Israeli here. Maybe I can give some helpful context.
Most people in Israel have not, and probably will not see this - any “support” for Palestinians is seen as a very far-left idea after Oct 7. There are still many here who oppose the extent of the war - I see regular demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for peace. I will note that there seems to be fairly universal agreement that _something_ needed to be done after Oct 7. If you want to understand the Israeli perspective (doesn’t seem like most commenters do, but I’m not writing this for them), you have to look at how Oct 7 shaped Israeli society these last 3 years.
But anyways, don’t take my word for anything, pay attention to our upcoming elections. We will see how big the tents are then.
Wishing for peace, for saner voices to rise, and for an end to this cycle of violence.
My own country lost its mind after 2,977 people died in one terrorist attack a quarter of a century ago and we made many many bad decisions for a long time afterwards. It sucked. In October 2023 I had hoped that my country's well publicized example would help your country not make the same choices but it's hard to learn from other people's mistakes.
America didn't do things like this after 9/11, we tried to build democracies in a naive way, failed, and got a lot of people killed unnecessarily. Iraq was completely unjustified and based on fabrications.
But we weren't trying to wage war against the entire civilian populations as revenge. That's an entirely different category of crime.
A lot of the stories that came out of Abu Ghraib sure sound like they have very strong parallels to what is happening today. At the level of "poorly trained reservists trying to do something difficult without sufficient oversight and getting frustrated and turning to torture" it sounds very similar.
And the destruction of Fallujah from Phantom Fury ended up only marginally better than what happened to Rafah (destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in Fallujah and damaged another quarter).
Abu Ghraib was a scandal, some people got punished, probably not all of the right ones.
When it came out that Israel was systematically sodomizing detainees with nightsticks, they had protestors come out in favor of the guards. It's still ongoing, all charges have been dropped. Nobody is scandalized by it.
The reaction of Americans to Abu Ghraib and the reaction of Israelis to the - larger scale - torture of Palestinian prisoners, is miles apart. It's also why there was always an end in sight to the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, yet there isn't for Gaza until it has not a single Palestinian left.
>"That's an entirely different category of crime" - cut the moralizing bullshit please. You have killed shitload of people and that is all that matters.
As someone that’s watched the conflict and learned about the history, the Nakba and the displacement of Palestinians far before the years of Malcolm X and Martin Luther, the conflict with Palestine didn’t start on October 7th as this comment purports.
When I didn’t have any context of the history, I took comments like this one at face value.
However it is difficult to take comments like this in good faith as it frames Israelis as folks who are pushed beyond their conscience by their government, similar to Americans in current America, when the statistics are to the contrary.
This is the typical type of propaganda that many supporters post and write hoping to reinforce the narrative to the uninformed folks of their innocence.
While I can acknowledge that there are genuinely folks who oppose the ongoing genocide, what the world ought to look out for is whether after the next set of elections, an actual change of power and direction occurs.
And when I point to elections, the potential replacement candidates all support the same policies of genocide and expulsion. Some may be less, some are absolutely more, but if nothing changes, that is on the Israeli people.
As Americans hold responsibility for the current state of politics, Israeli’s hold the responsibility for their country as well.
I support Israel, but not wholeheartedly. I understand how Nakba was a matter of survival of your people. But why is this still going on today? Why is Israel continuing to expand settlements? Can you not understand how Palestinians must feel to constantly live in fear of being pushed out of their own homes? This is what gives me heartache. Can't you draw a line and say, what happened in the past cannot be reversed, but we will not continue to expand settlements?
> Can't you draw a line and say, what happened in the past cannot be reversed, but we will not continue to expand settlements?
I did a study abroad in Israel in 2005 (not jewish, just for middle eastern studies) when Israel pulled out of Gaza and did essentially that. They forcibly removed settlers and left Gaza. As I recall most Israeli's thought it'd be good step toward peace.
Unfortunately Hamas took over Gaza shortly after and shot some 12k+ rockets into southern Israel over the next 20 years, and then launched Oct 7.
Unfortunately now there seems to be far less interest in Israel now in restricting settlers in the West Bank. I also feel for the Palestinians, particularly the Arab Christian communities, however extremists on both sides don't want peace.
Is there any acknowledgement in Israel that Nakba and the very formation of the country is to blame? That Zionism is a European colonial ideology and at it's very core requires ethnic cleansing? I feel like most of the world has become educated enough to reach this conclusion and thus stands against Israel. The only peaceful way out of the situation Israel is in would be serious and massive reparations (similar to what Germany has given to Jewish people). Is there any support for that?
Israelis generally do learn about the Nakba in school. But we’re much more concerned about the circumstances Jews find themselves in after the Holocaust/WWII. We don’t see it in the way you describe. For us it was a matter of the survival of our people.
Reparations - Israel would love nothing more than that. Pay Palestinians to leave? That’s the easiest way about it! Bibi would be delighted. Unfortunately it’s a non starter. The fight was always about the land, and Palestinians have been losing since 1948. There is a complex history of “whose fault was it” - neither side has clean hands.
I don’t agree with the conflation of Zionism to ethnic cleansing. I think there were paths to peace that could have worked early on. Call it bad luck. I think Palestinian leadership failed its people by failing to secure them a diplomatic end to the conflict. Fighting a lost war for decades seems a bad plan. I also do blame Israeli leadership, for not always offering the olive branch without condition.
