Edited title to match articles title.
I’ve been tracking the comments on all of this across various websites to see what people’s thoughts are. This genuinely might be the most contentious issue of our age. There are people who are vehemently pro Palestine and can dismiss the loss of civilian lives as’ what do you expect when people are pushed like this’ . Then others are hugely pro Israel and see this as an unprovoked attack by a terrorist group and any retaliation is justified.
I think everyone’s shitty here. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They use terrorist practices and target civilians. That’s a terrorist organization. There’s no discussion on that point. Israel is a right wing authoritarian state that regularly commits war crimes. The total Palestinian body count far exceeds the death toll from this attack by orders of magnitude so we can’t pretend like Israel was minding its own business and was attacked.
I don’t think you can point to one or the other as being the true hero or the true victim. It’s the greatest grey area of all time.
I absolutely condemn the Palestinians and Hamas for this act. I absolutely condemn the Israelis for their continued mistreatment and violence towards Palestinians. One will say they only act this way because of the behavior of the other. But at this point where does the original blame for all of it start and end.
The only thing that is certain is that there will be far more blood shed and every dead Israeli will be met with 10 dead Palestinians. I suspect this will be the turning point for this ongoing conflict. And in the future there may no longer be a Palestine as we know it. With the US protecting Israel no other Arab countries will dare intervene militarily. If the Israelis occupy Gaza it’s going to quickly become a quagmire with a never ending insurgency. It will be costly and in ten years Israel will be more unsafe then they were today.
There’s no good answers or good parties here. Just disgusting human nature and the consequences of half baked racist geopolitics from the 40s.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that Hamas is completely capable - at any moment - of surrendering, releasing all hostages, de-militarizing, and vowing to never again attempt to kill civilians. The water and electricity would come right back on.
Doing so would save the lives of countless Palestinian civilians, and if they had any care for their lives at all, they would do this immediately.
surrendering, releasing all hostages, de-militarizing,
And allow the genocide of Palestine to continue without opposition? Why should they simply lay down and die? Because fighting back is distasteful?
I must have missed the lesson in school about how the way to resist oppression is to rape and murder hundreds of innocent civilians at a festival.
It’s not as if there were a lack of military targets around. If Hamas had strictly focused on attacking military bases and infrastructure, I might be able to be sympathetic. At the least, that would fall under the umbrella of meaningful resistance. Instead, their sole aim was to murder as many Jews as possible. Kidnapping civilians and threatening to murder them on a livestream is absolutely indefensible.
The only explanation I have found, for Hamas attacking those civilians, is, that they are cowards. They are scared. If they attack military personnel, the soldiers actually fight back… raping and killing civilians is just so much more convenient for Hamas.
“Look what you’re making us do.”
Ah, I forgot, Hamas simply had to rape a bunch of women and butcher 200 people at a festival. That’s just what righteous resistance looks like.
Or perhaps childish quips aren’t actually useful in a productive conversation, who knows
My point was that Israel cannot offload to Hamas all responsibility for the suffering to civilians caused by blockading Gaza. It’s Israel’s choice to react like this. I understand Israel’s reasons for taking this extreme action, but Israel should take responsibility for it, not pretend it was forced into this and it has to keep starving civilians until Hamas capitulates. And of course I’m not condoning the atrocities committed by Hamas.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that the Zionist entity is completely capable - at any moment - of surrendering, releasing all hostages, de-militarizing, and vowing to never again attempt to kill civilians.
You know as well as I do that a de-militarized Israel would very rapidly no longer exist.
If you recall, Gaza was occupied until 2005, when the IDF withdrew as a sign of goodwill towards peace. Gazans then elected Hamas and started shooting rockets at Israeli cities.
If you’re supporting a side that’s threatening to livestream the murder of hostages, you need to take a very long look in the mirror.
You know as well as I do that a de-militarized Israel would very rapidly no longer exist.
Yes
Mask off, so my job is done here.
I’ve never been trying to hide behind a mask, just like the Zionist entity has never tried to hide that it primarily targets civilians.
If you’re supporting the side indiscriminately starving millions, you need to take a very long look in the mirror. This fight is villains vs villains, and civilians are taking the brunt of the brutality from both sides.
Are you suggesting that Israel should be bound by international law to not impose collective punishment, while the state of Palestine is killing and kidnapping civilians and clearly not hindered by it? Palestine is a hostile nation that just launched a bloody attack on civilians. Aren’t the effects of a war typically felt by all members of a state participating in it?
No.I do believe Israel should respect international law. This doesn’t mean I approve of what Hamas did.
Gaza is still accessible via Egypt, supply lines can still remain open. It seems absurd to suggest Israel should be forced to aid and supply a hostile state that is currently killing their civilians. A blockade seems appropriate to me given the circumstances.
Theoretically if Mexico invaded the US we should still keep supplying them with energy, food and water while they attack us because otherwise it’s collective punishment?
Egypt is as hostile to Gaza or worse, but they get a free pass not being Jewish.
