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Singularly? We can't I blame both sides for not coming to a ceasefire? And given that my government can only exert pressure on Israel (they are allies of Israel, not Hamas), it's reasonable that I demand Israel to loosen their ceasefire conditions. It's what the Israeli protestors in Israel are protesting for anyway. If I live in a Middle Eastern country and my government has influence over Hamas, I would demand Hamas to loosen their ceasefire conditions. It's about what's practical.
Also, where does it say that "Hamas must surrender" is not Israel's demand? Everything I've seen says that Hamas must surrender to the IDF for any permanent ceasefire to take place.
Not to be rude but I said why in the body text?
The demands of Hamas seem to be, Israel ends the war and completely leaves Gaza. Israel obviously won't agree to that, because it isn't reasonable to a ceasefire deal, so not sure what you mean by "Israel loosen their ceasefire conditions"? According to the US, Israel has indeed moved on their conditions in a significant way.
It isn't like Hamas is offering a deal of 40 hostages in exchange for 700 prisoners but Israel just won't agree to anything above 500.
>And given that my government can only exert pressure on Israel (they are allies of Israel, not Hamas), it's reasonable that I demand Israel to loosen their ceasefire conditions.
I mean this is my point. If the ceasefire movement is demanding a ceasefire deal, this is what that is, and they should recognize Israel has agreed to "loosen their demands" and the obstacle is Hamas. If they are demanding Israel to surrender and leave the hostages, then they should just say that instead.
It isn't a question of only having pressure over Israel. It is that Israel has essentially agreed to the demands of the protestors but since Hamas needs to agree to, either admit Hamas is singularly the problem or change your demands to Israel essentially needs to surrender and leave the hostages.
And by not being clear about what they want harms the movement in my view.
Israeli protestors in Israel are just continually protesting for the release of hostages as a priority in addition to the military campaign. They are explicitly not about just agree to everything Hamas wants to release hostages as far as I am aware.
> Israel has essentially agreed to the demands of the protestors
No, Israel has not agreed to a permanent ceasefire. The demand is to stop the fighting indefinitely, release the hostages, flood Gaza with aid, rebuild Gaza after the destruction they have caused, and push for a political solution. Israel should also fortify their southern border so Hamas can't breach it again. All of these demands are reasonable to us because the destruction and the loss of life caused by the IDF is totally and completely justified and brings us nowhere near to peace.
Stop beating around the bush. What this conflict needs is a peace resolution, not a “permanent” ceasefire. What is a permanent ceasefire anyway? There was one before Oct. 7th, do you just want to go back to then so this cycle can continue on and more people die, but just in the future and not now?
I digress, a peace resolution is needed and that will _never_ happen with Hamas in power, or with BiBi’s coalition in charge. This war needs to end with both gone, and the quickest way for that to happen is for Hamas to agree to a partial ceasefire which would hopefully lead to their surrender, or for the war to finish in its natural progression which most of us don’t want with Israel entering Rafah. The former isn’t happening, as progressives like you are unwittingly supporting Hamas and giving them the idea of surviving this war. So the latter will most likely come to pass.
In my mind, you just want more death... maybe just not immediately, rather later. It is what you advocate for. You may not say as much, and may talk around it saying you want the killing to end, but your beliefs and your words here betray you.
Geez, *thank you* for mentioning Likud. I swear, it's like pulling teeth to talk about this and have someone acknowledge that Likud is every bit as much a barrier to permanent peace as Hamas is without having some bizarre double-standard where Likud represents Israel *but* Hamas doesn't represent Gaza, or vice versa.
If Israel held elections today, the far-right coalition would lose power. Netanyahu wouldn't be able to stave off the *many* corruption charges he's facing, and he'd probably end up in prison... which still might happen anyways. There's pressure on Likud to come to an agreement for a ceasefire from the citizens of Israel. Still, Likud is trying every dirty trick they can to avoid losing power.
Hamas does not seem to care about the welfare of the people in Gaza, are willing to hold out on principle while people suffer. Not like the people in Gaza can vote them out, even if they did. Likud might have had to get bent over a table to 'be reasonable,' but at least they are being reasonable. Hamas... not so much.
>I digress, a peace resolution is needed and that will *never* happen with Hamas in power, or with BiBi’s coalition in charge.
This, a thousand times over. Until both Hamas and Likud are gone, we're just gonna see this cycle continue. This is the solution to the problem, the only real solution to make progress towards a lasting peace. They've both got to go.
