Hamas strike on Israel - Threadbans in op - mod warning in OP updated 19/10/23

Do you realise how bad it sounds when the best defence of Israel you can muster is to go back to some of the worst atrocities in all of recorded human history that we all learned about in school in the context that this must never ever be allowed to happen again, and in response to which most of today's international organisations, treaties, conventions and laws around war were created in order to stop such crimes against humanity ever happening again, and then declare Israel are totally justified in what they're doing because maybe it has possibly not quite reached that level yet?

Dresden was controversial, even at the time. There was disquiet in England once it gradually became clear that a non military city had been attacked and destroyed and tens of thousands of innocent civilians had been killed. There were even editorials in the British press seriously questioning what had happened and why it had been necessary to bomb the city.

Israel and pro-regime extremists seem to be under the impression that the bombing of Dresden was popular and deemed necessary at the time.

You're confusing non-Israelis, residents of the occupied territories, with Israeli Arabs, who are 20% of the population of Israel, and have the same legal rights as any other Israelis. Non Israelis don't have the same rights as Israelis, same as non Americans don't automatically have residency/working rights in the US.

The reason Israel is occupying territories goes back to the attacks on Israel by neighbouring countries who thought their numerical superiority meant they'd easily destroy Israel completely. They lost those wars, and while Israel continues to occupy some of the territory they won back then, they've given most of it back, including Gaza, the Sinai and most of the Golan Heights near Syria.

Israel claims that while Hamas, PIJ and others continue to launch rocket attacks from the areas it controls, they can't allow Palestinians to control strategic areas that would make, for example, life in Tel Aviv completely impossible.

And yes I know there is also an extremist section of Israelis who think that the only solution is to annihilate Palestine as a political entity completely - but that's a view that only gained significant support as Palestinian terrorism within Israel has proved impossible to eradicate by other means. The Oct 7th attacks will likely have strengthened that view, not diminished it.

But to come back to Israeli Arabs, many of them are choosing to join the IDF to fight against Hamas: significant majority of them support Israel in this war. They know they don't live in an apartheid state.

" Do you think Iran or USA is the bigger destabilizer in the middle east?"

You need to ask the people of the region for the answer and i would be 100% certain that we know what the answer would be.

Eh? Israelis are annexing land and building settlements because they want land not because of any threat to them. Unless the Palestinian children in the west bank routinely murdered by both IDF and Israeli settlers were threats to the state?

The controversy was not so much that they did it, but that at that point in the game they didn't need to do it. Either way, it is a false equivalence for people to trot it out.

Whatever strategic argument you could have for bombing a city in WWII, there is no argument in Gaza. Gaza is full of people who have been living on the breadline for generations. It isn't exactly a manufacturing hub for military operations

So, are you just learning that common soldiers can be a-holes? That’s been true of every war throughout history, whether it’s been English soldiers in Ireland in 1649, or Napoleon’s forces at Austerlitz in 1805, or pretty much everyone on the ground in WW2, or American soldiers in Vietnam. I would want to see those IDF soldiers getting a bollocking from their sergeant for cheering like that. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking this cheering is some official Israeli government policy.

I’m sure Israel has intelligence that Hamas wear clothes, therefore anyone in Palestine wearing clothes is a legitimate target.

I think it's high time a proper worldwide boycott against Israel was put in place. They have taken this too far now at this stage.

Yes they lost 1200 of their people, but I don't see how killing 15000 of 'the other side' balances things out. And by the time they are done, who knows what the final death toll will be?

Throw them out of all sporting competitions etc.

Nothing like Russia and Ukraine: Ukraine is recognised as a state by the UN - as is Israel. It's not on land "stolen" from Palestine because there never was a Palestinian state: there was the Ottoman Empire, and when it broke up, lots of new states, including Israel, but also Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, were recognised by the UN. Are they all "stolen"?

Palestine alone never managed to be properly set up because the Palestinians refused the land they'd been given. They wanted all of it. They refused to accept the existence of Israel, went to war to destroy the Jewish state (from the River to the Sea) and lost the war.

That's what happens when you lose wars - you lose land.

But the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they never learned from their past mistakes and have always prioritised destroying Israel over creating a workable Palestinian state.

They're an illustration of what Ireland could have been if we hadn't accepted the Treaty but had kept on using all our resources to fight the British for the last 90 years. Whatever about the treaty being controversial at the time, I think history has shown that the wise thing is to accept some level of compromise and set up your state.

This is pretty much Israeli regime propaganda you are giving us here and the official Israeli position. The Israelis were beyond reasonable and generous at all times but the Palestinians were rejecting everything - the only reason there isn't peace in the region is because of the Palestinians etc (how convenient).

According to Israeli press the hostages killed by the IDF were waving makeshift white flags and shouting for help in Hebrew

Adding links not working

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67732353

The IDF are trigger happy.

It's not a war when only one side has an army. This is closer to shooting fish in a barrel than it is a war.

And as for it being clean. Link

And Link

And as for this.

Whataboutery, Imagination level.