Edit: i will also address your initial question directly: “Is there any acknowledgement in Israel that Nakba and the very formation of the country is to blame?” - a very, very small fringe of the far left phrases it like this. I’m not trying to be dismissive, just pointing out that it’s a really tiny minority. I, as a self-described center left, disagree with the premise.
How can you simultaneously decide you do not need to care about the lives of a group of people on the basis of a difference of ethnicity as you prioritize the formation of an ethnic state, and simultaneously refuse the premise that the formation of that state is to blame for ethnic strife? Your first and last paragraphs cannot be reconciled.
Destroying all the buildings while only killing 50k civilians out of a population of 2.2M is not a genocide. Insofar as words mean things (and they don’t to most of humanity) it’s not genocide.
When you understand that 99.99% of humanity is only capable of using words to express psychological valence or to manipulate rather than assay truth, then political discourse makes a lot more sense.
The only thing that 99.99% of humanity is capable of navigating and assaying with words is their own personal financial situation, their business, their portfolio, etc. In this domain everyone is a philosopher.
Does this help you sleep? Rationalization is a coping mechanism.
The Germans first asked the Jews to leave and worked with Zionists to provide incentives for them to leave. 60k left Germany under that law to British Palestine. It wasn't until much later in the war did they start doing mass genocide.
So don't be proud of "only 50k". Israel is still at war and things can get much worse. It's not like it's over.
It's frankly disgusting to argue over definitions and words when people are still dieing daily.
Its really telling to see the destruction limited to where the structures used to be rather than to all of the surrounding green spaces. If the destruction of civilian dwellings was purely an accident you'd expect to see the destruction spread evenly over the area. Instead it looks much more like a prolonged set of surgical strikes to destroy the buildings while preserving as much of the surrounding areas as possible.
I don't quite understand your argument here. In your first pin I'm struggling to find a single building that isn't leveled, or at least severely damaged. Even buildings far away from the city center in the boonies are leveled.
You can also see a lot of buildings demolished on the Egyptian side too.
In 2015, the Egyptian government announced a plan to demolish the entire Egyptian city of Rafah, in order to deter smuggling with the Gaza Strip. More than a decade on, most of it is gone. The residents were forcibly relocated to elsewhere in Egypt.
They are saying that this is genocidal destruction. In a war sometimes civilian infrastructure is hit as collateral. But here, all infrastructure is destroyed and it's clear this wasn't done by 1 or 2 errant bombs but rather because of direct targeting. It can't be argued to be an accident because in farmland you see no bombs which hit the farmland by mistake. In other-words, this is entirely purposeful.
He also promotes transphobia. Chomsky was friends with Epstein and acquaintance of Steve Bannon. I don’t think that discredits his entire body of work, but I think we should stop promoting him when there are sources that are less problematic.
You are mixing Chomsky (the subreddit) up with Norm (the book author). Norm was friends with Chomsky but not Epstein or Bannon. I'm unaware of him having transphobic views.
I would caution against uncritical consumption of Finkelstein's work. He is a bit unhinged, and limited in what content he can analyse as he can't read Arabic or Hebrew.
A war requires at least two militaries. This is what happens when a well armed military engages a mostly unarmed civilian society unable to mount significant opposition.
"Before the October 7, 2023 attacks, the total size of Hamas’s military wing (the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades) was estimated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and intelligence agencies to be between 25,000 and 30,000 fighters, with some intelligence assessments placing the upper limit as high as 40,000.
This army was organized into five regional brigades and 24 battalions."
"Hamas's military force prior to October 7, 2023, was roughly 3 to 4.5 times larger than the United States military when measured as a percentage of their respective total populations."
They just use bulldozers to flatten whatever the bombs don't. They can drive a bulldozer pretty precisely, especially when they don't care who's in front of it or under it.
Caterpillar even supplies the IDF with bulldozers just for this purpose, which then get up-armored and sent into Palestinian civilian areas to do this (including unmanned versions).
Interesting claim. Where did you hear that? The IDF is pretty infamous for crushing people alive with these bulldozers, and also for denying search & rescue access to find civilians buried in the wreckage (and also for just killing said SAR and hiding the bodies and lying about it*).
I'm a little confused by this one, because if you hit the "Show historical imagery" button, and go back through the prior years, I don't really see much or anything of a playground there.
Ethnic cleansing, then. But this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about - very typical of Israel supporters: they debate you on the letter instead of acknowledging that what we see here is horrendous.
Then they suggest that this is justified because Israel is a jewish ethnostate.
Not sure where you're getting your numbers or data, but that's just false. At least 60,0000 innocent civilians have been killed in Gaza, and Israel is to blame for this.
Hamas starting it is besides the point. We are capable of holding two different ideas in our heads: that what Hamas did to kick this off was reprehensible, and that what Israel has done since then has been horrifying.
I would personally argue that what Israel has done is far worse than what Hamas did, but it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with that. Israel has gone far far far beyond your notion of "fighting back".
> should work to destroy Hamas who are responsible for turning Gaza into such a hellhole.
Israel seems to be doing a good job of that on their own. And had been even prior to the current conflict.
Would you say that what happened to Jews in the other nations in the Middle East/Asia (where Jewish populations were practically reduced to 0) is also "ethnic cleansing"?
So all Jews who had to leave their lands, from Morocco to Pakistan, left of their own free will and emigrated to Israel? None were driven out? Are you saying they can return to their former homes then?
Such weak whataboutism as well. I know so many pro-Palestine people personally and people I follow online that also speak out about Sudan, Iran, other ME countries.
Heck, I know so many Muslims critical of Muslim majority nations.