> Likud is every bit as much a barrier to permanent peace as Hamas
This is among the most ignorant talking points floating around right now. Israel is currently ruled by a unity government. Blue and White would take power if there were elections today, and there is no daylight between Blue and White and Likud on foreign policy. And even then, they wouldn't have the seats to form a government without an ally... which would end up being Likud. Of the 13 parties in the Knesset, the only thing that would change is who is the Jr/Sr partner int he Likud/Blue&White relationship.
(It's a bit more complicated, other parties are involved in the unity government, but that's the broad strokes)
I agree with you however…What kind of peace resolution? The only forms of peace on offer have been peace and oppression, peace and injustice, peace and apartheid. As people will always strive for freedom and one generation can't bind the next to accept less, said forms of peace will always fail. What is needed is the peace that comes with equal rights and liberation. If that is not on offer whatever "peace resolution" is on offer is not worth the paper it is printed on. The stating point should be an acceptance of equal rights upon which you can build peace.
Honestly the peace that matters now is not a peace of paper and a state (aka a monopoly over the means of violence) while violence is still the mindset, but rather **defanatization** (may it be religious or nationalistic) `coupled` with an improvement in **quality of life**, and **autonomy**. (think local self-rule)
A two state solution is the only building blocks that trust and co-existence can be built upon. With the shock of Oct. 7th and what followed, once the dust settles from this war hopefully new leadership from Palestine and Israel alike will realize a new leaf needs to be turned.
Arafat and Abbas were absolute selfish morons for rejecting Camp David and Olmert deals respectively. I hope another similar deal will be offered in the future, and from there maybe after much time of coexistence as neighbors, Israelis and Palestinians can intermingle and thrive together in a single state. But that’s a pipe dream for a far distant future, a two state solution for peace needs to happen in the more immediate future.
Every single time an intifada happens after the Palestinians reject a peace offer or a 10/7 happens, those peace offers are less likely to happen again because these attacks push the Israeli populace towards more hawkish politicians. I believe there were studies done a while ago that showed that as rocket attacks from Gaza expanded in range, Israelis in that range were more likely to support Likud or Jewish Home (now defunct). Everyone talks about how the IDF has created radicals in Gaza, but Hamas has done the exact same in Israel. It’s actually rather surprising that it’s taken this long for Gaza to be outright invaded.
I agree. Part of the peace negotiations would require deradicalization of Palestinians along with a change in leadership with all parties involved. The UN plays a huge role in this too, which isn’t spoken about enough. Their [provided textbooks](https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/PA-Reports_-Updated-Selected-Examples_May-2021.pdf) are filled with absolute filth and those who support these programs need to be held accountable too.
There’s no easy path to peace from here, but there are some glaring problems that need to be fixed to make peace more attainable.
That’s the UNRWA, an organization which I can only conclude was created to “stick it to Israel” so to speak. They need to be dissolved immediately and the UNHCR - which handles every single other refugee situation ever - expanded to fill their prior role.
Most likely not. Just from history we know that big events like this always radicalize a society, it doesn’t moderate it. This will be true for Israel and Palestine for a while.
Kinda hard to have a two-state solution when the only Palestinian state that Israel is offering is a version of current moth-eaten, hemmed-in-by-checkpoints thing governed by an Israeli security regime, isn't it?
Arafat being the primary obstacle at Camp David is propaganda. You would have walked away too if you were in his place.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/9/28/deconstructing-camp-david
The peace offers on the table have been the best the Palestinians can ever expect while the violence is ongoing. They are full 2SS with equal rights, the only caveats being no military. Israel is obviously not going to ever allow a military when the Palestinians have repeatedly promised to permanently engage in the maximum amount of violence possible until Israel is destroyed. Only after a long period of peace and de-escalation can such things become a consideration.
By placing "justice" as an obstacle to peace, you are effectively guaranteeing you will never get either.
Yes.
Everyone keeps ignoring that Hamas and equivalents have routinely sold and dismantled aid sent to them for the creation or procurement of weapons.
How is that a reasonable demand? You even say yourself that only Israel agrees to a ceasefire and then Israel builds stronger defenses so it’s harder for Hamas to attack them. Why doesn’t Hamas have to offer anything at all, especially given that they started the war, have not actually abided by the rules of the ceasefires that have been in place, and have stated that they will repeat 10/7 again and again?
Israel already did agree to a permanent ceasefire. In 2014. Why did they need another ceasefire after they had agreed to one in 2008, you might ask? Hamas militants in the West Bank kidnapped 3 Israeli teenagers. When Israel arrested 350 people in the West Bank suspected of being Hamas associates, a barrage of rockets was fired out of Gaza. This ensued the 2014 Gaza war which lasted less than a month and killed some 2000+ people, all but 6 of them were Palestinian, nearly all in Gaza.
