Blinken calls out other countries for not demanding Hamas surrender and ‘stop hiding behind civilians’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called out other countries for not demanding Hamas surrender.
“What is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying – demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that,” Blinken said during a press briefing at the State Department Wednesday.
“How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim,” Blinken went on to say.
The strong comments from Blinken come as the United Nations Security Council continues to negotiate a resolution calling for a suspension in fighting and encouraging more humanitarian aid into the beleaguered Gaza Strip, and as the United States’ support for the resolution remains unresolved.
To analogize with another ongoing conflict: the Ukrainian war could be over tomorrow if Ukraine unconditionally surrendered to Russia, but they’re sure as fuck not going to do that, nor should they.
Also, to be clear: I am absolutely not saying that Hamas are the good guys here. They are definitely not the good guys. But addressing an incredibly complex and nuanced situation in such a reductive fashion (“Hamas should surrender unconditionally right now”) is deeply unhelpful, and ignores why Hamas came into being in the first place, and why they further developed into such a threatening force in the region.
"We wouldn't have to kill so many civilians if the criminals would stop committing crimes."
The indiscriminate killings and beatings will continue until morale improves
More like "we wouldn't have to kill so many civilians if the criminals didn't use them as meat shields".
Living in a crowded area where missiles are fired = meat shields?
Nope, hiding in hospitals = meat shields.
That was disproven two days ago by the Washington Post. There were no Hamas bases in any hospital. The IDF just bombed doctors and patients.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/21/al-shifa-hospital-gaza-hamas-israel/
There are interviews with Ukrainian soldiers who said they stay away from civilians so that when Russians bombard them the civilians will not be affected.
I think the combat style and priorities are a bit different so a comparision cannot be made in this case.
Can you link me to the part where Ukraine fired thousands of rockets at Russian cities and started a war by raping and murdering a thousand innocent people?
You are intentionally misrepresenting what I said.
Hamas didn't murder a thousand innocent people at all
Only around 780 unarmed occupiers died of which most were recruited members of the the IDF terrorist organisation. Hamas directly killed 375 armed IDF Nazis.
Of course we now know that many occupiers, especially most if not all of the children were actually killed by the ZioNazis firing rockets and tank shells at their own people.
And there still is no evidence of Hamas raping anyone not sure why you keep bringing up this lie.
Hamas should surrender unconditionally because there is a 0% chance of them winning this war and a negligible chance of them surviving this war.
That's when you surrender.
I'm not sure there's much chance of them surviving a surrender either
You could replace 'hamas' with 'Ukraine' here and it would be just as true.
You don’t appear to understand how terrorist organizations work.
I understand quite well how terrorist organizations work
How do you think Hamas wins this war, or survives it with any degree of their operating infrastructure intact? If Hamas is non-viable going forward, Iran will just send the money elsewhere, meaning Hamas ceases to exist even if they survive.
In what universe are dead martyrs better than living ones, assuming you're trying to galvanize people into supporting your organization?
Perhaps you just meant "no sane human being joins a terror org so of course they won't surrender" in which case yeah that does describe the reality.
You say that, then you say
A terrorist is literally only martyred by dying for their cause. There's no such thing as a living martyr.
So no, you absolutely do not understand how terrorist organizations, specifically terrorist organizations like Hamas, actually work.
You clearly don't know how terrorist organizations use the term "martyr" but I assure you Hamas considers every Gazan a martyr already. It's in their charter
By which they mean they will sacrifice as many people as they must to accomplish their stated goals, thereby actually martyring them. There's literally no such thing as "a living martyr".
How are you not getting this? You cannot be considered a martyr until you have died in service or your religion, either by righteous sacrifice or by capital punishment for actions of faith.
Look, I get where you are coming from. You're trying to apply logic and reason to a situation where there isn't much of either. Religious zealots and unscrupulous nationalists are doing terrible things to each other, and there's a shitload of innocent civilians stuck in the middle. But your oversimplification of "hamas should surrender without condition" conveys a tremendous lack of understanding of what either side hopes to accomplish.
For the record, I don't necessarily disagree with you. I believe Hammas could do much more good in the long run by surrendering, thereby ending the conflict... but then the eyes of the world would be on Israel as they continued to bulldoze Gaza and make life for innocent Palestinians even harder. But that's still a shitty take because the innocent still suffer, and the world would likely just turn away and ignore it until the next time a terrorist does something terrible.