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this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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In normal warfare. When a siege shows that it's has the ability to starve the populace if continued; it's the duty of the seiged to surrender before their population starts to starve.
Or to try to escalate. Which do you honestly think Hamas will do?
Honestly, they're dying. Israel estimates they've killed 1/4th of their Army. And based on the things that they're trying to smuggle in it (oxygen equipment) seems like they might have a significant amount of their forces stuck underground, caved in.
That either makes them fight more desperately or we wait a generation for the surviving Palestinians to grow up and start the fight anew.
We know how this goes, unless Israel makes huge concessions or starts killing even larger numbers of Palestinians
That army was just used offensively against Israel. It must be considered valid to fight it. Those fighters can choose to surrender.
You think they will?
Some will.
But enough to have peace?
At the rate Israel is going? Yes.
Dead men always make peace.
So to summarize: in your opinion, Hamas and Israel are both doing exactly what they should be?
No. Should? No. But are they on a path to peace if they keep fighting? Yes. A cease fire delays eventual peace if the disagreement between to sides is incurable. And at this point it does seem as if it's incurable.
That’s too cynical for me. Take away offensive military support from Israel and the disagreement may stay uncured, but it won’t kill over 10k people a month
How many people will die in the next conflict though? Or do we just expect Israel to regularly have thousands of citizens murdered and hundreds taken hostage as a regular course of business?
Nobody likes the human casualties. But at this point, the Taliban could take control in Gaza and do a better and more peaceful job.
Palestinian casualties are casualties, and there’s millions of Palestinians whose lives are currently in danger. If not a ceasefire, what do you think is the ideal first step for preventing as many casualties as possible?
In the long run or the short run? If I only care about the casualties in the next 1-3 months; of course I want a ceasefire. I'd be a fool not to. However; if I widen my view to 12 months, 24, 5 years Hamas is going to kill thousands of Gazans a year if left in power. It's going to kill them by starting more wars, by impoverishing them, by keeping them from accessing the aid that's being provisioned from them.
Like it's not like people are heartless. What's happening in Gaza is horrible and I wish it wouldn't. But it feels like taking out Hamas' ability to govern and rule is like taking off a bandaid. It's best done quickly.
Again, there are millions of Palestinians currently in danger. Thousands have been killed by Israel in a month. I don’t see how hamas is a larger threat than Israel.
I’m not a fan of Hamas. They’re there because someone hasn’t allowed Palestine to have an election in over a decade. Taking out Hamas’ ability to govern and rule could be done quickly by allowing an election.
If Hamas retains it's military might, how many more wars causing thousands of casualties a month will happen in the next 5 years?
If Israel agrees to a ceasefire, then allows aid to flow in and new elections to be freely held, Hamas will cause zero wars in the next five years, because they won’t have any power.
What makes you think Hamas wouldn't win the election?
Hamas ran on an entirely different platform (of moderation) to a different group of voters. Why not see what happens?
Convince the EU to support sanctions until an election. That's what's keeping Hamas going.
Netanyahu has been seen sending covert money to Hamas and has been alleged on multiple times to have said that Hamas is good for the Israeli government (which might have been true before October).
Sanctions would simply be an expansion of the siege. Collective punishment is against the Geneva conventions. What grounds are there to sanction a people for having a government they themselves dislike but which they are forbidden from voting out of power? Further, how is that better than organizing a vote? Palestinians will starve to death between then and now, if they’re sanctioned.
You can't continue to give Hamas more money and claim to support elections in Gaza. Giving them money is defacto support for a non-democratic Gaza Strip.
I don’t want to give Hamas money, because I don’t support Hamas. I want to give Palestinian people access to food, water, healthcare, safe shelter and education, ideally through NGOs, until an election can be held.
Then, if the government elected is Hamas or worse, you still support the populace through NGOs, because they’re still people, and lack of education and stability have never made a group less extremist. The cost of basic social services and life supports for a few million people is far smaller than the cost of the weapons to eradicate them
Israel has in the last month specifically targeted hospitals, schools, Red Cross/red crescent vehicles, and MSF operations. That’s why the ceasefire is a necessary first step.
