Except diplomacy did actually save many hostages. Also Israel could consider long term policies that made Hamas stronger. Including policies that directly aided Hamas while hurting the Palestinian Authority groups in order to keep the Palestinians divided.
When you talk about historical perspective do you consider the historical perspective that Israel has long maintained polices of collective punishment, land seizures and other policies that have made it impossible for the Palestinians to build a viable state or economy? Do you consider that Jewish extremists have sabotaged attempts at peace including assassinating Israel PM Rabin?
Thanks for your response, but it is a very evasive one. You are basically saying, well, they should have negotiated with the terrorists who just slaughtered and raped 1,200 people in Israel, with the focus being on getting the hostages back. But that ignores that Hamas - and with them, sadly, a very large percentage of the "Palestinians" and more people across the Muslim world, like @Exiled and others here - not only celebrated the October 7th murders and viewed them as a grand victory, but Hamas also announced that they would repeat October 7th again and again and again. They had been building up to this for 20+ years, creating a huge terror tunnel network and stockpiling weapons. In fact, Hamas' sole reason for existence is to kill Jews and eradicate Israel. All the attempts at appeasing them, at giving them free healthcare, even Sinwar the Hamas leader, had not changed a thing about Hamas' resolve to kill Jews and eradicate Israel. So "negotiations" and concessions would not remove the ongoing threat of a repeat of October 7th. Let me formulate my question more precisely: How do you suggest Israel should have gone about preventing another October 7 (or worse) happening to their civilian population? Remember, Hamas was also shooting countless rockets onto Israel all day, every day. It sounds like you would allow Israel only to act defensively (Iron Dome, border controls, etc.), but not to destroy Hamas' offensive capabilities, which is one goal of the current IDF operation. I have another question: Since we all know about the genocidal intent of Hamas, what do you say to the people who say Israel has been "blocking the borders" for Gazans and that that is "apartheid" and "occupation"? Do you think Gazans should be allowed to move freely into Israel, and that there should not be any checking of what goes into Gaza? What do you think Hamas would do in that case?
Used an AI to achieve maximum kills for people (while at home) to avoid “wasting” precision bombs. simultaneously classifying any male over 13 as a Hamas combatant and ..man…they’re in an impossible position!! some people are so edgy I also heard the earth was round but then I saw Coleman Hughes confirm it
Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange - Wikipedia Israel negotiated for the release of Gilad Shalit. They released over 1,000 prisoners, 280 serving life sentences for terrorism. It took over 5 years for Gilad Shalit to be released. It didn't result in a reduction of attacks by Hamas. If anything, it was a stark demonstration of the folly of negotiating with terrorists.
That's cold comfort when October 7th was carried out during a ceasefire. Diplomacy didn't stop that attack, it arguably enabled it. You will obviously disagree with that statement, so I'll go ahead and save you the reply and acknowledge that is how you feel. Sure, and I wouldn't argue otherwise. When I say "historical perspective" I'm not excluding anything. I thought that was pretty clear.
Yeah and I'm sure you'd NEVER criticize Biden if he told Netanyahu to not make a deal to secure American hostage's getting released to safety. The only thing I know that we can count on in regards to an opinion from you is that if you can reflect a negative opinion about Biden, you'll go there faster than Carl Lewis in 82. When it comes to conflict in the Middle East, rule of thumb is having absolutist positions will never end well for anyone.
