I love you Steve. Yet, on this, we may need to agree to disagree. Israel is a country. It deserves to exist without the threat of violent attack across its borders. If 1000+ Americans were violently and brutally murdered from a cross-border attack from, say, Vancouver - do you really think anyone internationally would have the balls to d…
I love you Steve. Yet, on this, we may need to agree to disagree. Israel is a country. It deserves to exist without the threat of violent attack across its borders. If 1000+ Americans were violently and brutally murdered from a cross-border attack from, say, Vancouver - do you really think anyone internationally would have the balls to demand the US didn’t turn that province into a parking lot to deter another attack?
I’m a feminist. The international refusal to condemn and demand the women raped and taken into Gaza be released before any other discussion takes place is, quite frankly, a betrayal.
I hate people dying innocently in war.
It’s awful. Where is the international demand that Hamas, who jubilantly celebrated killing Jews, be held to account? Where is the accounting for the millions in international aid turned to the service of recreating the caliphate? These people don’t want a state. They want the death of Jews (then Christians). And most importantly, the humiliation and degradation of women who dare to live free. So to hell with that.
Hamas reports the numbers. Hamas seeks to control the narrative. While I don’t deny terrible levels of death in Gaza, I don’t believe their numbers and I hold Hamas accountable for hiding behind civilians. It’s a damn war crime what they have done. Where are the people holding these assholes to account? Why is the Jewish state the only one held responsible despite the many wars that kill tons of Muslims?
Ah - I’m likely way too upset to make sense of this. Yet the women brutalized raped and murdered haunt me. Do they haunt you?
"Ah - I’m likely way too upset to make sense of this. Yet the women brutalized raped and murdered haunt me. Do they haunt you?"
This is the aspect of all this that confuses me the most. Yes, those women haunt me. The videos I saw, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the video of Shani Louk's body being paraded and spat on by militants makes me feel physically sick every time I think of it.
But the videos and stories of women and children in Gaza with their limbs blown off, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the story of a woman who was buried under rubble while giving birth, the rescuers found the heads of her twins emerging from her birth canal, her sixteen-month old daughter, the only survivor, paralysed, those stories haunt me too.
Those women and children are also women and children. Why is a failure to condemn their deaths any less of a betrayal?
Hamas have been reporting the numbers of every conflict since around 2006. Those numbers have always been independently verified to be accurate. But heck, even if we halve them, if a mere 12,000 civilians have been killed in 100 days, most of them women and children, I just don't understand how this provokes so much less horror and outrage in some than the 1200 civilians killed in Israel.
The only explanation I can think of is the aforementioned videos. A video of a terrorist raping or attacking a single terrified woman has more visceral impact than seeing a rocket hit an apartment building. For me too. Regardless of how many women and children were inside that building. And Israel, for all their flaws, haven't raped Palestinians in this conflict (it's worth pointing out the this wasn't true during the Nakba (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1TAOibLss)). But I don't know, I just can't understand how this continues to hold true as the number rise.
And yes, first of all I think many people would demand that the U.S. didn't turn Vancouver into a parking lot. But there are also very significant differences between your scenario and the scenario in Gaza. First, the people in Vancouver could leave. And were free to leave at any point before the attacks. Second, the U.S. isn't horribly mistreating the people living in Vancouver. It isn't stealing their land, it isn't holding them under blockade, it isn't standing idly by as American civilians kill them. If they were, I think people would view the situation very differently.
I think anybody with a brain and a heart is upset by this. But to see this situation clearly, we have to do better than letting our hatred for what Hamas did justify the obliteration of the innocent people unfortunate enough to live in the same region.
No, not a “parking lot,” sorry. That’s Steve’s point. Gaza does not consist of 2.3 million soldiers.
Sadly for Israel, which I have supported for most of my life, it has lost the world on this one, even its friends. A few weeks or even eight weeks after 10-7 I would not be saying what I am now. But new information requires new views.
There are places like Tel Aviv and Haifa that consist mostly of sane wonderful people--the Israelis I know and love. But they do not run Israel now.
One half of Gaza’s population are minors. Do you hold them accountable? The commenter advocates reducing all these children to a "parking lot." This serves no rational defensive purpose. There is no viable end game for Israel's current course short of emptying Gaza by making it unlivable. If these people have nowhere to go (and they don't thanks to Egypt), they will die in huge numbers---we have seen nothing yet.