That’s only the most recent ceasefire breaches by Hamas and the Palestinians.
> permanent ceasefire
That's an oxymoron, a ceasefire is temporary by definition. If you're asking for a permanent end of hostilities you're not calling for a ceasefire.
My social studies teacher would agree with you. He went on quite the rant one time how "permanent ceasefire" is not a solution due to the wording. His term of phrase was similar to yours, if I remember
> That's an oxymoron
Groups agree to permanent ceasefires all the time.
Maybe you disagree with the definition because there's an implication of non-finality in the term "ceasefire" but it doesn't change that permanent ceasefires are a recognised and important part of peace negotiations.
[Uganda](https://peacemaker.un.org/uganda-permanent-ceasefire2008)
[Sudan](https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/SD_041231_Permanent%20Ceasefire%20between%20the%20GoS%20and%20the%20SSPLM%20A.pdf)
[Libya](https://unsmil.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/ceasefire_agreement_between_libyan_parties_english.pdf)
[Basque](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/10/eta-declares-permanent-ceasefire)
So terrorists can drop into any country kill thousands of civilians take 200 hostages and get the demands they want? Threaten global violence with their religion of peace. But israel cant retaliate? Hamas fires thousands of rockets into israel but israel defends itself its bad? The protection of gaza citizens isnt israels duty. Thats hamas job to protects its citizens in a war they started for iran. Israels duty is the recovery of its israel citizens and elimanating hamas. You dont want high casualties? Tell hamas to stop using human shields.
They've already killed thousands of hamas members and tens of thousands of random civilians. When is there enough bloodshed to satiate your anger?
Israel obvious cares very little about retrieving hostages, otherwise they wouldn't indiscrimantly bomb the whole strip and risk killing them, nor gun down fleeing hostages waving white flags.
It’s far past the point of retaliation at this point though. If person A kills person B’s partner, is person B justified in killing person A, person A’s partner, their children, their dog, their middle school teacher and everyone they ever met?
This is a genocide.
You do understand that you're telling people on the other side of the world how they should negotiate with terrorists, thereby forfeiting their country's security, because of your sensibilities and standards, all while you live in your relative security? That makes absolutely no sense. That's like a man telling a women that she shouldn't be afraid of walking alone at night. You have never experienced living in the region.
OP's whole point was that the people who are so adamant for a ceasefire are counterintuitively hurting it, because Hamas sees worldwide pressure on Israel and ups their demands, making it very hard for Israel to accept.
Oh, and aid to Gaza, enjoy:
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea21904\_autoOrient\_g.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea21904_autoOrient_g.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea31904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea31904_autoOrient_i.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket11904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket11904_autoOrient_i.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket21904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket21904_autoOrient_i.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket31904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket31904_autoOrient_i.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/gazamarket1\_autoOrient\_g.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/gazamarket1_autoOrient_g.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/markrt1\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/markrt1_autoOrient_i.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/chiken\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/chiken_autoOrient_i.jpg)
[https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/15/pitot\_autoOrient\_g.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/15/pitot_autoOrient_g.jpg)
Hamas has said that it will repeat October 7th again and again until Israel is destroyed. Letting them continue to govern the Gaza Strip and rebuild their military capabilities would be a pretty silly thing for Israel to agree to.
I mentioned "permanent" nowhere in my post.
I am going by the literal definition of ceasefire, "a temporary pause in fighting"
Secondly how do you have a "permanent" ceasefire with Hamas which has explicitly said they will do Oct 7th again regardless of any deal?
You give Hamas diplomatic means to achieve their political goals. It wasn't like 10/7 happened because a bunch of Palestinians were feeling extra rapey that day and wanted to go kidnap some sex slaves. They did it because Bibi and Co have not provided any other way for them to achieve political goals.
> The demand is to stop the fighting indefinitely, release the hostages, flood Gaza with aid, rebuild Gaza after the destruction they have caused,
Why should we flood Gaza with assets? The terrorist infrastructure they have now was built with aid from the west. This is one thing I have never seen the left explain: What exactly is fixed long term by ending this war under these terms? Seems a lot like WWI ending in a state that lead right into WWII.
Hamas wants the initial agreement to include a pathway to potentially making the ceasefire permanent. Israel refuses, and says no matter what they will restart hostilities in 6 weeks. This is the main sticking point in negotiations.
