circumstances, because they are all sociopathic institutions. That's it. There's nothing special about the Jewish nature of the state, it's got nothing to do with religion, that's just an excuse that gets laid over the top of what is simple exploitation.
It's a land grab and a genocide, and Hamas was propped up by Israel to serve their interests at the time. In fact you could say they're still serving Israel's interests, because Israel the state has no real interest in protecting their own civilians, they only want their land grab.
The "it's complicated" bullshit is just there to muddy the waters. It's a lazy handwave to cover the fact that you can't excuse genocide.
The Balfour Declaration, which put the creation of Israel into play, was created by the British during WW1, at a time when the entire region was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.:
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
It's obvious that Israel is the strongest and most strategically important ally that America has in the region today, nobody can deny that. Just like nobody can deny that Hamas, the ruling entity of Gaza for almost 15 years, is allied with and strategically important to Iran, Russia, and many of Israel and America's other big geological adversaries. Iran supported Hamas' recent terrorist attack on Israel because they understood that they, an Islamic theocracy, would benefit from the chaos of what appears to some as a religious war. Similarly, Russia wants chaos in the region in a desperate attempt to divert western military resources away from supporting Ukraine.
To me, none of that makes the situation simpler.
As for the clip you've linked, the first Arab-Israeli war was more than 20 years prior to that. And, taken in context, Biden was arguing against the Reagan administration's plans to arm Saudi Arabia, and to that point I'm not really convinced that he was wrong...
As for claims of genocide, I'm afraid that cuts both ways:
The original Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors". The charter states that "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories,[3] and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.
The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.
So yeah, if you think the modern world's oldest geopolitical conflict is simple, then you're either way smarter than everyone else or you're mentally reducing the problem until it confirms your existing biases. Personally I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be, which is why it hasn't been settled by 100 years of diplomacy and war.
I'm sure this was necessary to get to the extremely small Hamas bunker that was surgically implanted in his skull, because those bastards were using him as a human shield.
Yup, good thing Israel left and this couldn't possibly be happening.
I read the BBC article on the recent shooting, you're right, it's tragic and wrong. Two gunmen shot up a settlement and then started exchanging fire with an IDF unit and the child was shot in the crossfire. This is awful, but has nothing to do with Palestine being an independent nation since this happened in the west bank, not the Gaza strip, which as I understand it, are different.
Also, this article (which is the only one I can access) seems to be posted in bad faith, the whole tragic situation started by a bunch of people opening fire on random Israeli citizens. But there's no mention of this at all when you're decrying Israeli violence. And the same for your talk about "Strategic Bombing", that no one is doing, or the political situation in the west bank (which is different from the Gaza strip).
This is an 100 year conflict, all the good guys are dead.
Why do people feel this need to be good/bad. Everybody knows by now how complex is the middle east
Literally supporting terrorists and apologize for them is bad
you shouldn't do that then
My impression is that at least half of fediverse.
My impression is that at least half of fediverse.
I got that impression too, and the fediverse has lost a lot of its shine recently. People are rushing to say that they support "both sides" and Israel can defend itself... but just not in any way that would be able to stop another attack like October's from happening. It feels like a lot of people just want to side with Hamas, but don't want to actually say that out loud.
They aren’t going about this in a way that stops this from happening is the problem. You’re so wrapped up in the Zionist narrative that they’ve tricked you into thinking extermination is the final solution.
Britain didn’t get rid of the IRA by bombing and blockading Ireland. There was no ground invasion despite thousands dying in bombings and other violence.
The fact is that the attack in October and others like it happen because the extreme Zionists like Likud have taken steps to ensure this. Because they’re creating a situation where they can be horrifically brutal but hide behind good pr narratives. They literally propped up Hamas at its inception with the stated goal of fracturing Fatah which was a moderate party suing for a two state solution.
As long as Israel keeps killing Palestinians in the West Bank where there IS NO HAMAS, they will keep driving support for any group that resists Israel.
You can get far more innocent civilians on your side if you treat them better than Hamas. Knowing everything we know about how Hamas treats them should tell you just how bad Israel treats them on top of that.
You stop this by removing the war mongers from power first and foremost. As long as Netanyahu’s party has control there can never be peace. Because like Hamas, they want a one state solution too.
It's been a very eye-opening experience over the past month to see just how little the left cares about victims of violence if they happen to be Jewish.
As someone on the left, I can't exactly disagree. When there's violence against Jews, some people constantly bring up Israel. They respond to a story about antisemitism being on the rise by saying criticism of Israel isn't antisemitism. And it's ironic, because by saying that about antisemitic attacks, they're the ones confusing the two.
This needs to be pointed out to them more often. I don't think most of them realize it.
The leftists always have been nazis at heart
Nah. Don't let the current situation fool you. You've seen that I'm very pro-Israel in my other comments. But there are many of us that are lefties through and through. I mean most Jews in the US lean slightly left of the democrats. I lean further. And David ben Gurion was super leftist. Hardcore socialist commie pinko, that one. If I had been around for the founding of Israel, I'd probably have been kicking back on a kibbutz somewhere.
But the right is definitely not our friend. Most of them support Israel for christo-fascist dreams of the apocalypse. They want to use us. And we should be careful to think that we are the ones using them.
I do not know where you are from, but especially concerning the US and Europe, I do think it's important to understand where this support comes from -- even if they don't actually know it either. It's the underdog problem. Israel is much stronger than in the past. We have won many wars against people who wished to murder us all. We became a force to be reckoned with. And the Palestinian territories are the underdog. And the left has normalized seeing the underdog as the marginalized victim. They are not used to seeing an underdog victimizer. From South Africa to Ireland to PoCs and the LGBT+ communities, they are used to things going one way. And things are not one way. There is a whole 3d plane of possibilities in this world. And that's why I argue more about Israel than anything else on here. To try to help people see that things are not black and white. This isn't a left or right issue. This isn't a David vs Goliath issue. This is something that cannot be boiled down to simple concepts or comparisons. And the more you know, the harder it really is to if not agree with what Israel is doing, to at least understand why they might make the choices they do. And it is not for the sole purpose of ethnic cleansing or genocide. At least not for the majority.
