hundreth

I don't see anywhere at all where I said anything like this. I was pleased to see you were conversing in good faith, but I'm really not a fan of the reductionist straw-man bullshit. Have a good one.

I agree. As I said, Hamas will never be a negotiating partner. If you reward Hamas, they gain influence and we are further from peace. If you hit them back, they are stationed among civilians and create new Hamas. It is a lose-lose situation for everyone. The only difference is that when you retaliate, they have less capabilities to hurt you again in the short term. It's like negotiating with a literal cancer.

I'm not going to respond point by point just to avoid going in circles. The idea behind "mowing the grass" is to push back Hamas for short term peace in response to attacks. That's literally what is going on now, this is a giant mowing of the grass so to speak. What is Hamas' rationale? What does Oct 7 achieve? All of their actions are a lose-lose for everyone. But ok, let's entertain your idea of rewarding Oct 7 as an alternative. Let's put our weapons down and calmly speak with Hamas and say "Ok, you brutally murdered our people, live streamed it, celebrated, took hostages... we get it, you're upset. How many prisoners do you want back?"' What do you think happens next? Those same Hamas militants who brutally murdered in cold blood are going to think "Wow, look how great these Jews are... maybe let's stop with the attacks?" It's laughable. Unfortunately Hamas will never be a negotiating partner. The sooner Hamas is replaced, the sooner something meaningful can actually happen.

No matter how many times you try to equate Israel's actions with Hamas, it's never going to stick. Sorry. Maybe, maybe not. The alternative is, Hamas comes to your country, brutally murders and kidnaps your people, and you reward them for it. That's absurd. What message does that send? Think about it. Do you know what happened immediately preceding Oct 7th? Israel increased their work permits and cooperation with Gaza. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20709/israel-work-permits-palestinians There is no proof of anything, neither of us have proof our proposals will benefit anyone. What is your proof your ridiculous proposal of rewarding Oct 7th would work? Ripping the band-aid dismantles much of Hamas' capabilities at least in the short term and sends a message this type of attack will not be tolerated. What happens next depends on many factors. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem anyone has a day after plan. Like I said, no matter how many times you try to equate the deranged actions of Hamas, it never works. It's really just blind rationalization. There are specific instances when the IDF goes too far, but every Hamas action is heinous and causes extreme damage to everyone in the region including the Palestinians. Hamas has kept the entire Gazan population hostage, and if Israel did literally nothing they would still have little opportunity because of Hamas.

I just wanted to add that on this specific point I think Israel made a tactical error by harming too many civilians vs militants. I believe if the IDF's ratio was better and they were more careful, both Hezbollah and the international community at large would understand. Even if Israel was walking on eggshells, there would still be tons of criticism - but not at the scale you see today.

You cannot allow a group to come in, murder and kidnap your populace, and then reward them with a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. Which government on the planet will do that?? You absolutely need a response that hurts Hamas significantly. Did the IDF carry this out in the most careful way possible? I don't think so. Your proposal only trades short term peace for more long term turmoil. Westerners can't understand that you cannot show weakness like this in the Middle East. Quite frankly, no nation would respond the way you proposed. Perhaps, there is also the possibility that a weakened Hamas creates a power void where other groups can take hold. This war could also lead to such international pressure on both sides that some form of progress is forced as opposed to the Hamas ceasefire / containment you proposed earlier. I feel it's better to rip the band aid off personally, but only if there is some positive outcome. Then why did they murder in cold blood the vast majority of Israelis they encountered when they could have taken them all hostage? It's unlike the IDF who can't isolate Hamas militants. On Oct 7th, they were up close and personal with unprepared civilians which they had complete control over - and they chose to live stream horrific massacres instead of taking them all hostage. But yes, they did take some for that purpose. You're conflating different events, we were talking specifically about the hostage rescue mission. No one on the Israeli side seeks death. The most you can say about the Hannibal directive is that you're making a cold and logical decision during a horrific event to prevent the opposition from repeating said event. Hamas willfully sends innocent civilians on suicidal death missions and entrenches their operations in civilian quarters. The one thing I will agree with you on is that the IDF can be more careful about killing Palestinian civilians. That doesn't equate them to Hamas who go up and personal and murder civilians in cold blood en masse.

