Hamas & Israel

[poupsy]

To this conflict there is only one solution: stop the occupation. You guys are gas-lighting, pushing fallacies and propagandas yet are totally failing at acknowledging the deep core of this issue; the zionist entity is illegitimately occupying a territory who does not belong to it since 1948. Needless to talk about Hamas and other strawman rhetoric. If you stand with Israël, fine. Then give them a bit of the respective territories you live in so they can leave the Palestinians alone and in peace. Otherwise, Palestine is 100 % right in its self-defense against a brutal colonizer who is infact nothing without the support of the major Western countries.

First of all dear Sic92 and whether you like it or not Israel legitimacy and Indigenous recognition of jewish people to this land is not even up for debate. The only people who believe otherwise are people calling for eradication of a legitimate state and killing of the jewish people. Exactly what hamas wants and openly say they want. So I'm not sure what you mean by ending an occupation? maybe you can explain us your vision of that.

Second: Israelis jews and israelis muslims enjoy a very happy life equality and freedom of religion (unseen in no other muslim country) and are going no were. So peace and compromise is the only option for palestinians to have a state that MUST include Israel . As a matter of fact they had more than one chance to make it happen and they backed up many times. last time Arafat literally pulled out at the last minute after everything was negotiated under Clinton administration

Third: Israel is more thant happy to make peace with arabs countries. Israel made peace with Egypt, Jordan. Recently the Abraham accords were signed with UEA and Morroco and was close to sign with Saudi Arabia and many more. Iran and hamas couldn't accept that.

Forth: where the hell is coward hamas? had they had an once of humanity they wouldn't let their people being the front of this war. they would do something to stop it. It is really sad for the civilians abandoned by those terrorists. They hide like rats in the tunnels and leave poor civilians in the fore front of the battle.

Last : anyone who thinks that legitimate resistance justifies the oct 7th horror massacres rapes and babies killing (and it sickens me to write it so I'm sparing you the details that you probably ignore to admit ) is one crooked sick mind. after those atrocities you don't get to chose the response.

In any case as I said I'm not jewish ( so you don't call me sionist) but I stand with Israel. can't wait for them to free gazans from hamas. I beg you gazans civilians will chant in the street when it's done.

Peace love and more

 

[Sic92]

From your posts it is clear that “stop the occupation” means elimination of Israel as the Jewish state. It would never happen. Most Arab states have already realized that existence of Israel is the permanent political reality. With the same logic you can ask for the elimination of USA and Canada and many other countries. So good luck in wasting your life.

Yes, the same way nazi Germany, apartheid and colonialism also used to be a political reality once upon a time. It's only a matter of time before Justice and rightousness will triumph regardless of the cowardness and the treason of the Arab leaders on this question.

 

[poupsy]

Yes, the same way nazi Germany, apartheid and colonialism also used to be a political reality once upon a time. It's only a matter of time before Justice and rightousness will triumph regardless of the cowardness and the treason of the Arab leaders on this question.

so if I understand your thoughts Israel is backed by western countries and arabs leaders are committing a treason against Palestinian people. I wonder why .....oh... maybe maybe .....Israel is not the vilain after all. LOL

 

[Sic92]

First of all dear Sic92 and whether you like it or not Israel legitimacy and Indigenous recognition of jewish people to this land is not even up for debate. The only people who believe otherwise are people calling for eradication of a legitimate state and killing of the jewish people. Exactly what hamas wants and openly say they want. So I'm not sure what you mean by ending an occupation? maybe you can explain us your vision of that.

lol, so much fallacioussness in this entire paragraph. It's never been about Killing jews and what not. You seem to ignore the reality and the history of the region prior to 1948 where all the confessions used to live together in peace. Also, you are conflicting the notion of jews and zionists as well as totally disregarding the fact that a lot of jews altrought the world disapprove and reject this ideology called Zionism.

Second: Israelis jews and israelis muslims enjoy a very happy life equality and freedom of religion (unseen in no other muslim country) and are going no were. So peace and compromise is the only option for palestinians to have a state that MUST include Israel . As a matter of fact they had more than one chance to make it happen and they backed up many times. last time Arafat literally pulled out at the last minute after everything was negotiated under Clinton administration

Again, so much falsehood. You won't make me buy the idea that Zionists are looking after peace when they've been encouraging settlers to steal earths, demolish houses and others belongings from the Palestinians since DECADES in all impunity. Moreover, the Zionists are not only persecuting Muslims but they also do it to Christian arabs and Armenians living in the West Bank.

Third: Israel is more thant happy to make peace with arabs countries. Israel made peace with Egypt, Jordan. Recently the Abraham accords were signed with UEA and Morroco and was close to sign with Saudi Arabia and many more. Iran and hamas couldn't accept that.

These countries have all sold out the Palestinian cause and it's such a joke when you talk about peace knowing that Israel still has territorial visions upon a large part of the Middle-East, a project called "Great Israel" who cannot be achieved for the moment. Talking off the leaders of those countries, all of them are puppies who bow down and cater to the US and their decision of acknolwedging the Zionist entity is far from being accepted by the vast majority of their populations. Especially Egyptians and Jordanians whom have the Palestinian cause in their hearts.

Forth: where the hell is coward hamas? had they had an once of humanity they wouldn't let their people being the front of this war. they would do something to stop it. It is really sad for the civilians abandoned by those terrorists. They hide like rats in the tunnels and leave poor civilians in the fore front of the battle.

I would rather ask you why the hell Israel is bombing innocents civilians knowing that Hamas is supposedly hiding under tunnels ? Why does Israel is using bombs who are conventionally forbidden by the international laws ? As for the tunnels, what are you exactly expecting. Those are an excellent way to lead an assymetrical war against an opponent who owns the force superiority in term of arms, number and technology. If the IDF was not a coward army only good to kill babies, it would have tried to dismantle those tunnels who are the key element for the Palestinians. Do you believe that Hamas fighters are idiotic to the point of openly fighting IDF ? They can't manage to do it and they have to fight IDF with their own ways (same way the Vietcongs crushed the US army).

Last : anyone who thinks that legitimate resistance justifies the oct 7th horror massacres rapes and babies killing (and it sickens me to write it so I'm sparing you the details that you probably ignore to admit ) is one crooked sick mind. after those atrocities you don't get to chose the response.

You, zionists apologists are using a gobbelian method in which you keep repeating a lie one thousand times until it becomes the truth. But the world nowadays isn't guillible like it used to be. The gross lies of rapes and babies being killed have been debunked since a while and even the Israelis press recognized that there were no proofs to be found. In fact, Israel have killed almost 8000 babies and the proofs can be found EVERYWHERE but you guys are incredibly intellectually dishonnest and bad-faithed to see it.