You must be reading a very different slice of the fediverse than I am. I've been blocking Nazis, tankies, and other assorted idiots on sight since I started using Lemmy, and I've seen maybe a handful of people saying things that could be interpreted as supporting Hamas. They are vastly outnumbered by people decrying the slaughter of civilians and apologists for Israel.
Tactically their October 7 attack was incredibly silly, honestly what did they think would happen?
They gave Netanyahu, who was finally fumbling at the reigns after almost thirty years aan excuse to execute his wet dreams and all of Israel uniting behind him.
I see no way how they could have thought the attack would benefit their cause.
To answer the question, what they think would happen: Their October 7th attacked achieved everything they wanted.
KSA and Israel we're coming to an understanding and treaty, that was against the interests of Iran who is in a power struggle with the KSA.
After their attack, it is now politically impossible for the KSA and Israel to have a treaty. That alone justifies this entire conflict from their power politics perspective
They never had any hope of inflicting damage on the Israeli government. They clearly don't care about their own civilian casualties. In fact The worst the reprisals the better for their recruitment and funding efforts.
Probably not directly related to the rationale for their attack, but it got them some ancillary support, it removed Russia's aggression from the news media cycle. Which probably got them some favor in those circles.
From a media perspective, this has been a massive Boone for their campaign. They more or less had disappeared from international headlines for the last 10 years. Now everybody is talking about the genocide, and the ethnic cleansing. They're going to pay very dearly for it, but that's more media attention than they've had for a decade.
Ok yes I can follow that. The cynical thing is that in none of the reasons the Palestinian people are central. Those are victimized by both the Israelis and Hamas, following this rationale.
An extra cynical level is that the wished of the extreme right Israelis and Hamas are the same. To keep this war going indefinitely, not matter the cost of human life.
In what kind of setting would this be proposed? 'listen we might invite genocidal terror on our own people, but Russia needs some radio silence and we crave media attention' and everyone involved going like 'that's absolutely worth it brother'.
Maybe I'm too naive, I cannot see the tactical gain in that perspective. Thanks though, for good counter points. It helps me trying to make some kind of sense of this.
It's straight Machiavelli politics.
I highly recommend you read, or listen to, The Prince by Machiavelli. It's a very short read, but helps you get in the right frame of mind for this type of politicking
Yeah I know Machiavelli, I don't remember suicidal tactics, though, and certainly not playing according to ones worst enemies playbook.
But mass media wasn't around in the Renaissance..
The whole philosophy is how to get the outcomes you want, any means are justified.
Saying person X is playing into person Ys playbook is making huge assumptions about their goals.
We can only infer and guess as to the organizational goals at play. We can line up the incentives for their actions, as I did two posts up, and say their behavior is consistent with these incentives.
We can only infer and guess as to the organizational goals at play. We can line up the incentives for their actions, as I did two posts up, and say their behavior is consistent with these incentives.
And I thank you for that exposition, however cynical it does give some reason to what appears madness.
But if it comes to serving the people of Palestine they aren't really doing that, rather the opposite.
Hamas is not working in the best interest of Palestine civilians, they are working in the best interest of Hamas - Which is a fascist theocratic military organization with goals of ethnic cleansing.
The only issue at question is why did the Gazan people feel that Hamas was their best option in 2006 when they were elected into office? I don't really know, I can speculate that the hopeless turn to extreme religious war mongers for even the promise of a better future, or failing that the promise of a fight as they are erased from history.... some people, when they have no hope, will hold on to revenge.
Since 2006, and the failed coup in 2007, Hamas hasn't held any elections and runs as a dictatorship.
They most certainly are not.
Piece of shit, pouring oil onto fire while the civilians are getting slaughtered at this point on both sides. If there is hell, this one should burn.
Edit: I've never seen anyone defend Hamas, only civilian Palestinians. Just to make that clear distinction.
Bro you merely have to look at this thread and the weekly world news/news threads to see leftists terrorist apologizers
That's why I'm trying to limit my time here, but I also just want to follow the news and see some cat pics.
Best thing to do is condemn terrorist Hamas on the one side and Netanyahu/IDF/extremist settlers that harass West bank palestinians on the other side.
And pray for the Jewish and Palestinian civilians. Because they are the ones suffering.
Antisemitic people, if I had to make a guess
Mostly leftists
I still don't understand what's so hard about condemning antisemitism and giving them the boot. You can't truly be left wing, at least socially, if you aren't making it clear bigots aren't welcome.
We've come full circle now too -- they've mixed up criticism of Israel and antisemitism.
Hamas killed 1400 civilians.
The IDF has killed about 9500 civilians so far.
I dunno, I think that Hamas may not be the good guys, but they're definitely the less bad guys.
Give hamas same weaponry and intel as profoundly shit as IDF and israel might as well be one big crater
Okay, but they don't. And they likely never will.
Right now it's like a 6yo child that punches you as hard as they can in the balls, and you respond by beating the fuck out of them with a tire iron. The fact that you could straight-up murder the child by shooting them in the fucking face doesn't mean that breaking every bone in their hands along with both legs to "teach them a lesson" would be appropriate or proportionate.
For sure, but that wasn't really my point, which was intentions and goals. Hamas is not a "good guy" since they will take every chance of murdering and kidnapping israeli citizens if it's by high-precision missiles or fucking gliders straight out of a comic book, and israelis aren't the "good guys" for barraging palestinian civvies while taking tiktoks.
