2023 Israel Conflict - Ground Forces Enter Gaza

Who said that’s not what Hokie was thinking when you were calling him an ISIS-lover?

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It’s ok to use quotes, “You’re lapping up the koolaid from what is basically Isis with a better PR team. Would you support Hamas in a war vs the Palestine Authority?”

My point was that the article read like propaganda, with some maybe actual war crimes mixed in, but the propaganda detracts from its overall credibility.

That said, I’d be happy if Israeli settlements were bulldozed. There is a lot of blame to go around and I would welcome war crimes tribunals for everyone.

Dude can call out torture without having to answer questions about whether or not he’s a card carrying Hamas supporter. That’s fascist. Of fucking course Hokie does not support Hamas.

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Worst Sabra hummus flavor description imo

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Tightened your joke.

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That’s a really good edit because of the double entendre.

coffee

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Where does this get us, though? Like to me the fundamental mistake here is thinking the way to analyze the conflict is in terms of morality, like if we can just work out who is “right” and who has done more atrocities, that will get us anywhere. The reason I and others are resistant to “why won’t you condemn Hamas as much as Israel” is that this is a rigged game. It’s like when we want to talk about structural racism and police brutality and the response is “well OK but can we also talk about rates of violent crime committed by Black people and will you agree to condemn that just as much?”. And it’s like no, not really? Because the only reason people ever want to discuss that is to avoid discussing the structural issues which I believe are what brings this situation into being. It’s a rhetorical technique.

To me step one in resolving intractable disputes is figuring out which party has the most power to change the situation and that’s clearly Israel and has been for decades. Approaching the situation by whipping out the balance scales and piling the offences from both sides on them and concluding “a pox on both their houses” is a method of analysis designed to capitulate to the inertia of the status quo.

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Analyzing this conflict through the lens of power in the conflict, then only considering Hamas and Israel, is a rather big error. Iran is a massive player here, and their interests just happen to align with continued conflict to separate Israel from other potential allies

You all need to find some captains to ban

Palestinians have inalienable rights, both as individuals and as a group, that are independent of whether Hamas (or Iran or any other actor) is bad.

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Palestine doesn’t exist, dumbass

Sure, you’ll notice I say Hamas. If Iran encourages, or frankly enables, Hamas to prolong the conflict, that should be a big part of your analysis.

Israel could, and has, offered a viable two state solution. They won’t under Netanyahu, but if they did it would be rejected again because Hamas doesn’t want a two state solution.

Simp is the smartest poster on this website

Hello, I’m a grunching time traveler boy from the year 2019. Did we ever settle whether posts should have “dislike” buttons or not? Because, oh boy!

Which two state solution? You got a map with that?

The Israel Palestine conflict seems to me to be one of, if not the most, intractable and complex political issues in the world today. There are no good or easy answers and both sides have legitimate grievances and have and are committing crimes against humanity. That’s not to say I’m arguing it’s a “both sides are equal” situation. I’m arguing nobody, without having deep training and experience in the nuance, has any chance of making a valuable contribution.

All this to say, the unfortunate part of this complexity is that while it should lead us to be more forgiving of others views, it leads us to act like it’s black and white.

If there is any issue where it’s more important to see the humanity in other views it seems like this one.

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The issue is that framing it this way - as a super complicated situation with no feasible solution and bad actors on all sides, is what Israel wants. It basically is their justification for keeping the status quo and not having to work on a real solution. This is why whenever there are reports of Israel doing terrible things, the response from Israel and their supporters is to try to muddy the water and doing things like asking “well do you condemn Hamas.”

It’s the exact same strategy that the right uses for immigration - any time there is discussion of actual reform, they reframe the conversation about Laken Riley or some other one off situation where a migrant did something bad.

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You may be right. I honestly don’t know where to land on this issue. The only obvious place is any argument that advocates for a reduction in the violence.

I have great doubt about Israel ever agreeing to anything and lean towards the idea that any lasting solution may have to be imposed from the outside with the threat of military force against Israel.