You can't do both as long as Hamas rules the strip. You can give Palestinians aid in the West Bank and in Lebanon and Jordan; but not in the Gaza Strip.
What the last few months have shown is that aid meant for individuals is stolen by Hamas to fund terrorism. Unless the UN or EU puts troops on the ground to police the aid; funding the Strip will be finding terrorism to a large degree.
Let’s keep the ceasefire and hold an election then.
How does Hamas turn bandages and water into bombs?
Why not use the preexisting NGOs?
If troops on the ground are truly required, then let’s use them! The other option is genocide. We should ask Palestinians what they would prefer, but this is why peacekeeping forces exist.
A ceasefire doesn't make elections possible.
They steal the supplies and then they sell them back to Palestinians (and smuggle them out) for cash.
The current NGOs have proven that not only can they not ensure aid doesn't go to Hamas' military/terrorism activities; in the case of most of them funding those activities is part of the goal. As they've regularly had reports of the misuse of aid over the last 20 years and have done nothing about it.
The Palestinians will kill your troops and use your aid dollars to reward the families of those who do so.
Ultimately, there are plenty of starving, impoverished people in the world and limited aid dollars from the West. We should quit investing those dollars I'm Palestine and start investing them in places where they'll be better used.
The West has invested like 6 per capital Marshall Plans into the Gaza Strip and it's been squandered. How much more should we waste before we decide to help people that will use that aid to better themselves?
No, Israel needs to allow elections.
Then it’s a supply problem. If significantly more aid is allowed in and distributed freely, there won’t be much profit to be made.
How do they do that? They’ve currently got about 1100 calories per person and have had very little water for the last six weeks. The troops are well supplied, armed, and armored. There might be an occasional ied attack, but Palestinians are not going to mount a significant resistance against UN troops distributing aid fairly among the people.
That could be said about any group of people. Unfortunately, the less money and infrastructure people have, the more money it takes to get them independent, so the places that need aid most will be the least “efficient” uses of that money.
Literally as much as people are willing to give, which is a lot. How can we watch people starved and oppressed to the point of desperation for decades, then turn our backs because they’re… acting out of desperation? People need basic security before they can make long term decisions, so punishing them for not having security is barbaric.
The naivety of this statement is that there is a shortage of aid dollars around the world. A dollar spent in the Gaza Strip supporting organized rape, and Jew killing is a dollar not spent in Costa Rico, Guatemala or Haiti building Jungle proof infrastructure that will be used by the locals to peacefully trade and coexist with its neighbors. Every dollar the UNWRA gives to the Strip is a dollar not going to people in poverty who won't embezzle it for warfare.
There's actual, peaceful people living in poverty who would use these aid dollars for the betterment of themselves, their families, their communities and their nation. People living in open multi-party democracies. People who don't believe that a child molestor for 15 hundred years ago entitles them to kill their neighbors. It's barbaric choosing to continually find the second group over the first.
You realize lots of people want to give the Palestinians money, but not Haitians, Guatemalans, or Costa Ricans? If you’d like to hold a Red Cross donation tour, you’re welcome to, but that’s not the same pool of money available for Palestine.
What follows is a bunch of unsurprising anti Islamic sentiment that I’m not responding to.
Enjoy your life.
Most of the aid going to Palestine (both the Gaza Strip and West Bank) comes from government entities and not individuals. Honestly, the impact of individual donations is notable but not significant in the grand scheme of things. If public entities stopped providing funds, depending on the estimates, Palestine would lose 80% of its aid dollars. The US can absolutely choose to fund other nations instead of Palestine. And we (the US) have in part done so with things like Taylor Force Act which has cut about $0.5B in aid to the Palestinian Authority since 2018 because of its Marty Fund paying out when they killed an American.
None of what I said is anti-Islamic in the slightest.
I think it’s worth trying to save still and the first step along that path is a ceasefire.