I feel vile for all this good guys bad guys rhetoric ffs gotta take a showa
Oh, I'm not saying that Hamas is good guys. They're not. They're terrorists.
But by the scope and scale, by the amount of force that they're able to bring to bear, and by the sheer number of non-combatants being killed, the IDF is far, far worse. Hamas targeted civilians on purpose, the IDF is simply indiscriminate.
The Allied forces utilized the tactics of total-war during WWII, with things like the firebombing of Dresden, or Tokyo. The idea was to break the will of the people to fight. Well, spoiler: it doesn't work. When you kill someone's whole family, their friends, blow up their house and community, they end up having an even stronger desire to fight back. Just like the bombings of London by Germany increased the resolve of Britons, so did the indiscriminate massacre of civilians by the Allies increase the resolve of the Germans.
The actions of the IDF are going to give Hamas it's next generation of fighters, people willing to die to kill Israel.
Hamas targeted civilians on purpose, the IDF is simply indiscriminate.
I think the former is way worse. Besides, there's no point in debating this. They're both horrible. Agreed? Then let's move on.
Israel did knowingly bomb a refugee camp. Twice. Kind of hard to defend that behavior as "self defense".
Replying to a wrong comment perhaps?
To be fair, and I realize it's difficult to be fair here:
The Israeli government has said it is going for the total destruction of Hamas. Hamas has said it is going for the total destruction of the Israeli government... They've taken up equivalent positions
I think what that really means, is both belligerents are going to try the radical new policy of killing more random civilians, and seeing if anything changes..
No. Israel has said they are going for the total destruction of Hamas. Hamas is a government entity and the ruling government of Gaza.
Hamas has said they are going for the total destruction of Israel the nation. Including all Jewish civilians. Not the government, all Jewish people in Israel.
That’s been Hamas’ position for years. They want to eliminate all Jews from the region.
Literally in the article that this post is about, they said they are trying to avoid civilians. It's blatant fucking lie, but it's what they're saying.
You just said that they're going publicly, for the destruction of all Jewish people, that contradicts the article that we're talking about here. If they're stated goal is the death of Jewish people, why would they try to avoid Jewish casualties, why would they say that? If it's in their charter shouldn't they reinforce it when they're talking in public?
Nothing in that article at all says they have tried to avoid casualties.
“Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Hamad said in an interview with Lebanese TV channel LBC on October 24, which was translated and published Wednesday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “We must remove it because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation. We are not ashamed to say this.”
In the interview, Hamad said that Israel’s existence is “illogical” and that it must be wiped off all “Palestinian lands,” a term the terror group uses to mean the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, minus the Golan Heights.
When asked whether this meant the complete annihilation of Israel, Hamas replied: “Yes, of course.”
“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” Hamad continued. “Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
“We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October one-millionth, everything we do is justified,” Hamad said.
So they intentionally attacked civilians, this dude is claiming they know they attacked civilians, they will do it again and again and again until they completely eliminate the entire nation of Israel. Which includes all Jews in the region.
But hey, they claimed the land originally by genociding everyone that lived there too. So it’s par for the course.
You know, I was going to point out how terrible his argument is, but there's no need for that. It should be no surprise that they are just as craven as they say they are.
He also repeated the false assertion that Hamas had not intended to harm civilians, but that there were “complications” on the ground.
From the article above
Finish the quote:
Overwhelming evidence has emerged over the past three weeks of deliberate attacks against Israeli civilians, as part of the instructions given by Hamas commanders. In many cases, the terrorists went from house to house and executed or burned entire families, and some 260 civilians were massacred at an outdoor music festival.
Your mental gymnastics are Olympic level, mate.
I'm not defending either government. They both clearly killed civilians intentionally
They've both made statements they wanted to destroy the opposing government.
Pointing that out shouldn't be controversial.
I gave you the relevant part of the quote, from the article, were Hamas was laying out their policy. They're lying, but their policy as stated is equivalent to the Israeli government policy. Which is exactly what you were asking me to provide in your previous comment
Their policy is also stated in their charter, which goes beyond just killing all Israeli civilians. It says they will kill all the Jews everywhere in the world.
But perhaps you'd prefer to see actions - Israel is currently engaged in urban combat with an enemy who intentionally uses civilian infrastructure (a war crime, by the way). There will be collateral damage from this, especially when Hamas don't allow civilians to evacuate out of the heavy combat areas.
Hamas on the other hand are continuing to launch rockets daily at civilian targets in Israel, intentionally targeting civilians while celebrating every rocket siren.
Literally in the article that this post is about, they said they are trying to avoid civilians.
Yeah... so... after them killing over 1200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, everyone they could get their hands on basically, I kinda don't trust them.
100%, they're lying through their teeth.
Yeah… so… after them killing over 5,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians, everyone they could get their hands on basically, I kinda don’t trust them.
everyone they could get their hands on basically,
If that utter nonsense was true there would be 100x as many dead.
who still thinks hamas are the good guys?
If you're coming to any international conflict, but specially to this one, from a "good guys/bad guys" framework you're absolutely not helping.
Sometimes (a lot of times, sadly) all you get in a particular issue is just assholes all the way down. Unsurprisingly, deadly military conflicts where both sides have proven at best a callous disregard for civilian casualties practically requires the asshole pile to be expansive and thorough.
The question is how you get the endless, writhing mass of assholes to stop. Which isn't looking great right now.
I made the mistake of commenting on this post where people clearly think that the Hamas are the good guys and have every right to do what they do. Apologies for linking to it.
Of course if you go to tankie central you get tankies. They’re also acting like Putin didn’t order the shelling and capture of Ukrainian cities and it’s all just (insert kremlin talking point here).
