Netanyahu tells Israel ‘We are at war’ after Hamas launches an unprecedented attack, killing at leas

Good article explaining why both Netanyahu and Hamas have no problem with continuing the war.
Joe Biden is desperate for this war to end – but neither Netanyahu nor Hamas is in any hurry | Jonathan Freedland

US support may be essential for Israel’s national interest, but in a contest of Biden v Ben-Gvir [Netanyahu's far right minster of national security], there was only going to be one winner. Without the latter’s support, Netanyahu loses his coalition. Suddenly, he will have to face the voters itching to punish him for the failures that led to 7 October, as well as the courts, for a resumed trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Which is why he will always buckle to the bigots to his right. It may have Netanyahu’s name on it, but this is Ben-Gvir’s government now.

It’s the same logic that has led Netanyahu to drag his feet in talks to broker a ceasefire and release the Israeli hostages still held in the darkness by Hamas. Biden wants him to do a deal, because Biden needs this war over. The Israeli public want him to do a deal, because they are desperate to bring the captives home. But Ben-Gvir is the man who opposed the last and only agreed hostage release deal, back in November. He prefers to keep pounding Gaza, harder and harder, in search of an illusory and impossible victory. And because that’s what Ben-Gvir wants, that’s what Netanyahu gives him – even if it means pushing Biden into an ever tighter corner.

Still, Biden and Netanyahu are not the only players in this bleak drama. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, has his own calculations, his own determination to remain in charge. Those who have studied him closely believe his priority is not so much an end to the killing of innocent civilians – on the contrary, the more Gazans who die, the more damage that does to the international standing of his enemy, Israel – but rather a scenario that allows him to claim victory. Sinwar thought he had that earlier this week, with the deal Hamas loudly accepted. The stumbling block is the agreed duration of any cessation of violence. Sinwar does not want it to be temporary, even if that would save many lives and ease the misery of Gaza. He wants a declaration that the war is permanently over. And for that he can wait.

And so there is no deal, because neither Netanyahu nor Sinwar believes what’s on offer serves their interests. As the former US state department official Aaron David Miller puts it: “The only party that’s really in a hurry is Biden.” Though that’s not quite right. Also in a hurry are the hostages and their families, whose agony has endured for more than 200 days, and the civilians of Rafah, huddled in tents, grieving their tens of thousands of dead, without running water or sanitation. They’re in a hurry too. But no one is listening to them.
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Name all of the democratically run Muslim countries. Name all of the Muslim countries who support what we consider liberal values. As a general rule Islam calls for spreading the faith and killing infidels. That’s not to say all, or even most Muslims practice or support that but the number is high enough to make things problematic.

read this article from 2009 NYT

Fighter Sees His Paradise in Gaza’s Pain (Published 2009)

Note the glee the injured Gazan took in seeing suffering women and children. He was eager to get back out and fight and be martyred.

This is a fundamental difference that is difficult or perhaps impossible to reconcile with western values.

 

im talking about the ideological conflict. Which Israel is losing. Badly. And they’re losing it because a desperate politician doesn’t want to lose power, is bowing to right wing zealots in his government, and a terrible person in charge of Hamas is willing to burn civilians to topple the Israelis. I’m not talking about poison darts in the night. Israel could risk more military casualties by using less bombs, but they aren’t. So yeah once again they are playing right into Hamas hands. And they seemingly don’t care or just don’t understand.

 

you don’t have to be nice to them - just avoid turning cities into wastelands or you’re playing right into their hands.

 

So now you are just moving the ball from 'terrorism' to Muslims cant do liberal governance and just want to kill infidels? Anyways I think this is a load of bullshit if not downright racist. As I've stated before in these arguments, many of those countries did possess well educated people with secular and liberal values, they even elected them in places like Iran of all countries. There were many fledgling democratic movements in the Middle East post-WWII. Unfortunately they were not good capitalists and so we cultivated nationalists and religious fanatics to kill them or remove them from power because of the Cold War. And now that is what you have in the region, including in Israel, which is no model for democracy any sane person would hold up given its apartheid setup. No one in here is arguing that Jews cant run a country without doing mass murder and waging war, even though the only example of a country like that is currently doing that. But the kind of crap you are saying here passes for some kind of truth, when its just plain ignorance.

 

There were several, but we overthrew them to put pro-American dictators in power, and those countries have all shifted towards extremism.

