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Israeli military leaflets were dropped ordering evacuation from eastern neighborhoods of Rafah, warning that an attack was imminent and anyone who stays “puts themselves and their family members in danger.” Text messages and radio broadcasts repeated the message.
God, I'd be so pissed if I got one of those leaflets. The audacity of someone who bombs a residential home to blame you for all the children that they murder
I suspect you would be even more pissed if you hadn't received any prior warning. This is the least terrible option.
The least terrible option is not invading...
And then what? For how long is this war supposed to last?
Hamas needs to be defeated, the remaining living hostages liberated - and this requires boots on the ground. The sooner Hamas are out of the picture as a major threat to both Israelis and Palestinians, the sooner the war will be over. This is the best hope Palestinian civilians have. Once the organization has been dismantled to the point that nothing more than tiny, relatively easy to deal with splinter cells remain, international aid can pour into the strip without being disrupted by the fighting, without terrorists stealing it, without the whims of the current far-right government in Israel (whose days are numbered) limiting it. Then rebuilding can begin and the international community can start work on a sustainable post-war order - which needs to involve substantial changes to Palestinians society, governance, education and media (no more UN-funded schools teaching kids to murder Jews, for example) - that paves the way towards a two-state solution. A two-state solution has been pushed into the far future by the October 7 massacres, but the process can't even begin for as long as Hamas are still in a position of power.
They literally cannot defeat Hamas. Not only are they not all located in Gaza, but murdering so many civilians makes the civilians want to strike back at Israel, which means more recruits.
This is not about defeating Hamas, this is about constructing a famine in order to drive Palestinians from Gaza (i.e. ethnic cleanse Gaza).
Hamas and their cause are considerably is less popular in Gaza than in the West Bank according to independent Palestinian polls. This more recruits talking point that I see repeated all the time has no basis in reality. The uncomfortable truth is that people in places that have been bombed by Israel are less likely to consider armed resistance a valid option and are instead dramatically preferring a two-state solution now:
https://i.imgur.com/gRNX0Qb.png
https://i.imgur.com/MgDk1PU.png
Source: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/973
I think that most Palestinians who have been unfortunate enough to be at the receiving end of Israeli weapons and lucky enough to survive are starting to realize just how enormous the disparity in capabilities has become.
The land in Gaza is near worthless to Israel. There are almost no natural resources, the soil is of abysmal quality and fresh water is highly contaminated by seawater. The only resources that exist in abundance are sunlight and salt water. It's an awful place to settle, which is one of the reasons why Israel was willing to forcefully evict their remaining settlers in the Gaza Strip in 2005 and why today, only a far-right fringe wishes for Israelis to settle in the strip again. It is completely pointless to ethnically cleanse Gaza and has no majority within Israeli society.
There are other reasons for there being a famine in Gaza right now; it's not some dastardly Israeli master plan:
Before you think I'm some mindless defender of Israel (or, worse, a Hasbara), read this: I detest the current Israeli government with a passion, just like any other far-right government. I'm frequently horrified by public statements by leading Israeli politicians, I think that the war has exposed serious operational deficiencies within the IDF, I think that individual soldiers and officers who recklessly endanger civilians or, worse, commit war crimes need to be far more seriously punished than they already are and every nation that has friendly relations with Israel should never stop pressuring them to conduct themselves as best as they can in this war.
However, I do not subscribe to the belief that Israel is guilty of committing a genocide in this war. Note that I am not denying individual war crimes - those are being committed by Israeli soldiers, there is no doubt about it - but I have seen no evidence of there being a master plan to eradicate Palestinians as a people or even attempt it. The enormous lengths the IDF goes to warning Palestinian civilians alone - to the detriment of military operations - should put this hypothesis to rest. In my opinion, and you are free to disagree, this is merely a war and wars are universally terrible. Most of us, especially in the West, have been shielded from the realities of warfare, especially the fact that it's civilians who are always and in every single war suffering the most, for so long that we are mentally unprepared for a war that is as heavily "televised" (outdated term, I know, but still appropriate) as this one.
Combine this with a shocking lack of knowledge of international law and international affairs among the wider population, even in reasonably educated circles like young academics, a massive multi-national disinformation campaign (Russia, Iran, China, Qatar as the four big players) finding fertile soil and it's not difficult to see why a small number of easily debunked talking points are dominating public discourse. It's incredibly frustrating to see idealistic, well-meaning people fall for this. It makes me fear for the future of the developed world, if I'm honest. How will they react to the likely coming war against Taiwan, for example? How easily could they also be manipulated into taking China's side there or Russia's side in a possible attack against the Baltics?
