Hamas needs to go, any terrorist organization that would do that, needs to be wiped out completely.....no mercy. DD
Sure, but the best way to do that is to incentivize Palestinians to get rid of them, and that will help ensure fewer civilian casualties and lead to a longer lasting security as well as better lives for Palestinians.
If only things were that simple. Terrorists hide and use civilians and hostages as human shields and new recruits join whenever they personally experience the cruel and brutality actions of Israel retaliation, it's a cycle. The conflict would have been resolved years ago if all it took was to wipe out a terrorist group like hamas
Evacuating 1M+ people in 24 hours? That's not even possible in large U.S. cities with modern cars, well-maintained roads, plenty of places to go, and the absence of munitions raining down on you.
Hamas attack is Israel's 9/11. It must learn from America's mistakes Oct. 11, 2023, 8:56 PM CDT By Paul Rieckhoff, political and national security analyst and U.S. Army infantry combat veteran In 2009, I was honored to lead a group from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America on a historic trip to Israel. We traveled across the country, toured military bases and historical sites and focused on spending time with Israeli vets and vet-focused programs. I have also visited with, learned from and become friends with Palestinians throughout the region. The threat that is Hamas must be neutralized. It threatens Israel, Palestinians, America and to the world. Even if you are not normally a supporter of Israel, you must now stand up against Hamas and the culture of war crimes exposed by this week's violence. This is Israel’s 9/11. We have already heard that often. I was there in New York on 9/11 as a first responder myself. I taught a college course on the history of 9/11 to undergraduates who were not yet born on that fateful day. And I have worked in support of 9/11 first responders and survivors ever since. But I believe what Israel has experienced — and continues to experience — is even worse than 9/11. 9/11 was indescribable. It still is. The surprise, the scope, the scale, the number of civilians and heroes murdered in an instant. And the carnage that only those of us who were up close saw and experienced. I saw gruesome images that will forever be burned into my heart. But it was not like this. All of the bodies we found at Ground Zero were those of adults. And after the first few days of rescue operations, we switched to recovery. Anyone who made it out alive was safe. Or at least, safe from the immediate health risks. But there were no additional planes to watch for. We did not have a stream of rockets raining down on Manhattan and Washington, D.C. The terrorists did not kill and maybe even decapitate, rape hostages or drag kidnapped men, women and children back across our borders. Even today, Hamas’ brutal crimes are ongoing, elongating the suffering and the terror. After 9/11, America felt like it had to act. Now, Israel is in the same terrible position. This is the exceptionally hard part. The decisions made now in the face of unimaginable pain and anger will help determine the trajectory of the world going forward. Hamas does not represent all Palestinians, just as the Taliban did not represent the people of Afghanistan. The challenge now for Israel, for the U.S. and for all nations who stand with them, is to carefully separate the two and eliminate the true enemy — without making more. Israel must fight tenaciously to hold the moral high ground. IDF soldiers must abide by the Geneva Conventions. Every military unit and member must limit civilian casualties. Israel and its allies must demonstrate a mastery of strategic communications on a level rarely seen before Ukraine’s recent dominance in the fight against Russia for global hearts and minds. And Israel cannot allow or encourage torture (something U.S. leaders struggled with tremendously and openly debated after 9/11). Doing otherwise would only encourage more young people in Gaza and around the world to take up arms against Israel and its allies. Israel’s military and political leaders must learn from America’s mistakes. They can — and must — do better. There is no harder time to have discipline than in the face of atrocity. But that is when it is required the most. I am committed to helping Israel do that in any way I can. I know other 9/11 survivors and Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are committed, as well. Because there will be many more dark days ahead. But one day, like now in New York decades later, there can and will be light. Israel and the world can be stronger at the broken places, while always ensuring that the world never forgets. That is how we truly honor the dead and how we defeat a detestable enemy. That is our way forward: united against those who would (and will) do this kind of unforgivable brutality. Now, and forever. We can and must be better than Hamas. This is the moment to prove it.
