Reminder that the existence of a local civilian population does not constitute a human shield. The Israelis seem to want Hamas to all line up in an empty field and unfurl a “strike here” sign, which is obviously unreasonable. Classically, a human shield is holding a guy physically in front of you. It can be extended a bit, like if you operate a missile battery from a declared POW camp, but I don’t think they’d be comfortable with their stated doctrine if it was extended to, say, the Warsaw uprising.
Other than that, yeah, I’m pretty sure the pier is still in the works, even if Israel is going to use it as an excuse to permit even less aid-wise.
When Hamas is encouraging people to ignore the evacuation warnings, or telling people the warnings are a hoax, in order to increase the body count, I call it human shields. Either way, it’s a war crime for soldiers to dress up like civilians and hide with them. Hamas is literally trying to get as many Palestinians killed as possible. It’s great publicity for the pan-Islamist/Hamas cause. And it blows my mind that there’s people here who seem to be about five Al Jazeera articles short of setting themselves on fire because of war crimes, cheering on an organization that literally gives cash prizes to war criminals for doing war crimes.
Nobody is expecting Hamas to line up, but they are expecting that when they call people on the phone and tell them to get out of the building because the tunnel underneath it is about to be blown up, innocent civilians will evacuate.
They are expecting that the people in charge in Gaza have an iota of decency with which they might surrender the tunnels and the hostages, maybe secure for themselves the rights of prisoners of war instead of terrorists. Seems reasonable to me. Even Japan surrendered for the benefit of its people, as did Germany, as did the Polish resistance in Warsaw.
Hamas thinks they found a lawfare loophole where, if they can muster up enough dead kids for the newspapers, the world powers are going to cede a democracy to Iran. I know it’s super uncomfortable to say but that’s not going to happen in any foreseeable future.
Maybe you think Hamas is right, that if they can follow the civilian population around long enough, and get the body count up high enough, the western world will turn on Israel, and Iran will come in like Gandalf at dawn on the fifth day to save Gaza (while trying to for real genocide the Jews (in a way comparable to the mass summary executions of 150,000 civilians in 60 days by the Nazis in Warsaw). I don’t think the West would stand for that. So, the only way to avoid total war in the middle east as I see is it to deter and contain Iran, and that means neither Hamas nor any other Iranian proxy get to have its own country on Israel’s front doorstep. Hamas can and should end the war tomorrow. I like to imagine how Gaza might prosper without a religious psychopaths stealing all the money and food to build tunnels, which after blowing their load on October 7, are proving to be essentially useless against Israel.
For the record, I don’t like Iran either. And definitely not Hamas. All parties directly involved are different flavours of theocratic non-democracies. Apartheid is not democracy, even if it’s apartheid in favour of people like me.
I don’t think it’s realistic that if Hamas disbanded, Gaza would live in peace and “prosper”. In fact, the Israeli government has gone out of their way to help Hamas grow in order to have them as an excuse for why that’s not happening, because they don’t want a 2-state solution.
Reminder that the existence of a local civilian population does not constitute a human shield. The Israelis seem to want Hamas to all line up in an empty field and unfurl a “strike here” sign, which is obviously unreasonable. Classically, a human shield is holding a guy physically in front of you. It can be extended a bit, like if you operate a missile battery from a declared POW camp, but I don’t think they’d be comfortable with their stated doctrine if it was extended to, say, the Warsaw uprising.
Other than that, yeah, I’m pretty sure the pier is still in the works, even if Israel is going to use it as an excuse to permit even less aid-wise.
When Hamas is encouraging people to ignore the evacuation warnings, or telling people the warnings are a hoax, in order to increase the body count, I call it human shields. Either way, it’s a war crime for soldiers to dress up like civilians and hide with them. Hamas is literally trying to get as many Palestinians killed as possible. It’s great publicity for the pan-Islamist/Hamas cause. And it blows my mind that there’s people here who seem to be about five Al Jazeera articles short of setting themselves on fire because of war crimes, cheering on an organization that literally gives cash prizes to war criminals for doing war crimes.
Nobody is expecting Hamas to line up, but they are expecting that when they call people on the phone and tell them to get out of the building because the tunnel underneath it is about to be blown up, innocent civilians will evacuate.
They are expecting that the people in charge in Gaza have an iota of decency with which they might surrender the tunnels and the hostages, maybe secure for themselves the rights of prisoners of war instead of terrorists. Seems reasonable to me. Even Japan surrendered for the benefit of its people, as did Germany, as did the Polish resistance in Warsaw.
Hamas thinks they found a lawfare loophole where, if they can muster up enough dead kids for the newspapers, the world powers are going to cede a democracy to Iran. I know it’s super uncomfortable to say but that’s not going to happen in any foreseeable future.
Maybe you think Hamas is right, that if they can follow the civilian population around long enough, and get the body count up high enough, the western world will turn on Israel, and Iran will come in like Gandalf at dawn on the fifth day to save Gaza (while trying to for real genocide the Jews (in a way comparable to the mass summary executions of 150,000 civilians in 60 days by the Nazis in Warsaw). I don’t think the West would stand for that. So, the only way to avoid total war in the middle east as I see is it to deter and contain Iran, and that means neither Hamas nor any other Iranian proxy get to have its own country on Israel’s front doorstep. Hamas can and should end the war tomorrow. I like to imagine how Gaza might prosper without a religious psychopaths stealing all the money and food to build tunnels, which after blowing their load on October 7, are proving to be essentially useless against Israel.
For the record, I don’t like Iran either. And definitely not Hamas. All parties directly involved are different flavours of theocratic non-democracies. Apartheid is not democracy, even if it’s apartheid in favour of people like me.
I don’t think it’s realistic that if Hamas disbanded, Gaza would live in peace and “prosper”. In fact, the Israeli government has gone out of their way to help Hamas grow in order to have them as an excuse for why that’s not happening, because they don’t want a 2-state solution.