Comment by thrance
14 hours ago
Stop using your thought-terminating clichés about terrorism and look at actual stats:
> As of 19 November 2025, over 72,500 people (70,525 Palestinians and 2,109 Israelis) have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including 248 journalists and media workers, 120 academics, and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes 179 employees of UNRWA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war
How is killing tens of thousands of people less barbaric than killing thousands of people? What kind of twisted morality do you use to excuse mass murder by missiles but not through suicide bombing?
Some facts about that number:
1) It's the total death toll from all causes, including natural causes.
2) The majority of those "journalists and media workers" were Hamas propaganda people.
3) UNRWA had a higher proportion of it's people identified as terrorists than the population at large.
4) It's what Hamas claimed, without any means of verification. Israel showed about 4k were unquestionably false. Hamas also claimed 10,000 buried in the rubble--which never changed. Then when they started digging after the war only some hundreds were found--and Israel caught them planting bodies to be found.
And, fundamentally, the death toll proves nothing. Blame war on the side that chooses to fight, not on the side that is successful at fighting. Typically they are one in the same as most countries will not launch a war they don't expect to win. But when a little guy goes and tries to beat up a big guy and gets pounded it's still the guy who started it that's in the wrong.
1) It's not. In fact, most scholars agree these numbers are way lower than the real one, as those are only the confirmed deaths.
2) Source? The only places where I can read about it are in far right Israeli or American communications.
3) Source? It seems like Israel was interested in labelling UNRWA as a terrorist organization at some point, but there is no evidence to back up their claim. After all, the IDF is known to shoot at journalists and humanitarian aid workers in their strategy to starve Gaza, so it makes sense they would try to discredit the org.
4) I can't find what you're talking about.
I think it would be more honest if you simply stated that you are fine with the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, rather that argue about who started what while ignoring the century that Israel's settler-colonial project has existed. This isn't country vs country, this is well-funded colonizer vs colonyzee. More akin to the American expansion over natives territory. Did native American attacks back then justify the US in killing them all? Of course not. Same thing here.
Hamas's existence is at least explainable (if not excusable) in the light of a Palestinian population that feared for its lives, and was vindicated in the last few years in thinking that Israel was out to kill them all. Because it is.
> it would be more honest if you simply stated that you are fine with the ethnic cleansing in Gaza
You guys have been arguing in good faith and interestingly. You undermine your credibility with insults.
More Germans died in WW2 than Brits. Guess the Allies were the bad guys.
Are you fine with the mass killings of civilian populations in Gaza, yes or no?
War is ugly, I'm not trying to make the Palestinians into saints, but the other guy is advocating the insane position that Israel can do no wrong, and that them using excessive force is completely justified.
I feel like I'm losing my mind, why is it so hard to say "killing tens of thousands of civilians is barbaric"??
> why is it so hard to say "killing tens of thousands of civilians is barbaric"??
Because it’s not true unless we’re just saying war is barbaric. Which I agree with. But it’s not useful when trying to delineate justified versus excessive force.
I agree Israel is using excessive force in Gaza. I also think Hamas is a terrorist organisation that seems committed to continuing to do terrorism. I genuinely haven’t figured out how to balance thsr equation, though I think discussing it without calling someone engaging in good faith a monster/genocider/anti-Semite is a good start.
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