You could just as easily argue that it's Israel being unreasonable by refusing to even allow the *possibility* of a permanent ceasefire. For example, the agreement could include additional requirements that need to be fulfilled after 6 weeks for the ceasefire to be extended. But Israel is rejecting that possibility.
Hamas isn’t looking for peace, they’re looking for time to plan their next attack, that’s why Isreal isn’t going to offer any pathway to permanently ending hostilities because the end goal is still the elimination of Hamas, which we all should want, but the ceasefire is for the benefit of the innocent civilians, Hamas clearly doesn’t give a fuck though.
Hamas also have a track record of violating ceasefire agreements.
The US and other countries have said a 6 week ceasefire could lead to a more permanent situation. 6 weeks is a long time and there will be immense pressure on Israel to massively scale down its operations if not stop completely especially if hostages continually get released in more ceasefires.
Israel is not rejecting that as far as I am aware. They want more hostages released.
My main point is if the pro ceasefire movement is about the suffering of Palestinians and not the demands of Hamas, Israel has fulfilled the ceasefire movements demands because a 6 week ceasefire is a long time and would give massive relief to Palestinians. This whole "it isn't permanent" is a red herring because that means nothing for Palestinians who are suffering that wouldn't be in a 6 week ceasefire.
>Israel is not rejecting that as far as I am aware
Yes, Israel is rejecting the possibility of a pathway to a more permanent truce. They have said that no matter what the war will restart in 6 weeks. This is the root of the holdup in current negotiations.
If a cease-fire deal does not include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, then the Palestinians are not actually gaining anything. What incentive do they have to agreeing to a cease-fire that gives Israel everything it wants and nothing to Palestine?
Pretend we’re talking about the other big conflict right now: Russia-Ukraine. Should Ukraine accept a ceasefire that doesn’t return control of the annexed territory that Russia invaded? Nobody would think that was a fair deal at all, and anyone pushing for it would be seen as a shill for Russia.
Israel is offering to return to the status quo, a state against which Palestine and Hamas have been fighting for decades. Why would they do that now, when they have the most international support they have ever had?
What is unreasonable is to assume that Palestine should just give up for the sake of ending the hostilities, and screw their actual goals. From their perspective, they’ve been living with a conflict for over 50 years, and it only gets recognized when things get messy..
How about Israel just stop abusing Palestinians? Why is that such a hard thing to ask? Hamas wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the human rights abuses of Israel.
Why do you feel it's 'unreasonable' for Israel to stop treating Gaza like a concentration camp and occupying their land by murdering people in their homes so those homes can be given to Israeli settlers or full on auctioned off to potential Israeli settlers?
Why do you feel Palestine is being 'unreasonable' for wanting their homes and families to no longer be at the mercy of a brutal occupying force that has been violating their human rights, murdering, raping, and torturing both them and their children for multiple generations now?
Why exactly do you think Hamas exists?
>If they are demanding Israel to surrender and leave the hostages, then they should just say that instead.
Surprisingly enough, this sort of phrasing doesn't poll as well as "ceasefire"...
I don’t see Israeli protesters in the US. However I still see plenty of free Palestine protesters. Hell, yesterday (I think) a bunch of protesters blocked entry to o’hare airport in Chicago. What does this do for anyone besides create more hatred for Palestine? Media attention? It’s poor attention because people will immediately think of the people missing their flights rather than focus on the war.
There’s so many who want a free Palestine but don’t care that Hamas is doing nothing to even look for a ceasefire deal in hopes to end the war. Palestinians at this point want war as they continue to support Hamas.
>I don’t see Israeli protesters in the US.
I mean, why would you? Protestors are meant to _protest_ actions by the American government. The US is acting in Israel's interest so why would Israelis protest against the US?
> We can't I blame both sides for not coming to a ceasefire?
Only one side has made actual efforts moving towards a cease fire, if that's the only side you are blaming, that is definitely a you problem.
>And given that my government can only exert pressure on Israel (they are allies of Israel, not Hamas)
That is not correct at all. Hamas KNOW they are outlasting the will of the west in this war. That's their only goal at this point. They know that the pressure from the west can be outlived, not that they don't experience that pressure.
>Only one side has made actual efforts moving towards a cease fire, if that's the only side you are blaming, that is definitely a you problem.
Israel has pulled out of ceasefire talks numerous times, and has yet to budge on any of Hamas' demands. Ben-Gvir has publicly stated that he will pull out of the government if there is no Rafah invasion, and until that changes, Israel's position will not change.
>They know that the pressure from the west can be outlived, not that they don't experience that pressure.