Talking about the 07 october, do you know that Apaches helicopters shot and bomb their own fellow israelis ? I invite you to educate yourself furthermore.

In any case as I said I'm not jewish ( so you don't call me sionist) but I stand with Israel. can't wait for them to free gazans from hamas. I beg you gazans civilians will chant in the street when it's done.

Peace love and momore

Again, you are getting twisted two different notion. Being Zionist doesn't equate being Jewish. Stand with Israel as much as you can, just know that you are standing with the wrong-track of history and the future will let you know that.

 

[minutemenX]

lol, so much fallacioussness in this entire paragraph. It's never been about Killing jews and what not. You seem to ignore the reality and the history of the region prior to 1948 where all the confessions used to live together in peace. Also, you are conflicting the notion of jews and zionists as well as totally disregarding the fact that a lot of jews altrought the world disapprove and reject this ideology called Zionism.


Again, so much falsehood. You won't make me buy the idea that Zionists are looking after peace when they've been encouraging settlers to steal earths, demolish houses and others belongings from the Palestinians since DECADES in all impunity. Moreover, the Zionists are not only persecuting Muslims but they also do it to Christian arabs and Armenians living in the West Bank.

These countries have all sold out the Palestinian cause and it's such a joke when you talk about peace knowing that Israel still has territorial visions upon a large part of the Middle-East, a project called "Great Israel" who cannot be achieved for the moment. Talking off the leaders of those countries, all of them are puppies who bow down and cater to the US and their decision of acknolwedging the Zionist entity is far from being accepted by the vast majority of their populations. Especially Egyptians and Jordanians whom have the Palestinian cause in their hearts.



I would rather ask you why the hell Israel is bombing innocents civilians knowing that Hamas is supposedly hiding under tunnels ? Why does Israel is using bombs who are conventionally forbidden by the international laws ? As for the tunnels, what are you exactly expecting. Those are an excellent way to lead an assymetrical war against an opponent who owns the force superiority in term of arms, number and technology. If the IDF was not a coward army only good to kill babies, it would have tried to dismantle those tunnels who are the key element for the Palestinians. Do you believe that Hamas fighters are idiotic to the point of openly fighting IDF ? They can't manage to do it and they have to fight IDF with their own ways (same way the Vietcongs crushed the US army).

You, zionists apologists are using a gobbelian method in which you keep repeating a lie one thousand times until it becomes the truth. But the world nowadays isn't guillible like it used to be. The gross lies of rapes and babies being killed have been debunked since a while and even the Israelis press recognized that there were no proofs to be found. In fact, Israel have killed almost 8000 babies and the proofs can be found EVERYWHERE but you guys are incredibly intellectually dishonnest and bad-faithed to see it.

Talking about the 07 october, do you know that Apaches helicopters shot and bomb their own fellow israelis ? I invite you to educate yourself furthermore.

Again, you are getting twisted two different notion. Being Zionist doesn't equate being Jewish. Stand with Israel as much as you can, just know that you are standing with the wrong-track of history and the future will let you know that.

Interesting post. In democratic countries you are entitled to your opinion as soon as you do not act on it and are paying taxes, so US and Canadian governments can send some additional help to Israel. Israel surely needs help with some large water pumps to flood these tunnels. I heard some can deliver an Olympic size pool in one hour. Few of them can put a knee deep of sea water in all tunnels within 2-3 weeks. Hamas may soon enjoy underground beach parties with promised 70 virgins.

 

[Anna Bijou]

This editorial from Friday's Wall Street Journal exposes the true face of the anti-Israel movement...as one can see in the last several, hysterical posts above.

Opinion | The True Face of the Anti-Israel Movement

The leader of the Council on American-Islamic Relations celebrated Oct. 7, in his own words.

www.wsj.com

The response in anti-Israel circles to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre has been clarifying. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the tip of the spear on U.S. campuses, early on called the slaughter “a historic win for Palestinian resistance.”

The tune hasn’t changed, even from the leaders pressuring President Biden. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), celebrated Oct. 7 at an American Muslims for Palestine convention on Nov. 24. A damning excerpt was publicized Thursday by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

American Muslims for Palestine then took down the full video, and Mr. Awad now claims a “hate website selected remarks from my speech out of context and spliced them together to create a completely false meaning.” But we got the video before Mr. Awad’s ally hid it, and here’s what CAIR’s leader had to say:

“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege, the walls of the concentration camp, on Oct. 7. And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, that they were not allowed to walk in. And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves. And yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.”
The crowd applauded, and not a word in Mr. Awad’s speech qualified his pleasure with Oct. 7, justified as “self-defense.”

Democrats and media have long treated CAIR as a primary political spokesman for Muslim Americans. In late October the White House invited Mr. Awad to convey Muslim concerns about the war to the President. In May the Biden Administration included CAIR as a partner in its Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. The White House has now removed CAIR from that document and condemned Mr. Awad’s remarks.

On stage Mr. Awad accused Israel of buying “corrupt members of Congress,” concluding, “We have to free so many people from the shackles of AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and its affiliates who have sold the soul of America.” Complaining of Mr. Biden’s betrayal, Mr. Awad asked, “For how much? It is for how much AIPAC and its affiliates have been controlling the U.S. government and the U.S. Congress. . . . Unless we free Congress, we will not be able to free Palestine.”

There it is, the hoary conspiracy that justice—however defined—could be achieved if only the Jews weren’t secretly shackling and manipulating the powers that be. Maybe that’s easier for Mr. Awad to accept than the truth: The American people support Israel and oppose Palestinian terrorism.

But CAIR and its allies have influence, and Mr. Awad said the White House had begun to listen. “When we say ‘if there is no cease-fire, there will be no votes for you in 2024 elections,’” he said, “we started to see the tone changing—and the position changing.”

Mr. Awad’s co-panelist was Osama Abuirshaid, director of American Muslims for Palestine, the leading sponsor of SJP on campus and an organizer of anti-Israel protests across the country. Mr. Abuirshaid told a rally Dec. 1: “What they alleged that happened on Oct. 7 turned out to be a lie. Most of the [Israeli] civilians were killed by their own army.” Will Democrats bend on Israel to people like this?

Near the end of Mr. Awad’s speech, he said, “I ask young people: Be wise. You are not in Palestine. You are not in Gaza. The language there doesn’t work here.” You know, less on the Jews and violence, and more on human rights. He should have taken his own advice.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad At American Muslims For Palestine (AMP) Convention: I Was Happy To See The People Of Gaza Break The Siege On October 7; They Were Victorious; The People Of Gaza Have The Right To Self-Defense – Israel Does Not

Nihad Awad, the executive director of CAIR spoke at the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) convention in Chicago on No...

www.memri.org

Eeek. You're so very bad at this.