 

Iran was doing social democracy in the 1950s, passing social security measures and progressive reforms. Then they nationalized their oil industry.

Mohammad Mosaddegh - Wikipedia

 

You can hypothesize what may have happened if left on their own. We just don’t know. It’s a stretch to just assume they’d be “normal” and accepting of western values. Perhaps half, or even a majority may have been, but they don’t have the conviction to overturn their theocratic loving oppressors.

It is absolutely true we tipped the scales in the region with oil and support of brutal dictators. But what’s done is done. It isn’t fixable. We all got excited about the Arab Spring and look how that turned out.

 

Just don’t understand why the Gazan refugees are starving and not getting the UNRWA aid….and why the IDF is shooting indiscriminately at UN trucks and ambulances. It’s genocide and war crimes.

I’m sure it’s the IDF fault for sending the aid in the first place. If they didn’t send it then Hamas couldn’t steal it and if the IDF wasn’t there then Hamas wouldn’t have to hide in UN trucks and ambulances

 

you literally couldn’t be more wrong if purposely just made shi- up. So Israel
Could risk more IDF casualties by bombing less? Thats brilliant. Wonder why they don’t consider that? they could go tell their families and soldiers. Hey guys. We need more of you to die so slayerxing thinks it’s fair, you know…. All those people that live 1000s of miles away don’t think this is fair so let’s sacrifice more young IDF men and women. Have you considered that Israel believes they are in a fight for their existence and the idiotic notion of withholding weapons just makes them feel more isolated and MORE likely to do what you are claiming they do……in order to survive ?

 

I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse in this conversation.
It's not about fricken fair or unfair, what are you, a child?
There is a larger political game being player here. A game of optics.
Again, consider that Hamas has intelligent leaders (cruel sadistic bastards, but intelligent). They attacked Israel KNOWING how Israel would respond.
So they set up their operations in the middle of civilians, and waited for the bombs to start dropping.
Now most of the world is upset at Israel INSTEAD OF THE TERRORISTS. New Polling Shows How Much Global Support Israel Has Lost
It's actually a brilliant, (and truly diabolical, evil) strategy. But Israel, in their desperation for revenge, keeps walking right into it.
There are many ways to wage war in modern times - dropping 300,000 bombs in 6 months on an area of land about twice the size of DC but with 3x the people is certainly one way, but not a way that will win you many allies.

But by all means - Israel, you go blow up those cities. I'm sure that will solve ALLLLL of your problems. Yep this is the best strategy ever, why didn't the US think of this one? I'm sure those terrorists will just pee their pants and never bother you again...

 

Meh. Your pseudo data opinions-presented-as-fact pieces are about as interesting as they are accurate. Which is to say not really at all.

Before becoming bored, I waded through much of the above one without finding the opinion of the 90% that you quote (though I did read many other opinions)....and it was no different than the previous Newsweek opinion you posted about how revolutionary it was that Israel killing so many civilians was actually an impressive thing. Given that these pseudo-statistics have no accurate way of truly discerning killed Hamas fighters from killed male civilians, and are reputed to count workers in a Hamas-led government as fighters.....they are as totally irrelevant and inaccurate as Natanyahu's recent laughable claims on Hamas fighters killed.


Which brings us to what IS actually relevant; Israel is slaughtering 10s of thousands of civilians -women and children- in what will ultimately be a counterproductive endeavor that will only cause more support for Hamas. To say nothing of the probable impending famine event that is forecast to affect over 1,000,000 (already homeless and displaced) people.

It is not just WAR CRIMES, it is counterproductive war crimes.

 

It's like talking to my kids. Just saying war crimes, now in caps doesn't make it true. The level of ignorance in this thread is staggering, even for too hot.

 

Zero substance in your posts ever. It's like talking to my dog.

Take a lap, sport.

 

Again, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or you just aren't intelligent enough to come up with something on your own. Draw your own conclusion.

 

welllllll. The 90% number is not opinion. As I stated over and over and over is the 90% number is the number the UN gave to average civilian death in urban combat. That article below was written in may 2022. I also said it can vary slightly by conflict but not by much. So my basic UF math can wag some numbers and at the point of 30,000 total killed that 3,000 would be Hamas fighers if we went along historic averages for urban combat. At the 30,000 mark even Hamas admitted more then 3,000 fighters had been lost. Those are not war crime statistics. Also keeping in mind that even the most ardent opposition to IDF will admit that Hamas uses kids and women and elderly as shields and has no issue executing them to help influence outsiders. It’s cheap and effective tactically and strategically. Lastly adding the anecdotal video of Hamas fighters literally walking around refugee camp getting in and out of UN aid trucks to help better understand why it’s possible that “WAR CRIMES” is not the answer to the question of “why is the IDF shooting at UN trucks and ambulances?” Again. Have your opinion. Just know Hamas is counting on it.

