Because they lack the means to do so–not the will.
Thus, by your own admission, Israel’s policy of prohibiting a variety of imports to Gaza prevent Hamas from committing further genocide against Israel.
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Palestine/Israel has long been a place of dreams turned to tragedy. That will not readily change, and even with courageous far-sighted leadership on all sides (fat chance) the change will be agonizingly slow.
I have long told my Israeli and my Palestinian (or if you prefer my secular, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) friends to consider the probability that the best thing they can do for themselves, family, and compatriots is leave and establish a life elsewhere from whence to send home love and sanity.
d fb
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Throw in SA wants Israel to protect it from Iran. The US wants a growing superstructure of nations, ie Iraq which is a semi-republic, up against Russia.
We have passed war 700 in the history of the land of milk and honey. The Arab Americans I have worked with can not explain why Arab nations do not have nuclear weapons. Being pro-nukes is their stance.
But hey if every US treaty with the native Americans was a war, we got that beat easily. CBS will put that on ignore.
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Both successful bank robbers and unsuccessful bank robbers are still bank robbers.
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If Hamas had open free elections Gaza would actually have a lot of support. Right now people are against how much damage is being done to Gaza. That is not my idea of support.
But you are only a bank robber if you actually rob banks.
If all you are capable of doing is thinking about being a bank robber, you aren’t actually a bank robber. At worst, you are a conspiracist - guilty of conspiring with others to rob banks.
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ptheland gave you an accurate response to your illogical analogy.
Silly response. Hamas is not going to commit genocide on Israel with food, water, medicine and fuel for electricity and transportation.
Why does any Arab nation need nuclear weapons? Indonesia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Philippines, South Africa and most other nations do not have nuclear weapons.
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Arab societies are not stable politically.
None of this would be happening otherwise.
Rabin tried. Netanyahu’s goon got him. But Israel in general tried several times over. There are problems on the chessboard but the main problem is stable Arab leadership. Israel is strong. The problem is among the Arabs primarily which is why I keep discussing the four major wars in the Arab societies.
It is not like I think European history is any better but European societies have moved on governance-wise. America played a major role in that with the UK. The Russians in all instances are the problem.
Oh. So October 7th was just a conspiratorial concept?
Or perhaps it was just legitimate political discourse.
And the core belief of Hamas? To destroy Israel. I know, just a bunch of folks sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya.
Silly me.
PS:
Planning to rob a bank is a conspiracy.
If you try to rob a bank and fail to get any money, it’s bank robbery.
If you don’t believe me, please try it and get back to me.
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Of course not.
This is not complicated.
Hamas attacked. Israel responded, rendering Hamas incapable of another attack from Gaza. That is where Israel should have stopped their broad scale military action.
At that point, Hamas was no longer a threat. They should switch to a different approach, negotiating from a position of power while continuing a slower and more restrained military action to encourage Hamas to give up the hostages and root out further leadership.
The international community was fully supportive of Israel and their right to defend themselves. But Israel has removed the current threat. Hamas no longer has the ability to attack Israel. Hamas is no longer a “bank robber” in our little fiction. Yes, they want to rob banks - destroy Israel - but they no longer have the current capability, at least not from Gaza. Because they are no longer an immediate threat, Israel’s military tactics must change.
Let’s simplify further. Hamas’ desire to destroy Israel is just as wrong as Israel’s desire to destroy Hamas.
—Peter
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Ummm…if a person robs a bank, the authorities will continue to go after them once they get away. Even if that person no longer has the current capacity to rob a bank at that moment (they’re fleeing in a getaway car), the authorities will still pursue them. They don’t just say, “Well, that bank robber is not robbing a bank right now, and probably won’t rob a bank in the next few weeks…so we’ll just call it off.” Instead, they go after the bank robber and try to put them in jail - both to punish the bank robber for breaking the law, and to prevent the bank robber from being at large to rob another bank in the future.
If an organization deliberately murders a bunch of folks, the authorities will keep trying to destroy that organization even if they’re not expected to try to murder anyone else in the next few weeks or months. And they’re going to want to bring the leaders of that organization to justice, no matter how long it takes - even if those leaders promised never to commit mass murder again (and even if they meant it).
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I was ready to drop the bank robber analogy, but I think ol’ Drebbin still has a bit of life left in him. So let’s continue.
The police have multiple options when dealing with a bank robber. If they can get on the scene quickly, they might initiate a pursuit of the fleeing suspects. A pursuit puts members of the public at some risk. The risk of the pursuit needs to be balanced against the risk of the suspects getting away. Sometimes pursuits end without a capture of the suspects. The suspects either get away, or the police decide the pursuit is too risky for the general public (or sometimes too risky for the officers). That leads to the second phase.
Police then do detective work. they figure out who the bank robbers are (or might be), then figure out where they might be. Then they go look for the suspects there. When they find the suspects, they arrest them. This takes time. And sometimes the robbers commit another robbery while the police are working the prior robbery.
At no point in the process do the police barge into an apartment building and shoot everyone inside because they think the suspects might be there.
Back to my previous post. At no point did I suggest Israel should stop pursuing Hamas. I said they need to change their tactics. The immediate threat of an additional attack is gone. (The pursuit is ended, without the capture of the suspects.) So Israel needs to take a different approach. They aren’t letting Hamas go - they continue to look for Hamas. But they also need to consider the needs of the general residents of Gaza.