I'm sorry, there's more but I was kind of done, I stopped reading.

Your video is literally posted by the IDF propaganda PR account (same one that has been posting the most cringe attempts at producing "evidence" - did get some good parody videos out of each attempt) lol Thanks for the propaganda material, I guess? I didn't watch the video because I'm not trying to defend attacks on civilians, you are.


But ok, if you want to use that to make an argument that it justifies Israel’s barbarity. Weird argument but ok. I find it interesting that you condemn Hamas but you are basically holding up Israel to the same standards, so what does it mean? Isn't the claim that Israel is civilized? Because I can't think of anyone who would convincingly argue that what Israel is doing can be described as civilized.

But you know what, if you want to put hamas and Israel on the same level and judge them based on the same criteria, that's totally fine with me, I'm very cool with that. Since you're defending these crimes, that would make you no different than someone defending Hamas in that case? Hm. Interesting.

I mean, Israel far outdoes Hamas on the atrocities and babarity scale (IOF has a lot of practice, abusing and killing daily for decades) So that's an interesting position to take. I believe you've just put Israel in the same class/category as Hamas. I'm not disagreeing at all. I'm also not defending either, but you are. I guess you're not as civilized as you thought you were, eh. Defending baby killing should have been your clue.


PS: No, Israel doesn't actually have a legal right to self defense as an occupier and yes occupied population have a right to armed resistance (which does not mean killing civilians, that's obviously a crime). Israel does not have a right to start a war with a population that is not a different nation. Since Israel continues to occupy and refuses to end it, it has responsibilities and obligations. It can arrest and prosecute
It cannot wage war and assassinate, or any of the long list of war crimes it's committing again.

It's not exactly like what's going on can be called self defense anyway. I'd love to write more but you not able to respond directly, and I'm sure you don't read it so I'll save it for another day.


Do you ever read anything other than propaganda and Fox "news"? Might not be such a bad idea to try something else one of these days.

Thank you. Come again.

 

[Anna Bijou]

Interesting post. In democratic countries you are entitled to your opinion as soon as you do not act on it and are paying taxes, so US and Canadian governments can send some additional help to Israel. Israel surely needs help with some large water pumps to flood these tunnels. I heard some can deliver an Olympic size pool in one hour. Few of them can put a knee deep of sea water in all tunnels within 2-3 weeks. Hamas may soon enjoy underground beach parties with promised 70 virgins.

Yes, because they really care about the hostages, right? Did you hear the audio of a released hostage ripping into Netanyahu? She's livid. They know the government doesn't care. They were shot at from above by the idf when they were being brought into Gaza. They were terrified, she says. Because of the bombs! The government would totally flood them if no one would know. They're seasoned war criminals, of course they'd do that too.

The 70 Virgins bit shows your bigotry and your age at the same time! The late nineties are calling. What a ridiculous bigoted thing to say.

Question. So what would you call the mass murders (not only currently in Gaza but in the West Bank, and before the attack from October? You think that's a democratic country? Do you have a comment about Israel and the US refusing an offer to stop armed resistance and have democratic elections in 2021? Could it be that Israel benefits too much from keeping millions of people under occupation while it steals land (just approved new settlements, surprise!) and has a conveniently captive population to test its weapons on (literally, they sell them as "battle tested" or some other similar obscene term). I'm not even joking.


If you want to defend Israel's crimes, don't pretend it's not far more cruel and murderous than hamas can ever be. And the Islamophobia is so lame. You do know there are Christians in Gaza and the West Bank? They get bombed too. Israel doesn't treat them any differently because its not religion, its colonialism, it's about land. They bombs churches, they don't care. Destroyed one of the oldest churches and killed people - Christians and Muslims who were sheltering a few weeks ago. So spare me the Islamophobia.


I'm getting sick of this ignorance. Would you find it acceptable if I made comments similar but about Jewish people? No, so don't feel comfortable enough to do it here. I do have close family members who are Muslim. And from what I can remember, it was a mosque that was attacked by a racist in Quebec city. I have a friend who made a documentary about it and he met the survivors, it's a horrific story. Spewing your hate contributes to that kind of violence. You don't even know shit about Islam. So have some respect and if you don't want it done to you, then don't do it to anyone else.


There isn't a single Israeli who would want to trade places with someone in Gaza. So why should they be made to live that way forever because Israel likes it too much? It's really not complicated. There's nothing defensible about any of it. No one is going to accept to be treated that way forever. Enough. Israel experienced a terrible attack. Not defensible. But every other day before and since, Israel is the occupier, it is the aggressor. And Palestinians have a right not to be abused that way. And Israel won't do anything to change the situation because they're just buying time stealing more and more land. It's basic humanity.

Enough. Civilians are being made to pay, and people have the audacity to keep dehumanizing while sitting comfortably nowhere near the horrors Israel is committing. They're starving them ffs. You can't live in Canada and defend that. Wth is wrong with ppl. How do you even rationalize close to 8000 children dead, thousands more under rubble, over a 1000 who've lost one or more limbs, Israel has destroyed the healthcare system, they killed 56 journalists and many of their families. They killed doctors, bombed ambulances, schools, hospitals. Doctors were forced to perform amputations on kids without anesthesia. Sit with that.

The idf left babies to die when they forced everyone tovevacuate a hospital. When the parents tried to go back, they were shot at. Days later they were able to get there. The babies were still hooked up to medical equipment but obviously all dead and their body was decomposing. Like, what kind of monster does That? And there's so much more, I could keep going and going.


Do people just not know because they don't want to or they don't care? This has shook me to my core. What is wrong with this world? Are people completely mad? This is just insane. My mind can't understand how people can watch and literally justify this. That's not normal, ok? People, THAT IS NOT NORMAL.


There are 50 000 pregnant women. No more hospitals. I was very sick in October. If I hadn't had access to medical care, I would be dead now. I thought about palestine women, mothers the whole time i was in the hospital. And every day I think of women who are dying just because they were born in Gaza. Kids. Babies, men, entire families. It's barbaric. You have to stop defending this. It's indefensible. Period, end of sentence.

 

[poupsy]

lol, so much fallacioussness in this entire paragraph. It's never been about Killing jews and what not. You seem to ignore the reality and the history of the region prior to 1948 where all the confessions used to live together in peace. Also, you are conflicting the notion of jews and zionists as well as totally disregarding the fact that a lot of jews altrought the world disapprove and reject this ideology called Zionism.


Again, so much falsehood. You won't make me buy the idea that Zionists are looking after peace when they've been encouraging settlers to steal earths, demolish houses and others belongings from the Palestinians since DECADES in all impunity. Moreover, the Zionists are not only persecuting Muslims but they also do it to Christian arabs and Armenians living in the West Bank.

