Israel vs Hamas (3 Viewers)

[GrandAdmiral]

Looks like the fight is on with Israeli soldiers and civilians amongst the dead already. Question becomes, how long before we get dragged into this?

Netanyahu says Israel is ‘at war’ after Hamas launches surprise attack, takes hostages | CNN

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the country was “at war” on Saturday, after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a deadly barrage of rockets and sent gunmen into Israeli territory in a major escalation of the long running conflict between the two sides.

www.cnn.com

 

[UriUT]

Not sure where you get your news from. So, I have questions.

Npr, mad, Google news, post.news. I have not turned on any cable news in the last week or so.

 

[samiam5211]

Al Jazeera has had pretty good coverage IMO.

 

[UriUT]

Not sure what you're referring to but I haven't commented on trying not to kill civilians.

It is a hypothetical point. You are putting words in their mouths and assume they are not trustworthy. They may be. But I don't have spies in their mist to know.

 

[DaveXA]

Npr, mad, Google news, post.news. I have not turned on any cable news in the last week or so.

Fair enough.

 

[MT15]

You understand this is an asymmetrical war right? The US asks Israel to constrain itself because it can destroy every living being and building in gaza. With our weapons and ammo. Moreover, Israel overshadows hamas militarily. For comparison, the US can obliterate countries but we are asked to constrain ourselves. No we demand it of our leaders. We do not invade Mexico to end the illegal drugs entry. We do not go invade central America, establish walled up cities like Gaza, and end illegal immigration while limiting their freedom of movement. When we search out terrorist leaders, we do not immediately send missiles and kill him regardless of where he is standing. If he's in a busy market with hundreds of people, we don't say it's cost of business. No we wait and find the time when he has the least number of people to minimize the collateral damage. It's what we do. And we should expect that of Israel. Have we learned nothing from the wars on terrorism?

And no one asking for restraint sides with or condones what hamas did, that is what you are implying with this one sided reference, hamas in Qatar shades. That's offensive.

I’m implying that the Hamas leadership is completely irredeemable. That they care nothing about minimizing civilian deaths. That’s it. Sorry if you take offense to that.

I have seen what I perceived as attempts to excuse the Hamas violence. It’s a fine line, I agree. I understand the propensity towards violence, by Hamas, but that doesn’t excuse it. Hamas slaughtered civilians because they hate Jews and want to wipe them off the face of the earth. It’s their belief system, it’s their end goal.

Israel can at least be restrained somewhat. They have been persuaded. And most of the country will not support what Bibi wants to do. Not anymore. Most Israelis don’t want to wipe Palestinians off the face of the earth. There have been outreach programs in Gaza, even by Bibi’s government. I don’t like Bibi. I don’t think he belongs in any position of power, but Israel is better than their worst representatives, IMO.

There’s a difference here. That’s my opinion and my judgement. I think the US will help restrain Israel. I think they already have and it will continue. I think Israel has already taken some measures to avoid civilian casualties and I think we will see more of them in the future now that some time has passed. Someone said as a proportion of the population the Hamas slaughter would have been the equivalent of the US seeing 27,000 men, women and children killed in one day. It was a horrendous and senseless loss of life.

 

[samiam5211]

So far 1050 children in Gaza have been killed.

That would be the equivalent of about 180,000 children in the US since the US population is about 170x that of Gaza.

2760 civilians in total have been counted dead so far in Gaza. So that would be somewhere around 500,000 deaths in the US.

 

[DaveXA]

I’m implying that the Hamas leadership is completely irredeemable. That they care nothing about minimizing civilian deaths. That’s it. Sorry if you take offense to that.

I have seen what I perceived as attempts to excuse the Hamas violence. It’s a fine line, I agree. I understand the propensity towards violence, by Hamas, but that doesn’t excuse it. Hamas slaughtered civilians because they hate Jews and want to wipe them off the face of the earth. It’s their belief system, it’s their end goal.

Israel can at least be restrained somewhat. They have been persuaded. And most of the country will not support what Bibi wants to do. Not anymore. Most Israelis don’t want to wipe Palestinians off the face of the earth. There have been outreach programs in Gaza, even by Bibi’s government. I don’t like Bibi. I don’t think he belongs in any position of power, but Israel is better than their worst representatives, IMO.

There’s a difference here. That’s my opinion and my judgement. I think the US will help restrain Israel. I think they already have and it will continue. I think Israel has already taken some measures to avoid civilian casualties and I think we will see more of them in the future now that some time has passed. Someone said as a proportion of the population the Hamas slaughter would have been the equivalent of the US seeing 27,000 men, women and children killed in one day. It was a horrendous and senseless loss of life.

And the notion that the tail is somehow wagging the dog in this case just doesn't make much sense. To say the US doesn't have any leverage with Israel is huge stretch.

 

[DaveXA]

So far 1050 children in Gaza have been killed.

That would be the equivalent of about 180,000 children in the US since the US population is about 170x that of Gaza.

