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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed 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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A Gazan hospital has been hit, allegedly by a missile, allegedly by an Israeli missile: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/least-500-victims-israeli-air-strike-hospital-gaza-health-ministry-2023-10-17/

Here is why this seems incredibly unlikely to me:

  • Israel gains nothing from this.

  • Israel loses a lot from this.

  • Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, etc. whatever amalgamation of actors here are opposing Israel have demonstrated that they are willing to strike their own people.

  • Hamas etc. gain a lot from this (politically).

The narrative around this is already forming and I suspect that we will never be free of knowing that Israel for sure bombed a hospital (maybe they did).

This will be a major inflection point in this war. Causalities are approaching 1000 people (started at 500, now at 800)

Edit: here’s also why I’m so suspicious of this. If it’s true that Israel bombed this hospital, it basically evaporates any amount of good will I had for them. The 10/7 Hamas attacks were terrible. This is just as bad. Pull our aircraft carriers back, no aid, nothing. Still send in some bad hombres to get our citizens out, but other than that Israel is on its own, and I don’t want to hear any ridiculous moralizing from any us politician ever again.

Edit2: There are allegedly demonstrations happening in several countries now. Extremely dynamic news environment. Nobody knows wtf is going on. Israel is starting to get their narrative together about the cause of this, but it's way too late for them to get ahold of it.

Edit3: allegedly a video of both the initial rocket launch, as well as the explosion: https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1714379242983846126

This matches up with the very first video of the rocket hitting the hospital, and answers why the guy filming was filming (because there were a bunch of rockets going overhead)

it basically evaporates any amount of good will I had for them

I don't understand a lot of things in life - and thoughts like these rank among the top.

Israel is surrounded by people's who all basically want them destroyed. One group decided to invade them and kill (1000, 1200?) of them and take hostages. Said people store munitions in hospitals and schools.

By every conceivable human metric that isn't of the last 50 years, Israel has the absolute human right to completely glaze everything around them until they are happy and secure.

But they don't. They hold back. Always. For decades.

And you're upset they blew up a hospital ... Or didn't.

By every conceivable human metric that isn't of the last 50 years, Israel has the absolute human right to completely glaze everything around them until they are happy and secure.

But they don't. They hold back. Always. For decades.

The problem with this statement is that while this would be fine using the human metrics of the past, the last 50 years actually took place in the last 50 years as opposed to during the Bronze age. If you actually want to adopt the standards of the Bronze Age then Israel simply does not exist, because the holocaust would have been just as fine by those standards as the proposed "glazing" of everything around them. It is solely due to the growing understanding of humanity that genocide is a great wrong that Israel and the Jewish people exist in the first place, and Israel demonstrating that they don't actually care about the evils of genocide, they just want to be wearing the boot rather than under it, is enough to make a lot of people reconsider their support. Don't forget the precedent your support of these actions sets either - even just advocating for the nuclear genocide of the Arab world is enough to permanently destroy your credibility when it comes to condemning racists or white nationalists, who are in many cases less extreme in their policy recommendations.

even just advocating for the nuclear genocide of the Arab world is enough to permanently destroy your credibility when it comes to condemning racists or white nationalists, who are in many cases less extreme in their policy recommendations.

I think we should be a bit more clear here: until they are happy and secure.

They are not secure because the people around them want them dead. The people around them constantly kill them, want to kill them, pray to kill them, hope to kill them, etc

Affixing "until they are happy and secure" to the end of the statement does absolutely nothing to change the thrust of my argument or weaken the point at all. If your standard for moral condemnation is that you have to wait for the white nationalists to be "happy and secure" in their position then you're still going to be ok with them wiping out every single jew in their countries (they wouldn't be happy without that of course).

The crud of your point has seemingly little to do with my thoughts.