Comment by grumple
2 years ago
1200+ Israelis, mostly civilians, were brutally murdered on 10/7.
There have already been real-life anti-semitic attacks on people and property. There have been synagogues and cemeteries burned, people murdered, shot, and stabbed, businesses trashed. [0][1][2][3][4] You can find hundreds more sources of recent, very real, physical violence against Jews and Jewish places worldwide.
Jews have been subject to thousands of years of very real pogroms, genocide, and conspiracy theories. These are not "possible" bad outcomes, they actually happened, we're seeing some of it now, and we have every reason to believe that it will happen again.
0. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-a...
1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-...
2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson...
3. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up...
4. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/i...
What is happening now worldwide in terms of anti-semitism is absolutely irrelevant in comparison to the mass murder in Gaza. I come from people who were the recipients of anti-Semitic violence in Europe for centuries. What Israel is doing has only and will only make it worse.
I was responding first and foremost to the assertion that such attacks were merely "possible". I demonstrated that they are actual. They put real people who have nothing to do with this war at risk due to actual antisemitic behavior.
Your characterization of military action against military targets in Gaza as mass murder is an interpretation, but not a reasonable one. Israel was attacked by thousands of Hamas soldiers. Hamas governs Gaza (poorly, and undemocractically, but they do govern it). Israel is responding to the attacks by Hamas by attempting to destroy Hamas. Hamas is still launching rockets at Israel from Gaza even today. They are still fighting.
War is hell. Civilians die, especially when the opposition hides in and under civilian structures. There is no magic weapon or method that will eliminate Hamas without killing civilians. And Hamas has demonstrated over and over that they will not respect ceasefire or stop killing, and they have been widely supported by Gazans. Hamas must be eliminated and Palestinians must actually want and accept peace for there to be peace.
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