@WassimBerbar said in #23:
> This "Israel obviously", after all what I said, if you had to choose one, wether it's the colonised or the coloniseer, it's the first thing that comes to your mind? You want child killers and terrorists to win in this war?! Are you ok?
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What if I told you, that according to primary sources, Hamas is the "child killer" and the "terrorists"?
What if I told you, that according to primary sources, they have seen babies burned alive, women raped and then killed (because just killing was not enough obviously), and then obviously also men dying trying to protect their families?
What if I told you that despite all of what you think, Hamas targets civilians, while Israel does not?
What if I told you that according to some Hamas sends videos of murders of friends and family to contacts in the victim's phone?
Imagine opening up your phone thinking you're getting a text from your sister and the text is actually just the video of her death.
What if I told you that none of the above are "government propaganda"? What if I told you that these are all things said by civilians living in Israel? People, that don't know if they're going to live through the next minute of today?
What if I told you these people have no reason to say these things besides wanting others to know what's really happening? These people aren't being paid to talk.
What if I told you...? You get the point. I could go on and on and on and on. I'm not going to for the sake of time.
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> This is full of ignorance. It's already enough if they destroy tanks and do _some_ effort into pushing back the coloniser. First, "they took all the aid given by other countries", On what basis? Even if it's true, isn't a coloniser enough of a threat to Palestinian citizens, or do they need a local terrorist organisation to also deal with? Why was Hamas originally founded? If you answer this question, your entire argument doesn't make sense.
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Actually, if we start history from ancient Israel, Palestine would be the colonizer "defending themselves". It's a matter of how you look at it. In fact, I fail to see where exactly you can start history besides maybe with the Mamluks or maybe with the recent Arabs in 1900 without getting an Israel in there.
You are making this Israel vs. Hamas. Your title says Israel vs. Palestine, so already going a bit off topic here. Point is, this is not "Israel is oppressing people and Hamas is fighting back!" After all, does Hamas need to fight back with suicide bombings? Does Hamas need to fight back by targeting places with civilians? No, no they don't.
I've been working on a timeline actually recently. If I get it done at some point I'll post it in one of these forums. It'll start from Canaan all the way to modern times, and look at ancient Arabia as well. (In my opinion, it'll give a bit more context to this war. Like how the Middle East, despite pledging support to Palestine, has shown historically that they don't really care about the Palestinians.)
You do realize that Palestine wasn't really a thing until the 1970s, right? Before then, most Arabs were pushing to be called southern Syrians. It was only when they realized being called Palestinian helped more than being called Syrians that they did so. And it's been publicly admitted before by them, that the only reason there is a Palestine is so that there can be (eventually, they hope) no Israel.
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> I should have formulated it better. Do you want a scenario where Israel succeeds its colonisation and genocides the entire Palestinian population and replace it with Jews, or do you want a scenario where the Zionist colonisation ends and no more IDF but "Hamas still terrorises the country"?
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Of course the first one - do I want to see all the people I know back in Israel all dead the moment Hamas wins?
I encourage you to look at Israel's policies regarding prisoners of war. They're actually a lot better than the United States, Germany, and other countries in how they treat prisoners.
Besides, if they succeeded, it would just be a case of helping Arab communities stay Arab (because that's probably what the Arabs want as well). You'd get some weird separation, and it wouldn't be that different from now except no war. Actually, I highly doubt no war. I believe Palestine would revolt eventually.
Hamas has been proven to treat even hostages that have done nothing to them besides breathing and living on Israeli lands horribly. How much worse will it be, when they actually control the whole place?
Iirc, either you or sdkman was voting for the "assimilation of Jews" into Palestine. Like, Palestine + Israel, all called Palestine.
Friendly reminder that in history, every time the Arabs won the Jews were kicked out, or worse. Highly doubt any Jews will be assimilated here.
But have you noticed an interesting pattern in history before, Wassim? Ancient Israel withstood a lot of impossible odds, before being conquered. The same with ancient Judah. Then, when they seemed to have no hope, the Chaldeans let them back onto their land for a while. Later on, during the Roman rule, the Machabees would end up making Israel a kingdom again, if only for a short period of time. Before they were kicked out by the Romans, during the Jewish - Roman wars.
Fast forward many thousand years, and somehow there is an Israel again. It seems to me - no matter how many other nations or empires have tried to conquer them or exterminate them - they always live and come back again to build the nation.