Sorry for the long diatribe. I don't blame anyone for tuning out after the fifth paragraph or sooner.
However, I do not subscribe to the belief that Israel is guilty of committing a genocide in this war. Note that I am not denying individual war crimes - those are being committed by Israeli soldiers, there is no doubt about it - but I have seen no evidence of there being a master plan to eradicate Palestinians as a people or even attempt it. The enormous lengths the IDF goes to warning Palestinian civilians alone - to the detriment of military operations - should put this hypothesis to rest. In my opinion, and you are free to disagree, this is merely a war and wars are universally terrible. Most of us, especially in the West, have been shielded from the realities of warfare, especially the fact that it’s civilians who are always and in every single war suffering the most, for so long that we are mentally unprepared for a war that is as heavily “televised” (outdated term, I know, but still appropriate) as this one.
i'm sorry, but putting the blame for war crimes on individual soldiers is just deflecting from the institution that is arming and deploying those soldiers. you don't get to bomb hospitals, aid workers, mosques, and schools and then defer the blame from that kind of abhorrent destruction onto your soldiers. if they're using IDF guns, bombs, and uniforms to kill tens of thousands of people, displace so many from their homes, and prevent food and humanitarian aid from entering the region to the point that famine is spreading, then the IDF, and by extension the Israeli government, is responsible for those deaths. as for there being no evidence of a "master plan to eradicate Palestinians as a people or even attempt it", if you're genuine in that belief, actually look at what the people who are accusing Israel of genocide are saying. there is credible evidence of both a genocide in practice and in intent. israeli and jewish scholars of genocide and the holocaust disagree with you. the UN disagrees with you. the ICC disagrees with you.
Sorry, but you think that war crimes committed by "individuals" who just so happen to go on to not face any serious punishment, is not evidence of a concerted effort to commit genocide? The indiscriminate bombing of civilians, ordered by the Israeli military's leadership is not genocidal?
How about comments from the Prime Minister himself comparing Palestinians to Amalekites, a group his religion said needed to be exterminated in their entirety
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass
1 Samuel 15:3
Or how about when another high-ranking member of his party says that Israel's goal is
Erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.
Is that enough evidence that the goal here is genocide? Would anything suffice?
I find this comment disturbing in so many ways. I think an example that really sums up what's wrong with it is
Israel unsurprisingly puts the safety of their soldiers above the concerns of local farmers.
"Concerns of local farmers" isn't the main issue with crop destruction. Famine and starvation are.
And the binary between being blown up by ieds and destroying fields is a false dichotomy. A better way of phrasing it would be:
Israel puts expediency above the lives of local civilians.
The UN doesn't declare famine until 30% of a population's children are displaying physical signs such as muscle wasting. This is really serious. We saw it two years ago with the deliberate famine in Ethiopia and now we're seeing it in Gaza.
Hamas isn't a group, it's an ideology*. An ideology created and reinforced by the actions of the Israeli government. And I mean that in the most literal way possible. Netanyahu himself is on record having helped prop up Hamas because having a more violent group helped to delegitimise the Palestinian democracy and weaken the parties they thought of as more likely to succeed.
The only acceptable response here is a total, unilateral surrender from Israel. For them to give back Palestinians all of their land to at least the 1967 borders (but ideally 1947) and to treat the nation of Palestine with the same respect they would give any other foreign country.
Anything less is just Israel continuing to perpetuate the violence that they created.
We look back at apartheid South Africa and say that yeah, violent resistance on the part of black activists was justified and fair. At the time they were called terrorists, same as Hamas today. The same is true of Irish independence movements, of American civil rights activists, and many other movements throughout history.
You can't oppress people for decades and then act all surprised and indignant when they lash out against that.
* yes, it is actually a group and its members are awful people who, ideally, would be stopped. But it is a group formed with an ideology and even if every current member is killed, an identical group will spring up as long as the conditions creating it exist. The idea of stopping the group is a complete fantasy.
Excellent summary
You realize that they can't defeat Hamas, right? By killing all these kids families, the are making the situation worse for future generations.
By "boots on the ground" do you mean killing children?
"Think of the children" has rarely ever been used rationally and your comment is no exception. No, that's obviously not what I'm saying and you know that. The sooner the war is over, the fewer children will die.