It's sad that most world leaders do nothing to combat such genocide. There are so few sanctions against the state, or specific people, of Israel. Foreign forums are very much still open for business to them.
Do not forget that world leaders are heads of sovereign states that are in charge of their self defense. Those that actually have to defend themselves, like the US, rather than relying on strong allies, need to make public statements that are not hypocritical about what they would do for self defense. This is why both U.S. administrations support Israel's actions
1) Ultimately, money means more to foreign nations than what happens with internal affairs of their trading partners
2) Accusations of genocide, whether they stand up or not, are great fodder for whataboutism discussions. Let's say the world's two largest economies, the US and China, decided to start sanctioning Israel for what's happening in Gaza. You could expect other countries to start threatening actions against the US and China over their previous or current genocidal behaviors. These are obviously not things that the US and China want to deal with.
Israel has both nuclear weapons and the Epstein files, so that's not really an option (granted: SA had nuclear weapons too, but nobody really to drop them on).
Epstein (and Ghislaine Maxwell in particular) are widely believed to have operated as a massive Mossad blackmail operation, collecting (and creating) blackmail material against western politicians and influential individuals to ensure their support for Israel.
I won't go into details that support or refute this claim, but that is what the parent poster likely meant.
Send all collaborators to the international criminal court. (In the US, especially congress critters and members of the executive branch.)
Also, blockade Israel proportionally to the Gaza blockades. I doubt they would have kept murdering red cross members in Gaza once the supermarkets started running out of food.
If you had to guess, what do you think they might do? I feel like questions like this are in bad faith. Think about it for a minute, and try to come up with some things that they might do.
> What do you think world leaders should've done differently?
Members should have voted in the UN to deploy peace keeping troops. The UN does have that power if it's voted for. This isn't a question of the current realities but a question of what the right actions are.
This is where you notice that the world is more complicated than social media posts.
Like it would've been a nice idea, until you realize that Hamas is heavily backed by Iran, Iran is helping Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine, and it starts to look like that level of intervention is a step towards a world war.
Then you notice world energy markets are going to be effected by a massive conflict etc.
If the UN went into Gaza, got attacked by Iran, then had to respond, next minute they're attacking a close Russian ally, and maybe even China might have to get involved in that.
What would've been good is if October 7 didn't happen, and that goes for both sides.
Iran would WELCOME UN peace keepers in gaza, are you kidding? Hell, I think even Hamas would welcome their presence. UN peace keepers would mean the likes of UNRA could operate once again in Gaza to deliver aid. It would also mean that Israel would have to stop it's aggression.
> Iran is helping Russia
lol, no, other way around. Though the Russia hasn't really been involved with Iran since Ukraine started. It's actually China that's the biggest Iranian trade partner.
The only party that'd be upset over UN peace keepers in Gaza is Israel.
Lie. It was a deal to get complete immunity for a massacre. Also, 'Civilian' per Hamas is anyone over 60. 'Let Hamas murder and keep nearly all hostages' was not in Israel's playbook.
>They reached out and were ignored.
Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.
>As Israel started to show genocidal intent (for example, killing aide workers multiple times)
Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.
>the UN should have deployed peace keepers
Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.
>our politicians are so bribed by Israeli lobby money
I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.
> Lie. It was a deal to get complete immunity for a massacre. Also, 'Civilian' per Hamas is anyone over 60. 'Let Hamas murder and keep nearly all hostages' was not in Israel's playbook.
You are making stuff up. Nobody reports that Hamas was shooting for a "get out pillaging free" card. And the fact still remains that they tried to return 3 hostages to show good faith who the IDF proceeded to kill.
> Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.
Hamas, on multiple occasions, agreed to all the terms only for Israel to reject the agreement and change the terms. That was all public. It's why the hostage families became really mad at the government.
> Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.
Two wrongs don't make a right and yes, it's relevant when the IDF explodes clearly marked aid vehicles rendering aid. There's no reason to do that.
> Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.
Does that really matter? The question wasn't "how effective will this be" it's "What world leaders should have done". That's what world leaders should have done.
> I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.
These are weaker lobbies because of US laws. The likes of AIPAC and CUFI get around campaign finance restrictions because they are operated by US citizens (in behest of Israel). No other nation has that sort of organizations in the US. The closet you can find is things like the weirdo Shen Yun cult.
This allowed them to spend $60M in a democrat primary. You won't find that sort of direct spending from Qatar or the Saudis (barring the clear bribe in the Jet. They aren't exactly giving away jets to every primary run).
>Nobody reports that Hamas was shooting for a "get out pillaging free" card
'Israel to withdraw and grant all other Hamas demands' is a 'get out free' card.
> they tried to return 3 hostages to show good faith who the IDF proceeded to kill.
These hostages _escaped_ and were shot in error. Not 'tried to return'. Note that there was a week's ceasefire a month earlier and Hamas could have returned everyone then if they cared to.
>Hamas, on multiple occasions, agreed to all the terms only for Israel to reject the terms.
You mean all of 'Hamas's terms'. Right. The Israeli government had very different terms as the final deal (very different from what Hamas demanded) shows. The Israeli gov insisted on controlling the Egyptian border, Gaza demilitarization, etc.
>It's why the hostage families became really mad at the government.
Of course. They wanted the hostages out ASAP, and could only pressure the Israeli government (obviously Hamas wouldn't care for the families).
>Two wrongs don't make a right
Right, but there's such a thing as hypocrisy. One could make a 'genocidal' case against the country who started a war by bombing a schoolhouse and spoke of 'destroying an entire civilization' (it would still be wrong though). But they're a little too strong, and it's easier to pick on Israel.