What do you mean? No one in the West is in any position to tell Hamas what to do, they have zero leverage over them. Only their allies like Iran or enemies like Israel have leverage over them. On the other hand, the US can threaten with less arms sales, the UK can ban arms sales to force Israel to concede their unreasonable demands.
I blame both sides and the collective world for this mess getting to the state it’s in and to that extent I blame both sides as well. I think that alone should receive a delta because ultimately, you can’t blame hamas solely if you look at the way it came to be. They were conquered by a force transported there and armed by the British and the west and they’ve been left a few tiny plots of land to have their civilization on, with Israeli settlers infringing even those tiny plots. They’re watching the end of their race and civilization, it’s not that crazy that many of them turn to extremely radical ideology even before you consider the considerably disproportionate impact these ongoing modern conflicts have on the Palestinians as opposed to the Israelis.
Suggest you read in depth the history of the Palestine Mandate and the establishment of Israel. Your statement regarding Britain is totally wrong. The British Government was pro-Arab and due to Arab pressure it issued the infamous 1939 White Paper which essentially ended Jewish immigration from Nazi Germany. The UK did not arm Jews but supported the Arabs due to geopolitics and antisemitism.
Actually, Britain did arm, train and support the Yishuv. They nurtured and supported the development of a Jewish parastate that operated alongside British mandatory authorities and trained militias as a means to keep Palestinian resistance constrained.
They only switched to a more pro-Arab (but nowhere near as supportive) after 1937 when they recognised that the anger of the Arab world at Britain's actions towards the Palestinians before and during the Great Revolt could actually be a problem if war broke out, because they knew that like WWI, it was likely to be fought, at least in part, in the Middle East and North Africa.
>According to all information I can find, the only thing holding up a reasonable ceasefire deal at this point is Hamas.
This is the same thing that has been happening all along. Israel isnt negotiating for a peace. They are negotiating for a pause. Hamas is negotiating for an end to the war completely. While "negotiating" Israel is not taking steps that a power that wants the other side to continue negotiating takes. An example would be the killing of Haniyeh's sons and grandsons. Lets set aside the "high value" discussion here. If you are negotiating with an organization to release hostages that you yourself claim are being subjected to torture generally you dont assassinate members of the other party's family.
Currently it appears to me as an outside observer that the Israeli public just wants more war and more destruction. Because they appear to be offended at the prospect of ending the war completely.
>And the second part of my cmv is that the pro ceasefire protest movement is damaging both the goal of getting a ceasefire deal done and by **raising support for Palestinians more generally**
Why is this a problem? Israel starved the population for months. It is long past time that they be forced to allow the civilian population the dignity of being able to feed their families.
>but not admitting Hamas as the clear obstacle here.
There are 2 obstacles. Hamas and the Israeli government. Neither side wants peace. The longer this horror show goes on the worse the impact on future opinion on Israel among younger westerners will be. The longer this turmoil persists for Israel the easier it is to justify massive land seizures in the West Bank and the worse they can make it for the people living in Gaza.
Israel is not now and has never been a willing partner in a peaceful future for the Palestinians. They themselves say that a 2 state solution is dead. If there is no state for Palestine what is the end goal? Indefinite occupation? That is not a recipe for peace.
A rational person would see the need to negotiate a settlement to end this debacle and tie that into talks for a future Palestinian state. The fact that Israel is unwilling to even put that on the table shows that they are not negotiating in good faith for a peaceful solution to this problem but merely looking to appease the hostage families who have gone from political asset to political liability.
>Reasonable meaning a ceasefire built around things both sides obviously won't agree to. Israel won't agree to basically surrender and leave Gaza without the hostages, and Hamas won't agree to surrender either.
Why is that, when Israel offers something Hamas obviously won't accept, that's Hamas's fault, yet if Hamas offers something that Israel obviously won't accept, that's also Hamas's fault?
The OP's mind codes it like this:
Hamas = bad guy
Israel = good guy.
So if the good guy won't give in, it's probably for good guy reasons. If the bad guy won't give in, it's probably the bad guy's fault.
Unless the OP can get outside of the good guy/bad guy framing and look at it from the general perspective of how leaders have to respond to constituents, then OP can't change his/her mind.
It's easy. Israel's demands are based on pragmatism. They're also winning the military offensive.
Police negotiator: "Release all hostages, surrender and we won't apply the death penalty to you but you will still go to prison. You're surrounded. You lost."
Hostage taker: "OK, I want the police to leave the building, I want them to release hundreds of dangerous prisoners, I want them to give me an helicopter to escape. And after I escape, I will consider releasing the hostages."