They are a specific niche of political mind. The kind that only thinks western nations are capable of propaganda and evil. Don’t take them as representative of smarter people.
Bro even in the world news and the news instance they are all over Hamas. If they could, they would give him a BJ
Yeah, I shouldn’t have commented. That post ended up in my hot/all feed and I didn’t really look at the community. I was frankly quite confused as to what’s up with these people until I saw the upvoted Russian propaganda comment which cleared things up quite a bit.
I think one of my neighbors is a tankie, his car is really big.
Edit: Found this, The Useful Idiots”: How Activists Spread Marxism Across America
Only tankies. Literally no one out here with a braincell is defending Hamas.
They support Hamas? I’m not voting for them ever again. Obama was a tankie.
That isn't what a tankie is at all. A tankie is someone who defends authoritarian governments because the governments are "left wing" or rivals of the US. Having a left wing economic policy isn't even close. Hell you can be a Communist and still not be a tankie.
Nobody said they were.
edit: okay crazy people on a lemmygrad site said they were. But that page that guy linked looked about as nice as a 4chan site....
Considering I've been banned from World News at even suggesting reality in regards to how militaries fight in such conflicts...
Yeah, even mods are ban happy regarding Israel/Palestine lol.
Like the 90% of lemmy are terrorists apologizers at this point
More like they get accused of doing so even though their comment didn't mention Hamas and they were talking about Palestinian rights, and somewhere someone pops up telling them they sympathize with Hamas.
Yeah it's pretty much this almost every time
Lemmy users: why has Israel intentionally killed 3500+ children in such a short time?
People that support/ignore genocide like Shardikprime: why do you support Hamas?
Who still thinks any state is the good guys? Hamas and Israel are both enemies of the people.
The only way to cut through the propagandistic lies of these groups is to point out that neither truly represents the people they say they do.
I mean, Hamas took power by killing Palestinian civilians. They don’t represent anyone and they openly say they will martyr civilians.
The Palestinian National Authority (Fatah) was the democratically elected government of Palestine before 2007. Hamas staged a coup and executed Fatah officials, which is why Gaza and the West Bank are separate entities today.
Hamas is as much a state as Al-Qaeda. They’re a terrorist group that seized power by way of murder and have openly declared they intend to use their citizens as shields and martyrs.
They’re not a state. They’re a terror cell that deserves to be eliminated. Unfortunately their own admitted tactics of using civilians as shields means that civilians will be killed.
This is a lie. Hamas won the vote. The EU, UN, and the Carter Center all called those elections free and fair. If anything, Hamas was an underdog given that Israel, in collaboration with Fatah, kept arresting the politicians in Hamas as they defined Hamas a terrorist organization. Fatah and Israel wanted to delay the elections, but with the encouragement of the US (GWB in particular who felt Hamas would definitely not win), they decided to keep them as they were. Stop making things up to fit your narrative. Hamas still typically wins the popular vote in polling done since then. You have a fucking computer. Just google it. It's all there in black and white.
I mean they did have conflicts with Fatah. But the biggest fights weren't until after they won the election.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)
The elections in 2006 is not when Hamas took power. Their coup in 2007 was.
They aren't making the IDF bomb apartment buildings, which is something they've been doing for decades, before Israel helped create Hamas.
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
So where is Israel's responsibility there, in sponsoring terrorists? Or do we pretend notiing happened before the last few weeks because then we can sort of pretend Israel has no culpability, you know, if we squint and try to avoid looking at the bombing of civilians?
Yes they are. By their own admission in this article.
Hamas by their own damn admission uses civilians as shields and intends to martyr them.
Your article leaves out the fact that Israel funded and supported several Islamic organizations at the time in both Gaza and the West Bank. One became a terrorist institution.
Take the whole history into account. After the six day war, Israel was in the position that they needed all the support they could get. So they supported anyone that opposed the PLO, which was sponsored by Egypt and Fatah. Because that’s who they just were attacked by.
Israel funded dozens of Islamic organizations that were opposed to Fatah, including mosques and schools. Hamas came out of one of them.
That article has such a stupid take. It takes tiny pieces of quotes from a couple of ex-Israeli officials and with one of them is clearly omitting context. Did Israel permit Islamist groups to do stuff like build mosques and have charities? Yes. Did he also say, but it is not mentioned in the article, that they were completely peaceful at the time and that Israel didn't want to be viewed as attacking Islam? Also yes.
See, what you are saying is that Israel created Hamas by not using more oppression to stop these groups at a time when they were not attacking Israel, but the PLO was. And that is just such a simple naive take that it is ridiculous. Yeah if Israel could redo things, they might have decided that was a good idea. But then again, what if it just caused more attacks from the surrounding countries after they were claimed to be "attacking Islam." Then would we also blame Israel for those attacks due to them repressing the Islamist movements?
It even does the same by using cherry picked foresight about Afghanistan. It entirely ignores the situation in Afghanistan and just implies that the US caused Al Qaeda. Things just aren't that simple. It's entirely possible that had the US and other countries not interfered in Afghanistan that the soviet union would've lasted longer and Afghanistan might've been another Chechnya.
At the time, Israel was having to fight against the PLO. They were not fighting against the religious Islamic groups. And knowing the history of the time period and the politics in the region, the very religious groups were not nearly the force that they are now. So they made choices for reasons that absolutely made sense at the time. And we have no way of knowing how things would be different if they made different choices.
We can say that places that aren't Israel still have issues with the Muslim brotherhood or are friendly with them all over the middle east. And Israel certainly didn't create the Muslim Brotherhood. And if Israel didn't exist and it was all a Palestinian state with a secular government, it isn't a stretch to say that they would be in that area too, calling for an Islamist government. As they have done in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and more.
