Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country is “embarking on a long and difficult war” as it deals with an unprecedented hostage crisis after Palestinian militants launched a surprise land, sea and air attack from Gaza, killing hundreds and infiltrating into Israeli territory.
Saturday’s shock attacks by Hamas led to the deadliest day in decades for Israel and come after months of surging violence between Palestinians and Israelis with the decades-long conflict now heading into uncharted and dangerous new territory. Questions are also swirling over how the entire Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.
Israel’s political-security cabinet convened late Saturday and made a “series of operational decisions aimed at bringing about the destruction of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, in a way that would negate their ability and desire to threaten and harm the citizens of Israel for many years to come,” according to a statement from the office of Israel’s Prime Minister.
The 1967 borders also have the Gaza Strip as Palestinian territory, and so long as it’s a security threat (regardless of whether or not you think it’s a morally justified struggle or not), the fact of the matter is that Israel is going to do everything possible to ensure it cannot threaten the lives of Israelis.
The only way Gaza will be allowed to peacefully exist is when it stops being a threat to Israeli citizens, and no amount of appeals to history or particular ethics will change the fact that Israel has the power here. There is no universe in which insurgents from Gaza are able to actually topple Israel (ignoring how horrendously violently that would be), and so any actions in pursuit of that do nothing but cause Israel to tighten down even further and make peace even more impossible than it already is.
Nethanyahu and friends enabled Hamas as a way of undermining Fatah and Palestinian statehood.
In a very real sense, he caused this.
Make no mistake, I certainly wouldn’t hold Netanyahu even remotely blameless either. Like Hamas, he also has no real interest in peace, and continued Israeli settlement in the West Bank in also an atrocity, to say nothing of day-to-day oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank.
However, none of that makes it acceptable to kidnap and murder random civilians. If Hamas continues to see the existence of every single Jew in Israel as a crime, then Israel will see every single Palestinian as a threat, and that isn’t a situation that ends well for Palestinians.
People can argue about who started what, who should have accepted which deals, and who escalated what and when and thus justified something else until the end of the world. The only way peace gets achieved is when both sides decide that a peaceful future is more important than avenging past grievances. Until that happens, nothing will get better.
But one side is avenging current grievances, because Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has been ongoing for 50 years, it hasn’t stopped.
As long as the powerful abuser keeps pushing people to breaking point, you can’t fault them for lashing out.
I am actually going to fault murdering 200 people at a festival and raping women and then parading their naked body through the streets.
I’d also fault bulldozing Palestinian villages to make land for settlements. I don’t think saying Side A Good, Side B Bad is particularly productive in a situation this messy.
It’s not good vs bad.
It’s oppressed vs oppressor.
If your resistance to oppression causes you to rape and murder civilians, you deserve to be oppressed.
There are ways to fight back that are not the intentional murder of innocents, and you know that just as well as I do. Do you really have such little faith in Palestinians as to think that they don’t know that rape and murder are wrong? That they’ve simply been forced into these actions by the twisted machinations of the West?
Treat people like animals and you don’t get to be shocked they act like animals.
Israel has now cut off the water to 2 million Palestinians, do you not understand the difference in scale of atrocities being committed here?
Hamas could unconditionally surrender, release the 130 hostages, and vow to abandon any further attempts to attack Israeli citizens, and the water and electricity would be turned right back on.
I genuinely do not understand how someone can see a group that has murdered and raped civilians, taken over a hundred hostages, and then attempt to justify their actions.
How many tens of thousands of Palestinian women has Israel raped and murdered yet you fucking sit here supporting them you sick fuck.
Israel has been doing this for decades. It still continues today, and survivors are not even allowed to legally challenge it because Israel refuses to recognise their right to be heard.
You had to go back to 1949 to find an example and I’m meant to be convinced that these are remotely equivalent?
Meanwhile, I have to go back to two days ago to find who knows how many cases?
To make it clear though, that is horrendous and has absolutely no justification. Why are so many people not able to say the same thing about the actions of Hamas?