By Alice Cuddy BBC News, Jerusalem
The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.
It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight.
He’d been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes.
He’d heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. “You need to escape,” somebody in the street shouted, “because they will bomb the towers”.
Never said it was unswerving, but I am hated for my opinion here. It is expected. How dare I justify murder, right?
Hamas is a terror organization. Hamas confirmed it will repeat it’s actions over and over until every jew is dead or driven from Israel. Hamas is still firing rockets at Israel and fighting the IDF. Hamas cynically uses the Geneva convention to shield itself as it commits war crimes.
It is true that the actions of the military kill innocents. I think it would’ve happened even without Hamas using them as human shields.
But should Israel simply stand idle as it’s citizens are slaughtered and kidnapped? If so, then why?
You can be anti-Hamas without needing to be pro-Israel, though
I would if I could see another solution to the problem of the war right now.
Israel carries a lot of blame here with it’s right winged rule over a decade. No doubt.
But how can you stop Hamas now? I’m truly asking. This isn’t a rhetoric question.
A permanent ceasefire that involves lifting the blockade. It worked in 2008 and 2012, except for the part where Israel didn’t actually lift the blockade. Then a real two-state solution, none of this one state, one ghetto and a bunch of Bantustans nonsense Israel is doing. Remember: Peace only lost support in Palestine because it didn’t work, not because Palestinians don’t want peace.
To quote Bassem Youssef, terrorism is a virus, and to get rid of a virus you need to give the patient water, nutrients and rest. You don’t get rid of viruses by hitting the patient with a sledgehammer.
Well, enforcing that will send Israel into a political turmoil since it was on the verge of a civil war before this war started. Also, interesting to note that 2008 was one of those rare times when Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t at power, but that doesn’t help the situation right now.
I also agree that you can’t remove Hamas with a sledgehammer. You can’t kill ideology with bullets. Israel isn’t claiming to be doing that right now. They declared they’re doing 2 things:
Can’t ignore the last fact here though, that Benjamin Netanyahu wants a military regime once the war is over. You’d have to insane to support that.
Hmm, they managed to rescue 1/240 hostages for a month. Apparently that’s a pretty bad score. Not to mention that they are actively bombing tunnels where those hostages are thought to be held, so potentially they have killed some of them.
And by disabling Hamas ability to strike they killed ten thousand and counting people, destroyed civilian infrastructure, and caused unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe. Committed numerous war crimes and in general they showed to the world that they aren’t any better than Hamas if not worse.
Mind you by the time this all ends up the human cost and suffering inflicted on the regular civilians would be even greater. And I can tell you that’s a recipe for a disaster. You can’t dehumanize people and push them to the edge and then expect them to co-operate. I wonder what would be left of Gaza by the time Israel sate their bloodlust.
And none of those will be accomplished with what Israel is doing. Hamas will need time to recover, but “being unable to strike” isn’t happening. They have enough foreign support and a wealth of recruits.
I don’t have a solution. I’m half a planet away, and geopolitics is not my field. I’m not a world leader, nor a military strategist, or anything that would qualify me to make a decision or have an informed answer.
I might be a spineless fence-sitter, but I don’t like what Israel is doing, and I don’t like what Hamas is doing. For that reason, I wouldn’t call myself pro-Israel or pro-Hamas.
Do you think the number or recruits increased or decreased after incessantly murdering innocent civilians?
I just want to ask also, how do you stop more Hamas by killing people? You don’t. The Hydra effect will guarantee that any one terrorist killed will breed two more. Yesterday my partner looked at me and said, “If Israel had killed my entire family, I would probably join Hamas”, and he’s an atheist and a Brit who learned most of what he learned about Hamas this year.
What Israel is doing is creating more opportunities for massacre in the future. I am not sure why, but I’m convinced there is a genocidal agenda here.
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That’s a false dichotomy, and one alternative approach was already provided in the comment you originally replied to.
Certainly there are even more alternatives that exist in the miles wide gap between “raze all of gaza” and “stand idle”.
First they should try to invest into defense, maybe some sort of air defense system to mitigate the almost daily rocket and missile launches.
I do agree that any cycle of violence further radicalizes the Palestinians. It also marginalized the Israeli left since Yitzhak Rabin was murdered. Both sides keep pushing, like a pendulum, ever since the negotiations with Yasser Arafat failed due to the right of return.
Are the Israelis solely to blame for this? Maybe. Does it provide a solution for the here and now? No.
The original comment says integration, that is a one state solution for the two people. That means that the right of return takes place. If that happens, Israel is no longer a Jewish state.
How can you integrate with a political movement that just murdered and kidnapped people your people? Who vowed to destroy your nation in very colorful ways? How do you solve the here and now?