If I could I'd give you an award or some kind of thing this is great
Difference is, Israel isn't meant to represent palestinian people, Hamas is. And they are doing a great job of it, if their job is getting civilians killed.
Edit: Just think about the massive protests against Netanyahu earlier in the year. Do those show how in tune the Israeli government and people are? No. But the very fact they could protest mostly peacefully differentiates Israel's treatment of its population from all of its neighbours.
The... what? I have no idea what you're even trying to say.
The IDF is still dropping bombs on civilians. You can invent whatever bullshit you feel like, it doesn't make that somehow okay.
The IDF is dropping bombs on (suspected) Hamas holdouts, which are all conveniently located next to civilians.
Yeah... but they're still bombing civilians. The "human shields" thing makes no sense. Israel was bombing apartment buildings before they helped create Hamas.
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
Doesn't change the fact that in this conflict, the IDF are trying to get Hamas targets with their attacks. And that the Hamas are the ones that built their infrastructure next to civilians, that Hamas did kill Israeli civilians indiscriminately and that the Hamas knew full well, that by building their infrastructure next to civilians and by mindlessly raiding Israeli territory, the IDF would respond and kill palestinian civilians while doing so. Israel wants to crush Hamas. Hamas wants as many people to die as possible, so that Israel is made a pariah internationally.
Right... so it's so predictable that the IDF would bomb civilians that any provocation makes the provoker guilty of their murders?
So basically the IDF are so irredeemable in your eyes they're just a force of nature or something?
Again, you're also ignoring the fact that Israel created Hamas.
And Israel SHOULD be a pariah. The only reason they've gotten away with this genocide for so long is because they've had unconditional US state backing.
What do you think Israel should do then with Hamas? Let them get away with murdering more than 1200 Israelis? Conduct small-scale incursions at best? The fact of the matter is simply that the situation was fucked long before and the palestinian civilians were in accute danger of becoming collateral the moment the Hamas broke into Israel. If you are looking for a clearer good-guy bad-guy situation, look to the westbank. There, the Israeli settlers are clearly the ones in the wrong.
All the outrage in the world won't stop Israel from continuing to bomb Hamas in Gaza. On the other hand, Abbas and Fatah got Palestine the recognition of most UN member states. And unlike Hamas, Fatah isn't getting their civilians killed in droves.
I'm not looking for a clearer good-guy-bad-guy situation. I said in my first comment that both Hamas and Israel are enemies of the people.
I don't think either of them "should" do anything, but since "should" doesn't factor into either of their decisions, it's irrelevant anyway. They'll keep oppressing people until they are stopped by organised resistance, just like it is with any oppressive system.
Why do you say Israel and Hamas? Not Likud. Not otzma Yehudit. Just Israel. All of Israel is an enemy? But only Hamas when it comes to Palestine. What about the PLO? Are they fine? Yesh Atid? Or is it really just only Hamas but all of Israel?
Israel the state, who does not truly represent their citizens. I think the way I phrased it makes that pretty goddamn clear.
So again, the entire state of Israel? The ones elected in free and fair elections? Don't get me wrong. I am not a fan of Likud and I loathe ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit. Just all of it. And only Hamas. The group that won what was called a free and fair election by the EU and the Carter Center and continues to be ahead in opinion polling since they have stopped elections. What are you defining as "Israel the State"?
It makes sense because it doesn't violate Geneva conventions. If there are combatants hiding among civilians their deaths are 100% on said combatants. What do you expect Israel to do? After a terrorist attack that is equal to 17 (!) times the scope of 9/11 just to shrug it off and send more humanitarian aid to be pillaged by Hamas?
100%. People here scream "genocide" and "war crimes" but have no idea what these words mean. The "friends" of Palestine here make even Reddit look normal.
The Palestine territories are vassal states of Israel. Israel is ultimately responsible for the safety of civilians in the territory they control.
There are levels of evil.
And? You're allowed to say what you mean, you know.
Where do the civilians being bombed fall on your spectrum of evil? Do they somehow deserve it in your eyes?
Ok, I have to ask. How would you apply this to any other conflict. For example the Allies fighting against Germany. Where did the German civilians fall in the spectrum of evil. Was fighting Germany justified, knowing that German civilians might suffer? If so, how is this situation different?
Strategic bombing - ie, the indiscriminate bombing of populated areas - was ineffective and immoral, and people at the time condemned it as such, and they were right to do so. It was also wrong to use Japanese cities as testbeds for nuclear arms. There was no real strategic reason to do it.
So like... don't do that? Maybe Israel shouldn't do that, because fucking obviously?
Like yes, there were bad states on the allied side in WWII as well. You can see that in how they conducted themselves after the war was over, and at many points before that. In fact the policies of the Nazis were directly inspired by US genocides.
You're not going to trip me up by bringing up the Nazis. I said states are the enemy of the people, and I meant it.
None of what I said should be construed as support for the fascist axis powers, that should just be obvious, but I'm sure I have to say it, because people are just going to try it on.
But you're still ok with using artillery against a city if the city has an army in it?
What? Why? Where did I say that? What the fuck are you talking about?
I asked how this conflict was different and you started talking about a completely different topic like stategic bombing. But Israel isn't using strategic bombing, they're using artillery and missiles. Just like how the allies did against Berlin and other German cities when fighting the Germans. So how is this different?
The difference is that Israel has been colonising the west bank for over 70 years. They are the aggressors. They are more analogous to the Nazis in WWII for that reason anyway.
And yes, just like there were bad actors on the allied side in WWII, Hamas is also a bad actor.
This isn't... COMPLICATED.
Honestly that's a pretty strange thing to say about one of history's most complicated and oldest conflicts. If it was as simple as random dudes online think it is, don't you think this issue would have been somehow resolved by now?
Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have tribal roots in the region dating back thousands of years.
The region also has religions significance to all three of the big western religions.
And to make it even more complicated, the region has been under the control of multiple empires over the last 3000 years: waring tribes, Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, the second Muslim caliphate, the Ottomans, the British, and I'm sure I'm skipping more. Israel and Palestine as nations where effectively created at around the same time post WW1 (see the Mandate for Palestine and the Balfour Declaration).
So sure.. It's possible that you're so much smarter than everyone else that one of the world's oldest conflicts is trivial to you, OR, just maybe it's a little bit more complicated than you and some other people let on...
This is why it's happening: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4962369/user-clip-joe-biden-israel-usa-invent-israel-protect-interest-region
"Were there not an Israel the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region."
Biden has reiterated this sentiment since this situation has started. His stance is completely unchanged. He admits openly that it is a power play, so any posturing about a "sacred bond" or whatever is bullshit.
It is power politics. The US is propping up Israel as a projection of power, and with that Israel has become ever more fascist without any accountability, and they have perpetrated a genocide because they have the power to, just like any state would in those circumstances, because they are all sociopathic institutions. That's it. There's nothing special about the Jewish nature of the state, it's got nothing to do with religion, that's just an excuse that gets laid over the top of what is simple exploitation.
It's a land grab and a genocide, and Hamas was propped up by Israel to serve their interests at the time. In fact you could say they're still serving Israel's interests, because Israel the state has no real interest in protecting their own civilians, they only want their land grab.
The "it's complicated" bullshit is just there to muddy the waters. It's a lazy handwave to cover the fact that you can't excuse genocide.
The Balfour Declaration, which put the creation of Israel into play, was created by the British during WW1, at a time when the entire region was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.:
It's obvious that Israel is the strongest and most strategically important ally that America has in the region today, nobody can deny that. Just like nobody can deny that Hamas, the ruling entity of Gaza for almost 15 years, is allied with and strategically important to Iran, Russia, and many of Israel and America's other big geological adversaries. Iran supported Hamas' recent terrorist attack on Israel because they understood that they, an Islamic theocracy, would benefit from the chaos of what appears to some as a religious war. Similarly, Russia wants chaos in the region in a desperate attempt to divert western military resources away from supporting Ukraine.
To me, none of that makes the situation simpler.
As for the clip you've linked, the first Arab-Israeli war was more than 20 years prior to that. And, taken in context, Biden was arguing against the Reagan administration's plans to arm Saudi Arabia, and to that point I'm not really convinced that he was wrong...
As for claims of genocide, I'm afraid that cuts both ways:
1988 Charter of Hamas
So yeah, if you think the modern world's oldest geopolitical conflict is simple, then you're either way smarter than everyone else or you're mentally reducing the problem until it confirms your existing biases. Personally I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be, which is why it hasn't been settled by 100 years of diplomacy and war.
Israel pulled out of Palestine in 2005 and Palestine elected their own government, at that point they're an independent nation.
Oh good, so IDF snipers shooting Palestinian children in 2019 couldn't be happening: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-07-21/ty-article/.premium/the-protest-dispersed-then-an-israeli-sniper-shot-a-9-year-old-boy-in-the-head/0000017f-e3ff-d9aa-afff-fbffde890000
I'm sure this was necessary to get to the extremely small Hamas bunker that was surgically implanted in his skull, because those bastards were using him as a human shield.
Similar story much more recently: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-65812442
That kid was two years old. Must've been a really small bunker.
Seems like a really common tactic, apparently the rates of Palestinian children being shot by the IDF was increasing before this latest situation started: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-killings-palestinian-children
Yup, good thing Israel left and this couldn't possibly be happening.
I read the BBC article on the recent shooting, you're right, it's tragic and wrong. Two gunmen shot up a settlement and then started exchanging fire with an IDF unit and the child was shot in the crossfire. This is awful, but has nothing to do with Palestine being an independent nation since this happened in the west bank, not the Gaza strip, which as I understand it, are different.
Also, this article (which is the only one I can access) seems to be posted in bad faith, the whole tragic situation started by a bunch of people opening fire on random Israeli citizens. But there's no mention of this at all when you're decrying Israeli violence. And the same for your talk about "Strategic Bombing", that no one is doing, or the political situation in the west bank (which is different from the Gaza strip).
Attacking civilians to stop an apartheid from getting more money and support is evil.
Making up reasons after you target civilians and journalists is another level of evil.
This is an 100 year conflict, all the good guys are dead.
Why do people feel this need to be good/bad. Everybody knows by now how complex is the middle east
Literally supporting terrorists and apologize for them is bad
you shouldn't do that then
My impression is that at least half of fediverse.
I got that impression too, and the fediverse has lost a lot of its shine recently. People are rushing to say that they support "both sides" and Israel can defend itself... but just not in any way that would be able to stop another attack like October's from happening. It feels like a lot of people just want to side with Hamas, but don't want to actually say that out loud.
They aren’t going about this in a way that stops this from happening is the problem. You’re so wrapped up in the Zionist narrative that they’ve tricked you into thinking extermination is the final solution.
Britain didn’t get rid of the IRA by bombing and blockading Ireland. There was no ground invasion despite thousands dying in bombings and other violence.
The fact is that the attack in October and others like it happen because the extreme Zionists like Likud have taken steps to ensure this. Because they’re creating a situation where they can be horrifically brutal but hide behind good pr narratives. They literally propped up Hamas at its inception with the stated goal of fracturing Fatah which was a moderate party suing for a two state solution.
As long as Israel keeps killing Palestinians in the West Bank where there IS NO HAMAS, they will keep driving support for any group that resists Israel.