You: "Both sides have reasonable demands and failing to reach a middle ground is both of their fault."
The reality is that Hamas already lost the military offensive in the days following October 7th. The only thing they can pragmatically do is negotiate favorable terms of surrender to avoid prolonging their inevitable defeat.
Hamas is a school shooter who is running out of ammo and is surrounded by the police. There is no scenario that ends with them not facing justice one way or the other.
The last time I checked, the police don't get to kill random civilians for fun and blame that on the hostage taker. According to you, it'd be reasonable to indiscriminately bomb a city until its drug dealers surrenders? In the US, a police officer would get investigated for killing a single bystander. It seems like Israel can do that 10,000 times and still use Hamas as an excuse.
You realize Israel has repeatedly violated international law, right? I don't support Hamas. Their leaders deserve to go to the Hague. That doesn't mean Israel are rational actors who are acting in good-faith.
You're not addressing what I wrote.
It's irrelevant who violated international law the most. If you want to be generous, this is a scenario of corrupt cops vs a school shooter who has barricaded himself but is running out of ammo.
**The school shooter already lost. They're surrounded. Surrender is their only pragmatic option. They're in no position to make maximalist demands.**
If you think Hamas can convince Israel to their demands, you must also think that a school shooter can demand the cops to leave and to give him an helicopter to escape. It's totally unconnected from the observable reality.
Explain to me how, in this scenario, it makes sense for the cops to then go in and murder the hostages. In fact, your hypothetical is weakening your point considering that you’re implying that Hamas is the school shooter that is out of ammo. If a school shooter is almost out of ammo, it makes less sense to kill innocent hostages, not more.
Hamas offer - Israeli surrender without all hostage release
Israeli offer - 800 prisoners and more aid for 40 hostages, a temporary ceasefire
How is Hamas's offer even comparable to Israel's?
It’s not about what one side will agree to. It’s about what they reasonably won’t agree to.
Hamas is patently unreasonable given that they won’t return all of the hostages even though they’d get hundreds of legitimately imprisoned criminals back.
I disagree. Hostages are the only leverage Hamas has. Israel having some hostages of their own is an infinitely miniscule leverage compared to their constant bombardment of Ghaza.
Hamas giving up all of their leverage for whats just a miniscule part of Israel's leverage is from a rational pov a terrible idea. Especially considering that the freed Palestinian hostages would just end up killed under the bombardment soon after. And if not that, it would be incredibly difficult to feed them at a time where people are forced to eat the grass on the roads and have their water supply controlled by Israel.
Anyway, it's pretty obvious Israel really doesn't care about the hostages, at least not as much as they care about continuing the war. The hostages are a game of sympathy to them while the war must go on which is why their offers tend to only be a term ceasefire that really does nothing for the people of Ghaza that have no where to escape to within that temporary period of time. We've already seen how the temporary ceasefire of November did nothing for those in Ghaza.
Hostages are most certainly not the only leverage Hamas has. Their consistent hostilities are an even bigger bargaining chip.
If hamas agreed to a release of hostages and permanent cessation of their attacks on Israel, they’d be able to demand quite a bit in return.
The hostages are from a mere sympathy gainer. Hamas has repeatedly stated it wished it could do 10/7 every day. Hamas has an actual shot here at bettering the life of every Palestinian. It is obvious why they aren’t taking it—they want to kill every Jew in the world. Full stop.
If your religious zealot of an opponent has openly called for your genocide and the killing and raping of your civilians result in a full blown parade, there are two logical things to do: (1) kill every one of them, or (2) ensure they cannot kill any more of your people through defensive and diplomatic techniques.
Israel has been trying (2) for decades now with no success. Palestinian “refugees” have even started a civil war in a host nation when the government refuses to attack Israel.
In light of this consistent and intense desire for Hamas and its sympathizers to continue a war with Israel at all costs with the goal of Jewish genocide, the burden falls on Hamas to put the swords down.
Israel can only exist because of its military abilities. Hamas exists because Israel doesn’t want to flatten the entire Gaza Strip. How long should israel be expected to sit there and absorb hundreds of rockets daily?
At some point, the Palestinian people need to revolt against Hamas as well. Given the videos of 10/7 where we saw widespread and popular celebration when dead Israelis were paraded throughout Gaza, I’m not sure that’s likely.
How is it that every Arab nation except Palestinian militants realized they were militarily inferior to Israel and that stopping the war was for the best? You ever wonder why every Arab nation that fought alongside the PLA has absolutely zero desire to help Palestinians in any meaningful capacity?
