This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
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Notes -
https://x.com/Ike_Saul/status/1711780282725011520
It is a bit lame to post a twitter link and say I agree with it, but this piece resonates with me so much that I wanted to share it here. I still believe this place is majority composed of reasonable people, notwithstanding the couple of accounts that has spent the last couple of weeks plotting genocide scenarios and reliving their war on terror "they hate us for our freedoms" high one last time.
To delve deeper into the uncomfortable topic of the looming genocide, I also increasingly get the feeling that contrary to the expectations of some whose view of geopolitics is eerily similar to RTS mechanics, the genocidal military power IDF is displaying right now is ultimately going to harm Israel a lot more than it helps. I think it mainly has to do with political/military leadership trying to cover their ass and muffle their enormous failures with the sound of bombs. If IDF really goes through with their plan which seems likely to cost civilian lives in the hundreds of thousands, I don't think the nation of Israel will ever recover from this.
It is a country that is already losing two of its most powerful weapons:
I fully agree that the situation with Gaza is entirely unsustainable. But if Israelis go through with what they are plotting right now, they will slowly but surely find out that they are 7 million souls surviving in an ocean of half a billion through miracles, and they are pissing in the miracle potion.
“You cannot keep two million people living in the conditions people in Gaza are living in and expect peace.”
This is entirely correct. It glosses over the fact that “the conditions people in Gaza are living in” is the result of their chosen policies - namely, putting resources into Jew-killing efforts rather than nation-building efforts - but it’s still entirely true.
Given that those people cannot be allowed into Israel, and that they don’t show any signs of trying to improve their own living conditions, the only way out of this situation is for them to simply be somewhere else. Preferably they could go to many different somewhere elses, such that their culture could be diluted in their hosts’ culture until finally it disappears.
A result of Hamas' policies. I guess you can say that voting for Hamas once and having them defenestrate any opposition and rule via pure violence makes them culpable but I think it's a dubious argument - especially given how young Gaza. If people voted for Saddam once I doubt starving Iraqis would be seen as a matter of putting the moral responsibility where it belongs. You can claim it's a military or political necessity but the conscience-soothing explanation doesn't seem sufficient.
No need for conscience soothing here. A culture that produces this kind of violence has no right to exist, as far as I’m concerned.
In any case, I’ve seen no evidence that the people of Gaza are actually ideologically opposed to Hamas, and plenty to the contrary.
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It's worse than mere neglect. They actively scrap basic necessities to fashion into weapons to kill jews.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/10/eu-funded-water-pipelines-hamas-rockets/#:~:text=In%202021%20footage%20emerged%20of,fashioned%20into%20home%2Dmade%20rockets.&text=Their%20main%20armament%20has%20been,fertiliser%20and%20commercially%20available%20explosives.
They've basically torn up all the old infrastructure the Israeli's left behind, and built rockets with them. Then have the nerve to complain that their basic necessities are so terrible. What's that saying about the definition of hutzpah? Murdering your parents and then begging the court for mercy because you are an orphan?
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