So you mean "kill children faster".
this is not "think of the children". its "tens of thousands of children have died, and will die, as a result of the actions of the Israeli government". we aren't appealing to the potential harm that might come to children, we are recognizing the current and ongoing slaughter of children and adults happening in Gaza.
"Think of the children" as a phrase is meant to satirize the fallacious appeals of "moral panic" arguments in support of conservative social values.
Your idea that it also covers arguments for literally not killing children is odd. There's nothing necessarily fallacious about singling out children as a subset that it's especially important to avoid killing.
In this case half the civilians are children and they are being killed, so it's a reasonable thing to want to stop.
The implication of your use of the phrase here is that no one should consider children's wellbeing even when real harm is being done to them. I find that idea dystopian and inhumane.
This would be slightly more believable if Rabin wasn't assassinated and Netanyahu didn't basically tear up the Oslo accords.
Also, Netanyahu marched about calling for Rabin's death prior to his assassination. Important extra context.
This isn't an evacuation from a natural disaster like a hurricane. They could , you know, just stop the disaster from happening by not bombing civilian infrastructure (which is a war crime)
No, it's not a war crime to bomb civilian infrastructure that is being used for military purposes. This distinction appears to be entirely lost on people. I'll let you think about why the Geneva Convention explicitly creates this exemption.
If Hamas wasn't using their own population as human shields and shooting rockets from next to the refugee camps then perhaps there would be no need for it. I also find it quite ironic how they're yet again criticized for bombing civilians while there's a perfect example right there of to which lenghts they're going to warn them beforehand. I doubt Hamas did that before shooting rockets at the aid delivery corridor a few days back. Again, 350 meters from a civilian campsite.
Wait until you hear about what happened in Baghdad
This isn't an Israeli proposal.
Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari proposal, which Israel is examining.
This isn't some sort of completed deal yet.
They’re examining it for way that they can accept and still bomb the shit out of Rafah
They are examining it and evaluating how much this is just for Hamas to regroup and rearm. But I suppose most here would cheer unabashedly for yet another Hamas rocket attack on Israeli homes.
whose rockets have been raining down on whose homes? the appeal of a potential future threat to Israeli lives outweighing the current, present threat towards magnitudes more Palestinian lives is played out. people here aren't ride or die for Hamas, they just acknowledge that leveling cities, hospitals, and schools, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, and preventing them from getting food is both not likely to lead to less rockets on Israeli homes, and is in itself an act of genocide. when did appeals to not killing innocent Palestinians become support for Hamas to you? when did persistent, unending violence against the Palestinian people become "self-defence"?
Why would you say that? Do you think everyone is just really jazzed about death? I think you seem to have missed the point of the outcry.
They shouldn't have to accept anything less than Statehood.
If what Israel brings to the table "we'll stop committing war crimes if you X", then they haven't brought anything to the table.
You can't bargen on stopping genocide. It doesn't work like that.
Hamas' idea of statehood is a global Islamic caliphate, according to their own words. For obvious reasons, this won't ever be on the table.
I mean Statehood for Palestine. There will never be peace until Israel stops occupying and invading their neighbors
Uhh you might want to provide a link for that bc their 2017 policy document says very, very differently.
Tons of examples here, including several that are newer than from 2017:
Yes, I'm aware that Memri has a pro-Israel bias (to say the least), but all of these examples are literally from the horse's mouth, just collected in one place here.
By the way, I hope you are not naive enough to believe in the milder language of that 2017 charter. Among other things, it claims that Hamas believes in pluralism and democracy. That's obviously a lie and so are most of the rest of the revised points.
Maybe Netanyahu should have thought about that before he funded Hamas.
Weird to see a non-biased post about this conflict with a respectable news source on Lemmy.
/s
Certainly beats the likes of https://officialhamasfanclubandfakenewsfactory.ir (URL only slightly exaggerated) that are usually posted around here.
Lemmy has a serious sourcing issue, just across the board.
And people get really angry with you if you point out that their sources are awful. It's kind of eye-opening, proving that the far-left can be just as susceptible to blatant misinformation and resistant to rational thinking as the far-right.
It's human nature!
Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.
First lines of the article. Very misleading title
There is already a deal that has been negotiated and signed off by Isreal. I'm wondering if the phrasing from the article suggest hamas has signed off on something completely different essentially resetting peace talks.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.