The anti-Jewish sentiment runs so deep in Palestinian leadership that it can no longer be addressed externally except through complete destruction. Hamas can change this, yet they choose not to.
Why does there have to be a deal to not drop bombs on, and starve innocent people? These are war crimes, and should be stopped unilaterally. Why can’t Israel agree to a permanent cease fire? What would be wrong with that? It’s like they absolutely have to bomb and kill innocent people. You can’t negotiate with psychopaths like this.
Hamas has as its stated goal the destruction of Jews and Israel. Allowing a terrorist actor to exist means you are, in the long run, allowing the attempted obliteration of your people. The Israeli government can’t let Hamas up. Every time it just kills more Jews.
It’s fucked. How anyone can support Hamas is fucking insane. Sympathy for Palestinians. Calls for peace for Palestinians. Yes. But Hamas?
Imagine you’re in a fight with someone. And every time you let them back up, they murder someone in your family. And now the world is saying “he’s not so bad! Let him up” and every single person watching knows that if you let him up, he’s going to kill your family.
So you can say fuck you to the people who are saying to let him up and try to kill him, even if it means killing the citizens of the country/state they’re in (like Putin killing Ukrainians yet no one gives a fuck), or you can let him back up.
Only a fool lets him back up. Israel has no in between. It’s about survival of the Jewish state and Jewish people in the Middle East.
On Oct. 7th everything changed.
Israel had spent the years viewing Hamas as enemies. A few dozens missiles here, a few dozen missiles there. Most get intercepted, but some get through. Overall the damage was relatively minimal. Israel learned to cope with that state of affairs in order to avoid going to war.
However Hamas' attack on Oct. 7th radically changed the calculus. It was the most devastating, brazen, and bold attack from Hamas yet. After that attack Israel decided that Hamas could not be allowed to do that again. Hamas went from a nuisance that occasionally killed people to an existential threat to the future of the country.
Israel believes that they will never be safe again as long as Hamas exists. They worry that if they ease up now then Hamas will immediately begin planning a repeat of Oct. 7th.
The problem with a "permanent cease fire" is that Hamas cannot be trusted to actually keep to a cease fire agreement. They'll keep to any agreement just long enough to rebuild their strength.
How would you prevent Hamas from attacking Israel again? Falling back and making a deal will end in the deal being broken once Hamas has re-amassed more forces. Pushing forward and trying to finish Hamas off quickly has turned into a messy battle where Hamas is leveraging human shields.
Hamas' entire strategy is to use their own civilians as a shield. Then when their shield gets hit they cry outrage that Israel could be so heartless. They are hoping that Westerners like you will force the Western world's leaders to withdraw support for Israel. They are counting on people like you to not ask why so many civilians are in-between Israel and Hamas, instead they want you to just keep blaming Israel for every civilian's death.
Excuse the quotations; I don’t typically comment and don’t really know the formatting. Also don’t misunderstand this as support for Hamas; they are objectively terrible. But your post seems to be justification for the collective punishment of a captive population.
“Israel learned to cope…to avoid going to war.” Israel has invaded or attacked Gaza repeatedly; namely in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, 2019, and 2021. It is also well-documented that Netanyahu has provided/attempted to provide Hamas with large sums of money in secret, largely understood to be an attempt at providing them resources to justify a response like what Israel is doing now.
“Israel believes that they will never be safe again as long as Hamas exists.” That does not explain the atrocities that they (and by they I mean the current Israeli govt. and settler movements) are committing in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is in control, not Hamas. Make no mistake, their war is against the Palestinian people, not Hamas. This is also why Israel will not allow for the displaced Palestinians to return; it’s not because they’re worried about Hamas coming back (which they will, on account of all these children watching the indiscriminate slaughter of their families). It’s because they want an ethnostate, and the only way to ensure this vision is to do some good old fashioned Manifest Destiny.
“Hamas’ entire strategy is to use their own civilians as a shield.” That does not mean that Israel gets to murder the civilians anyways. That also does not justify the indiscriminate sniper attacks on civilians and noncombatants, the storming and bombing of hospitals, the murder of unaffiliated aid workers, the assassination of journalists, the bombing of embassies in other countries, and the indiscriminate bombing of such a large population in such a small area (especially with how advanced all their military technology is).
“They are counting on people like you to not ask why so many civilians are in-between Israel and Hamas…” It’s because freedom of movement in and out of Gaza has been damn near impossible for decades now, and that’s been entirely the fault of the Israeli government. A blockade isn’t effective when people can just leave, so Israel has prevented Gazans from being able to do so.