Right now, I think the leadership of Israel is filled with a blood lust for Hamas. They don’t care who they run over or through or, quite literally, blow up in their pursuit of Hamas. They are blinded by their rage.
Israel clearly has the superior military force in this conflict. But with that power comes responsibility to use it carefully. It’s past time for Israel to use their power responsibly.
–Peter
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True, but at this point the “bank robber” analogy breaks down. In this case, there is no doubt about the who (it was Hamas!) or the where (they’re in Gaza!). And unlike property crimes (like some bank robberies), the police absolutely will engage in hot pursuit and use deadly force to go after someone who has committed murder, much less mass murder. They’re not going to leave them at large if they have the option to take them out or into custody, even if that presents a risk to bystanders.
They would be letting Hamas go. If they withdraw, from Gaza, they’re not going to be able to go back in again. If they don’t attack Hamas’ remaining forces, then those remaining forces will get to remain at large. The “police” analogy breaks down - this is a military action, not a police action, because Israel doesn’t maintain a police force (or a permanent military force) in Gaza. Unless they refuse to withdraw, which everyone is against happening.
Yes, the Israelis have gone after Hamas even though it meant they have to go through the civilian population that Hamas has chosen to embed itself in. That’s what happens when a belligerent force embeds itself in a civilian population - and that’s why it’s a war crime to do that. The country that you attacked isn’t going to (and isn’t required to) just throw up their hands and say, “well, you got away because you managed to retreat back into your civilian population.” They can (and will) attack you anyway, because you don’t get to force a “time out” in a war just by hiding among civilians.
That isn’t being “blinded by rage.” Destroying Hamas (or degrading it to the point of inutility) is a legitimate and important military objective of Israel, and it doesn’t stop being that once they retreat into the civilian population center. And quite honestly, there’s probably no path to peace and security for Israel unless Hamas is destroyed/degraded.
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OK. Then just pull the bandaid off and kill everyone in Gaza. That will most certainly get all of Hamas in Gaza.
Is there no limit to who or how many Israel can kill in pursuit of Hamas?
Again, that’s a strawman. I did not suggest they withdraw from Gaza. I suggested they change tactics.
It’s also a war crime to indiscriminately kill civilians. So does the committing of a war crime by one of the belligerents excuse the committing of another war crime by the other belligerent?
That’s ultimately my point. Hamas has been so degraded, at least in Gaza. I haven’t heard of any attacks on Israeli territory by Hamas, have you? The only fighting I see by Hamas (and probably civilians at this point) is in self-defense against the attacking Israeli army in Gaza. That army doesn’t exactly have a great record at stopping fire when opponents attempt to surrender. Heck, they’ve killed their own forces assuming the surrender was a ruse. If that’s not being blinded by rage, I don’t know what is.
–Peter
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Yes. It’s unconscionable to kill everyone in Gaza. It’s consistent with the laws of war to conduct attacks against enemy belligerents even though there will be civilian loss of life, but you have to make sure that your attacks are tailored so that the loss of life is as low as possible while still achieving the military objective.
To what? They have a military force in Gaza. They can’t just stand around in close proximity to Hamas’ forces indefinitely. They’re not a police force. It’s not a strawman to suggest that their options are pretty much limited to either attacking Hamas (eventually) or leaving. They can’t destroy/degrade Hamas any other way.
Nope - but that word “indiscriminately” up there is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting, in this context. Just because military attacks cause a lot of civilian casualties doesn’t mean that the forces are “indiscriminately” killing civilians.
Hamas hasn’t been so degraded. Nearly all of the command structure is intact, they’ve got four battalions holed up in Rafah, together with a massive amount of infrastructure and materiel. They’re not like Al Qaeda, where the actual organization has been destroyed and all that’s left is nothing more than an idea and a brand name.
Hamas isn’t engaged in “self defense.” If you murder a whole bunch of people, and the police come to take you away to be executed, you’re not acting in “self defense” if you use force to try to stop them. You’re just adding to your crimes. Israel has every right to attack Hamas because of what they did on October 7, and Hamas has no legitimacy in resisting the efforts to hold them accountable for those crimes. Hamas has not tried to surrender, has not returned the hostages they still have (those they haven’t already killed, anyway).
When a murderer shoots back at the police just so he can remain at large to kill again, that’s not “self defense” - it’s just more murder.
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The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,’ (Hamas Charter, Article 7)
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. (Hamas Charter, Article 13)
Hamas;
In its founding charter voted into law by 72% of the Palestinians of Gaza
The annihilation of all Jews in Israel is the basic tenet of the officially elected government of Gaza
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That’s the question everyone is asking. Is Israel doing that? Is Israel keeping the civilian loss of life as low as possible?
Numbers are very hard to come by in this war, but the estimates I’m finding are in the range of 4 civilians killed for every Hamas fighter killed (roughly the IDF’s numbers) to as many as 9 civilians killed per Hamas fighter (from some human rights groups).
With something like 30,000 to 40,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza, that would imply a potential civilian casualty total of between 120,000 and 360,000 to eliminate all of Hamas.
For reference, that’s in the same range of estimates for the number of people killed in the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
–Peter
Seems pretty likely. Gaza’s literally one of the most densely populated regions on earth. Nearly the entire area is within a city - there’s virtually no rural areas at all - and the cities are densely populated. And Hamas is almost entirely concealed, having had decades to construct a series of underground tunnels and bunkers. I can’t imagine any military force being able to counterattack against Hamas without causing tremendous civilian casualties.
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