>That's what world leaders should have done.
Most world leaders want to be reelected (or not be overthrown if they're dictators). Sending out troops to die in a foreign land for an arguably hopeless cause is not very helpful to that end. They're likely aware of the history of military involvement in the Middle East.
>The likes of AIPAC and CUFI get around campaign finance restrictions because they are operated by US citizens
Qatar etc. gets around it by donating billions to US universities or using organizations like ISNA. Everyone seems to have found a way.
What a bizarre claim and outright lie. They kept them locked up and starving. They could’ve just dropped them off near the border with Israel or Egypt, or handed them over to the Red Cross (which wasn’t even allowed to visit and check on the hostages).
Oh look, brand new account doing hasbara. Where have we seen this before? Are you a part of Israel's $1B spent on online propaganda? [1]
I cited my source. But there were also sources in October 2023 about Hamas wanting to return the hostages. The Haaretz articles reveal that it was privately even earlier than expected and the Netanyahu was warned of the attack in advance yet he chose to do nothing about it.
Why not just drop them off? Well for 1 they actually wanted the hostages to get home alive. The IDF didn't care about killing hostages as they relentlessly bombed the region.
Why not let the Red Cross see them? Because the IDF was closely watching and, shocker, if you take someone directly to the hostages guess what building gets blown up next?
Sorry buddy, you can't just attack children at a music festival and get away with it, even if you're desperate. It's not a justification. If it was, then whatever Israel is doing is fine because they're just responding as victims should, right?
I heard the recordings the ecstatic guys screaming with pleasure that they murdered as many Jews as they could, one guy called his mother in ecstatic joy, it was absolutely sick shit.
Ukraine could blow up children's schools in Russia couldn't it? But it doesn't. Russia does though...
You provided a list of reasons why you feel like teenagers at a music festival should be murdered, right?
Like my personal sentiment is, war is senseless, and both sides are wrong in some way or another. But yeah, I don't think children should be murdered period, so I'm not going to try and give a list of reasons why it's OK, because there isn't one.
Anyone committing war crimes should be punished for it, period.
My original question was simply, what should have been done differently "by the world leaders"?
How many teenagers were killed by Hamas? And are there independent sources that verify this?
Also, is Oct 7 enough justification to shoot 335 bullets at 6 year old Hind Rajab?
Your questions reek of bias by trying to centre everything to Oct 7, as though history began there. If you really cared about children, you'd have referenced the thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel before Oct 7.
Sergey Brin, who founded and owns most of Google with Larry Page, said recently (during the genocide) that he visited Ben Shapiro (genocide advocate) and had fun. They show these things in Google Maps, but don't forget that Google is not a 'neutral' company in this conflict.
cities do not get systematically flattened with bulldozers in urban warfare, you only completely wipe out cities when you don't want any the civilians to come back.
It was not a genocide. It was the deliberate destruction of the urban tunnel and terror network that the government of Gaza aka Hamas built in preparation for war with Israel. The population of Gaza is already at pre-war levels (of we exclude the 100,000 who evacuated) and was not "genocided"
You just described all cities in Israel, only they've been hyper-militarized since Nakba, the ethnic cleansing on Palestine in 1948. Israel has mandatory conscription and most of its inhabitants serve or have served in the IDF.
I was not aware that every city in Israel has an extensive military tunnel network. Is that the case?
If Hamas were to take one of those tunnel cities and Israel were doing guerrilla warfare from them I wouldn't blame Hamas for bulldozing.
Israel does have mandatory conscription. They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian. While in the military they're all fair targets, and if they're not serving, and at a music festival, they're not.
Israeli cities have far more threatening military infrastructure than tunnels. They literally have nuclear weapons.
> They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian.
When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian". When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
>Israeli cities have far more threatening military infrastructure than tunnels. They literally have nuclear weapons.
And Hamas is permitted, as per the rules of war, to target that military infrastructure. If Israel has co-located it with civilian buildings, and attacks miss their targets, then too-bad for Israel.
>When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian".
This is very arguable for the West Bank settlers, but the Israeli civilians that were targeted by October 7 are not settlers and are in very solid Israeli land from a conflict 80 years prior. Arguing that all civilians in Israel proper are valid targets makes you no better than Smotrich and Ben-gvir, and you are essentially advocating for the genocide of Israelis.
Which is your right to do, I guess, but that's certainly not going to convince the (nuclear armed, remember) Israelis to moderate and compromise, or actually bring about justice for Palestinians.
> When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
Military uniforms are for the protection of civilians. If you forgo them, then your civilians will receive more harm. Israel is responsible for their actions and many war crimes, but Hamas is responsible for theirs.
Zionists are not civilians, they're literally living on stolen land. It doesn't matter that they've been stealing it for 80 years, it's not their land and the relatives of the people they murdered have every right to defend themselves and get their land back, by any means necessary.
If that's the way you want the conflict to be sorted, which is a genocide competition, then Israel will win that competition. I assume you don't want that?
"You're on stolen land and you've done it this time with the genocide, Israel, now you have to dissolve yourself and migrate back to Poland, Brooklyn and Iraq" is not a realistic ultimatum to deliver to a nuclear armed state established precisely because it's citizens experienced centuries of persecution living as scattered minorities.
Israel under Netanyahu has done plenty to criticise but I would actually like to see an Israel/Palestine deal not the West following both sides into radicalisation.