Or it’s the politics that count for Netanyahu. He wants to be able to say he gave warning but doesn’t want to do the hard work to work with the UN and neighboring countries to have corridors created and armed with security in order to get out at the very least women and young children. 24 hours is only enough time to ration whatever supplies you can find and make your way to a bunker…. Which is the reality of what Israel is telling the Palestinians to do.
oh I agree, but they elected Hamas.......thus this is partly to blame, the PLO should be working with Israel, but they aren't. DD
In all this back and forth about who’s the most dastardly of the dastardly dastards, I think a lot of us are missing the big picture: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/israel-hamas-war-iran-trap/675628/ As this article demonstrates, there are a number of countries who have a lot to gain from an escalation in Israel-Hamas hostilities, including Hamas themselves for reasons that go far beyond just “wanting to kill all the Jews.” An indiscriminate attack on Gaza has the potential to: 1) Weaken Hamas’ secular rivals (Fatah and the PLO 2) Derail the potential diplomatic normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would subsequently derail: A) concessions for Fatah in the West Bank, that would improve their status among Palestinian and increase the future likelihood of secularPalestinian leadership willing to negotiate peace B) geographical control of Iran’s major maritime routes, which would put control of their economy in the hands of US and Israeli partners and give the US and Israel a significant boost in their ability to temper Iranian (and by proxy, Russia and China) influence in the region. I’m not saying there is an easy course of action here - quite the contrary. But Hamas is more than willing to sacrifice the people of Gaza as pawns in their larger scheme for regional control, and any military action that plays into this has the risk of making a lot of things worse. As an aside, it is events like these that require a strong and fully staffed state department. What the GOP Senators have done to undermine this is treasonous by every definition of the word. But given the unwillingness of Manchin and Sinema to change the rules, Schumer needs to quit being a wimp and bring a vote to the floor for every position that is unfilled - even if it means a week without sleep for our Senators. Note - I somehow hit submit before completing - I hate posting from my phone.
Israel Is Walking Into a Trap - The Atlantic Storming into Gaza will fulfill Hamas’s wish. OCTOBER 13, 2023, 7 AM ET By Hussein Ibish It’s a trap. Hamas’s ruthless and spectacular attack on southern Israel last Saturday was many things: an atrocity, a display of militant ingenuity, and a demonstration of the weakness of Israeli intelligence and defenses. Israel and the Palestinians have a long history of brutality against each other, but the Hamas killing spree outdoes anything since Israeli-controlled Christian militias massacred unarmed Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside of Beirut in 1982. It may even have been the single most brutal act by either side in the 100-year-old conflict. But above all, it was intended as a trap—one that Israel appears about to fall into. Hamas’s leaders and their Iranian backers have a conscious strategy. Like almost all other acts of spectacularly bloodthirsty terrorism, Hamas’s assault on southern Israel was designed to provoke an emotional and equally or even more outrageous response by the targeted society. Hamas and Iran are attempting to goad the Israelis into Gaza for a prolonged confrontation—which is to say that the intended effect is precisely the ground assault Israel is now preparing in order to root out and destroy Hamas as an organization, kill its cadres and leadership, and destroy as much of its infrastructure and equipment as possible. Hamas surely would not have meticulously planned its audacious assault without also extensively planning a response to the hoped-for Israeli counterattack on the ground. The Israeli military will likely encounter a determined insurgency in Gaza. After all, Israel has had control of the land strip from the outside, but not on the inside. Israeli dominion over Gaza’s coastal waters, airspace, electromagnetic spectrum, and all but one of its crossings, including the only one capable of handling goods, has made Gaza a virtual open-air prison—run by particularly vicious inmates but surrounded and contained on all sides by the guards. Hamas evidently decided to destroy that status quo, which was no longer serving its interests. The Islamist group also hopes to seize control of the Palestinian national movement from its secular Fatah rivals, who dominate the Palestinian Authority and, more important, the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. Hamas has never been a part of the PLO, in large measure because it is unwilling to accept the PLO’s treaty agreements with Israel. The most notable among these is the Oslo Accords, which included recognition of Israel by Palestinians but no Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state