I don’t know a single person, including my Arab friends that support Hamas, ISIS, Sharia law or Jihads. Are there people that support Hamas in the USA? Yes - but it is a small number. I remember there was a poll about 20 years ago in the USA where they added Hitler and Malcolm X as candidates for President and they both got between 5-10% of the vote. The point being there are always anarchists and some number of extreme extremists in the USA. So this idea that those that are critical of Israel and the IDF in the USA are supporters of Hamas is just not accurate. The reality is that the majority of the dead and dying in Gaza are not Hamas or ISIS. They are innocent civilians, the majority of which are women and children and the geriatric. Further - there are many Palestinians near death from hunger, a lack of water that is potable and a lack of medical care. These same civilians have seen their homes destroyed - all of this done many times by IDF. Also - while Christians in that region of the world (which I know much about) are not fans of Islam and that is something I hear Zionists often bring up. What they fail to bring up though, is that Christians in that area are often not fans of Israeli Jews either. They are often treated poorly by Jews and they do believe in many cases that Israel is engaging in calculated land grabs. The issue that I have noticed is that Hamas and Islamic Fundamentalists are very clear about their aims - as disgusting as they are. However, Zionists, they seem to live in this weird mind space where they think they are the "good guys" and that they are always the innocent victims - and that is not the case, and that is certainly not how most of the world sees them. Israel was established by taking land on the premise of "homeland" when there were other groups with a similar claim and/or lack a homeland. Second, the Jews pushed out the Palestinians that were already on that piece of land. Then Israel did not give citizenship to the Palestinians that remained for many years. Israel has controlled Gaza and the Westbank as a vassal state for many, many years. It also has encouraged Jewish settlement in that same area. Those are not actions of "good guys". Even now - I hear "well what should we have done after October 2023? What I never hear is ANY responsibility or culpability for the actions of Israel that played a part in leading up to the event. An acknowledgment of the situation being gray and not black and white from Israelis would go a long way - as well as an acknowledgment that the IDF is murdering a large number of Palestinian civilians. We don't get that - instead we get an incredible amount of blind entitlement and feigned shock that the rest of the world has an issue with what is happening. This isn't necessarily a situation of "taking sides" and if sides are going to be taken, we need to be honest with history and what is actually going on.
And killing Muslims civilians only plays in the hands of Israel’s enemies and will cause Israel to lose support in the US and globally. Also **** Bibi and his power grab.
This. Israel has increasingly allowed the Jewish extremists to gain more power and influence policy. Frankly this has been an increasing global theme, where religious extremists from the US to the Middle East to India are causing chaos.
If I have to choose between getting murdered and "losing support globally" I am going to chose to lose support globally every time. I'm guessing that the civilian death count might not be so high if Hamas wasn't actively trying to martyr those same civilians, fyi.
The idea that Israel just has to accept repeats of Oct 7th attacks unless they continue on their current course does not make sense to me. Why not something like this as a third choice? (1) Beef up defenses around Gaza to prevent another October 7th. The attack required major intelligence and defense failures on the Israeli side which has not gotten sufficient attention. (2) End all diplomatic relations with Hamas in Gaza or abroad. They are not partners in peace. (3) Work with PA on movement towards 2-state solution. Cease development of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Condition inclusion of Gaza as part of that process on Hamas being voted out of power in democratic elections. Give Palestinians a reason to go with the more moderate party and throw out Hamas.
I don't think Hamas (or more importantly their ideals) are going anywhere anytime soon, regardless of what Israel or Palestinians do outside of a very violent culling to destroy them.
The problem is that the current “violent culling” approach to combating that ideology is not effective. It amounts to violence against the whole Gaza population because of how Hamas embeds itself, which only increases support for Hamas and their ideology. The simultaneous expansion of West Bank settlements and erosion of Palestinian rights there compounds the problem.
Mostly disagree, but of course you already knew that. Where I agree with you, at least in a sense, is that I think that even if Israel snapped its fingers and made Hamas disappear they would just start dealing with violence from other sources soon enough. It's not like once Hamas goes away that suddenly there's no Muslims left in a 500 mile radius who want to see Israel eradicated.
It's this refusal to believe that brown people in the middle east can be motivated by suppression of their hierarchy of needs rather than being inherently ideologically evil that makes you kinda a bigot.
You are a rational person. If Hamas and the "Palestinians" were rational people, that would make sense. But they do not want a 2-state solution. This conflict is not about land for them, even if they say so. They want to kill all Jews and eradicate Israel. And the more air to breathe you give Hamas, the more weapons they will stockpile, the more they will prepare for the next attack, and eventually, the next attack will inevitably be worse. Asking Israel to stop now is asking them to let Hamas win.
You are a lawyer, so you know they are not murdering them. You have someone pointing a loaded gun at you with the intent to kill you and about to fire their second shot, after already having shot at you, while hiding behind their child. Your only chance to survive is to shoot faster, even at the risk of killing the human shield. If you regrettably kill the human shield in the process, that is not murder.
