You said "I don't believe Hamas can be bombed out of Gaza."
My basic response was to that specific point, full stop. I was not saying what the best answer was, or who was more moral, or any of the other important issues. I was NOT trying to distill the entire conflict down to one question, I was …
You said "I don't believe Hamas can be bombed out of Gaza."
My basic response was to that specific point, full stop. I was not saying what the best answer was, or who was more moral, or any of the other important issues. I was NOT trying to distill the entire conflict down to one question, I was only addressing that one question on its own.
From your response, I think you may have construed my answer far more broadly than I intended it, and then pushed back on that broad interpretation.
My point is that there is nobody saying that bombing alone could eliminate Hamas as a force to contend with (where by bombing we are discussion the kind which Israel is actually doing and you are critiquing, not some fictional nuclear leveling).
Where there could be different opinions, is whether Hamas can be effectively eliminated without bombing as a part of the effort. That is, there is no "bombing alone" question on the table, but there could be a "bombing plus other things" vs "no bombing, only other things" debate.
Reread the quote from you at the beginning; were you saying that you don't believe that bombing alone can remove Hamas, or that you don't believe that bombing can even be a component of a broader effort to remove Hamas? Since nobody is questioning the former, I thought you were closer to asserting the latter. That seems to be the more respectful interpretation, not the more easily impugned.
You are correct that there are MANY, MANY other questions (including those you list) which also bear on the overall problems, and if you believed my narrowly focused dissent about bombing as a component was attempting to bypass or supercede all of the other considerations, then I can see how you would disagree. I would too. But my intended clarification was much more modest in scope.
Ah. I think I may see what's going on here.
You said "I don't believe Hamas can be bombed out of Gaza."
My basic response was to that specific point, full stop. I was not saying what the best answer was, or who was more moral, or any of the other important issues. I was NOT trying to distill the entire conflict down to one question, I was only addressing that one question on its own.
From your response, I think you may have construed my answer far more broadly than I intended it, and then pushed back on that broad interpretation.
My point is that there is nobody saying that bombing alone could eliminate Hamas as a force to contend with (where by bombing we are discussion the kind which Israel is actually doing and you are critiquing, not some fictional nuclear leveling).
Where there could be different opinions, is whether Hamas can be effectively eliminated without bombing as a part of the effort. That is, there is no "bombing alone" question on the table, but there could be a "bombing plus other things" vs "no bombing, only other things" debate.
Reread the quote from you at the beginning; were you saying that you don't believe that bombing alone can remove Hamas, or that you don't believe that bombing can even be a component of a broader effort to remove Hamas? Since nobody is questioning the former, I thought you were closer to asserting the latter. That seems to be the more respectful interpretation, not the more easily impugned.
You are correct that there are MANY, MANY other questions (including those you list) which also bear on the overall problems, and if you believed my narrowly focused dissent about bombing as a component was attempting to bypass or supercede all of the other considerations, then I can see how you would disagree. I would too. But my intended clarification was much more modest in scope.
Peace.