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Leaving aside the conflation of Iraq and Afghanistan, that’s a ridiculous comparison, because neither Iraq nor Japan nor Germany were entirely or mostly or even substantially urban.
In reality, footage of postwar Dresden, Berlin and Tokyo looks pretty similar to footage of urban Gaza today. 5% of Germany’s civilian population died in the war by most estimates, more in many major cities. Again the numbers in Gaza are similar (WW2 was longer, but the pitched phase of urban fighting that saw most of those casualties was actually much shorter). Iraq saw far fewer civilian casualties because the Baathist government was deeply unpopular, its military was a traditional uniformed military built on the failed Arab military model of the 1970s and the majority Shia population eagerly dismantled what remained of Hussein’s regime. Go back to America’s last genuinely major conflict in Vietnam (again, predominantly rural at the time of fighting which inherently means a much lower civilian casualty rate) and the civilian casualties spike accordingly, because the enemy had morale.
That is, by the way, what it takes to root out a highly entrenched urban guerilla force that doesn’t wear uniforms, has an extensive tunnel network and embraces hiding among the civilian population. The only alternative Israel’s detractors can offer to the way the war has already been prosecuted amounts to ‘just leave and negotiate from a distance’. That is a valid approach, and a fair argument (and one I agree with), but it is not and can never be a military strategy, only a diplomatic one. Militarily, strategists offer no alternative. If you were in charge of the IDF and were given the order to militarily destroy Hamas with the soldiers Israel has and the equipment it has, you could likely come up with no military strategy that had fewer civilian casualties than the current approach.
Falluja was fought against insurgents in Iraq. While 60% or more of the buildings in Gaza are destroyed, after this battle (the worst of the urban combat in Iraq) only 20% max were destroyed. Why didn’t America just bomb the city until everyone died? Al Qaeda was fought in the battle of Ramadi. Years long urban battle. Why didn’t America just blow up every single dwelling? Same for in Baghdad, over 2 years.
Comparing Hamas, with limited offensive capabilities, to Nazi Germany, doesn’t make much sense. They were compared in the above to show that even the comically worst enemy of history weren’t despised with genocidal intent as Israelis despise Palestinians. But you can’t compare Hamas and their kidnappings / killings to a Nazi invasion of continental Europe. The best comparison is our fight against Al Qaeda and insurgents. They launched an attack on American soil that killed twice the number as Oct 7. We went after Al Qaeda and Baathists as a result. We didn’t aim to starve them to death. This is the closest thing to a 1-to-1 comparison. Vietnam was a notably bad war, people still bring it up all the time as an example of what not to do.
This is unfalsifiable. The few accounts we get from the ground indicate little regard for human life. The recent video of the ambulance workers being killed is an example. You can do what Americans did in Iraq and go into Gaza on the ground. You can enter tunnels and raid homes like we did in Vietnam. If they are unwilling to do this out of fear, then Israel should give up and make compromises. I don’t think the answer is starvation and trying to destroy everything in Gaza.
If Israel was willing to bomb Gaza until everyone died, the war would be over by now because everyone in Gaza would be dead. Do you think this is what is looks like when a modern military power with total air superiority tries to obliterate a civilian center? It is not.
It is entirely within Israel's power to turn Gaza into a smoking pile of rubble. They are choosing not to do that.
If Israel were to do everything they could to kill as many Gazans as possible without losing what remains of international support, what would they do differently than what they are currently doing? They know they can’t actually bomb everyone immediately, all at once. But they can bomb as many as they can get away with, keeping everyone in semi-starvation, causing maximum trauma, destroying every dwelling, and so on. They can kill them all slowly in this way, to reduce international outrage.
If you define “as many as they can get away with” as “whatever they’re doing right now,” you’re just assuming the conclusion.
Surely Israel could drop a few more bombs without losing its core supporters. Or blockade a little more tightly. Or cut negotiations shorter.
What the influential Smotrich had to say just a few days ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=STymrqvry2k
You can plug this into a program that converts subtitles into text and then translate it
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See, now we've gone from talking about facts to reading minds. How do you distinguish someone who wants to kill as many Gazans as possible but is held back by the international community from someone who acts in line with the attitude of the international community because they're part of it? You're essentially blaming them for things they aren't doing, but which you assume they want to do.