I agree that Israel shares plenty of blame, primarily the government and the right wing. Ok. How does that neutralize the threat of Hamas now? How does that stop the rockets? How can the IDF pull back and not get another surprise attack in three weeks?
Now that they have killed so many civilians, it’s gonna be tough. They aren’t making it better as they continue destroying homes, hospitals, and refugee camps though. The time to try treating them like humans was before the recent attack.
Here’s what I can tell you for sure:
Do my bullet points solve the problem? Hell no. But my (or your) inability to come up with a solution doesn’t mean there isn’t a better one than what they are currently doing, and doesn’t support the idea that their only other option is to do nothing. Neither of us (presumably) are world leaders with experience in this area. But when shit comes out of my sink faucets, I don’t need to be a plumber to know that mine has fucked up.
I agree with you on most of what you said here. Things are fucked. Better solutions should be sought, especially diplomatic ones - if possible. Until such a solution presents itself, stopping Israel sounds like a bad idea.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Yes Hamas is a terror organization, no, that does not allow you to behave like a terror organization when fighting them.
If you have read the article this is not about innocents which where at the wrong place a the wrong time. This article is about deliberate destruction of civilian buildings without giving any justification besides ‘There are some things that we see that you don’t see.’ in some cases evacuation was allowed, in some cases no time for evacuation was given. There is in my eyes no justification for this.
I never said that Israel should stand idle. So don’t push that opinion on me.
What could be done? Attack military targets only, give civilians time to evacuate. (Yes a civilian home becomes a military target if it is used as weapons stash/factory, but there was no indication at all in the cases listed in the article), support the more moderate Fatah in regaining control. Support new democratic elections. Provide help in forms primarily targeted at civilians: Food, water, education. Allow students from the Gaza Strip to study abroad. Part of that is already done, but hampered by the military actions.
Destroying peoples homes and basic utilities will only ensure that hate on Israel grows and support for Hamas remains steady.
I agree.
I respect your sentiment that you can’t justify killing innocents no matter the cause. I also respectfully disagree, and I accept “There are somethings that we see that you don’t” as tactical reasoning. I don’t do this with a happy heart, or a sense of conviction. It is a sad to thing to recognize.
You don’t let your enemy know how you know where to hit, because that would expose your intelligence - be it collaborators, equipment or units - to your enemy.
I do agree though, that it leaves you with doubt that the IDF isn’t just murdering people. However I don’t think they’d go to such trouble to sometimes notify and sometimes not. It doesn’t make sense.
Yesterday a group of refugees ran across the corridor from the north to the south holding white flags. The Palestinians here are suffering, and require humanitarian aid, but they were let through. They weren’t executed or attacked. Source is from the guardian, which is center-left in bias.
I apologize for putting words in your mouth or assuming your opinion for you. I was wrong here to a fault.
Hamas doesn’t follow the Geneva Convention. It’s fighters don’t dress as a military, they dress in civilian clothing. Maybe not as a rule, but there’s definitely footage that Hamas itself released with their fighters wearing Jeans and T Shirts.
Regarding allowing civilians to evacuate - This is again the issue of tactical reasoning from before.
I’ll add - remove the Likud and Netanyahu from power, add the Palestinians into the Abraham accords. All worthy things to do AFTER the war, and should be done. No doubt.
I whole-heatedly agree with you on this one. Both sides are losing right now. I think this war will mean that Fatah will disappear and the west bank will become Hamas too. And then the situation is twice as fucked.
Did israel bomb the south of Gaza after telling people to go south or not?
Definitely. Those are facts. What is your point?
But should Israel kill all these civilians for “revenge” or what exactly is their plan in your opinion?
This is the thing that gets me - what would you do if someone barricaded themselves inside a house next door, kept taking pot shots and you and stealing people off the street? I would shoot back.
That analogy breaks down when you’re the guy that locked them in the house.
Until you realise you locked them in the house after them and their friends tried to take your back yard when you were having a domestic with your partner, and a founding part of their cult is that you need to die.
(Hamas not cult, just analogy)
Israel is literally the one stealing backyards, and when it can’t, it bombs them.
Not just the backyards, but the front and side yards too
Nah if we’re gonna continue this analogy, it’s like if you come across a village of 50 people then force everyone into one house so you can have your friends move into the other houses. Then 1 of those 50 starts shooting at you. So then you drop a grenade in the house, kill a bunch of their kids and shoot their dog.
And would kill 10 innocents in the house just to get to that one guy?
Honestly, probably.
So how are you any better than the terrorist you condemn, by openly admitting you are ready to shoot 10 civilians? At what number of civilians do you make the cut 20, 50, 100, 500, 1000?