2760 civilians in total have been counted dead so far in Gaza. So that would be somewhere around 500,000 deaths in the US.

I'm not saying you're right or wrong about those numbers, but who is reporting those numbers and how are they verifying them?

And I think a better comparison would be a city with a similar density like NYC rather than the entire US population who are far more spread out. The US =/= Gaza. Few cities in the world are.

And fwiw, without actually going in and verifying it, we don't know if Hamas is deliberately putting these people in harm's way. Allegedly they were telling people to stay put and many probably heeded Hamas on that.

 

[MT15]

So far 1050 children in Gaza have been killed.

That would be the equivalent of about 180,000 children in the US since the US population is about 170x that of Gaza.

2760 civilians in total have been counted dead so far in Gaza. So that would be somewhere around 500,000 deaths in the US.

Where do you get your figures? I honestly don’t know.

I have seen some figures, but nothing confirmed. If the source is Hamas, well, they are the same people who blew up a van on a road with an IED and tried to blame it on a missile strike from Israel. And it was reported by Al Jazeera, I think.

Also, any civilian loss of life is horrible. I just want to be sure we are talking about reality, and not propaganda.

 

[samiam5211]

I'm not saying you're right or wrong about those numbers, but who is reporting those numbers and how are they verifying them?

And I think a better comparison would be a city with a similar density like NYC rather than the entire US population who are far more spread out. The US =/= Gaza. Few cities in the world are.

And fwiw, without actually going in and verifying it, we don't know if Hamas is deliberately putting these people in harm's way. Allegedly they were telling people to stay put and many probably heeded Hamas on that.

Where do you get your figures? I honestly don’t know.

I have seen some figures, but nothing confirmed. If the source is Hamas, well, they are the same people who blew up a van on a road with an IED and tried to blame it on a missile strike from Israel. And it was reported by Al Jazeera, I think.

Also, any civilian loss of life is horrible. I just want to be sure we are talking about reality, and not propaganda.

Those are the numbers being reported by pretty much every major media company.

It only takes a second to google it.

Have any of you ever questioned the number of Israeli deaths being reported?

I suspect the numbers of Palestinian deaths are actually much higher since they are buried under rubble.

 

[samiam5211]

Does anyone still believe that there were decapitated babies?

 

[DaveXA]

Does anyone still believe that there were decapitated babies?

I never bought that since there was a lot of speculation around it. There's no question they killed a lot of people, including children though.

And the issue I have is who is on the ground in Gaza that we can call reliable? And not Hamas since they're hardly credible.

It's like that news report that 70 people were killed by an Israeli rocket with was later debunked. If there were 70 killed by an IED planted by Hamas, how many others are they responsible for? There have been other staged fake attacks reported as well with dozens killed that was later proven to be propaganda.

I'm skeptical of the numbers because credible sources on the ground in Gaza are likely hard to come by, especially in the fog of war.

 

[samiam5211]

I never bought that since there was a lot of speculation around it. There's no question they killed a lot of people, including children though.

And the issue I have is who is on the ground in Gaza that we can call reliable? And not Hamas since they're hardly credible.

It's like that news report that 70 people were killed by an Israeli rocket with was later debunked. If there were 70 killed by an IED planted by Hamas, how many others are they responsible for? There have been other staged fake attacks reported as well with dozens killed that was later proven to be propaganda.

I'm skeptical of the numbers because credible sources on the ground in Gaza are likely hard to come by, especially in the fog of war.

So there will never be any report from Gaza that you trust.

Israel falsely reported that babies had been decapitated, yet we don't question their reported number of deaths. We know it was false, because Biden had to walk his statement back. If there was any proof, Israel would have made sure Biden didn't walk back that statement.

There is a fundamental bias that the west has here.

 

[DaveXA]

So there will never be any report from Gaza that you trust.

That's not what I said. When unbiased or trusted sources can get boots on the ground to verify these numbers, i.e. UN, trusted media, etc. I'm willing to go with the numbers they report. There's no way to verify the current numbers currently out there at the moment.

Israel falsely reported that babies had been decapitated, yet we don't question their reported number of deaths. We know it was false, because Biden had to walk his statement back. If there was any proof, Israel would have made sure Biden didn't walk back that statement.

There are other sources on the ground who can question numbers Israel is reporting.

And fwiw, a not so small number of Palestinians are saying the attack on Israel was fake, or greatly exaggerated...etc.

i already stated i didnt buy the decapitated babies report, even before the Biden comments mess. It's why that allegation should have been vetted.

There is a fundamental bias that the west has here.

Sure there's some bias. But that's pretty much everywhere. Just understand bias works both ways.

 

[samiam5211]

That's not what I said. When unbiased or trusted sources can get boots on the ground to verify these numbers, i.e. UN, trusted media, etc. I'm willing to go with the numbers they report. There's no way to verify the current numbers currently out there at the moment.

There are other sources on the ground who can question numbers Israel is reporting.

