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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   20128 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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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.

In reality, footage of postwar Dresden, Berlin and Tokyo looks pretty similar to footage of urban Gaza today

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

even the comically worst enemy of history weren’t despised with genocidal intent as Israelis despise Palestinians.

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.

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.

Afghanistan just isn't in any way comparable to Gaza.

This is unfalsifiable.

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.

This has a lot to do with holocaust justification for the war being post hoc

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.

The relevant question is what do you actually do if you're Israel

  • 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

You can stop blockading the Gaza Strip What do you mean by

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.

stealing land in the West Bank and illegally imprisoning

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.

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)

What percentage of the deaths on October 7th do you think died to Hannibal directive? The policy rescinded in 2016.

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”

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?

You can pursue diplomacy based on returning encroached land in the West Bank

Would hamas accept a two state solution on these borders?

governimg body uses the pipes meant for water supplies to make rockets

This was debunked, I’m pretty sure.

What percentage of the deaths on October 7th do you think died to Hannibal directive? The policy rescinded in 2016.

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.

According to a December 2023 Ynet article, there was also an "immense and complex quantity" of friendly-fire incidents during the October 7 attack.[34][35] In January 2024, an investigation by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth concluded that the IDF had in practice applied the Hannibal Directive, ordering all combat units to stop "at all costs" any attempt by Hamas militants to return to Gaza, even if there were hostages with them.[37][36] The directive was first employed at 7:18 AM at the Erez border crossing to prevent soldiers stationed there from being taken captive. At 10:32 AM, an order was issued to all battalions in the area to fire mortars towards Gaza. Documents obtained by Haaretz and the testimonies of soldiers show that use of the Hannibal Directive was "widespread" after an order was issued to the Gaza Division at 11:22 AM that "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza." At 2:00 p.m., all units were instructed not to leave border communities or chase anyone into Gaza, as the border was under heavy, indiscriminate fire. At 6:40 p.m., the army launched artillery raids at the border area "very close" to Kibbutz Be'eri and Kfar Azza.[379] It is unclear how many hostages were killed by friendly fire.[37][36] According to Yedioth Ahronoth, around 70 burnt-out vehicles on roads leading to Gaza had been fired on by helicopters or tanks, killing all occupants in at least some cases.[37][36]

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 —

In the aftermath of the attack, Israel buried hundreds of burned cars that were at the scene of the attacks "To preserve the sanctity of those murdered by Hamas

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.

Would hamas accept a two state solution on these borders?

I think so, yes

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