These countries have all sold out the Palestinian cause and it's such a joke when you talk about peace knowing that Israel still has territorial visions upon a large part of the Middle-East, a project called "Great Israel" who cannot be achieved for the moment. Talking off the leaders of those countries, all of them are puppies who bow down and cater to the US and their decision of acknolwedging the Zionist entity is far from being accepted by the vast majority of their populations. Especially Egyptians and Jordanians whom have the Palestinian cause in their hearts.



I would rather ask you why the hell Israel is bombing innocents civilians knowing that Hamas is supposedly hiding under tunnels ? Why does Israel is using bombs who are conventionally forbidden by the international laws ? As for the tunnels, what are you exactly expecting. Those are an excellent way to lead an assymetrical war against an opponent who owns the force superiority in term of arms, number and technology. If the IDF was not a coward army only good to kill babies, it would have tried to dismantle those tunnels who are the key element for the Palestinians. Do you believe that Hamas fighters are idiotic to the point of openly fighting IDF ? They can't manage to do it and they have to fight IDF with their own ways (same way the Vietcongs crushed the US army).

You, zionists apologists are using a gobbelian method in which you keep repeating a lie one thousand times until it becomes the truth. But the world nowadays isn't guillible like it used to be. The gross lies of rapes and babies being killed have been debunked since a while and even the Israelis press recognized that there were no proofs to be found. In fact, Israel have killed almost 8000 babies and the proofs can be found EVERYWHERE but you guys are incredibly intellectually dishonnest and bad-faithed to see it.

Talking about the 07 october, do you know that Apaches helicopters shot and bomb their own fellow israelis ? I invite you to educate yourself furthermore.

Again, you are getting twisted two different notion. Being Zionist doesn't equate being Jewish. Stand with Israel as much as you can, just know that you are standing with the wrong-track of history and the future will let you know

lol, so much fallacioussness in this entire paragraph. It's never been about Killing jews and what not. You seem to ignore the reality and the history of the region prior to 1948 where all the confessions used to live together in peace. Also, you are conflicting the notion of jews and zionists as well as totally disregarding the fact that a lot of jews altrought the world disapprove and reject this ideology called Zionism.


Again, so much falsehood. You won't make me buy the idea that Zionists are looking after peace when they've been encouraging settlers to steal earths, demolish houses and others belongings from the Palestinians since DECADES in all impunity. Moreover, the Zionists are not only persecuting Muslims but they also do it to Christian arabs and Armenians living in the West Bank.

These countries have all sold out the Palestinian cause and it's such a joke when you talk about peace knowing that Israel still has territorial visions upon a large part of the Middle-East, a project called "Great Israel" who cannot be achieved for the moment. Talking off the leaders of those countries, all of them are puppies who bow down and cater to the US and their decision of acknolwedging the Zionist entity is far from being accepted by the vast majority of their populations. Especially Egyptians and Jordanians whom have the Palestinian cause in their hearts.



I would rather ask you why the hell Israel is bombing innocents civilians knowing that Hamas is supposedly hiding under tunnels ? Why does Israel is using bombs who are conventionally forbidden by the international laws ? As for the tunnels, what are you exactly expecting. Those are an excellent way to lead an assymetrical war against an opponent who owns the force superiority in term of arms, number and technology. If the IDF was not a coward army only good to kill babies, it would have tried to dismantle those tunnels who are the key element for the Palestinians. Do you believe that Hamas fighters are idiotic to the point of openly fighting IDF ? They can't manage to do it and they have to fight IDF with their own ways (same way the Vietcongs crushed the US army).

You, zionists apologists are using a gobbelian method in which you keep repeating a lie one thousand times until it becomes the truth. But the world nowadays isn't guillible like it used to be. The gross lies of rapes and babies being killed have been debunked since a while and even the Israelis press recognized that there were no proofs to be found. In fact, Israel have killed almost 8000 babies and the proofs can be found EVERYWHERE but you guys are incredibly intellectually dishonnest and bad-faithed to see it.

Talking about the 07 october, do you know that Apaches helicopters shot and bomb their own fellow israelis ? I invite you to educate yourself furthermore.

Again, you are getting twisted two different notion. Being Zionist doesn't equate being Jewish. Stand with Israel as much as you can, just know that you are standing with the wrong-track of history and the future will let you know that.

You’re entitled to those false beliefs fueled by the desire to see Israel disappear from the map.

Blaming settelments, BS occupation and using those big words like genocide and Apartheid and most of all justifying what those monsters did makes you loose any legitimacy and humanity. You guys pretend you care for the palestinians but in reality you care more about the hamas agenda.
Why all of a sudden everyone is obsessed with Israel? 9 Millions souls in the middle of 1 Billions muslims.
Where is the outrage for 200000 syrians killed in civil war ? 100000 in yemen?
I wish for peace, for palestinian to have someone who represents them fairly without stealing international aid and help them accept a negotiated 2 state solution
Peace

 

[CaptRenault]

When I first understood the magnitude of the savagery of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, I knew that Israel had to respond with the full force of its military.

There would be no limited war or concern for "international opinion" or the delicate sensibilities of the western media. It would be all-out war against Hamas and that is exactly what we have seen and thankfully so. I fully support Israel and I totally condemn Hamas for starting the war and getting so many of its own people killed. It's terrible but it could be no other way after October 7.

Hamas seems to have made a huge miscalculation in its planning. Hamas leaders thought Israel would respond with a few days of limited bombing and shelling and maybe a small commando raid. Then Hamas would trade their hostages for their fellow terrorists in Israeli prisons and life would go back to "normal". But of course that's not what happened and I was not the least bit surprised.

I'm reminded again of something General Sherman said about the South before the start of the Civil War. He tried to warn the South not to start the war that it was about to instigate. It took a few years, but Sherman's prediction was right and Sherman himself played a big role in destroying the Confederate Army and the society that supported it.

.

Sherman also wrote this in a letter to a Southern friend:

“... You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it...Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors.”

City Journal published this article in November about Hamas' fateful errors. It's hard to know what will happen as this war further unfolds, but there is no question that Hamas and its supporters in Gaza have paid an enormous price for their miscalculation..

Fateful Errors

The terrorist group made several strategic miscalculations in its unconscionable attacks on Israel.

www.city-journal.org

Hamas seems to have made two fundamental miscalculations in staging its barbaric October 7 attack on Israel.

First, its leadership clearly assumed that the United States would not continue to support Israel if it killed enough of the Palestinians whom Hamas has been using as human shields to protect its command centers and underground tunnel networks in Gaza.

