Vrubel

@Happy Lizard You can't apply traditional Western ideas of morality to a conflict such as this. Hamas (and by extension all the Palestinians who support them) do not even remotely play by the same rules.

@Hardkill Bernie Sanders is against ceasefire with Hamas.

I don't think its a matter of 'wanting' for Israel but a matter of 'needing'. The only one who wants constant war is Hamas.

From the perspective of the Palestinian cause they are lucky they have nowhere to go and nobody wants to take them in. They are basically forced to sit out this war on their own land. From a human POV, it's disastrous. If we talk about the West Bank, yes there is settler violence which is relatively small scale and dumb Israeli foot shooting. I think settlers that do violence should be expelled from the West Bank. The other side of the coin is that Israel (in normal times) gives Palestinians high-paying employment and access to its hospitals when they suffer from special cases that they cannot treat themselves. The West Bank is much wealthier than for example the country of Jordan or Egypt and let alone places like Syria and Lebanon. The only scenario where I can imagine West Bank Palestinians getting expelled is if they get an independent state, organize themselves, and do a 7/10-like attack on Israel.

@Leo Gura Whats your point? Palestinians are still going to live in Gaza after this war. As ugly as this war is, demographically speaking it won't do much on the Gazan population. If anything it will give them a chance to have responsible government that does not dehumanise them.

@Leo Gura When Gaza gets rebuild as an Israeli city I will agree there was ethnic cleansing. Evacuating people out of the line of fire in the hottest battle zones is not ethnic cleaning, its saving lives. by that logic 100 000's of Israelis are ethnically cleansed because they have been evacuated from hot border zones. The tragedy is that nowhere in Gaza is really safe but there are still degrees of danger. Maybe next time don't launch a war if you don't want the consequences of war. @zazen Your propaganda is getting more cringy and petty.

@Karmadhi Have the decency to quote me correctly. you sneaky.

You still can be spiritual and be real about life. The world and especially the Middle East is a zoo. All humans are animals because that's literally what we are. I don't care how enlightened you are, protecting your family from murder, kidnapping, rape, mutilation, burning and other forms of unspeakable torture is the highest duty there is. Humans don't operate like that given that they must survive and protect themselves from harm. There is no way Jews will agree to live in some kind of binational state with Palestinians. This will only hold the country back, Palestinians cannot be trusted to not murder when they smell blood or a relaxation in deterrence. This will be no way to uphold a high-quality democratic society. They will destroy what the Jews have built and make it a corrupt shithole. This story already happened with Lebanon which used to be a wealthy Christian country. It's like choosing teammates for a dodgeball game. You want the best people you can rely upon. Israel is already a diverse family of Middle Eastern, Ethiopian and European Jews as well as Druze and many ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who are very patriotic in Israel. A country can only work when people have the same sense of direction regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion. Bedouin and Israeli Arabs are free to join in on building and defending their land with the Jews. The Palestinians can get their own (demilitarized) state. They can only achieve that by dignified non-violent means. Israel doesn't owe the Palestinians shit if they don't bother with fostering goodwill and trust. On 7/10 they literally and figuratively killed Israeli peace activists.

@Merkabah Star@zazen I think we differ on a fundamental level: I don't buy in the whole narrative of "ceasefire now". I get it, you want the killing to end and to do the seemingly compassionate thing. But this is not a matter of wanting but a matter of needing. This war needs to be fought to take away the Hamas threat. Maintaining the current status quo will be more dangerous and deadly for both Israelis and Palestinians. Stage green values and morality cannot offer a solution here. The Middle East has it own sets of rules. You might say its cruel and militaristic of me. But these are also aspects of live that need to be integrated. Israel didn't start this war. If Israel had a button to only eliminate Hamas and leave everybody else be they would press that button. But this is not how this world works. The nature of this war will produce a lot of civilian casualties. This is not the Napoleonic era where armies fight in an open field and the parties involved gracefully respect each other in a gentleman manner. I'll take responsibility for Israel's faults and Israel's extremists. But than again Hamas doesn't give a fuck wether Israel has a very reasonable centrist left government or an excessive right wing government. This war is not going to take away any underlying causes, only a bona fide peace treaty can do that. This war is about removing Hamas and Gaza's military capabilities. I assume that after the war Israel will retain some security control like it has in the West Bank. Many pro Palestine people behave like animals, they form an incredibly hypocrite loud minority. They don't care about truth or humanity and if they do they do, it is in an incredibly naive way. I know most world media is biased towards a ceasefire, its the standard uncontroversial, seemingly humane standpoint. It's easy to have that standpoint if you don't understand or starkly feel the need of removing Hamas. Well.. after 7/10 Israel does. I don't want to make this into a battle of who got most popular support, because it's not what matters and to be honest most people aren't that deeply involved or care that much. But in the West at least, Israel still has a lot of support among the silent majority.