And where will that leave Israel? A nuclear armed pariah state. Israel is losing its moral argument for existence in favor of raw power. It is losing the world as well. I cry for a country I have supported. So do my Jewish children.
Define minors. In Gaza, 14 year-olds are definitely military aged males. What percentage of the "minors" reported by Hamas are 14-20 year old young men? You have NO idea. What is Israel supposed to do about them on the battlefield? Use rubber bullets?
"Gaza, 14 year-olds are definitely military aged males"
Jesus Christ David, how is it possible that you're able to write something like this about 14-year-old children? 14-YEARS-OLD!!! And let's be very clear, ~40% of people in Gaza are under 14. 14 is the top end of that age range you're blithely dismissing the killing of.
And further, even if we've really reached the point where we can tell ourselves that 14-year-old male lives are worthless, that they're all terrorists and rapists, I'll remind you that just slightly more than half of those "children' are girls. We DO have an idea about that.
I think we all need to be mindful of our souls here. It's easy, when you're having a debate with somebody on the internet, where the desire to score a rhetorical point is animating your fingers, when the dead people we're talking about are just numbers on a page, to lose sight of what you're advocating or defending.
Unlike the US in Falloujah, Israel uses far more heavy bombs than bullets.
Israel has already lost, and stands to lose far more as it continues on this trajectory, than it will ever gain in security. Its allies, its moral standing in the world, even its arguments for existence after the Holocaust and Russian pogroms have been attenuated by hypocrisy.
What is left to it is raw power. It will exist as a totalitarian religious security state in the future. The liberal Israel we all knew and respected is gone for good I’m afraid.
As a liberal lifelong lover of the Israel of yore, that of the tolerance of Haifa, it's going to be a relic of the past, and I mourn it.
Back then, I was against them and solidly with Israel. In LA where I grew up, since high school I have been surrounded by Jewish Americans as my best friends, work colleagues (I am a lawyer), and my family. Through their mother, my children are Jewish.
But as this has worn on, I have been forced to change my views, largely spurred on by my daughters. I now see the Israel I knew on a path to internal self-destruction. Sure, it will militarily "prevail" in a literal sense, but at the cost of its standing and its soul.
I love you Steve. Yet, on this, we may need to agree to disagree. Israel is a country. It deserves to exist without the threat of violent attack across its borders. If 1000+ Americans were violently and brutally murdered from a cross-border attack from, say, Vancouver - do you really think anyone internationally would have the balls to demand the US didn’t turn that province into a parking lot to deter another attack?
I’m a feminist. The international refusal to condemn and demand the women raped and taken into Gaza be released before any other discussion takes place is, quite frankly, a betrayal.
I hate people dying innocently in war.
It’s awful. Where is the international demand that Hamas, who jubilantly celebrated killing Jews, be held to account? Where is the accounting for the millions in international aid turned to the service of recreating the caliphate? These people don’t want a state. They want the death of Jews (then Christians). And most importantly, the humiliation and degradation of women who dare to live free. So to hell with that.
Hamas reports the numbers. Hamas seeks to control the narrative. While I don’t deny terrible levels of death in Gaza, I don’t believe their numbers and I hold Hamas accountable for hiding behind civilians. It’s a damn war crime what they have done. Where are the people holding these assholes to account? Why is the Jewish state the only one held responsible despite the many wars that kill tons of Muslims?
Ah - I’m likely way too upset to make sense of this. Yet the women brutalized raped and murdered haunt me. Do they haunt you?
"Ah - I’m likely way too upset to make sense of this. Yet the women brutalized raped and murdered haunt me. Do they haunt you?"
This is the aspect of all this that confuses me the most. Yes, those women haunt me. The videos I saw, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the video of Shani Louk's body being paraded and spat on by militants makes me feel physically sick every time I think of it.
But the videos and stories of women and children in Gaza with their limbs blown off, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the story of a woman who was buried under rubble while giving birth, the rescuers found the heads of her twins emerging from her birth canal, her sixteen-month old daughter, the only survivor, paralysed, those stories haunt me too.
Those women and children are also women and children. Why is a failure to condemn their deaths any less of a betrayal?
Hamas have been reporting the numbers of every conflict since around 2006. Those numbers have always been independently verified to be accurate. But heck, even if we halve them, if a mere 12,000 civilians have been killed in 100 days, most of them women and children, I just don't understand how this provokes so much less horror and outrage in some than the 1200 civilians killed in Israel.