Ninety Per Cent of War-Time Casualties Are Civilians, Speakers Stress, Pressing Security Council to Fulfil Responsibility, Protect Innocent People in Conflicts | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm


Urban warfare has a catastrophic impact on civilian populations and poses serious legal and operational challenges. In cities — where 55 percent of the world’s population currently
resides — civilians account for 90 percent of the casualties during war.

 

And again, you post "statistics" that are either inaccurately attributed or just plain inaccurate. Your link to the Center for Civilians in Conflict does is not directly coming from the UN, unless their attribution has been buried among the verbage.

So you found an anti-war organization who explains why war is bad due to civilian casualties....and use their conclusions to justify why it is indeed good to slaughter women and children in Gaza. Ironic and sad, but amusing.

And you consistently flat-out ignore the human suffering; estimates are of 1.7 million people displaced in Gaza. Homeless. Their homes have been destroyed. That is around 80% of the total population. (!!) Do you have an organization's findings to explain why that is actually not a bad thing, but a good thing?

You also completely flat-out ignore the impending famine.

According to the IPC classification, the entire population of Gaza is curently facing high levels of acute food insecurity – or IPC 3 (Crisis) and above. This includes half of the population (about 1.11 million) experiencing catastrophic food insecurity

Eagerly awaiting your pseudo-statistics on why this is actually a beneficial thing for the residents of Gaza. Perhaps you'll find an opinion piece somewhere, or cherry-pick some data which shows a higher famine rate in some OTHER war, in order to explain why this is actually really really good!

But you ignore -every single time- that this entire action is almost certain to be counterproductive. With the majority of Gaza residents under the age of 15, it's pretty obvious that killing a few thousand fighters (or govt workers referred to as fighters) will ultimately have little positive effect, and will have the negative effect of creating far MORE Hamas sympathizers than are killed.


Sorry, but you'll need to work harder to justify the killing of 10s of thousands of women and children, displacing close to 2 million people, and potentially starving over 1 million.

 

Welllll the article I have linked multiple times even tells you the UN meeting number for the security council. So yes it’s the UN.

Ninety Per Cent of War-Time Casualties Are Civilians, Speakers Stress, Pressing Security Council to Fulfil Responsibility, Protect Innocent People in Conflicts | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases


9042ND MEETING (AM & PM)
SC/14904
25 May 2022
Ninety Per Cent of War-Time Casualties Are Civilians, Speakers Stress, Pressing Security Council to Fulfil Responsibility, Protect Innocent People in Conflicts
With civilians accounting for nearly 90 per cent of war-time casualties and humanitarians threatened with arrest for providing aid to “the enemy”, the Security Council simply must do more to ensure the protection of innocent people caught amid the conflicts raging around the world, experts from the field told the 15-nation organ today, as over 70 delegates denounced its inaction and explored ways to stanch the suffering during the all-day debate




. Hamas thanks you for your support


Your question about suffering is misplaced. My initial and consistent point is that none of this is a War Crime other then Hamas offering up and in a lot of times killing their own to influence people like you. That’s on Hamas. And i stand by my comment that the IDF knows exactly what they are doing and war gamed this out probably hundreds of times. Both with and without US support including the possibility of head to head conflict with Iran with no US support as treacherous as that scenario is.

 

What's interesting to me is how people keep ignoring the point that:
A. Israel is degrading their standing in the world and moving towards losing international support in the long-term
B. They are doing exactly what Hamas wants them to do
C. Their strategy will only serve to strengthen Hamas recruiting efforts down the road

It's like the only strategy they can imagine is dropping 300,000 bombs on a city. And any deviation from that plan is either naïve, helping terrorists, or ignorant. They are so desperate to just blindly support Israel that no other ideas can filter through, even if ultimately the other ideas are to support Israel in the long term rather than the short term...

Or they say... what about the hostages?!?! Like dropping 300,000 bombs in a small space in 6months is helping the hostages...

 

I’m sure it won’t surprise you that I disagree with your data and conclusions above.

Curious. have you ever been to tel- aviv or Jerusalem?