Play the ball, not the man. You really don't know the people here and be careful for projection. @Nivsch is on a forum with people with different views so by that alone he doesn't live in a bubble. It seems to me he is having a reasonable discussion where possible and explaining the Israeli perspective when necessary.

Haha "Now you understand why Israel doesn’t allow their hostages to speak to the media" *proceeds to show hostages talking to Israeli media. It perfectly captures the low-brow mushy minds of pro-Palestine people and Hamas cuckholds. Don't delude yourself into thinking you have some kind of moral high ground. Each Palestinian killed by an Israeli bomb was really killed by Hamas. Hamas doesn't give a shit about the bare minimum of responsible government for fellow Muslims let alone minority rights. Hamas doesn't give a fuck about Muslims dying. During their attack they consciously from point-blank range shot a pregnant Bedouin woman in the stomach, she had a hijab and everything. There was also a video of how they captured an Arab from Jerusalem who spoke Arab and he was found killed.

I get your point but there is nothing really exceptional about the Israeli reaction, trauma or no trauma, the way Hamas unleashed itself on civilians is beyond anything. Most countries would react the same and worse. The bottom line is that Israel has to take away the threat now, which can only be done by a full-scale war and the overpowering of Hamas. Palestinians can choose the path of accumulating compassion or can choose war and terrorism. They chose the latter hence Israel's peace movement is nowadays nothing of what it used to be. History shows that peaceful struggles for political rights can be extremely effective, especially given the special status of the Palestinians and how much media attention they get. Palestinians will never get the critical mass of sympathy as long as they do and embrace terrorism. Most people will not have deep sympathy for a culture laced with Islamism and genocidal anti-Semitism. On the other hand, it's very easy (especially for Western people) to have sympathy towards a level-headed peaceful person on whom injustice is done. Unfortunately, evil won out over good in the current situation. A ceasefire for Israel is an absolute absurdity. It must now finish the job and return to a point of security and deterrence so that the border kibbutz villages can again get populated and the threat of terrorist infiltrations and rockets is gone. Obviously, it's easy for countries that don't face the Israeli survival challenge to call for a ceasefire. I would argue that in the long term, it's more compassionate for everyone if Israel finishes the job and removes Hamas from power. It would be a nightmare scenario also for the Palestinians if they still get ruled over by such an organization that dehumanizes their own population so deeply and absolutely. I think most Gazans don't support Hamas anymore which brought them nothing but destitution and destruction. I have seen how they speak out against Hamas. For some reason, it's often the old grannies who are the wisest and have the biggest balls. Yes, a huge part of the problem is that people build demonizing myths about each other if they don't interact with each other. I don't have cartoonish views of stage red people, I also traveled a lot including to some really impoverished ghetto places. Most of them are nice pleasant people but they make for low-quality dysfunctional societies. The last thing you want to throw into such a place is an Islamist ideology.

Watch if you're interested in the perspective of an Israeli soldier in Gaza and the reality she faces as much of the youth in Israel. What responsibility and challenges did you heave when you were 20? Really heavy topic is discussed at 5:25

Such things don't die down within a month, get real. Israelis are nowhere near closure. The whole thing is still ongoing with the hostages and young soldiers fighting.

Both seem very down to earth and objective, good share.

@Danioover9000 I never made anything personal with you. What harassment? what hate?