You can get far more innocent civilians on your side if you treat them better than Hamas. Knowing everything we know about how Hamas treats them should tell you just how bad Israel treats them on top of that.
You stop this by removing the war mongers from power first and foremost. As long as Netanyahu’s party has control there can never be peace. Because like Hamas, they want a one state solution too.
It's been a very eye-opening experience over the past month to see just how little the left cares about victims of violence if they happen to be Jewish.
As someone on the left, I can't exactly disagree. When there's violence against Jews, some people constantly bring up Israel. They respond to a story about antisemitism being on the rise by saying criticism of Israel isn't antisemitism. And it's ironic, because by saying that about antisemitic attacks, they're the ones confusing the two.
This needs to be pointed out to them more often. I don't think most of them realize it.
The leftists always have been nazis at heart
Nah. Don't let the current situation fool you. You've seen that I'm very pro-Israel in my other comments. But there are many of us that are lefties through and through. I mean most Jews in the US lean slightly left of the democrats. I lean further. And David ben Gurion was super leftist. Hardcore socialist commie pinko, that one. If I had been around for the founding of Israel, I'd probably have been kicking back on a kibbutz somewhere.
But the right is definitely not our friend. Most of them support Israel for christo-fascist dreams of the apocalypse. They want to use us. And we should be careful to think that we are the ones using them.
I do not know where you are from, but especially concerning the US and Europe, I do think it's important to understand where this support comes from -- even if they don't actually know it either. It's the underdog problem. Israel is much stronger than in the past. We have won many wars against people who wished to murder us all. We became a force to be reckoned with. And the Palestinian territories are the underdog. And the left has normalized seeing the underdog as the marginalized victim. They are not used to seeing an underdog victimizer. From South Africa to Ireland to PoCs and the LGBT+ communities, they are used to things going one way. And things are not one way. There is a whole 3d plane of possibilities in this world. And that's why I argue more about Israel than anything else on here. To try to help people see that things are not black and white. This isn't a left or right issue. This isn't a David vs Goliath issue. This is something that cannot be boiled down to simple concepts or comparisons. And the more you know, the harder it really is to if not agree with what Israel is doing, to at least understand why they might make the choices they do. And it is not for the sole purpose of ethnic cleansing or genocide. At least not for the majority.
You must be reading a very different slice of the fediverse than I am. I've been blocking Nazis, tankies, and other assorted idiots on sight since I started using Lemmy, and I've seen maybe a handful of people saying things that could be interpreted as supporting Hamas. They are vastly outnumbered by people decrying the slaughter of civilians and apologists for Israel.
Tactically their October 7 attack was incredibly silly, honestly what did they think would happen?
They gave Netanyahu, who was finally fumbling at the reigns after almost thirty years aan excuse to execute his wet dreams and all of Israel uniting behind him.
I see no way how they could have thought the attack would benefit their cause.
To answer the question, what they think would happen: Their October 7th attacked achieved everything they wanted.
KSA and Israel we're coming to an understanding and treaty, that was against the interests of Iran who is in a power struggle with the KSA.
After their attack, it is now politically impossible for the KSA and Israel to have a treaty. That alone justifies this entire conflict from their power politics perspective
They never had any hope of inflicting damage on the Israeli government. They clearly don't care about their own civilian casualties. In fact The worst the reprisals the better for their recruitment and funding efforts.
Probably not directly related to the rationale for their attack, but it got them some ancillary support, it removed Russia's aggression from the news media cycle. Which probably got them some favor in those circles.
From a media perspective, this has been a massive Boone for their campaign. They more or less had disappeared from international headlines for the last 10 years. Now everybody is talking about the genocide, and the ethnic cleansing. They're going to pay very dearly for it, but that's more media attention than they've had for a decade.
Ok yes I can follow that. The cynical thing is that in none of the reasons the Palestinian people are central. Those are victimized by both the Israelis and Hamas, following this rationale.
An extra cynical level is that the wished of the extreme right Israelis and Hamas are the same. To keep this war going indefinitely, not matter the cost of human life.
In what kind of setting would this be proposed? 'listen we might invite genocidal terror on our own people, but Russia needs some radio silence and we crave media attention' and everyone involved going like 'that's absolutely worth it brother'.
Maybe I'm too naive, I cannot see the tactical gain in that perspective. Thanks though, for good counter points. It helps me trying to make some kind of sense of this.
It's straight Machiavelli politics.
I highly recommend you read, or listen to, The Prince by Machiavelli. It's a very short read, but helps you get in the right frame of mind for this type of politicking
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm
Yeah I know Machiavelli, I don't remember suicidal tactics, though, and certainly not playing according to ones worst enemies playbook.
But mass media wasn't around in the Renaissance..
The whole philosophy is how to get the outcomes you want, any means are justified.
Saying person X is playing into person Ys playbook is making huge assumptions about their goals.
We can only infer and guess as to the organizational goals at play. We can line up the incentives for their actions, as I did two posts up, and say their behavior is consistent with these incentives.
And I thank you for that exposition, however cynical it does give some reason to what appears madness.
But if it comes to serving the people of Palestine they aren't really doing that, rather the opposite.
Hamas is not working in the best interest of Palestine civilians, they are working in the best interest of Hamas - Which is a fascist theocratic military organization with goals of ethnic cleansing.
The only issue at question is why did the Gazan people feel that Hamas was their best option in 2006 when they were elected into office? I don't really know, I can speculate that the hopeless turn to extreme religious war mongers for even the promise of a better future, or failing that the promise of a fight as they are erased from history.... some people, when they have no hope, will hold on to revenge.
Since 2006, and the failed coup in 2007, Hamas hasn't held any elections and runs as a dictatorship.
They most certainly are not.
Piece of shit, pouring oil onto fire while the civilians are getting slaughtered at this point on both sides. If there is hell, this one should burn.