Second, Hamas apparently assumed that if enough Palestinians in Gaza died in Israeli bombing, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron Iran would escalate the conflict by opening a second front in the war, a scenario that has clearly worried both Israel and Washington...

 

[EagerBeaver]

Regarding the use of human shields and placing command centers in civilian areas, I don't understand why pro Palestinian protesters do not seem to understand that high civilian casualties are the inevitable result from attempting to stage a war in this fashion. Historically, no nation has ever conducted a war in this fashion in which the entire military strategy is to inflict high casualties on its own population by embedding all military personal and weaponry in the places of highest civilian and baby concentration. The protesters who fall for these shenanigans and believe the responsibility for civilian and baby deaths are other than on Hamas and its strategy are ignoramuses, who would set the course of civilization on eternal fire by creating a precedent that will be followed by every radical group and cause in every country going forward. It's simply not OK to do this, it's rank cowardice and the Israelis cannot, should not and will not be bowed by it. The civilian casualty count is the responsibility of Hamas.

 

[poupsy]

Regarding the use of human shields and placing command centers in civilian areas, I don't understand why pro Palestinian protesters do not seem to understand that high civilian casualties are the inevitable result from attempting to stage a war in this fashion. Historically, no nation has ever conducted a war in this fashion in which the entire military strategy is to inflict high casualties on its own population by embedding all military personal and weaponry in the places of highest civilian and baby concentration. The protesters who fall for these shenanigans and believe the responsibility for civilian and baby deaths are other than on Hamas and its strategy are ignoramuses who would set the course of civilization on eternal fire by creating a precedent that will be followed by every radical group and cause in every country going forward. It's simply not OK to do this, it's rank cowardice and the Israelis cannot, should not and will not be bowed by it. The civilian casualty count is the responsibility of Hamas.

Sad but so true.
also no one is questioning the real number of casualties. Since numbers seems important
It is beleived that at least 7000 freedom fighters aka terrorists are among casualties and hamas reported numbers grossly overestimated.although it is certain that civilians are caught in line of fire I find it hard to beleive how precise and swift hamas is able to report hundred deaths everybday

 

[CaptRenault]

Despite all the news about Gaza in the past two months, many people still don't know the history of this place or exactly where it is. Here's a concise, objective analysis of the history of Gaza.

It's notable that the Muslim Arabs who have usually comprised a large majority of the population there have never been able to rule themselves successfully. Over the last few thousand years, the area has been ruled by the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, European Crusaders, Arabs from outside of Gaza, the Ottoman Turks, the Egyptians, the British, the Israelis, the PLO and lastly the terrorist group Hamas.

Gaza was never part of a state called Palestine because there has never been such a state. In the last few decades, when Palestinians and their Arab neighbors had a chance to establish such a state, they rejected the opportunity and turned again and again to terror.
Now the chance of ever seeing Gaza become part of an Arab-Muslim majority state is more remote than ever and sadly the fault lies with the Palestinian people themselves.

The Athens of Asia: A History of Gaza

For much of its history, Gaza moved people, things, and ideas by land and sea, and its name was associated with geographic interconnectedness.

quillette.com

...The Ottomans [Muslim non Arab Turks] ruled Gaza for over 400 years. The first few centuries were peaceful and prosperous, and the prosperity extended to Jews. In his 1991 book The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, historian Stanford J. Shaw relates that there were “150,000 Jews in the Ottoman Empire as a whole at its height in the sixteenth century, approximately three percent of its population, compared to only 75,000 Jews in Poland and Lithuania at the same time.” In other words, the world’s largest Jewish population was in the Ottoman Empire, which the historian Tahir Kamran claims “provided a principal place of refuge for Jews driven out of Western Europe by massacres and persecution.” When the Ottomans took over, about 1,000 Jewish families lived in what is now Israel, and Gaza was one of the principal cities Jews inhabited. In fact, Jews had lived in Gaza since Biblical times, and Gaza is mentioned in the Old Testament as one of the five city-states ruled by the Philistines. Traces of Gaza’s old Jewish Quarter can still be found today.

The later Ottoman Empire fell into decline and neglected many of its outlying territories, including Palestine and Egypt. This encouraged Western powers to move in, with their missionaries, scholars, and merchants. Gaza became an important grain depot, with a German steam mill, and it exported barley to England to make beer. In an attempt to sever Britain’s trade routes to its colonies in India, Napoleon led an expedition to conquer Egypt and Palestine. In 1799, he personally marched into Gaza at the head of 13,000 troops, calling it “the outpost of Africa, the door to Asia.” American Presbyterian minister and historian Edward Robinson, sometimes called the “father of Biblical geography,” traveled through the Holy Land in 1838 and reported that Gaza produced soap, cotton, apricots, mulberries, and olives, and that it was a key stop on caravan routes for Bedouin traders between Syria and Egypt. In short, for much of its history, Gaza moved people, things, and ideas by land and sea, and its name was associated with geographic interconnectedness.

This began to change around the turn of the 20th century, when life in Gaza became more about surviving disasters and conflicts than pursuing prosperity through its status as a hub of goods and ideas. Gaza is situated near a geological fault called the Dead Sea Rift. In 1903 and 1914, the fault caused earthquakes that destroyed parts of the city. During World War 1, most of Gaza’s urban housing was damaged or destroyed in the First, Second, and Third Battles of Gaza, and in 1917 the British captured the city from the Ottomans. In 1920, what was left of post-Ottoman Gaza became part of the British territory known as Mandatory Palestine, which existed from 1920 to 1948. Some 135 of Gaza’s Jews were killed by Arabs in anti-Jewish riots in 1929. This forced the Jews to leave the city, although some later returned. During the Mandate, Palestine’s Jewish population doubled as over 400,000 Jews immigrated, especially from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Poland. But Gaza remained almost entirely Islamic: A 1945 survey shows that the district of Gaza had 150,540 residents (it was the fourth largest district in Mandatory Palestine), of whom 97 percent were Muslim, 2 percent Jewish, and 1 percent Christian.

Mandatory Palestine came to a violent end in 1948, after the United Nations agreed that the territory would be divided between a Jewish and an Arab state. The Arab state would comprise about 43 percent of Palestine’s area and 40 percent of its total population and would be 99 percent Arab and 1 percent Jewish. The Jewish state would cover 56 percent of Palestine’s total area and contain nearly half its population and would be 55 percent Jewish and 45 percent Arab. The Jewish side accepted this deal, but the Arabs rejected it, and thus the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence set off the Palestine War.