And fwiw, a not so small number of Palestinians are saying the attack on Israel was fake, or greatly exaggerated...etc.

i already stated i didnt buy the decapitated babies report, even before the Biden comments mess. It's why that allegation should have been vetted.

Sure there's some bias. But that's pretty much everywhere. Just understand bias works both ways.

It's almost not worth posting in this thread.

Any information that reports Palestinian deaths will just be met with questioning the source, instead of a discussion about Palestinian suffering.


If you don't believe that 1000 palestenian kids have been killed at this point, there really isn't much to talk about. We don't agree on the facts.

I suspect that the numbers of dead on that side are at least 2x what is being reported, so we aren't operating from the same reality.

 

[MT15]

Does anyone still believe that there were decapitated babies?

I have never claimed there was, in fact, the first time it was brought up in this thread I cautioned against believing it without verification. Sadly, it has been pointed out that military rifles are entirely capable of decapitating a person, it has happened here. So reports may have possibly been based on the presence of decapitated babies, but they were decapitated by bullets.

As Dave has pointed out, there is much more scrutiny of reports coming out of Israel by all the international press present. There isn’t the same amount of independent press in Gaza for obvious reasons.

I do find it a bit incongruous that Hamas reports are believed, when they have a huge history of propaganda and deception. They shouldn’t be believed any more than reports from the Israeli government should be believed without verification. We have seen so many false reports, including the IED explosion that was presented as an Israeli missile strike on fleeing civilians.

 

[Lapaz]

Both of you seem to think I am defending the killing of civilians in Hamas, when I am decidedly not doing that. What I am doing is saying this isn’t as easy of a solution as people seem to think, it’s not as black and white as people seem to think, and what is happening here is that a couple of people are decidedly blaming Israel and not Hamas (except in passing when they feel they have to). I have seen it, it is obvious. It’s a double standard even if you say it isn’t. You blame Israel more for what they are doing than you blame Hamas for what they are doing.

That’s what I mean when I say that Hamas could and should be doing a lot of things to safeguard civilian lives in Gaza and they are doing none of them. Their leaders live in Doha, they don’t even live in Gaza. They are not making any efforts to safeguard civilians in Gaza, in fact they are urging them to stay in the war zone. Yet we get zero posts blaming them, and long expositions on how evil Israel is.

Look, there is plenty of blame to go around in the Middle East, nobody there has clean hands. They are all more similar than they are different as cultures and peoples. I am trying to go by what is happening right now and what the facts are right now.

What I have seen so far is that Israel is at least saying they don’t want to kill innocent civilians. They are at least able to be persuaded to restore water to Gaza, they have delayed their ground attack to give people time to find a way out.

Hamas is doing nothing. Hamas deliberately murdered over a thousand Israelis in one day, men, women, elderly, children and babies. They videotaped a lot of the carnage and posted the videos on social media, sometimes to the actual FB pages of the people they murdered so their families would be sure to see them. They took many hostages and are threatening to execute them. They continue to try to kill more civilians. This isn’t a close call in my book. Hamas bears the main responsibility for this mess.

We agree that Hamas is evil, but that still doesn’t mean anything is acceptable. If a terrorist group uses savage methods, and takes refuge among innocents, we don’t justify obliterating the whole area to kill the terrorists. We did eliminate an area of Japan, and justified it by saying it eliminated many more deaths. I don’t think that is true in Gaza. Also, while that was probably true in Japan, our normal policy is to take extra risks to prevent killing innocent people. Israel has been bombing the entire Gaza region and has probably killed as many innocent people as guilty. Furthermore, they’ve bombed the escape paths. Israel may not be intentionally killing innocents, but they are doing it with their current bombings. Their response is not proportional. Israel started with the high moral ground, but some of the reported actions are unconscionable. They’re quickly losing the high moral ground.

 

[DaveXA]

It's almost not worth posting in this thread.

Exaggerate much?

Any information that reports Palestinian deaths will just be met with questioning the source, instead of a discussion about Palestinian suffering.

You can question the numbers and still have a discussion about Palestinians suffering. I've talked about that very thing several times in this thread and you seem to be ignoring that.

If you don't believe that 1000 palestenian kids have been killed at this point, there really isn't much to talk about. We don't agree on the facts.

Again, I'm talking about verified and reliable sources. If the numbers are from trusted sources, then I'm right with you on the numbers. That said, the larger question is who bears the responsibility for those deaths? We've stated several times that if Hamas is deliberately putting them in harm's way, the blood of those lost is on their hands. I hate that innocent Palestinians are suffering, and I would hope that Israel would do what they can to mitigate that. I think Israel has encouraged citizens to migrate south, and eventually out of Gaza until they clear Hamas out to the extent possible. A ground invasion is all but inevitable at this point. Hamas had to know this would be the outcome of their massacre.

I suspect that the numbers of dead on that side are at least 2x what is being reported, so we aren't operating from the same reality.

I don't doubt there are deaths unaccounted for to this point, the only question I have is what are the actual numbers and what actually caused them.