Edit: I've never seen anyone defend Hamas, only civilian Palestinians. Just to make that clear distinction.
Bro you merely have to look at this thread and the weekly world news/news threads to see leftists terrorist apologizers
That's why I'm trying to limit my time here, but I also just want to follow the news and see some cat pics.
Best thing to do is condemn terrorist Hamas on the one side and Netanyahu/IDF/extremist settlers that harass West bank palestinians on the other side.
And pray for the Jewish and Palestinian civilians. Because they are the ones suffering.
Antisemitic people, if I had to make a guess
Mostly leftists
I still don't understand what's so hard about condemning antisemitism and giving them the boot. You can't truly be left wing, at least socially, if you aren't making it clear bigots aren't welcome.
We've come full circle now too -- they've mixed up criticism of Israel and antisemitism.
Hamas killed 1400 civilians.
The IDF has killed about 9500 civilians so far.
I dunno, I think that Hamas may not be the good guys, but they're definitely the less bad guys.
Give hamas same weaponry and intel as profoundly shit as IDF and israel might as well be one big crater
Okay, but they don't. And they likely never will.
Right now it's like a 6yo child that punches you as hard as they can in the balls, and you respond by beating the fuck out of them with a tire iron. The fact that you could straight-up murder the child by shooting them in the fucking face doesn't mean that breaking every bone in their hands along with both legs to "teach them a lesson" would be appropriate or proportionate.
For sure, but that wasn't really my point, which was intentions and goals. Hamas is not a "good guy" since they will take every chance of murdering and kidnapping israeli citizens if it's by high-precision missiles or fucking gliders straight out of a comic book, and israelis aren't the "good guys" for barraging palestinian civvies while taking tiktoks.
I feel vile for all this good guys bad guys rhetoric ffs gotta take a showa
Oh, I'm not saying that Hamas is good guys. They're not. They're terrorists.
But by the scope and scale, by the amount of force that they're able to bring to bear, and by the sheer number of non-combatants being killed, the IDF is far, far worse. Hamas targeted civilians on purpose, the IDF is simply indiscriminate.
The Allied forces utilized the tactics of total-war during WWII, with things like the firebombing of Dresden, or Tokyo. The idea was to break the will of the people to fight. Well, spoiler: it doesn't work. When you kill someone's whole family, their friends, blow up their house and community, they end up having an even stronger desire to fight back. Just like the bombings of London by Germany increased the resolve of Britons, so did the indiscriminate massacre of civilians by the Allies increase the resolve of the Germans.
The actions of the IDF are going to give Hamas it's next generation of fighters, people willing to die to kill Israel.
I think the former is way worse. Besides, there's no point in debating this. They're both horrible. Agreed? Then let's move on.
Israel did knowingly bomb a refugee camp. Twice. Kind of hard to defend that behavior as "self defense".
Replying to a wrong comment perhaps?
To be fair, and I realize it's difficult to be fair here:
The Israeli government has said it is going for the total destruction of Hamas. Hamas has said it is going for the total destruction of the Israeli government... They've taken up equivalent positions
I think what that really means, is both belligerents are going to try the radical new policy of killing more random civilians, and seeing if anything changes..
No. Israel has said they are going for the total destruction of Hamas. Hamas is a government entity and the ruling government of Gaza.
Hamas has said they are going for the total destruction of Israel the nation. Including all Jewish civilians. Not the government, all Jewish people in Israel.
That’s been Hamas’ position for years. They want to eliminate all Jews from the region.
Literally in the article that this post is about, they said they are trying to avoid civilians. It's blatant fucking lie, but it's what they're saying.
You just said that they're going publicly, for the destruction of all Jewish people, that contradicts the article that we're talking about here. If they're stated goal is the death of Jewish people, why would they try to avoid Jewish casualties, why would they say that? If it's in their charter shouldn't they reinforce it when they're talking in public?
If we're pulling in outside sources. https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
Nope. Quote it then if you’re so sure.
Nothing in that article at all says they have tried to avoid casualties.
So they intentionally attacked civilians, this dude is claiming they know they attacked civilians, they will do it again and again and again until they completely eliminate the entire nation of Israel. Which includes all Jews in the region.
But hey, they claimed the land originally by genociding everyone that lived there too. So it’s par for the course.
You know, I was going to point out how terrible his argument is, but there's no need for that. It should be no surprise that they are just as craven as they say they are.
He also repeated the false assertion that Hamas had not intended to harm civilians, but that there were “complications” on the ground.
From the article above
Finish the quote:
Your mental gymnastics are Olympic level, mate.
I'm not defending either government. They both clearly killed civilians intentionally
They've both made statements they wanted to destroy the opposing government.
Pointing that out shouldn't be controversial.
I gave you the relevant part of the quote, from the article, were Hamas was laying out their policy. They're lying, but their policy as stated is equivalent to the Israeli government policy. Which is exactly what you were asking me to provide in your previous comment
Their policy is also stated in their charter, which goes beyond just killing all Israeli civilians. It says they will kill all the Jews everywhere in the world.
But perhaps you'd prefer to see actions - Israel is currently engaged in urban combat with an enemy who intentionally uses civilian infrastructure (a war crime, by the way). There will be collateral damage from this, especially when Hamas don't allow civilians to evacuate out of the heavy combat areas.
Hamas on the other hand are continuing to launch rockets daily at civilian targets in Israel, intentionally targeting civilians while celebrating every rocket siren.
Yeah... so... after them killing over 1200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, everyone they could get their hands on basically, I kinda don't trust them.
100%, they're lying through their teeth.
Yeah… so… after them killing over 5,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians, everyone they could get their hands on basically, I kinda don’t trust them.
If that utter nonsense was true there would be 100x as many dead.