Comment by JumpCrisscross

> At some point, you have to call out a genocide for what it is

Maybe. I’ll admit, on this first day of 2026 I am thoroughly confused as to the boundary between hybrid/guerilla warfare and genocide.

More pointedly, the debate becomes alienating when we’re calling each other genociders and anti-Semites.

> This in turn will create a new generation of "terrorists" who see violence as the only escape. This is also how Hamas was created

This is not a great argument for peace in Palestine. One, lots of oppressed populations don’t resort to terrorism. Two, it suggests an independent Palestine would continue to be a security threat to Israel.

> Israel is interested in cleansing the Gaza strip

Let’s be blunter since “cleansing” has similarly been semantically obliterated. Members of Israel’s leadership have expressed views that sound like they want to exterminate Palestinians. Others want to move them to away places, which is bad, but categorically different from the first. Plenty of others, however, just don’t want their kids kidnapped at raves or are angry and polarised in the face of violence.

We can do the same for Hamas. Exterminating Israelis and Jews is an explicit aim of Hamas. I don’t think that means everyone in Gaza who supports Hamas is bent on genocide. I do think that makes them—like Israelis pushing to keep bombing Gaza—relatively unsympathetic. (Them and them specifically. Not their whole group.)

> it first involves stopping Israel immediately and getting the IDF out of Gaza. There is no equation to balance here

Israel has a security imperative. If getting out of Gaza means Hamas reärms over a population that supports another October 7th attack, withdrawal is not in their interest. (If you aren’t using violence, which to be clear, means people continent away deciding—again—how borders in the Middle East should be drawn because they know better than the folks on the ground, you need a solution that’s in both parties’ interests. I don’t think Likud and Hamas are interested in negotiating. I do think Gazans and Israelis are.)