Jewish Zionist militias swept through Palestine and took 78 percent of the territory, far more than the 56 percent in the UN plan. By the time Israel and Egypt signed the 1949 Armistice Agreements that ended the war, some 6,000 Israeli Jews and over 10,000 Arabs had been killed in the fighting. Many of the 700,000 fugitive or expelled Muslim refugees crossed the Armistice Line from Israel into the Gaza Strip, which was then administered by Egypt. Meanwhile, in the three years that followed the war, around 600,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, including 260,000 from neighboring Arab states.

Israel took Gaza back from Egypt in the 1956 Suez Crisis, then returned it again—only to retake it once again (along with the West Bank and other territories) in the Six-Day War of 1967. Israel hoped to trade these captured Palestinian territories with its Arab neighbors in exchange for peace, but a deal never materialized.

Many other attempts at a two-state solution have been made, including the Oslo Accords in 1993, in which the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized Israel’s sovereignty. But Gaza’s chances of being part of a two-state solution evaporated with the election of Hamas in 2007, the last election ever to be held in Gaza. Hamas has never wavered from the purpose stated in its founding charter, the 1988 Hamas Covenant:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. … [Hamas] strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine. … The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

In 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, removing its military and all 21 Israeli settlements. In 2017, Israel offered that if Hamas demilitarized, returned Israeli captives and MIAs, and recognized the State of Israel’s right to exist in peace, then Israel would invest heavily in turning Gaza’s refugee camps into the “Singapore of the Middle East,” including building a seaport and airport to make Gaza a high-tech international crossroads. Hamas refused, and today, according to the UN, the average Gazan lacks potable water and lives on two pieces of Arabic bread a day.

Privately, Israel has asked Egypt to allow Gazans to escape the humanitarian disaster of the Gaza Strip and move into refugee camps in Egypt’s Sinai region. But the prospect that a mass exodus of Gazans might bring Hamas onto their soil has made Egypt and other Islamic countries wholly uninterested in taking Gazan refugees. The political geography of Gaza has thus remained a lose-lose stalemate since 1967: its Muslims are stuck in an isolated corner of a Jewish state, while Israel is stuck with a hostile territory it has never really wanted to govern. Israel’s former prime minister Levin Eshkol called Gaza “a bone stuck in our throats.”

The bustling prosperity of Gaza’s past and the impoverished confinement of its present illustrate how differing societies can shape the same landscape in starkly contrasting ways. And they show how the same geographically-blessed site can be connected or isolated, recognized or overlooked, fought over or abandoned, developed or wasted.

The philosopher Aeneas of Gaza wrote that “soul’s nature is so great, just because it has no size, as to contain the whole of body in one and the same grasp; wherever body extends, there soul is.” Today, the body of Gaza is cramped between heavily-guarded border walls and a coastline off limits to maritime exports. But as a bridge between seas and continents, Gaza will always have geography on its side. Many waves of prosperity, cultures, and empires have come and gone. It is hard to imagine now, but there will be a time when the body extends again, and travelers bound for foreign shores will once more sail out over the waves of Gaza.

 

[CaptRenault]

There can be no doubt that Hamas is nothing but an Islamic terrorist organization that is a threat not just to Israelis, but to anyone who does not accept their absurd, violent, intolerant, backwards ideology and way of life.

https://www.reuters.com/world/four-hamas-members-detained-suspected-attack-plans-german-prosecutor-2023-12-14/

German authorities say they have made four arrests of suspected Hamas members linked to an alleged plot to attack Jewish sites.

Prosecutors said the suspects intended to store weapons in Berlin for possible use in an attack.

Danish authorities also said they had arrested three people accused of preparing an attack.

Denmark's intelligence agency said the Danish and German investigations were not directly linked.

German prosecutors said in a statement that three suspects linked to Hamas were arrested in Berlin and one in the Netherlands. Hamas, which runs Gaza, is banned across Europe as a terrorist group.

The arrests came after police raided five apartments and a restaurant in Berlin, German media reported.

The three held in Berlin were Lebanese and Egyptian, according to German prosecutors.

The fourth suspect, a Dutch national, was picked up in Rotterdam by Dutch police who were acting on information from the German authorities.

All four are believed to be long-standing members of Hamas.

The German prosecutors said the four were "closely linked" to the leadership of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

 

[EagerBeaver]

Harvard's moron of a President managed to keep her job (for now) but it looks like more donors have pulled the plug on Harvard due to their anti-semitic endorsements:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/22/investing/billionaire-harvard-donor-blavatnik/index.html

 

[CaptRenault]

Here is a short interview by Piers Morgan of famous writer Sam Harris about the Islamist mindset that motivates Hamas and similar terror groups.

 

[poupsy]

Amazing how the propaganda was able to shift the narrative. In fact….

For 75 years Israel was subjected to destruction and anhilation attemps by multiple arabs countries without succes.

For 75 years Israel was able not only to survive but to thrive in such a hostile environment creating a country like no other in the arab world.

For 75 years israel had to deal with terrorism, suicide bombing, rockets, stabings, shooting etc

For 75 years Israel and jews could have been terminated without any remorse if arabs were able to do it. As a matter of fact they tried many times.

For 75 years israel could have done to palestinians what turks did to kurds and syrians to syrians … moraly they didn’t

For 75 years the arab world, the UN and UNWRA kept the palestinians problem an ongoing problem.

For 75 years the so called palestinians had many chances to build a country and thrive next to Israel..

For 75 years not only they want it all but they also want death and charia …

For 75 years Israel proved that peace is possible. Egypte, Jordan, Abraham accords..

For 75 years this whole area could have been a HongKong model had they accepted the 1948 partition plan

It seems to me that Israel is the one “resisting” the occupation and genocidal attemps and it happens that so far they are pulling it off

Bad things has been done both sides. It can’t be undone. It’s time to move on. Jews and muslims aren’t some kind of cousins after all?
I wish for this messy war to end and for a 2 state solution but compromises needs to be made and the narrative from the river to the sea needs to end

open your eyes for god’s sake

 

[Anna Bijou]

Amazing how the propaganda was able to shift the narrative. In fact….

For 75 years Israel was subjected to destruction and anhilation attemps by multiple arabs countries without succes.

For 75 years Israel was able not only to survive but to thrive in such a hostile environment creating a country like no other in the arab world.

For 75 years israel had to deal with terrorism, suicide bombing, rockets, stabings, shooting etc

For 75 years Israel and jews could have been terminated without any remorse if arabs were able to do it. As a matter of fact they tried many times.

For 75 years israel could have done to palestinians what turks did to kurds and syrians to syrians … moraly they didn’t

For 75 years the arab world, the UN and UNWRA kept the palestinians problem an ongoing problem.

For 75 years the so called palestinians had many chances to build a country and thrive next to Israel..

For 75 years not only they want it all but they also want death and charia …

For 75 years Israel proved that peace is possible. Egypte, Jordan, Abraham accords..