I’m arguing against the notion that “Israel doesn’t want to kill all Gazans because they haven’t done that”. They appear to be doing what they can to accomplish this goal within the constraints placed on them externally. The reason that I think they show disregard for human life is because various international bodies, doctors on the ground, and the little available videographic evidence on the ground supports this. The reason I think they are genocidal is because the statements of their politicians suggest this. The Israel apologist is forced to deny the legitimacy of the statements which the politicians (and public) have made indicating their genocidal intent. But the apologies can’t argue, “if they wanted to they would”, because they risk becoming an actual pariah state if they did so, and may even see the deportation of Israelis abroad etc.
I’m honestly having a hard time finding the truth in your post here when it comes to the thoughts of others.
It seems like all the attributions you are giving to Israel (killing as many people as possible, the population wants to kill as many of them as possible, they’re only not due to reasons, the people on the ground say so) are just actually true about Hamas and Palestine whereas they could be true about Israel if you squinted hard enough and ignored the people doing the saying.
I don’t really see how I’m an Israeli apologists when I shrug my shoulders and go ‘ yea, they deserve this - that’s what happens in a war … this has happened tens of thousands of times before’ and this time it’s actually completely deserved.
A population-wide survey, statements from national politicians, and some members of the judiciary have advocated for genocide according to mainstream definitions. The population-wide survey I posted in my OP shows that many Israelis desire genocide even in the most extreme conceptualization of killing every Gazan. Israel’s inability to carry this out because of near-unanimous disapproval does not indicate a lack of genocidal or intent, only a basic level of foresight in securing self-interest. Does this clarify things?
It’s literally posted in my OP, but for other claims I’m happy to provide a source; you can look at the testimony of British doctors, or watch the recently published video of a team of medical workers being killed. The judiciary and public opinion are literally quoted in my OP, so I don’t know why squinting would be required unless these facts are seen as so brightly illuminating that they burn your eyes. From a leading Israeli politician and minister,
https://www.newsweek.com/worst-man-israel-makes-moral-argument-genocide-opinion-1936211
Do you want more examples?
I think you'd find similar results in any survey of a country at war. "Should we exterminate every last man, woman and child?" A non-trivial fraction of the population will say "Yes." That survey is very strangely constructed, phrasing everything in Old Testament terms ("Should we treat them like the Ameleks?") which I think is a lot less straightforward than asking "Should we genocide Gaza?" I am sure you are aware that how you word a survey has a huge impact on the answers you get, such that you can ask questions that mean the same thing and get different answers.
Are there Israelis who'd be perfectly happy to kill every last Palestinian? No doubt. How are they different from Russians or Ukrainians or Somalis or Americans? You love finding these cherry-picked examples framed in careful and very specific ways, omitting crucial details or comparators, to imply Jews are uniquely evil and genocidal, but you haven't shown anything but that Israelis are reacting like most people would when they believe themselves to be literally under siege by people who, unambiguously, really do want to genocide them. (Does that mean I think Israelis would be justified in wiping out the Palestinians? No, but I think surveys showing a large number of them at this point are saying "Fuck it, why not?" are not saying anything special about Jews.)
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The battle of falluja was less than 2 months long and there weren't extensive tunnel networks dug out specifically to prevent the forces from being effectively routed. This is the type of war Hamas specifically prepared to fight and provoke. You need to deal with there being two agentic sides to this conflict.
This has a lot to do with holocaust justification for the war being post hoc and Americans just not really caring a much about a conflict half the world away as evidenced by the long resistance to entering it.
Afghanistan just isn't in any way comparable to Gaza.
A call for an alternative strategy is definitely falsifiable although it's a weird term to use. The relevant question is what do you actually do if you're Israel and recognize that your neighbor is lead by a death cult that legitimately will go to whatever ends are within their ability to kill as many of your people as possible and have extensive tunnel networks that make actually rooting them out nearly impossible. Your options are basically extreme violence, as we see now, or just enduring regular attacks.
Tunnels are not something that would prevent Israel from being on the ground, it would simply add to the casualties. If you think they should blow up and starve all of Gaza because they don’t want to take on-the-ground casualties, then you have to ask why America allowed any on-the-ground casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why not bomb and starve the countries entirely? There were two battles of Falluja separated by seven months — because there was always a sustained insurgent force among civilians. There was a sustained insurgent force through much of the Iraq war, with IED events getting worse as the war went on, peaking in 2007. The tunnel excuse is equivalent to destroying all of Iraq because you don’t want to take casualties from IEDs. Only ~400 soldiers killed in Gaza ground operations so far.