The only explanation I can think of is the aforementioned videos. A video of a terrorist raping or attacking a single terrified woman has more visceral impact than seeing a rocket hit an apartment building. For me too. Regardless of how many women and children were inside that building. And Israel, for all their flaws, haven't raped Palestinians in this conflict (it's worth pointing out the this wasn't true during the Nakba (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1TAOibLss)). But I don't know, I just can't understand how this continues to hold true as the number rise.
And yes, first of all I think many people would demand that the U.S. didn't turn Vancouver into a parking lot. But there are also very significant differences between your scenario and the scenario in Gaza. First, the people in Vancouver could leave. And were free to leave at any point before the attacks. Second, the U.S. isn't horribly mistreating the people living in Vancouver. It isn't stealing their land, it isn't holding them under blockade, it isn't standing idly by as American civilians kill them. If they were, I think people would view the situation very differently.
I think anybody with a brain and a heart is upset by this. But to see this situation clearly, we have to do better than letting our hatred for what Hamas did justify the obliteration of the innocent people unfortunate enough to live in the same region.
No, not a “parking lot,” sorry. That’s Steve’s point. Gaza does not consist of 2.3 million soldiers.
Sadly for Israel, which I have supported for most of my life, it has lost the world on this one, even its friends. A few weeks or even eight weeks after 10-7 I would not be saying what I am now. But new information requires new views.
There are places like Tel Aviv and Haifa that consist mostly of sane wonderful people--the Israelis I know and love. But they do not run Israel now.
Gaza does also not consist of 2.3 million hostages. Hamas has overwhelming support of the people, who celebrated October 7.
One half of Gaza’s population are minors. Do you hold them accountable? The commenter advocates reducing all these children to a "parking lot." This serves no rational defensive purpose. There is no viable end game for Israel's current course short of emptying Gaza by making it unlivable. If these people have nowhere to go (and they don't thanks to Egypt), they will die in huge numbers---we have seen nothing yet.
And where will that leave Israel? A nuclear armed pariah state. Israel is losing its moral argument for existence in favor of raw power. It is losing the world as well. I cry for a country I have supported. So do my Jewish children.
Define minors. In Gaza, 14 year-olds are definitely military aged males. What percentage of the "minors" reported by Hamas are 14-20 year old young men? You have NO idea. What is Israel supposed to do about them on the battlefield? Use rubber bullets?
"Gaza, 14 year-olds are definitely military aged males"
Jesus Christ David, how is it possible that you're able to write something like this about 14-year-old children? 14-YEARS-OLD!!! And let's be very clear, ~40% of people in Gaza are under 14. 14 is the top end of that age range you're blithely dismissing the killing of.
And further, even if we've really reached the point where we can tell ourselves that 14-year-old male lives are worthless, that they're all terrorists and rapists, I'll remind you that just slightly more than half of those "children' are girls. We DO have an idea about that.
I think we all need to be mindful of our souls here. It's easy, when you're having a debate with somebody on the internet, where the desire to score a rhetorical point is animating your fingers, when the dead people we're talking about are just numbers on a page, to lose sight of what you're advocating or defending.
Unlike the US in Falloujah, Israel uses far more heavy bombs than bullets.
Israel has already lost, and stands to lose far more as it continues on this trajectory, than it will ever gain in security. Its allies, its moral standing in the world, even its arguments for existence after the Holocaust and Russian pogroms have been attenuated by hypocrisy.
What is left to it is raw power. It will exist as a totalitarian religious security state in the future. The liberal Israel we all knew and respected is gone for good I’m afraid.
As a liberal lifelong lover of the Israel of yore, that of the tolerance of Haifa, it's going to be a relic of the past, and I mourn it.
90% of the people protesting Israel started protesting on October 8th. That's why the moral capital argument falls flat with them.
Back then, I was against them and solidly with Israel. In LA where I grew up, since high school I have been surrounded by Jewish Americans as my best friends, work colleagues (I am a lawyer), and my family. Through their mother, my children are Jewish.
But as this has worn on, I have been forced to change my views, largely spurred on by my daughters. I now see the Israel I knew on a path to internal self-destruction. Sure, it will militarily "prevail" in a literal sense, but at the cost of its standing and its soul.
Hence, I said 90%
Yes, you are correct. I'm part of the 10%. So, is Steve QJ. Thank you.