or a Palestinian right to statehood. Hamas is attempting to seal the fate of Fatah, and maneuver to eventually take over the PLO and its international diplomatic presence, including United Nations observer-state status and embassies around the world. By taking the battle directly into Israel, claiming to be defending Muslim holy places in Jerusalem by branding the attack the “Al-Aqsa Deluge,” and hopefully breaking the Israeli siege of Gaza, Hamas seeks to belittle Fatah and demonstrate the primacy of its policy of unrestrained armed struggle over the PLO’s careful diplomacy. Moreover, Hamas and its Iranian patrons want to block the diplomatic-normalization agreement that the United States has been brokering between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such a deal poses a danger to Hamas because the benefits of its “significant Palestinian component” would have accrued to Fatah in the West Bank, at Hamas’s expense. For Iran, the agreement would be a major strategic setback. Should Israel, the most potent U.S. military partner in the region, and Saudi Arabia, Washington’s most financially powerful and religiously influential one, normalize and build cooperation, Tehran would face an integrated pro-American camp. American partners, including the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Jordan, would effectively ring the Arabian Peninsula, securing control of the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf through their three crucial maritime choke points: the Suez Canal, the Bab el-Mandab Strait, and the Straits of Hormuz. Saudi-Israeli normalization would largely block Iran’s regional aspirations in the short run and Chinese ambitions in the more distant future. So Hamas for domestic Palestinian reasons and Iran for regional strategic ones decided to set off an earthquake that would at least postpone such a reckoning. Iran and Hamas are counting on Israel to attack Gaza with such ferocity that the international sympathy of the past week toward Israel, even in the Arab world, evaporates quickly and is replaced by outrage at the suffering inflicted on the 2 million residents of Gaza. Those civilians have already been cut off from electricity, water, food, and medicine, all of which are controlled by Israel. Existing supplies will quickly dwindle as Gaza and its inhabitants are pounded from the air. Israel appears prepared to inflict many thousands of civilian casualties, if not more. It has adhered to a doctrine of disproportionality for deterrence predating the founding of the state: Jewish militias embraced it when dealing with the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, and at no stage since have more Jewish civilians been killed than Palestinian ones, with the ratio usually closer to 10 to 1 than 2 to 1. [George Packer: Israel must not react stupidly] Israel appears poised to fulfill Hamas’s intentions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation that will “reverberate for generations” among Israel’s adversaries. The Israeli general Ghassan Aliyan warned, “You wanted hell—you will get hell.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” None of these speakers made any effort to distinguish between Hamas militants and the 2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The “human animals” comment is telling. For decades, and especially in recent years, the people of Gaza have indeed been treated like animals. Perhaps not surprisingly, guerrillas emerging from their ranks indeed acted like animals when they attacked southern Israel. So now Israel will triple down on the dehumanization and collective punishment of all of these “human animals.” Tehran couldn’t ask for more. Hamas and Iran hope that Israel will refuse to return to the status quo ante and will instead institute a prolonged ground occupation of Gaza, declaring that Hamas can no longer be allowed to pose such a threat. But Gaza, they trust, will be a slaughterhouse for Israeli soldiers, both during the immediate incursion and over time as the anticipated insurgency gains its footing. Israel’s apparent eagerness to fall into this trap is understandable, and indeed predictable, which is why Hamas was confident in laying it. Outrageous overreach by terrorists typically aims to provoke overreach. Washington and other friends of Israel who are now seized with sympathy should immediately caution Israel not to make this blunder. If Israel instead exercises restraint, however difficult doing so might be both politically and emotionally, it can thwart the goals of Hamas and its Iranian sponsors. Restraint would go a long way toward ensuring that the diplomatic opening with Saudi Arabia continues to move forward, dealing a major blow to local revisionist powers, such as Iran, and global ones, such as China and Russia, that wish to supplant a rules-based order with one based on “Might makes right.” Unfortunately, in the efforts to eliminate Hamas, which cannot be done by force, and to ensure that such a threat can never be allowed to reemerge, which is equally impossible so long as the occupation continues, Israel seems ready to jump right into the briar patch.
