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

No it’s Hamas’ fault for attacking civilians including babies on Oct 7th and threatening to carry out more such attacks until Israel no longer exists.

Yoir attempt to make my position out to be a racist one is ironic. Hamas commit pogroms against Jews.

It was only 5 years ago Israel was bringing Hamas suitcases of money from Qatar.

The Palestinian people may have voted for Hamas back in 2006, but there's no arguing that Israel helped support Hamas and help keep them in power up to at least 2018.

I'm consistent SeanW. You've convinced me that Israel bears no responsibility at all for making the unilateral decisions to target civilian areas with missile strikes. The reason being that some other lads had some tunnels. The same as Russia bears no responsibility at all for making the unilateral decision to target a theatre full of kids with missile strikes. With the same reason being that some other lads had some tunnels.

Trying to do mental gymnastics to achieve the cognitive dissonance to say that one is grand whereas the other is terrible is beyond my ability at this stage. I need some more teaching first.

Welcome to the twilight zone.

So? Even assuming Israel was actually funding Hamas (which they weren’t - they were simply letting money from Qatar through), would this somehow justify Hamas murdering Israeli women and children?

This is just about the most irrelevant and pointless response I’ve seen on here. Positively tragic. And to think you’re so proud of it that you’re now spamming it around the place - well, scraping the bottom of the barrel is putting it kindly.

No. I made no comment on anything reflecting badly on Israel. They are your words.

I was more than happy to have a bomb protected bedroom in case things kicked off.

The Palestinians in Gaza have nothing.

The comment was made (not by you) that Israelis were in danger in localities close the Gaza. I asked (not sure if there was a reply) how many Israelis in this areas has died since Oct 7. Compare that with how many Palestinians have died.

I then finished up with the piece about Palestinians killed in an area designated as safe by IDF.

Its sort of fascinating, in a rather odd way, that you chose not to engage in that part of my post.

Israel did more or less the same thing for former Irgun members

Presumably without such funds Hamas would not be able to mount any kind of attack. So it seems the cash was important. But not a justification.

Regardless of where the money came from, Israel knew it was coming in and chose not to stop it in order to hobble the PA. And now it has "blown up in their faces" (as reported by the Times of Israel).

Israel had the opportunity to prevent this. They chose not to. They gave Hamas the means to butcher Israelis.

Hamas is a terrorist organisation that wishes Israel to be wiped off the map.

What did Israel expect them to do with a shed load of cash?

The US have supported and funded many corrupt or worse regimes. From Cuba before Castro to Iran and other multiple middle eastern coups. They probably have done a lot more that we don't know. Sometimes it was right to support someone in the past - or a necessary evil at the time - as the alternative was worse.

It's really simple: your equations are fundamentally flawed because they're predicted on the assumption that Israel and Russia are exactly the same. The exact opposite is true in every conceivable respect.

Russia is the largest country on Earth. Israel is one of the smallest. Russia wants to kill all its neighbours, Israel's is trying to avoid being killed by its neighbours. Russia is an authoritarian kleptocracy, Israel is the closest thing the Middle East has to a secular democracy. Most importantly, the government of Gaza is a terrorist government whose stated and repeatedly manifest objective is to kill the Jews. Ukraine's stated and manifest objective is just to continue existing - at no time was Ukraine bent on the annihilation of Russia and all its people, nor has that been the objective of anyone since 1945. As to your ridiculous comparison with the Azov fighters, civilians were allowed to take refuge in the Azov steel works towards the end of the siege of Mariupol.

So I have literally no idea what you're getting at with your patently absurd comparisons, except to try to hoodwink people in thinking Israel is acting in a vacuum or to mislead people into think that Israel's situation is any way comparable to Russia's.

That is a lie. The ethnicity of the people involved is irrelevant. The background and context are what matters. Israel and Russia are not comparable in any way.

That is a lie. Israel's and Russia's situations are diametrically opposed in every imaginable respect. Your comparisons between the two are transparently absurd. The ethnicity of the peoples involved is irrelevant.

Repeating a lie - in your case that my standards have anything to do with the ethnicity of the people involved - does not make it true. The same is true of your bizarre comparisons between Israel and Russia.

Both of these are transparently absurd.

SeanW, I am not equating Israel with Russia. I am comparing the act the Russia did in bombing the theatre (when Azov had tunnels) with Israel bombing the sh1t out of residential areas and people on here saying that that is Hamas fault because Hamas have tunnels. And the reason I used it was that you no doubt agree that it would be nonsense to blame Azov rather than the Russians for the Russians bombing the theatre. But you are happy to blame Hamas rather than the IDF for the IDF making a conscious and targeted decision to blow the sh1t out of civilians. And the reason is that Hamas have tunnels for themselves and not civilians

If Israel blows up a load of civilians, the first excuse is "there was someone who looked like a Hamas fella nearby" so it is all Hamas fault.

Now we have - in the absence of that first excuse - if Israel blows up a load of civilians then "it is Hamas fault because Hamas don't have tunnels for the civilians". So it is all Hamas fault.

And the other one of course would be, if some civilians did seek shelter in a tunnel and the IDF blew them out of it or gassed them out of it or downed them by flooding, or collapsed the tunnel with bombs - well it would be all Hamas fault for using them as "human shields".

There is basically no scenario where you are willing to accept, or say, "well actually, maybe the IDF shouldn't have killed those civilians and kids"

It looked like you were equating the two. My standard is simple - Ukraine was not threatening Russia, so Russia has no casus belli against them, i.e. they are the aggressors. Gaza has been waging a long term war against Israel, so Israel has legitimate cause for war. Israel and Russia's motivations for war as well as strategic landscapes are also diametrically opposed. That's why I hold Israel to a different standard to Russia. And that's why I blame Hamas for everything that is happening now, and regard Israel as entitled to take vigorous self-defense. Same as I support Ukraine in doing literally whatever they have to do to make the Russians go away. Simple enough?

And I still don't understand your comparison between Hamas tunnels and the Azov tunnels. There was never any issue with Mariupol civilians getting shelter in the Azovstal works alongside the Azov brigade, again, the conduct of Ukrainian defenders and Hamas terrorists were diametrically opposed.