He literally said there is no existential threat to Israel. Being vulnerable to such horrific attacks is an existential threat. Only a complete imbecile Dodo bird will be fine with it and not remove the threats. With cleansing, I meant the terrorist organizations, not the population. In a certain sense Hamas has thrown Hezbollah under the bus because Israel now starkly realizes they cannot live with such savages directly at the border. Ideally, some diplomatic solution will be found. I think war can be avoided if Hezbollah moves away from the Israel border and some DMZ into Lebanon is established. It's not apartheid, it's its own thing. Israel scores a lot of own goals with its policies, which Palestinians can leverage to fight for their rights in peaceful ways. The whole world is reporting on it and condemning Israel. All that Palestinians have to do for hearts and minds (including mine) is not to support terror. Yet that's what they overwhelmingly do and turns many people definitively off (including myself). They A: present themselves as a great(er) evil and B: people just don't click with such backward dysfunctional worldviews. Most people care about Palestinian rights but not about the extermination or doing terror against Israelis. I am not a military commander so I have no idea but it's clear that Hamas exploits its own population to the fullest. Despite everything it's Israel that cares more for the civilians of Gaza. Even Hamas literally said that the burden of caring for the civilian population is on the UN and "the occupation". Hamas' greatest strength is that it just doesn't give a fuck about anything and isn't responsible for anything or anyone. They just fight and hide in their tunnels hoping for Israel to just stop because of the international pressure and then they will emerge from the tunnels giving peace signs and being cheered as heroes by the population. That's what winning looks like for Hamas. But Israel of course cannot allow for Hamas to rebuild itself and again risk another 7/10. The scope of Israel's seriousness is enormous, it's not fucking around anymore.

He downplays the threat posed by Hamas and Hezbollah. He argues there is no existential threat to Israel. That's not true. The existential threat for Israel is that it cannot exist as a state when terrorists whether from Hamas or Hezbollah can do savage incursions from time to time. That's why Israel has to cleanse these groups off its borders. What people don't get is that it is insanity for Israel to just let Hamas and Hezbollah off the hook and do a ceasefire. Israel has to literally cleanse its borders from such organizations if it wants to continue to exist as a state. You have no right to exist if you cannot defend your people from rape, murder and kidnapping. Also, the whole apartheid narrative is bullshit or at the very least intellectually dishonest. Palestinians in Gaza are ruled by Hamas, and Palestinians in the West Bank by the PA with Israeli security control to break up terrorist organizing. And Israeli Arabs have full rights without even the duty to serve.

It's kind of petty to cling to these words given they were spoken after such a brutal, unspeakable attack. Off course you will invoke the bible to gather yourself together and project strength. If Saudi Arabia was to be attacked the same way they would unleash a medieval hell on their attackers. There is nothing really special about Israeli self bias. Historically, Practically and culturally speaking Israelis are an exceptional people in many respects. Man.. there is nothing surprising about everything that is happening. It was clear from the get go that the response on Gaza would be brutal. Maybe don't attack a highly patriotic, self biased, well armed neighbour. There was a ceasefire before 7/10, the next one will be on the day after Hamas.

Ukraine needs rock-solid security guarantees. The West should provide that. This can take on many forms, such as a guarantee that Ukraine will always have the latest and most modern weapons and helping it develop an internal arms industry. Ukraine should have some serious firepower to deter Russia.

Haha obviously, a guy with such an ego will skew the true power dynamics at play. He has done a lot of damage to Israel in regard to its perception in the West.

They don't want to throw Israel under the bus while it's fighting a war but the pressure is definitely there. America plays a big role in moderating Israel.

Nobody is giving a blank check to Israel. America and the West even while supporting and understanding Israel are also very critical and a "blank check" is not a viable position even for rightwing standards. I get your point but many people (based on values) will be biased toward Hindus out of sympathy for their culture which is generally more peaceful and less extreme than the Islamic one. There is a reason there are hundreds of millions of Muslims living in India and no Hindus living in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

When he was prime minister he put his silly religious views aside and served as a first among equals for the benefit of the country with incredible integrity.

That's true but it also depends on values. Obviously, Jews can be bad and stupid. But generally speaking, Jews are a small people (15 mil worldwide) that contribute disproportionately to the societies they live in. Jews generally uphold the culture of the country they live in and make for high-quality communities and societies.