This result is exactly what the anti-Israel coalition wanted. They bet Bibi would go nuts and burn up the remaining global goodwill that Israel had, leaving them isolated.
The Zionists invaded Palestine and ethnically cleansed over 750,000 people off their land. That is the war they started, Hamas are just the relatives of the people Israel murdered fighting the occupying invaders. Thankfully they opened the world's eyes to Israel's crimes and now it's a dead man walking. Israel will not last another generation.
From how I understand the history, in 1948, the attacking Arab armies from neighboring countries told the local Arabs (Palestinians) to leave the war zone to be safe. But when Israel won the war, those Arabs could not return.
That's absurd. History didn't start on October 7th. All of this is downstream from Nakba and the Balfour Declaration. Zionism was by its very definition genocidal.
> Sure, buildings were demolished, is that unusual in a war zone?
I'm going to assume good faith in your framing, rather than intentional minimization. Suffice it to say, more has happened than "buildings were demolished", and those more things are the subject of the article. Like, for example, an entire city systemically flattened with every single civilian inhabitant killed or exiled on their own land.
To answer your question in that context: yes, that is unusual in war these days, because it is tantamount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
What belief is being expressed in your comments? That if someone wins a military conflict, any action they took is justified? That seems like either moral relativism or ahistorical, blind patriotism. The Soviets also won that war -- does that mean they were justified in their constellations of gulags?
If anything, the more apt historical comparison is to the Czechoslovakian and Polish partisans who wanted nothing less than to harry the Germans on (or within) their borders before the war. The British and French ambassadors (i.e. Qatar, etc) took great pains to try and convince the Polish and Czechoslovakian governments to restrain their partisans from attacking German people or positions, since they suspected Germany would use any and all provocation, no matter how small, as a casus belli. Anyone who's read a bit of WW2 history also knows how often the German government attempted to engineer exactly these kinds of events to justify their aggression.
It sounds straight out of the Likud playbook, doesn't it? But in what universe does an attack that kills 1000 people, a good number of them active duty soldiers, justify killing and maiming over 100,000 civilians and leveling hundreds of thousands of buildings? If the shoe were on the other foot, this implies Hamas also has the moral imperative to do just the same to Israel. That's moral relativism for you.
Perhaps Europe had a better understanding of this topic when they instituted the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law after the war than we do today, 100 years out, trying to now claim none of it actually matters and the means justify the ends.
I don’t use TikTok, but I’ll chip in and cite the United Nations [1], the International Association of Genocide Scholars [2], Physicians for Human Rights-Israel [3], Amnesty International [4], Human Rights Watch [5], and Doctors Without Borders [6] to get started.
While the genocide case brought against Israel hasn't concluded as of now, to say there's no reason to believe this is genocide is incorrect.
If you’d like to share some sources (rather than only telling others to), maybe we can compare.
What, succinctly, is your point? You first claimed that this was not a genocide, then posted a link to a list of other genocides. Are you saying that none of the genocides in your list happened? Or that they are miscategorized?
Lazy dismissal ,but then again, you don't really have a leg to stand on to defend your point.
You don't have to check all the links mate, just check a few for the organisations or institutionsnyou know. Unless you think they're all Hamas, of course.
was always a lurker so never had an account. I just think it's important to counter Israel's misinformation campaign :) very telling you think those words have lost their meaning though. I don't think we need further discussion
Most people in Israel have not, and probably will not see this - any “support” for Palestinians is seen as a very far-left idea after Oct 7. There are still many here who oppose the extent of the war - I see regular demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling for peace. I will note that there seems to be fairly universal agreement that _something_ needed to be done after Oct 7. If you want to understand the Israeli perspective (doesn’t seem like most commenters do, but I’m not writing this for them), you have to look at how Oct 7 shaped Israeli society these last 3 years.
But anyways, don’t take my word for anything, pay attention to our upcoming elections. We will see how big the tents are then.
Wishing for peace, for saner voices to rise, and for an end to this cycle of violence.
But we weren't trying to wage war against the entire civilian populations as revenge. That's an entirely different category of crime.
And the destruction of Fallujah from Phantom Fury ended up only marginally better than what happened to Rafah (destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in Fallujah and damaged another quarter).
When it came out that Israel was systematically sodomizing detainees with nightsticks, they had protestors come out in favor of the guards. It's still ongoing, all charges have been dropped. Nobody is scandalized by it.
Counterpoint, a more passive turn of phrase is more fitting: How Israeli society was shaped around oct 7.
The event doesn't shape society by itself, political and media response/interest shape the society.
When I didn’t have any context of the history, I took comments like this one at face value.
However it is difficult to take comments like this in good faith as it frames Israelis as folks who are pushed beyond their conscience by their government, similar to Americans in current America, when the statistics are to the contrary.
47% support the genocidal approach - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/majority-israelis-support...
56/67/82% (depending on the polling method) support expulsion of Palestinians - https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/poll-show-most-jew...
This is the typical type of propaganda that many supporters post and write hoping to reinforce the narrative to the uninformed folks of their innocence.
While I can acknowledge that there are genuinely folks who oppose the ongoing genocide, what the world ought to look out for is whether after the next set of elections, an actual change of power and direction occurs.
And when I point to elections, the potential replacement candidates all support the same policies of genocide and expulsion. Some may be less, some are absolutely more, but if nothing changes, that is on the Israeli people.
As Americans hold responsibility for the current state of politics, Israeli’s hold the responsibility for their country as well.