For 75 years this whole area could have been a HongKong model had they accepted the 1948 partition plan

It seems to me that Israel is the one “resisting” the occupation and genocidal attemps and it happens that so far they are pulling it off

Bad things has been done both sides. It can’t be undone. It’s time to move on. Jews and muslims aren’t some kind of cousins after all?
I wish for this messy war to end and for a 2 state solution but compromises needs to be made and the narrative from the river to the sea needs to end

open your eyes for god’s sake

Ooook

I think you're confused. It's not the propaganda. It's the reality in front of our open eyes that has destroyed the propaganda and the ready made narrative it supports. Personally, nothing's changed as I saw this from 2008 Operation Cast Lead and when the reports for all the investigations were released, there was no mistaking the horror.


This one, when those who are still alive are interviewed and their stories documented - its going to be really awful. It's already too awful but I know when there's no cameras, or internet (like now, and many times when Israel decides to cut it off), even worse things happen. You're just unwilling to see it and you've apparently decided not to even investigate what people are reacting to. Just own it, it's fine. But don't act like everyone else is somehow not seeing what's there and having a very normal response to it. I don't know you but there's another layer of deep indoctrination some people have to deal with. That makes people come up with weird reasoning and beliefs.


I'm really not sure how anyone who is honestly evaluating what they're seeing and curious enough to actually look deeper into it - beyond what they believe or have been lead to believe, can come away and seriously talk about some moral superiority. Like, saying this, now? Is a big wtf.


I mean, of all moments you could have chosen, this is really the weirdest one to be claiming Israel has any moral authority or superiority. Hello? I mean there's lots to say about the rest of your interpretation because you seem to be missing rather important details.


I'm very sorry but it's a pretty shit time to be talking about Israel's moral standing. I'm kind of baffled. I mean, apparently I was really naive when I just assumed that there are so many things, that even on their own, are so fucking evil and horrific, that I believed it would be a really obvious.


But, really, it turns out not only killing mostly kids and women, literally starving them, forcing them to live on the street, with no water to drink, let alone to wash, no sanitation and purposely destroying every hospital and preventing not only food and water but also medical supplies. Killing people point blank or a sniper killing elderly ladies sheltering in a church that has been surrounded by tanks for days. Like I literally could go all night.


You ever seen a dissemboweled little girl slowly dying while people around her can't help? How about a little boy who's face is literally gone? A baby with a skull cracked almost like a nut, brains mostly outside of her little head? You think morality can even enter that conversation? Because I do not. Don't talk to me about humanity or morality, even less when it's disproportionate, intentionally indiscriminate and literally serves no purpose towards the stated goal - which we all know is bs and they can't eliminate or eradicate hamas. Its an excuse to kill as many civilians, even though they'd much prefer chasing them out (their words, not mine) but that's apparently the only line they won't be allowed to cross.


In the end, it's going to be the same thing because the Americans are allowing them to destroy Gaza. It will not be livable. They've destroyed most homes, most structures, every hospital, many schools, mosques, churches EVERYTHING - every cultural institution, the archives building, the university, they've destroyed cemeteries, absolutely everything. They've looted, stolen, vandalized and set food and water on fire (they posted it online). Morals are not in the picture here.


I'm sorry to break it to you, guys. But either I refer to them as terrorists (even the Pope called it terrorism, and a Cardinal called it cold blooded murder), or I'll accept genocidal.


At this point, y'all look like fools being outraged about Oct 7th without even knowing what really occurred - considering half of what we've been told was lie. About 30-35% of casualties were military personel who died as a result of the military targets, which as you know *are* legitimate targets to hit. And of the rest of the casualties, there is a yet unknown exact but definitely significant number that were killed by "friendly fire", when soldiers in tanks and in the air had no one in command (!) for hours and used "massive firepower" when it was unclear who was inside the home or car they were firing at. If you've seen the burned house, the totally burned dozens and dozens of cars and people that were in the cars, it's obvious hamas didn't have that kind of fire power.


But there are actually testimonies from survivors (multiple), from pilots and apparently a tank with women soldiers who didn't actually train with that equipment and everyone was firing into houses not knowing exactly who was in there. (So no, Hamas didn't set kids or homes on fire, the idf did, and killed civilians and hamas or other groups. So there's no beheading, no baby in the oven, no kid hanging on clotheslines, no setting anyone or house on fire, no cuting up àny pregnant woman's belly and pulling out fetuses, the claims of sexually assault are another story I won't get into but there are many reasons to be skeptical so I'll wait but I won't be surprised if it's again a small detail that is true but then spawned all sorts of insane bullshit - because some of what has come out sounds a lot like babies on ovens and fetuses cut out of bellies. It's wild to me how people even make up stories like that but anyway)


Also testimony from high ranking people in the military. It's not internet conspiracy, it's taken from Israeli media interviews in Hebrew. The most shocking, barbaric sounding claims that were made, which got everyone to stop thinking, has been confirmed to be false by Israeli officials. There are no doubt some horrific things that happened and no one deserves to die but considering it was used to unleash a disgusting rage and vengeance fueled massacre, and more specifically to get all of you to let them do it, it's important that we know the truth.


Because there's also the fact that hamas weren't the only ones who went into Israel but they are the only ones who actually had a very detailed plan, one they'd trained for and according to Israelis who were aware of the plan, Hamas stuck remarkably close to the plan, which like I said, involved hitting specific military targets and getting hostages in order to free hostages in Israeli prisons. There were other groups so it would be good to know who was responsible for what. I have a feeling that's why they don't want to say anything.


The fact is it's a tragedy no matter what and as far as I'm concerned there's no justification for what Israel's doing. But if people says it's justified because of what happened on Oct 7th, then I'd like to know exactly what happened. I've witnessed Israel tell lie after lie after lie, often unbelievably stupid lies - I don't trust them one bit and for good reasons. People were stupid to go along with the lies about weapons of mass destruction, you'd think they would be more cautious this time. Apparently not. We even have the revived Islamophobic moral panic a little higher on the page.


So I'm very sorry but you're not gonna come tell me there's anything remotely moral, especially not superior about Israel. While this is definitely the most extreme they've done, it's been a pattern for a long time. I'm going to assume you're misinformed.


What's even stranger to me is how the masks are coming off and many of what would have only been said in the Hebrew press or to a Hebrew audience, now has also come out in English. It actually contradicts the talking points people have repeated over and over for years and decades. And while it was obvious to everyone else who wasn't drinking that Kool-Aid, even hearing Israelis tell you themselves, it's like people can't compute.


I think it wouldn't hurt you to take your own advice because there's nothing particularly impressive about not committing their crimes in a specific way when they've just created their own system of control, cruelty, dispossession and humiliation that's apparently palatable enough for certain countries to not protest about it. That's not some big moral accomplishment.