Israel Must Not React Stupidly If this is Israel’s 9/11, it can learn from America’s mistakes. By George Packer OCTOBER 12, 2023, 2:41 PM ET If 10/7 was Israel’s 9/11, as many of the country’s leaders have said, the meaning of the comparison is not self-evident. Its implications still have to be worked out, and they might lead to unexpected places. The horror is comparable, but the scale isn’t. The 1,000 or more civilians butchered on Saturday by Hamas are, relative to Israel’s population, many more than the 3,000 killed in the United States by al-Qaeda; a proportionate number of dead on 9/11 would have been close to 40,000. Al-Qaeda, a transnational group based in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan, had the ability and will to strike terror anywhere in the world, but it could not destroy the United States. Hamas threatens Israel’s very existence—both in principle, according to the genocidal goals set out in its founding manifesto and subsequent statements, and also in practice, as an arm or ally of the more powerful entities in the region that share its aims, Hezbollah, Syria, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Facts like these suggest that the analogy has no more value than most historical comparisons. And yet something makes Israelis reach back to September 11, 2001. The facts are different, but the feelings are the same: profound shock, unbearable grief, humiliation, rage, and solidarity. Shock because nothing this terrible had ever happened before, even to Israel. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like the George W. Bush administration, seemed to discount evidence of a coming attack—a failure of intelligence and preparedness that was, perhaps, at bottom a failure of imagination. Solidarity demonstrated in the spontaneous effort of ordinary Israelis, without waiting for official directives, regardless of ideological differences, to save and comfort one another. Ours didn’t last long; neither will theirs. May the memory endure as a reproach to the stupidity and tribalism that plague Israeli politics and ours. “Let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel’s back,” President Joe Biden said on Tuesday at the White House. He reported having just told Netanyahu by phone, “If the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming.” It sounded like unconditional support, a green light for Israel to respond as violently as the U.S. did after 9/11. But Biden also told Netanyahu, “Terrorists purposefully target civilians, kill them. We uphold the laws of war. It matters. There’s a difference.” This sounded like a warning in the form of flattery: Democratic countries like ours don’t kill civilians—so don’t. NBC News later reported, “Biden was more direct than in previous calls that the Israeli military should take pains to avoid civilian casualties.” At around the same time as the leaders’ phone call, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, was telling troops massed for an offensive on the Gaza border, “I have released all the restraints.” As he spoke of the accounts of murders and beheadings of children, women, and elderly Holocaust survivors, Gallant’s face was clenched with rage. He had already ordered “a complete siege” of Gaza that would cut off fuel, power, water, and food. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” the defense minister said. As of Wednesday, according to Palestinian and international sources, more than 1,000 people in Gaza were dead, the majority of them civilians, including entire families buried under the rubble of air strikes. After 9/11, Israelis essentially told Americans, Now you know. In fact, most of us knew almost nothing and had to spend years learning by painful experience. If Americans now have anything useful to tell Israelis, it would be: Don’t. Don’t let your justified fury replace reason. Give vent to rage, but think coldly—avoiding civilian casualties is in your self-interest. Don’t storm into Gaza without a plan for afterward. Don’t imagine that overwhelming military force can solve an immensely complex historical and political problem. Don’t continue to ignore or inflame Palestinian grievances in the West Bank, even if they’re raised by people who celebrated Israeli deaths. Don’t poison your national unity, as Bush did ours, by using the crisis for partisan advantage; Israel’s new unity government is a good sign. Don’t squander your moment of global legitimacy, or assume that the world’s support will last a day longer if news emerges of mass civilian deaths in Gaza, or believe that its loss wouldn’t matter. It matters that democratic countries, which have criticized the Jewish state but know the difference between Israel and Hamas, are now expressing outrage, just as the same countries’ support mattered when Ukraine was brutally invaded by Russia. “It was very important not to be alone,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday, extending his solidarity to Israel. This is more than the Netanyahu government, which has been carefully neutral on Russian aggression, deserves from Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is holding his cards close on Israel and Hamas. Zelensky understood, as Netanyahu didn’t, that Russia, Iran, and Hamas will land on one side, and Ukraine and Israel on the other. America should have its friend Israel’s back while conveying unpleasant truths to its face. After Saturday it’s clear that two things, apparent contradictions, have to be accepted at the same time: A group that seeks Israel’s destruction must be destroyed, and Israel’s cruel treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories only helps that group’s cause. It’s impossible for Israel to live in peace alongside Palestinians who will never accept its right to exist, and it’s impossible for Palestinians to accept a fate of permanent subordination. To address these together will require profound change from both sides. It’s beyond the ability and will of the current Israeli government, and on the West Bank, a sclerotic Palestinian government, weakened by its own corruption and by continued Israeli domination, is just as useless. Perhaps, out of this horror, better alternatives will emerge.