I did a study abroad in Israel in 2005 (not jewish, just for middle eastern studies) when Israel pulled out of Gaza and did essentially that. They forcibly removed settlers and left Gaza. As I recall most Israeli's thought it'd be good step toward peace.
Unfortunately Hamas took over Gaza shortly after and shot some 12k+ rockets into southern Israel over the next 20 years, and then launched Oct 7.
Unfortunately now there seems to be far less interest in Israel now in restricting settlers in the West Bank. I also feel for the Palestinians, particularly the Arab Christian communities, however extremists on both sides don't want peace.
Reparations - Israel would love nothing more than that. Pay Palestinians to leave? That’s the easiest way about it! Bibi would be delighted. Unfortunately it’s a non starter. The fight was always about the land, and Palestinians have been losing since 1948. There is a complex history of “whose fault was it” - neither side has clean hands.
I don’t agree with the conflation of Zionism to ethnic cleansing. I think there were paths to peace that could have worked early on. Call it bad luck. I think Palestinian leadership failed its people by failing to secure them a diplomatic end to the conflict. Fighting a lost war for decades seems a bad plan. I also do blame Israeli leadership, for not always offering the olive branch without condition.
Edit: i will also address your initial question directly: “Is there any acknowledgement in Israel that Nakba and the very formation of the country is to blame?” - a very, very small fringe of the far left phrases it like this. I’m not trying to be dismissive, just pointing out that it’s a really tiny minority. I, as a self-described center left, disagree with the premise.
That’s not what reparations are, that’s ethnic cleansing.
It is outside their zone of interest.
Humanity has a deep darkness and no society is immune. USA is a partner in this and as someone living here I'm deeply ashamed.
Destroying all the buildings while only killing 50k civilians out of a population of 2.2M is not a genocide. Insofar as words mean things (and they don’t to most of humanity) it’s not genocide.
When you understand that 99.99% of humanity is only capable of using words to express psychological valence or to manipulate rather than assay truth, then political discourse makes a lot more sense.
The only thing that 99.99% of humanity is capable of navigating and assaying with words is their own personal financial situation, their business, their portfolio, etc. In this domain everyone is a philosopher.
The Germans first asked the Jews to leave and worked with Zionists to provide incentives for them to leave. 60k left Germany under that law to British Palestine. It wasn't until much later in the war did they start doing mass genocide.
So don't be proud of "only 50k". Israel is still at war and things can get much worse. It's not like it's over.
It's frankly disgusting to argue over definitions and words when people are still dieing daily.
This "lawyer" mentality is so dumb.
For a great example of this, look at this pin https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZcMbdFcx87PrqoYNA
And here's a pin of where the farms were spared https://maps.app.goo.gl/iZbbTH4iH27FCz4s9
In 2015, the Egyptian government announced a plan to demolish the entire Egyptian city of Rafah, in order to deter smuggling with the Gaza Strip. More than a decade on, most of it is gone. The residents were forcibly relocated to elsewhere in Egypt.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/15/world/middlee...
Urban warfare is brutal, especially when one side systematically digs in and uses IEDs and booby traps in civilian buildings.
Please check Norman Finkelstein's latest book namely Gaza's Gravediggers on this matter [1].
He also has a very telling and chilling interview recently on Palestine and Gaza [2].
[1] Gaza's Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places [book].
[2] Norman Finkelstein Reveals Shocking Discoveries While Researching History of Israel’s Gaza Obsession [video]:
https://youtu.be/Jmv2h1WYnNo
https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/uyqjn2/norman_fink...
Also Tucker Carlson? Seriously?
"Hamas's military force prior to October 7, 2023, was roughly 3 to 4.5 times larger than the United States military when measured as a percentage of their respective total populations."
Caterpillar even supplies the IDF with bulldozers just for this purpose, which then get up-armored and sent into Palestinian civilian areas to do this (including unmanned versions).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDF_Caterpillar_D9
Been watching it for years. A great stain on history, with weapons paid for and built by Americans, not to mention a complicit media.
I suggest that you learn more about the Nakba, friend. [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
* surprise, it was in Rafah, the city formerly located in the wasteland from the article we're discussing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_paramedic_massacre
Let's be clear and honest: Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians and they routinely murder civilians as part of this.
https://earth.google.com/web/search/31%2e297226,+34%2e243649... - then click "show historical imagery" next to the search box.
What a lovely gift for Israel, funded by the people of the United States. Shameful.
Then they suggest that this is justified because Israel is a jewish ethnostate.
Hamas starting it is besides the point. We are capable of holding two different ideas in our heads: that what Hamas did to kick this off was reprehensible, and that what Israel has done since then has been horrifying.
I would personally argue that what Israel has done is far worse than what Hamas did, but it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with that. Israel has gone far far far beyond your notion of "fighting back".
> should work to destroy Hamas who are responsible for turning Gaza into such a hellhole.
Israel seems to be doing a good job of that on their own. And had been even prior to the current conflict.
They don't live there anymore, they're displaced.
Unironiclly, I think the US can be called one, too, at this point.
And this people has the dare of accusing other people of being propagandized.
It's not Genocide...
...because UN is corrupt...
...and numbers are from Khamassss,,,,
...and whatabout whatabout whatabout Iran Sudan....
...you hate us coz we're Jewssss....
Heck, I know so many Muslims critical of Muslim majority nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
2) Accusations of genocide, whether they stand up or not, are great fodder for whataboutism discussions. Let's say the world's two largest economies, the US and China, decided to start sanctioning Israel for what's happening in Gaza. You could expect other countries to start threatening actions against the US and China over their previous or current genocidal behaviors. These are obviously not things that the US and China want to deal with.