This isn't so complicated. The IDF needs to weigh these specific hostages lives vs. their populace as a whole. Do you have a permanent ceasefire, reward Hamas and then encourage them to do another attack against your citizens? Of course you need to consider which ultimately saves more lives. Like I said, I believe defeating Hamas means destroying the tunnels and their military outposts. Not the ideology and every single member. So by that criteria, if that doesn't happen I will agree with you. If the ideology of Hamas persists, I expect that. I would not consider that a failure but a given. You aren't making any sense here. We don't keep Palestinian prisoners or hostages in those areas. There was no valid military objective Hamas had except to kill and kidnap as many Jews as possible. If Israel put prisoners in civilian areas, of course that's stupid and their fault. Also, Israel is to blame for not having enough security near the border - absolutely. No, Israel didn't choose to strike civilians, they chose to provide air cover to their people so they could get out. One is a primary motive, and the other is secondary. That's a big difference and the international law you love to cite distinguishes as such. Motives matter. I don't know that this is what happened on Oct 7th, purposely killing your own - and you don't either... but the Wikipedia page outlines the rationale. This is designed to discourage the taking of hostages because you risk your life in the process of taking them. In some ways it makes sense, but I personally don't agree it's the best approach and am glad they formally stopped it.

Yes and like many of us, we question why there has been only one such operation. As for a ceasefire, of course the families favor this. The government and IDF need to weigh different options. Of course Israel will approve a temporary ceasefire with hostages returned because this allows them to continue their other military objectives. That's the deal you just described. There are two reasons a permanent ceasefire is not in Israel's best interest: 1.) A permanent ceasefire is a way to communicate to Hamas and the broader Islamic extremist world that this form of combat will be rewarded. 2.) Israel's broader military objective is to eliminate Hamas. That could mean multiple things, and we're all trying to parse that out and understand where the end is. I personally believe you need to destroy the tunnels and main Hamas military outposts. For your first question, it's because of the events that transpired. They went in under disguise, got the hostages out, and the vehicle got stuck on the way out of the operation - which then required air support. When your mission's objective is to retrieve the hostages in a stealthy way and get out, that means the operation had the minimization of casualties in mind. It didn't work out that way, but that's what happens when you put hostages near civilians. You can blame Hamas for that. If you put hostages in civilian quarters, don't blame Israel when the shit hits the fan. As for the Hannibal directive, this reeks more of conspiracy than any specific combat philosophy. You have these individual anecdotes, but when you look at the big picture all of October 7th - it was a giant mess with Israelis scrambling to get it under control. There were MANY errors that day. It's far more likely whichever soldier conducted friendly fire simply fucked up. It took the IDF hours to even begin responding to the situation. Your larger point about what Israel has done vs. achieving direct military goals such as getting hostages back is a valid one. This is where much of the criticism from within Israel stems.

It's possible to have both agreements and disagreements over different things. I think this idea of "you value your people over their people" as a bad thing is strange. Of course you value your own people over others, especially enemies. To think otherwise is absurd. The duty of governments and their militaries is to protect their citizens. You should value your own. If this was the perspective from both sides, this conflict would look very different.

I wouldn't agree that eye for an eye is the way to go here. In this way each side corrupts the other into losing their humanity. I generally agree with your big picture viewpoint that you do what you need to do to get the hostages back. That said, you don't kill civilians along the way for the hell of it. You set up a specific military operation with specific objectives while minimizing civilian casualties where possible. This is more or less what happened when they rescued the 4 hostages. They set up a covert operation, got the hostages, hit a snag during the operation where they needed cover, and unfortunately Palestinian civilians were a part of that. Now, if you take hostages and put them in civilian quarters - you better damn expect hell if you're around those hostages. That is fair game. For all intents and purposes, those hostages are radioactive material. You are in grave danger when you take them, and grave danger when you host them. And honestly, if Hamas or the Palestinians in general had objectives that were focused on rescuing / retrieving their prisoners - we would view them very differently. I think it would show a very different priority favoring life over death.

You are both wasting your time as he is a blatant holocaust denier and has proposed several times in this thread that Hitler had justified motivations. It is really far beyond the scope of Israel. I ignore both him and @Danioover9000 who is currently on some weird child sacrifice ranting flavor of anti-semitism. I find it kind of funny how they're all here patting each other on the back for posting cherry picked Israeli quotes, meanwhile among their ranks here is some of the vilest propaganda in plain sight.

The issue isn't these specific leaders per se. You have to realize that the Palestinian population at large will not accept the deal. They have been promised for decades the annihilation of Israel and that Jews are their sworn mortal enemies. They seek justice, not statehood. This was made clear decades ago when Arafat and his delegation went through the work to negotiate all the terms, but ultimately reached a dead end because he simply couldn't do it. It would require transcendent leadership from both sides to actually make it happen. The populations of both nations need to be on board.

Einat does a really good job of describing the problems in realistic terms.

It is very hard to do when there is no one serious on the other side to make the deal with. No Palestinian leader can go back to his millions who have been promised the entire region back and tell them they have a state now with those borders. That's the reality of the situation.