There is a quote by Mark Twain:
"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.
His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.
The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmaties, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality? "
- September 1897 (Quoted in The National Jewish Post & Observer, June 6, 1984)
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> I also said "and the context you acquirred", meaning what I said and you already know. My context acknowledges both sides; Hamas is as meek as a lamb in front of IDF and Zionist invader.
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"Meek"? Reality would beg to differ. At this point I don't see what you're getting at here. It's well known that Hamas spends money on places elsewhere than the Gazan people. I will refer you to this quote that says it better than I can:
"I would add the Hamas leadership has mistreated the Gazans first and foremost. Since 2005, Gaza has been given $25 billion in aid from various countries. They should have had the best schools and hospitals. They could have made the coastal area a resort and reopened the airport. Nope, they purchased weapons and built a labyrinth of tunnels in preparation for this war with Israel. And I might add, their senior leadership is living in luxury in Qatar and Turkey." -
www.quora.com/Why-did-the-Arab-parties-want-to-have-the-name-of-Palestine-changed-to-Southern-Syria (you have to look in the comments)
Hamas is corrupt. If you care for Palestine, help the Gazan people. Help them. Don't sit there and say Hamas will help them. Hamas doesn't even let their people use bomb shelters!
'Twill be very sad if you cannot see that Hamas is not helping Gaza.
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> You are using the Motte and Bailey fallacy again in this post. You defend an accusation about IDF with a easily defendable argument about Hamas.
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> You basically admit that IDF bombs Gaza, but your justification of why they would bomb them is "Hamas doesn't protect their people and uses human shields". Reformulate a better argument next time.
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Reformulate? Let me ask you, is it normal to hide hostages in Gazan homes? Instead of taking them into, you know, any other place that the $25 billion mentioned above could have built? Is it normal to build tunnels under Gazan playgrounds, Gazan homes, Gazan neighborhoods and hospitals? Is it normal to have your leadership hiding in hospitals, and then to publicly admit to it?
I know some people will say that this is all "strictly necessary" so Palestine can exist. It could have existed years ago. The Barak proposal was the best peace offer there was! Every single peace proposal so far, the Jews have said yes and the Arabs no. Palestine has had plenty of chances to exist. They just happen to have a very corrupt leadership.
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> This is just a coward argument pro-Israel people try to use when I accuse IDF of killing civilians. Even if it's true (which is highly doubtful), it's not a reason to bomb civilians and soldiers for the pretext of "aiming Hamas", even less in a crowded area, through 75 years.
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Yes it is, and why?
1) They give warnings.
2) Yeah, you're supposed to try to protect your people. If you know there's a guy in that building that's part of Hamas, you try your best to get the civilians out and then go get the guy.
You are arguing here that Israel should sit and let Hamas do whatever, and that if they even lift a finger they are terrorists.
Strawman? Maybe, but first you have to prove you are not arguing this.
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> And? It's still a significant amount of deaths. You prefer 20000 civilians to die in 3 months or 17000 civilians to die in 3 months?
And? No one is suggesting people in Gaza aren't dying or aren't suffering. The only difference between you and I on this particular question is this:
You believe that the problem is Israel.
I believe that the problem is Israel, the Middle East, Hamas, Fatah, all other groups in that area, and in a sense, the world as well, for not standing up and helping.
I believe that blaming Israel for everything is very short-sighted and a terrible idea in the long run. It persuades people that if there was no Israel, there'd be no problem - only to realize (if they could somehow defeat Israel) that just because Israel is gone doesn't give them anything much better.
In communist China the Communists fought against the Nationalists with the same "human shield" method - hiding soldiers in civilian homes, digging little tunnels for people to escape - actually they did the same thing with Japan in WWII. And besides being better funded, that was probably one of the reasons they won, in my opinion.
Point with the China example is - they thought that if they just drove the Nationalists out they would have a nice life. Did they? No. We all know history, and we all know just how many of his former supporters that Mao Zedong murdered in the end.
Now Palestinians believe that if they drive out Israel they will have a nice life. They won't. Because once they drive out Israel, who's to say Egypt and Jordan won't do the same thing they did last time in the wars - just take a chunk of Palestine for themselves? Who's to say Hamas won't immediately turn on people?