Nazis invaded countries and killed many millions of people. This was well known at the time. And there was a lot of war propaganda about rape and civilians being killed. The American soldiers just weren’t sociopaths. They didn’t want to genocide people for losing a war.
You can stop blockading the Gaza Strip and stealing land in the West Bank and illegally imprisoning Gazans, which were the ascribed motivations for the attack
You can not use the Hannibal Directive, which killed some unspecified % of the hostages and civilians (it’s crazy we still don’t know the extent of this)
You can implement the most asinine security measures to prevent any future attack, starting with a common sense “don’t throw raves right next to Gaza”
You can pursue diplomacy based on returning encroached land in the West Bank
blockading? Do you mean controlling what goes in to the territory where the governimg body uses the pipes meant for water supplies to make rockets? Yeah, no country is going to allow supplies in unexamined in that situation.
I agree, the settlements should not happen, but the Palestinians should have by now come up with state borders which would have prevented this rather than clinging to the delusion that they're going to retake Israel. We should have two people negotiate proper borders but the Palestinians are uninterested in this.
What percentage of the deaths on October 7th do you think died to Hannibal directive? The policy rescinded in 2016.
Do you attribute any agency at all to Gazans? Are they just animals incapable of higher reasoning in your estimation? They can't be expected to differentiate right from wrong?
Would hamas accept a two state solution on these borders?
This was debunked, I’m pretty sure.
That’s also false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel and there’s also a good TheGreyZone article on it.
Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if every non military age male was killed in the Hannibal Directive rather than by Hamas. Because I don’t think Hamas went in with the RPGs required to —
Though a video was “”released”” showing a militant with one, the original footage doesn’t show it. And by the time the IDF was firing at cars, each insurgent already had a car full of hostages. But Zionists wouldn’t stand 1000 hostages in Gaza and only militant-aged deaths, because this would mean that they would have to take their demands for freedom and justice seriously. This is my theory.
I think so, yes
I wish I shared your optimism....
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There's video of it happening and hamas claims it happens. The only thing really up for debate is if they use specifically EU funded pipes.
But more to the broader point you understand they still regularly lobbed rockets at Israel right? You can't just let your neighbor that's doing that get easy access to more serious weapons.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/10/eu-funded-water-pipelines-hamas-rockets/
Are you under the impression that most Israelis on October 7th died in cars on the way back to gaza? This is a totally unhinged thing to believe. There is footage, you can watch it. Should go without saying but very NSFW https://www.hamas-massacre.net/
I genuinely don't understand how you could convince yourself of this. Hamas leadership had been very consistent in denying this.
https://old.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c5tmvb/cmv_hamas_is_not_directly_destroying_gazas_water/
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It’s not unhinged to know, as a fact, the facts of the day: that many houses were destroyed by tanks, that a survivor testified to tanks firing at their house and killing their family, that many cars were destroyed which were on their way into Gaza, that there were instances of friendly fire. It’s unhinged to have any opinion on the conflict without knowing this, unhinged to hide from it because you find it uncomfortable to acknowledge. And while it’s not unhinged to distrust “footage” that came out weeks after the attack, I find it inadvisable, because every developed nation has the ability to fabricate footage. Of course, the footage that was published in the first 48 or 72 hours should be trusted without doubt, because no nation would be so hasty in publishing fabricated footage in such a short span.
If you know they fired upon cars on their way to Gaza, and you know Hamas was taking as many hostages as possible and cramming them into cars, then it’s reasonable to believe that some hundreds of civilians were killed by the aerial attack on the cars returning to Gaza. I mean, that was the whole Hamas mission.
The point with the pipes is that obviously hamas is trying to make rockets and bombs using any material they can get their hands on. We're in agreement that they've dug up water pipes and made rockets out of them.This is the justification for blockading and inspecting things thing into Gaza.
Your claim is that you wouldn't be surprised if only military aged men were killed by Hamas. We have videos of the indiscriminate killing. Not that killing military aged festival goers is somehow justified. You're out of your mind here.
You're trusting hearsay about tanks but not video footage? For real? There is plenty of testimony of indiscriminate killing as well, do you trust that testimony or only the rumors spread by pro hamas accounts?
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Mysterious force of nature it seems.
I think the Gazans and the IDF soldiers have agency, but I only want to see one of these groups punished severely
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