It’s still a war crime. Article 54 of Protocol I and Article 14 of Protocol II.
- Food and water can still get in via the Egyptian border, supply lines are still open. This isn’t a mediaeval siege, if starvation were the goal no border crossings would be allowed.
- Funny how in this conflict one side is expected to adhere to international law while the other side totally ignores it, intentionally attacks civilians, takes hostages, launches missiles indiscriminately at civilian centers, etc., If Israel adopted the tactics Palestine is willing to employ there would be no Palestine.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. A single severely restricted border crossing is not a replacement for water and electricity mains. Restricting necessities of life is a war crime
My back of the napkin math suggests there would need to be over 4,000 tanker trucks filled with water moving through that checkpoint every day
Yes of course.
If a nation states justification for violating such laws is that a terrorist organization is doing too, then they fucked up completely.
If a nation states justification for violating such laws is that a terrorist organization is doing too, then they fucked up completely.
This terrorist organization, Hamas, runs the government in Gaza. They were elected in democratic elections in 2006 and no elections have been held since. This is an attack from a terrorist state, not an example of clandestine civilians acting on their own.
The Hamas is called a terrorist organization by Israel, most NATO countries and many others. It is the official language of the Western nations and neither Gaza nor Palestine ist recognized as a “state” by Israel or again most of NATO.
Adding more hypocricsy to the hypocricsy doesn’t make it better as a justification.
Although that is true, the state of Palestine has significant international recognition.
Terrorism is most obviously defined by attacks on civilians for political ends. Hamas, who is in charge of Gaza, just orchestrated the murder of 1000+ civilians. I’m at a loss as to how one can try to portray this as not a terrorist state. An EDM concert full of civilian youths is not a valid military target, this wasn’t collateral damage, it was an intentional attack on civilians.
Is it any wonder NATO and Israel doesn’t want to normalize relations with them?
Israel as the occupying power had already been breaking international law so a bit more won’t make much difference.
All those who condemned Hamas for attacking civilians, I wonder if they will have the same energy when Israel starves civilians?
FAFO. I’m not sure what else was going to happen.
Israel has been fucking around for decades. Yet i bet you dont use that cop out for the attack on the weekend.
How were people peacefully attending a festival fucking around? Hmm?
Partying in an apartheid state?
Like shit, maybe it’s not a good idea to have a rave with the bastards commiting genocide and crimes against humanity on stolen land?
Strange fucking genocide. And as to whether the land was stolen, I’m sorry, but at this point, it doesn’t matter. There was a partition plan, the Arabs wouldn’t accept it, fought a bunch of wars, and got their shit kicked in. FAFO.
Welp, whatever goodwill and sympathy I had for Israel just went poof. Less than 24 hours too, gotta be a record for them.
Funny, I feel the same way about Palestine. Their army of terrorists was raping young women next to their dead civilian friends at a concert promoting peace and love, while slaughtering unarmed edm kids trying to escape in the hundreds:
Others were captured and bound and kidnapped. “I saw videos with a male getting held by a group of Arab kids. Like, they’re like 16, 17,” one survivor recalled. “They’re kids, but they’re young men already, and they’re holding this guy, and he looks as his girlfriend is being mounted on a bike and driven away from him. God knows what she’s going to experience … Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends bodies, dead bodies.”
Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed. Others were taken to Gaza. In photographs released online, you can see several paraded through the city’s streets, blood gushing from between their legs.
One survivor who’d returned to the scene later in the day to look for his friends spoke, in a breaking voice, of what he’d seen. Of the bodies, mainly of young women, lying cold and mutilated. Of scantily clad corpses, many of whom appeared to have been shot at point-blank. Of cars, perforated by bullets or blown up by grenades.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/israel-music-festival-massacre-eyewitness-accountClosing the borders and shutting off supplies provided by the nation they attacked is enough to make you lose sympathy for victims of such acts? Your sense of moral equivalence seems broken.
Maybe don’t have your “festival for peace and love” in an apartheid state about 5km from one of the most contested borders in the world? Not saying what Hamas did was right but goddamn was that some ignorant yuppie shit to have a music festival right there
You mean the very popular concert site that the Gazans also make frequent use of for their own festivals?
Nevermind that, how about shut right the fuck up if you’re going to try and victim blame raped civilians for being in too close proximity to the monsters that decided they were gonna go do some raping today.
It’s one of the most heinous active choices a person can make, and the people who’d actively try to defend someone making such a vile and inhuman choice are second only to such in moral bankruptcy.
You know what I’ll give people under 21 who were born in Israel a pass. Literally everyone else chose to be in that fucked up country in that fucked up part of the world at that time. If you are a grown ass adult actively choosing to be part of the problem, by living in/traveling to/paying taxes in this horrible apartheid state, you deserve what happened to you.
The terrorists who carried out this event are even more despicable. There is never any reason to commit these kind of atrocities be it religion or whatever else.
If they didn’t want to be violently raped and murdered why did they dress and behave so provocatively by holding a peaceful dance party nearby? Yeah clearly it was their fault. 🙄