That same 70 year timespan is right around the end of Germany's Nazi regime. So even if you believe the history of Israel's formation isn't perfect, it happened during the World War 2 era and as a direct consequence of it. The United Nations was a part of this decision and it's history. That should tell you something, Israel's creation was NOT outside the norm of it's contemporary history. No one cares about your arbitrary cut off date of "the day after World War 2." There have been countless wars, massacres, land swaps, and conflicts since then around the world. The world didn't suddenly turn into this modern peaceful utopia the day after World War 2. Israel's formation is just as much a part of history as any other nation's. As for the plight of the Palestinians, it is sad but you need to understand something. The broader Arab world including the Palestinians values justice over the peace, progress, and statehood of the Palestinians. What does justice mean? It means the complete elimination of a Jewish state in the region. The top priority has been NO jewish state over having a Palestinian state. Each time the Palestinians had a chance towards statehood, the reality became apparent: There is no condition they will accept the deal if Jews are allowed to stay. Because of that, a toxic relationship between both parties has developed. When one side would rather see you die than them live, it creates a lose-lose situation for both parties. Hate festers like an open wound for decades and becomes a poison you see unfolding today. Israel has shown it is willing to make peace with it's neighbors, as it has with Egypt and Jordan. And in many cases, it has given up land and made concessions to do so, and it has held up it's end of the deal. Believe it or not, Israelis don't care as much about the Palestinians as you think. If they stopped wishing for our destruction tomorrow, everything would be fine. We don't have any reason to kill or harm Palestinians for the hell of it. We want our sovereign Jewish state, that's literally it.

I guess when Jews have a state, it's not considered part of history. Only every other nation belongs to history.

Yes, and at the same time Arafat is the Palestinian figure who also went the farthest to cultivate a peace deal. The region now is undoubtedly worse, with both sides jaded, scarred and more cynical. But as someone who remembers growing up in the 90s in an Israeli household, visiting family etc I know that peace was front of mind. And now, it feels like because of the current state of events the entire society and history has been written off as one of willful subjugation. It is painful and unfortunate to see.

Lol if you can't have fun or find something interesting in Israel as a tourist, that's just sad.

Yes, for the most part accurate. Though, it's easy to forget though how close we were 20 something years ago. This is an interesting interview with Dennis Ross who was the American ambassador during those negotiations. https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1207243717/23-years-ago-israelis-and-palestinians-were-talking-about-a-two-state-solution

Yeah, and it seems like a majority of Americans agree with you and will vote him in very soon. I agree both sides are lying scumbags, but there are levels to this. At the end of the day, you need to be practical. If one side is lying and causes level 5 damage, and the other side lies while spewing populist propaganda which sounds honest and causes level 10 damage - you need to do that calculus. "Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" is not the answer here.

I tried as well. Unfortunately you can't reply to that poster with any substance or reason without them ignoring everything you say and going on a crazy rant. So I stopped bothering.

I agree with this, with a few caveats. It matters HOW you consume psychedelics. Like anything else in life, the dose makes the poison. 5 MeO and Ayahuasca may both have the same active ingredient, but how they interact with your body is very different. This slow extended release of DMT coupled with purging and other traditions developed over hundreds of years and under the guidance of professionals (shamans, etc) changes this equation quite a bit - and can directly lead to physical healing in many instances. Even with gentler doses and substances, they can be harmful. So it all really depends on the person, their physical constitution, their mental well being, the context, set and setting, who is administering, trip sitting, intention, etc. Psilocybin is generally very safe and not physically taxing, but one thing we can all agree on is that psychedelics are NOT a game. You do need to be very careful any time you consume these substances.

I also appreciate his honesty. I believe we are all being honest, but the cynical side of us has a harder time believing someone's sincerity when their positions are more pallatable. It's the reason why someone like Donald Trump has so much trust from his base. The thought process is, he's said these wild things but I'd rather have someone unsavory tell me how it is than a two faced democrat speaking from both sides of their mouth. The only problem is, in Donald Trump's case he is also one of the most blatant liars and frauds.

Even if I agreed with your over simplified premise about 80 years of xyz - which I do not, you should still be upset with what Hamas did that day. Two things can be true at once.

I already addressed all that in my initial response. Israelis are not and have not been using "beheaded babies" as any form of justification for any actions. The claim was initiated by a confused Biden. Show me someone who is pro israel who is still talking about that. It's only anti Israel voices who continually bring this up to obfuscate the story and cover the actual atrocities Hamas did do. The fact remains that Hamas did infiltrate many innocent villages as well as a music festival and brutally murdered them in cold blood while celebrating and live streaming their actions. They had absolutely no military objective, the goal was to murder and kidnap as many Jews as possible. Of course a life lost is a life lost and it is always tragic... but it DOES matter how you conduct yourself, and what Hamas did that day was absolutely savage. Having intel that a military leader is somewhere, bombing them, and having civilian casualties is horrible but no where near the personal level of derangement it requires to go up close and personal and murder a family in cold blood. There is of course something to be said about how modern military practices separate us from the reality and level of devastation our actions create. This is something Israelis and modern militaries in general need to reflect on, but this doesn't make what Hamas did any less deranged.