These types of responses always skip over the most crucial parts of history:
The IDF originally funneled money to the founder of Hamas in order to weaken popular support for Fatah, and Netanyahu facilitated Qatari payments to Hamas when it seemed that support for the Palestinian Authority was rising. His far right defense minister publicly resigned, saying that Netanyahu was financing terrorism against Israel.
Including in these facts into the argument makes it seem less like Israel is fighting a terrorist group, and more like Israel tolerates a terrorist organization as their best alternative to a two state solution.
Yeah, IMO a key idea--which I wish was more popular in the zeitgeist--is this:
The vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis are both being abused by their respective leaderships, which--for many years now--have desired and actively promoted some degree of violent-threat and indefinite strife, because it's how they maintain power and crush political rivals.
_____________
P.S.: For fellow Americans thinking "that can't happen here", there's good evidence that Richard Nixon tried to sabotage--or at least delay--US/Vietnam peace talks in order to get himself elected President. [0] In either case, the war continued for another five years.
It also skipped most of a century of historical context, pretending the conflict started two months ago out of nowhere. The specific origins of hamas are certainly relevant but so is the nakba, the 2018 border protests, the apartheid structure of israeli governance of palestine. etc.
good for you, but this is not about how we feel, but about making peace. The palestine issue won't be solved this time like it was not solved in decades of war. you will just have thousands more new terrorists now, who watched family members die while trying to follow orders that israel had given them to protect them. This is a complex issue and not one for taking sides.
Why is Israel settling the West Bank and refusing to make peace with Fatah and the PA? There's no Hamas in power there but Israel has refused to stop violently removing people from their land on the basis of their ethnicity.
I want to believe that Hamas is hiding among civilians, but there has already been reported major violations where there cannot be any military benefit for Israel about this. A hospital with a children's ward was labeled to be a command center for Hamas, but when the BBC came to examine the command center, they not only found nothing to indicate a major military use but also had video evidence (from previous video taken earlier in the day by Israeli military) that what was there was actively staged for them. And then we find out that the children's ward had babies in incubators-- and the Israeli military did nothing to save those babies despite taking control of the hospital. Like, when Palestinians were able to get back to the hospital they found the babies as corpses rotting in the incubators. This was confirmed by neutral third party reporters. WTF?
How much grace can someone reasonably hold for a military force that repeatedly lies and then allows babies in incubators to die in the hospital they took over? At what point should we hold a much more well funded, a much more democratic, and a much more supposedly civilized civilization to higher standards than the terrorists they're fighting?
I don’t think that most (nearly all?) pro Palestine critics are saying that Hamas is in the right. All of the wording I’ve seen was focused on Israel’s and the IDFs response and actions. As you’ve mentioned, killing civilians is a war crime.
Many civilized nations have military installations, such as headquarters and office facilities, co-located and intermixed with civilian facilities. They also have military bases and complexes, but the intermixing is not unique to Hamas.
When the Palestinians in Gaza have been denied elections in nearly 2 decades and have expressed discontent with Hamas as well, it sounds disingenuous to characterize it as “invited […] so deeply into their everyday lives.”
I think it's tragic that you have no sympathy for children and innocent civilians dying. No matter the side.
These types of responses always skip over the most crucial parts of history:
The IDF originally funneled money to the founder of Hamas in order to weaken popular support for Fatah, and Netanyahu facilitated Qatari payments to Hamas when it seemed that support for the Palestinian Authority was rising. His far right defense minister publicly resigned, saying that Netanyahu was financing terrorism against Israel.
Including in these facts into the argument makes it seem less like Israel is fighting a terrorist group, and more like Israel tolerates a terrorist organization as their best alternative to a two state solution.
Yeah, IMO a key idea--which I wish was more popular in the zeitgeist--is this:
The vast majority of Palestinians and Israelis are both being abused by their respective leaderships, which--for many years now--have desired and actively promoted some degree of violent-threat and indefinite strife, because it's how they maintain power and crush political rivals.
_____________
P.S.: For fellow Americans thinking "that can't happen here", there's good evidence that Richard Nixon tried to sabotage--or at least delay--US/Vietnam peace talks in order to get himself elected President. [0] In either case, the war continued for another five years.
[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/notes-indicate-nix...
It also skipped most of a century of historical context, pretending the conflict started two months ago out of nowhere. The specific origins of hamas are certainly relevant but so is the nakba, the 2018 border protests, the apartheid structure of israeli governance of palestine. etc.
good for you, but this is not about how we feel, but about making peace. The palestine issue won't be solved this time like it was not solved in decades of war. you will just have thousands more new terrorists now, who watched family members die while trying to follow orders that israel had given them to protect them. This is a complex issue and not one for taking sides.
If Hamas wanted peace, they could have it. They don’t. They want to kill the Jews.
Why is Israel settling the West Bank and refusing to make peace with Fatah and the PA? There's no Hamas in power there but Israel has refused to stop violently removing people from their land on the basis of their ethnicity.
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I want to believe that Hamas is hiding among civilians, but there has already been reported major violations where there cannot be any military benefit for Israel about this. A hospital with a children's ward was labeled to be a command center for Hamas, but when the BBC came to examine the command center, they not only found nothing to indicate a major military use but also had video evidence (from previous video taken earlier in the day by Israeli military) that what was there was actively staged for them. And then we find out that the children's ward had babies in incubators-- and the Israeli military did nothing to save those babies despite taking control of the hospital. Like, when Palestinians were able to get back to the hospital they found the babies as corpses rotting in the incubators. This was confirmed by neutral third party reporters. WTF?
How much grace can someone reasonably hold for a military force that repeatedly lies and then allows babies in incubators to die in the hospital they took over? At what point should we hold a much more well funded, a much more democratic, and a much more supposedly civilized civilization to higher standards than the terrorists they're fighting?
Are you talking about the hospital that was actually destroyed accidentally by the Hamas and the Hamas blamed it on Israel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio...
No he’s talking about Shifa hospital where the IDF later showed an underground bunker: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-army-displ...
I don’t think that most (nearly all?) pro Palestine critics are saying that Hamas is in the right. All of the wording I’ve seen was focused on Israel’s and the IDFs response and actions. As you’ve mentioned, killing civilians is a war crime.
Many civilized nations have military installations, such as headquarters and office facilities, co-located and intermixed with civilian facilities. They also have military bases and complexes, but the intermixing is not unique to Hamas.
When the Palestinians in Gaza have been denied elections in nearly 2 decades and have expressed discontent with Hamas as well, it sounds disingenuous to characterize it as “invited […] so deeply into their everyday lives.”
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