this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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I don’t disagree with any of that… the only part I was taking issue with was saying “there is a level of truth” that the armed forces of both sides are working for safety of both sides.
If the IDF stopped killing innocent people, it would dramatically increase the level of safety in the future for the loved ones of the soldiers. And likewise for Hamas.
I mean obviously having 0 Israeli military isn’t gonna work; I do get what you’re saying. But put it this way; if Hamas had disappeared entirely on October 6th, everyone on all sides would be a hell of a lot safer today.
Do you see any scenario where the IDF can allow itself to truly stop Innocent people? A soldier is being fired at from a school, should the soldier allow himself to get killed in such situation?
And vice versa, considering what you know about setlers in Israel, do you really think that they will not get even more violent in the west bank if they know that their actions has no cost?
And don't get me wrong, I wish for Hamas to vanish, and I wish for the IDF to kill only militants (even that definition is not clear), just like you. But I don't see any realistic scenario (considering the human spirit) that this can happen. Not in the current political situation.
The whole concept is bankrupt. An IDF soldier is being fired at from a school because he is on Palestinian land, occupying it by force to maintain the land that was stolen from the Palestinians and facilitate the taking of more.
There are degrees. If he’s sniping schoolchildren, then that will inflame the conflict more and promote more October 7ths. If he’s “only” firing back at the school, so “defending” himself… well, it’s “better” I guess, but if you break in my house in the middle of the night and I attack you, you’re not “defending” yourself even if you limit yourself to fighting with me and not hurting my wife.
Their actions don’t seem to have a cost though. Or rather the mechanism of retribution is so indirect and random that I don’t think that Hamas’s counterattacks make all that much difference to their calculus of what they can get away with doing to the Palestinians. I could be wrong, but that’s my impression.
Like I said, even “killing only militants” leaves Israel in the position of the war criminal. They are invading and stealing homes, farms, anything they can find and pushing the Palestinians into a vanishingly small series of refuges which they then invade in turn. Why would “militants” not fight back in that scenario? What should they do instead?
I do agree with your take on how unrealistic peace is in the present climate. It needs to be imposed from outside by force in order to happen, which won’t happen, because the US would need to be actively involved in making that happen and the US likes things more or less as they are (or at least as they were before the counterattack after October 7th got so genocidal that it started causing political issues for leaders in the US).
I mean, you have that many hostages, who would not be released without strong military force on Hamas/Gaza. There's a reason that the soldiers are there. I agree that a deal should be made, should have been made 8months ago, but this is not the soldiers' fault, but rather the politicians (Bibi and Sinwar). If you break into someone's house, and take their son away, don't be surprised if that someone is coming back to get them back, hurting your own kids in the way if your refuse to do so.
The thing is that while Israeli left is openly demanding that the settlers will be punished for their crimes, the world left is giving Hamas "a free pass" to do whatever they want, including holding their own civilians hostages. Same for the IDF, Hamas constantly, and purposely shoots rockets on cities and towns in Israel. Again purposely from within civil location. Should Israel just "accept?" Pay the absurd cost of every iron dome rocket while waiting for Hamas to learn how to outperform it?
This lack of global pressure on Hamas of disarming itself brings down the legitimacy of the claims of the left in Israel. People here can't and won't rely on foreign forces to protect the Israeli border. I myself don't rely on that (technically the UN holds the border between israel and Lebanon and we see how useless this is).
So, again, both parties are absolutely sure that they are protecting their home, they don't, in effect, but they have no way out of it due to politics and corruption (of both sides' leaders).
First what needs to happen is the US stop unconditionally funding the IDF.