Differing political speech is at the core of this country's values. I don't think that poster is supporting Hamas, but is too sympathetic to them. Nothing wrong with disagreeing, but none of it should be labeling them as terrorist harborers worthy of unconstitutional government intervention. I share the sentiments of Harvard Hillel as your reponses to that poster feel in the same vein as the doxers of the Harvard Palenstinian student group. Harvard Hillel strongly condemns any attempts to threaten and intimidate co-signatories of the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s statement, including the bus on campus displaying the names and faces of students affiliated with the groups who have signed it. We will continue to reject the PSC’s statement in the strongest terms — and demand accountability for those who signed it. But under no circumstances should that accountability extend to public intimidation of individuals. Such intimidation is counterproductive to the education that needs to take place on our campus at this difficult time.
Pro Hamas members such as @fchowd0311 , @FranchiseBlade and @DatRocketFan disagree ... Fortunately the majority of liberals feel the same as you- we can't get everyone in agreement but I am proud of the bipartisan agreement- thank you for your position brother , much respect
I have a hard time seeing Israel acting with restraint and going out of their way to avoid civilian casualties. Judging by reactions that I'm seeing from even moderate or liberal Jewish Americans there is little reason to expect restraint. While many of them aren't saying "kill em all!" They don't want to hear anything about protecting Palestinian lives. What we're seeing in Gaza now that seems to be the case.
Anti-Israeli members like @ROXRAN who continue to advocate policies which will further hinder Israeli security disagree with the many conservatives who do want to support Israel after the horrendous terrorist attack.
The PLO is now the Palestinian Authority and it has been severely weakened both by corruption but also by that Israel's policy of collective punishment has meant that the PA infrastructure and organization has been attacked when Palestinians commit acts of terrorism even when they aren't affilated with the PA. Also the PA's inability to stop settlement building and seizure of Palestinian lands has greatly dimished it in the eyes of most Palestinians.
Yet, they could have been working with Israel to root out HAMAS, yet did not.....the people there are getting killed because they continue to not stand up to their own oppressive people in HAMAS - if they did that, this would all be over soon, the region would be much safer, and Israel may be willing to do a 2 party state for them - but instead, they elect a HAMAS government - and this is the result of embracing crazy... This is precisely why the USA can't elect Trump. DD
I don't think I'm being "sympathetic". What I'm confused about is that there is currently a system in place in that region that I find immoral, apartheid and college students being labeled as Hamas sympathizers for stating that this is the root cause of all of these issues and for some reason need to be reprimanded for it? This really confuses me. I've read the letter. Nothing about it supports Hamas. What it does is address the root cause of all this. Slavery and Apartheid I believe are in different levels of "bad systems" as I think slavery is even more cruel but still... Let me tell you why people are hesitant to have any support of the state of Israel while feeling sympathetic to civilians of Israel similar to how most including me do not support Hamas but are sympathetic the civilians of Gaza. Imagine a slave revolt in the in American southern state and a contingent of the revolt invaded white family homes and raped women and children and murdered them. Would that be a time for you then to defend the institution of slavery and the governments that allow it and institute it? Condemn the revolters who murdered innocent civilians but let's not at the same time cheer for the governments that institute the system of slavery. I find it unsettling how people especially in these elite institutions immediately jump to claims of antisemitism and supporting terrorism because college students express this view. It's insanity to me. The university is too optimistic if they think they can win a war of words through "educating" these kids on why they are wrong. Why? Because their premises stand on very flimsy ground when they accuse these students of defending terrorists and believing they need to be "held accountable. Held accountable WTF? And you thought that was the level headed response? HELD ACOUNTABLE? For ****ING WHAT?