Please try posting more constructive content than unconvincing, blanket denials. It doesn't make for good discussion.
I won't go into details that support or refute this claim, but that is what the parent poster likely meant.
Also, blockade Israel proportionally to the Gaza blockades. I doubt they would have kept murdering red cross members in Gaza once the supermarkets started running out of food.
UN has no such power. I am still amazed how people do not get this.
Members need to vote for such things to happen. It wouldn't, not in this climate.
> What do you think world leaders should've done differently?
Members should have voted in the UN to deploy peace keeping troops. The UN does have that power if it's voted for. This isn't a question of the current realities but a question of what the right actions are.
Like it would've been a nice idea, until you realize that Hamas is heavily backed by Iran, Iran is helping Russia, Russia is invading Ukraine, and it starts to look like that level of intervention is a step towards a world war.
Then you notice world energy markets are going to be effected by a massive conflict etc.
If the UN went into Gaza, got attacked by Iran, then had to respond, next minute they're attacking a close Russian ally, and maybe even China might have to get involved in that.
What would've been good is if October 7 didn't happen, and that goes for both sides.
> Iran is helping Russia
lol, no, other way around. Though the Russia hasn't really been involved with Iran since Ukraine started. It's actually China that's the biggest Iranian trade partner.
The only party that'd be upset over UN peace keepers in Gaza is Israel.
Lie. It was a deal to get complete immunity for a massacre. Also, 'Civilian' per Hamas is anyone over 60. 'Let Hamas murder and keep nearly all hostages' was not in Israel's playbook.
>They reached out and were ignored.
Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.
>As Israel started to show genocidal intent (for example, killing aide workers multiple times)
Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.
>the UN should have deployed peace keepers
Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.
>our politicians are so bribed by Israeli lobby money
I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.
You are making stuff up. Nobody reports that Hamas was shooting for a "get out pillaging free" card. And the fact still remains that they tried to return 3 hostages to show good faith who the IDF proceeded to kill.
> Lie. There was repeated negotiations for two years after, with plenty of Hamas demands for the hostages. It was totally public too.
Hamas, on multiple occasions, agreed to all the terms only for Israel to reject the agreement and change the terms. That was all public. It's why the hostage families became really mad at the government.
> Literally not relevant. The US has much bigger errors in the current conflict.
Two wrongs don't make a right and yes, it's relevant when the IDF explodes clearly marked aid vehicles rendering aid. There's no reason to do that.
> Snort. Look at how successful they were in Lebanon. Peace keepers need to be willing to fight to keep the peace, and in this case, it meant fighting both sides. LOL.
Does that really matter? The question wasn't "how effective will this be" it's "What world leaders should have done". That's what world leaders should have done.
> I suggest looking at the far bigger Qatari and Saudi expenditures (didn't they just grant an entire 747?). It's more that US politicians recall the war on terror, and know all this nonsense will one day be sent back at them with much greater force (wasn't it 4 million deaths or so?), they have no wish for the precedent to be set and deployed at them.
These are weaker lobbies because of US laws. The likes of AIPAC and CUFI get around campaign finance restrictions because they are operated by US citizens (in behest of Israel). No other nation has that sort of organizations in the US. The closet you can find is things like the weirdo Shen Yun cult.
This allowed them to spend $60M in a democrat primary. You won't find that sort of direct spending from Qatar or the Saudis (barring the clear bribe in the Jet. They aren't exactly giving away jets to every primary run).
'Israel to withdraw and grant all other Hamas demands' is a 'get out free' card.
> they tried to return 3 hostages to show good faith who the IDF proceeded to kill.
These hostages _escaped_ and were shot in error. Not 'tried to return'. Note that there was a week's ceasefire a month earlier and Hamas could have returned everyone then if they cared to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Gaza_war_ceasefire
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/21/world/israel-hostages-cam...
>Hamas, on multiple occasions, agreed to all the terms only for Israel to reject the terms.
You mean all of 'Hamas's terms'. Right. The Israeli government had very different terms as the final deal (very different from what Hamas demanded) shows. The Israeli gov insisted on controlling the Egyptian border, Gaza demilitarization, etc.
>It's why the hostage families became really mad at the government.
Of course. They wanted the hostages out ASAP, and could only pressure the Israeli government (obviously Hamas wouldn't care for the families).
>Two wrongs don't make a right
Right, but there's such a thing as hypocrisy. One could make a 'genocidal' case against the country who started a war by bombing a schoolhouse and spoke of 'destroying an entire civilization' (it would still be wrong though). But they're a little too strong, and it's easier to pick on Israel.
>That's what world leaders should have done.
Most world leaders want to be reelected (or not be overthrown if they're dictators). Sending out troops to die in a foreign land for an arguably hopeless cause is not very helpful to that end. They're likely aware of the history of military involvement in the Middle East.
>The likes of AIPAC and CUFI get around campaign finance restrictions because they are operated by US citizens
Qatar etc. gets around it by donating billions to US universities or using organizations like ISNA. Everyone seems to have found a way.
What a bizarre claim and outright lie. They kept them locked up and starving. They could’ve just dropped them off near the border with Israel or Egypt, or handed them over to the Red Cross (which wasn’t even allowed to visit and check on the hostages).
I cited my source. But there were also sources in October 2023 about Hamas wanting to return the hostages. The Haaretz articles reveal that it was privately even earlier than expected and the Netanyahu was warned of the attack in advance yet he chose to do nothing about it.