To be continued lol

 

[poupsy]

.So there's no beheading, no baby in the oven, no kid hanging on clotheslines, no setting anyone or house on fire, no cuting up àny pregnant woman's belly and pulling out fetuses, the claims of sexually assault are another story I won't get into but there are many reasons to be skeptical so I'll wait but I won't be surprised if it's again a small detail that is true but then spawned all sorts of insane bullshit - because some of what has come out sounds a lot like babies on ovens and fetuses cut out of bellies. It's wild to me how people even make up stories like that but anyway)

Allow me to disagree, I happen to watch All the news chanel even Al-jazeira, BBC, Sky, CNN, Tf1, I24, CBS, Euronews etc etc.. and yes I do see Gaza horrors as well. No child or innocent should pay this price.
What I also see is that deafening non comdenation of the oct 7 masacres as if it was in any way explainable and justified.
Even more troubling , I see people trying to deny what happens or desesperatly attempting to minimize the worst , the worst barbaric filmed and live documented progrom of the modern era.
It is also an intelectual twist to claim that Hamas had just military targets but some unknown civilians people infitrated with them to comit rapes and torture civilians. Actually you might be right because we did see what appears to be peacful civilians gazans spitting on half dead half naked raped women in a back of a truck, we also did see a young women pulled by her hair bleeding from her back and brutally taken in a back of an SUV. maybe it was propaganda you might say.
It is also extremly disturbing that any women would defending those barbars knowing what they thing of you and how they'll probably treat you if your were in their hands.
Hamas is responsible for all of it. They are the one who rule Gaza with Charia, no elections for 16 years, they are the one hiding in Qatar with billion of $ of humanitarian aid, they are the one who are hidding in hospital, UN schools, mosques, they are the one who oppressed civilians and using international aid to build tunnels, they are the one endoctrinating for the past 25 years children to kill jews and erase Israel from the map, they are the one who would never accept peace talks. More twisted...they are the one who want you to see dead civilians and get outraged... yes you are unfortunately falling into their game...
you want to help palestnians don't support Hamas and their islamic ideology. it is a very dangerous game
I am curious to know how do you think Israel was supposed to respond to that... what should they do at this point? I'm very curious to hear concrete logical ideas.

there is no 'lol' here in my opinion

 

[poupsy]

 

[CaptRenault]

One of the people who was invited to see the video of the horrors committed by the Hamas terrorists was Graeme Wood, a political scientist and writer for The Atlantic magazine. He was interviewed on the CBC network and wrote an article about it in The Atlantic.

A Record of Pure, Predatory Sadism

Officials in Israel screened footage of the Hamas attack for the press: “What we shared with you, you should know it,” one official said.

www.theatlantic.com

This afternoon, at a military base north of Tel Aviv, the Israel Defense Forces held a grisly matinee screening of 43 minutes of raw footage from Hamas’s October 7 attack. Members of the press were invited, but cameras were not allowed. Hamas had the opposite policy on cameras during the attack, which it documented gleefully with its fighters’ body cams and mobile phones. Some of the clips had been circulating already on social media in truncated or expurgated form, with the footage decorously stopped just before beheadings and moments of death. After having seen them both in raw and trimmed forms, I can endorse the decision to trim those clips. I certainly hope I never see any of the extra footage again.

It was, as IDF Major General Mickey Edelstein told the press afterward, “a very sad movie.” Men, women, and children are shot, blown up, hunted, tortured, burned, and generally murdered in any horrible manner you could predict, and some that you might not. The terrorists surround a Thai man they have shot in the gut, then bicker about what to do next. (About 30,000 Thais live in Israel, many of them farmworkers.) “Give me a knife!” one Hamas terrorist shouts. Instead he finds a garden hoe, and he swings at the man’s throat, taking thwack after thwack.

Graeme Wood: What is Israel trying to accomplish?

The audience gasped. I heard someone heave a little at another scene, this one showing a father and his young sons, surprised in their pajamas. A terrorist throws a grenade into their hiding place, and the father is killed. The boys are covered in blood, and one appears to have lost an eye. They go to their kitchen and cry for their mother. One of the boys howls, “Why am I alive?” and “Daddy, Daddy.” One says, “I think we are going to die.” The terrorist who killed their father comes in, and while they weep, he raids their fridge. “Water, water,” he says. The spokesman was unable to say whether the children survived.

The videos show pure, predatory sadism; no effort to spare those who pose no threat; and an eagerness to kill nearly matched by eagerness to disfigure the bodies of the victims. In several clips, the Hamas killers fire shots into the heads of people who are already dead. They count corpses, taking their time, and then shoot them again. Some of the clips I had not previously seen simply show the victims in a state of terror as they wait to be murdered, or covered with bits of their friends and loved ones as they are loaded into trucks and brought to Gaza as hostages. There was no footage of rape, although there was footage of young women huddling in fear and then being executed in a leisurely manner.

Edelstein said that the IDF chose to show the footage out of necessity. It is not every day that snuff films of Jews are shown at an IDF screening hall. (The original site of the screening was a commercial theater, which would have been even worse.) “What we shared with you,” Edelstein said, searching for words, “you should know it.” And he said he struggled to understand how some journalists could present the IDF and Hamas as comparable. This footage would refute that false equivalence.

“We are not looking for kids to kill them,” he said. “We have to share it with you so no one will have an idea that someone is equal to another.”

Graeme Wood: Hamas’s hostage-taking handbook says to ‘kill the difficult ones’ and use hostages as ‘human shields’

To me the most disturbing section was not visual at all. Like the clip of the father and his boys hunted in their pajamas, it was upsetting in part because it showed a relationship between parent and child. The clip is just a phone call—placed by a terrorist to his family back in Gaza. He tells his father that he is calling from a Jewish woman’s phone. (The phone recorded the call.) He tells his father that his son is now a “hero” and that “I killed 10 Jews with my own hands.” And he tells his family, about a dozen times, that they should open up WhatsApp on his phone, because he has sent photographs to prove what he has done. “Put on Mom!” he says. “Your son is a hero!”

His parents, I noticed, are not nearly as enthusiastic as he is. I believe that the mom says “praise be to God” at one point, which could be gratitude for her son’s crimes or pure reflex, indicating her loss for words to match her son’s unspeakable acts. They do not question what their son has done; they do not scold him. They tell him to come back to Gaza. They fear for his safety. He says, amid rounds of “Allahu akbar,” that he intends “victory or martyrdom”—which the parents must understand means that he will never come home. From their muted replies I wonder whether they also understand that even if he did come home, he would do so as a disgusting and degraded creature, and that it might be better for him not to.