Why not just drop them off? Well for 1 they actually wanted the hostages to get home alive. The IDF didn't care about killing hostages as they relentlessly bombed the region.
Why not let the Red Cross see them? Because the IDF was closely watching and, shocker, if you take someone directly to the hostages guess what building gets blown up next?
[1] https://quincyinst.org/research/the-eighth-front-inside-isra...
The peaceful route didn't work. Only idiots will think continuing with the status quo will result in anything different.
I heard the recordings the ecstatic guys screaming with pleasure that they murdered as many Jews as they could, one guy called his mother in ecstatic joy, it was absolutely sick shit.
Ukraine could blow up children's schools in Russia couldn't it? But it doesn't. Russia does though...
You can't just continue to 'mow the lawn' where children are killed and kidnapped, put into Israeli prisons, and expect no blowback.
You can't just shoot people in the knees while protesting peacefully, and then expect no blowback
You can't just rape Palestinian prisoners (most of whom have been arrested under no charges), and expect no blowback.
You can't just install bombs in pagers, and set it off amongst civilians, which resulted in children being injured or killed, and expect no blowback.
Sorry buddy, but your days of gaslighting is over.
Like my personal sentiment is, war is senseless, and both sides are wrong in some way or another. But yeah, I don't think children should be murdered period, so I'm not going to try and give a list of reasons why it's OK, because there isn't one.
Anyone committing war crimes should be punished for it, period.
My original question was simply, what should have been done differently "by the world leaders"?
Also, is Oct 7 enough justification to shoot 335 bullets at 6 year old Hind Rajab?
Your questions reek of bias by trying to centre everything to Oct 7, as though history began there. If you really cared about children, you'd have referenced the thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel before Oct 7.
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/google-maps-...
https://aifundingtracker.com/who-owns-alphabet/
Clearly not? Sometime like 2% of gazans have been killed. IDF could kill many many more if it wanted.
What would you respond?
If Hamas were to take one of those tunnel cities and Israel were doing guerrilla warfare from them I wouldn't blame Hamas for bulldozing.
Israel does have mandatory conscription. They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian. While in the military they're all fair targets, and if they're not serving, and at a music festival, they're not.
> They also have a firm and visible distinction between when someone is serving in the military and when they are civilian.
When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian". When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
And Hamas is permitted, as per the rules of war, to target that military infrastructure. If Israel has co-located it with civilian buildings, and attacks miss their targets, then too-bad for Israel.
>When you murder someone and squat on their land, you're not a "civilian".
This is very arguable for the West Bank settlers, but the Israeli civilians that were targeted by October 7 are not settlers and are in very solid Israeli land from a conflict 80 years prior. Arguing that all civilians in Israel proper are valid targets makes you no better than Smotrich and Ben-gvir, and you are essentially advocating for the genocide of Israelis.
Which is your right to do, I guess, but that's certainly not going to convince the (nuclear armed, remember) Israelis to moderate and compromise, or actually bring about justice for Palestinians.
> When someone murders your family and steals your land, you don't have to dress up in any particular outfit to defend yourself.
Military uniforms are for the protection of civilians. If you forgo them, then your civilians will receive more harm. Israel is responsible for their actions and many war crimes, but Hamas is responsible for theirs.
Israel under Netanyahu has done plenty to criticise but I would actually like to see an Israel/Palestine deal not the West following both sides into radicalisation.
What was Hamas' endgoal? What did they aim to achieve by slaughtering those innocents on Oct 07?
This result is exactly what the anti-Israel coalition wanted. They bet Bibi would go nuts and burn up the remaining global goodwill that Israel had, leaving them isolated.
He was invited to seek refuge in Medina.
I'm going to assume good faith in your framing, rather than intentional minimization. Suffice it to say, more has happened than "buildings were demolished", and those more things are the subject of the article. Like, for example, an entire city systemically flattened with every single civilian inhabitant killed or exiled on their own land.
To answer your question in that context: yes, that is unusual in war these days, because it is tantamount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If anything, the more apt historical comparison is to the Czechoslovakian and Polish partisans who wanted nothing less than to harry the Germans on (or within) their borders before the war. The British and French ambassadors (i.e. Qatar, etc) took great pains to try and convince the Polish and Czechoslovakian governments to restrain their partisans from attacking German people or positions, since they suspected Germany would use any and all provocation, no matter how small, as a casus belli. Anyone who's read a bit of WW2 history also knows how often the German government attempted to engineer exactly these kinds of events to justify their aggression.
It sounds straight out of the Likud playbook, doesn't it? But in what universe does an attack that kills 1000 people, a good number of them active duty soldiers, justify killing and maiming over 100,000 civilians and leveling hundreds of thousands of buildings? If the shoe were on the other foot, this implies Hamas also has the moral imperative to do just the same to Israel. That's moral relativism for you.
Perhaps Europe had a better understanding of this topic when they instituted the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian law after the war than we do today, 100 years out, trying to now claim none of it actually matters and the means justify the ends.
While the genocide case brought against Israel hasn't concluded as of now, to say there's no reason to believe this is genocide is incorrect.
If you’d like to share some sources (rather than only telling others to), maybe we can compare.
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...
[2] https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS...
[3] https://www.phr.org.il/en/genocide-in-gaza-eng/
[4] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...
[5] https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-exterminat...
[6] https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-response-is...
You don't have to check all the links mate, just check a few for the organisations or institutionsnyou know. Unless you think they're all Hamas, of course.
would you say the same?