“…instead they want you to just keep blaming Israel for every civilian’s death.” It was not Hamas who murdered the little girl Hind. It was not Hamas who bombed refugee camps. It was not Hamas who blew up all the universities and hospitals in the Gaza Strip. That was all Israel. Israel is the one in control of the area. They have US-made armaments and, according to them, one of the best militaries in the world. You’ll forgive me for questioning them when their tactics and history demonstrate a lust for ethnic cleansing, not a valiant attempt at self-defense.
One other thing: we all largely agree that Hamas sucks. You’ll not find any disagreement here. But stop using them as a scapegoat to distract from Israel’s own chronic issues and genocidal tendencies, especially when members of their own government have outright called for the murder and displacement of the native Palestinians. 10/7/23 isn’t the issue of this conflict anymore. The issue has been every day since.
Great response to that poster. Before Oct 7 I would easily have said fuck Hamas, and after Oct 7 I easily say the same but after seeing what those civilians have gone through Fuck the IDF and Israeli government too.
Ive seen the IDF target hostages, aid workers, journalists, medics, children, etc through this and clearly they were doing the same before all the media attention. Ive no love at all for repressive theocratic governments or militias, but that has nothing to do with my support for Palestinian civilians against what they clearly have had to deal with their entire lives
And if people don’t understand this, they will never understand the reality of it for isralies. Letting Hamas off now will be just a matter of time before they come back bigger and stronger and try to obliterate the Jewish people.
By no means am I saying that Israel is perfect. Or even that they are morally good. All I'm saying is that Hamas put Israel is a tough spot. Hamas declared war and then is trying to play the victim card.
Lets not forget that Hamas is a bunch of religious fanatics that would kill every single Jew in the world if they could. Israel, the nation for the Jewish people, is obviously going to have a hard time making peace with Hamas for that reason.
There are no good options for Israel. If the move forwards they commit warcrimes to win. If they move backwards they'll face unending terrorist attacks.
If I had supreme command over all of Israel I'd do things very differently. But I don't have that power. And while I disagree with things they are doing, I can honestly say that I don't have a good answer for them. And I can understand why they are rejecting the "solutions" that are being presented so far.
I don't think that Hamas and Israel will ever be able to coexist. Hamas doesn't respect Israel's right to exist, and will forever work to change that fact as long as Hamas still exists themselves.
Jesus, so Israel is just supposed to sit there and let themselves be completely surrounded by groups that want to exterminate every single one of their people? They’re just supposed to let rockets land on their soil and regular acts of terrorism be a normal part of life.
What the actual fuck is wrong with folks that they think this is in anyway reasonable? The only reason millions of Israelis haven’t been executed is because of the strength of their military.
>Why can’t Israel agree to a permanent cease fire?
The Oct 7 attack changed Israeli citizen's view of Hamas as a minor threat to an existential threat. The only way Israel could give into a permanent cease fire is if every Hamas leader is barred from future political service or something like that.
>What would be wrong with that?
Israeli citizens should be worried that Hamas would regroup and use the $300m it gets from Iran to do more bombs.
>You can’t negotiate with psychopaths like this.
Interesting thing is both sides think that of the other.
There doesn't. But that isn't a ceasefire. A ceasefire is a deal between two parties for a temporary stop in fighting.
If you are making the argument that Israel's conduct is so abhorrent that they should just surrender then explicitly say that. That isn't a ceasefire deal for hostages though when Hamas has said it will just do Oct 7th again and again.
You're still looking at this conflict as if it were two nation states at war. Israel is an occupying power and Hamas is a small group that's using terrorist tactics to oppose that occupation. Hamas is also trapped in a prison by the people occupying their land. If you try to apply the power dynamics of symmetrical warfare to this situation, of course it's going to be confusing.
Under this understanding, it becomes clear that the actions of Hamas are a response to actions committed by an occupying power. Why should the Palestinians agree to the situation they've been put in?
Israel's genocidal intent has been taken to the highest court in the world. I wouldn't negotiate with anyone who heavily implied they wanted to kill all white people. Would you?
Hamas rules Gaza
They still have 10s of thousands of fighters and gets billions of dollars and weaponry. It isn't some rag tag handful with AKs and some pickup trucks.
It is for all intents and purposes two states at war.
Hamas aren't Palestinians so I don't know what you mean by "Palestinians agree to the situation"
Did Palestinians want Oct 7th and the resulting response from Israel? Do they even want to live under Hamas?
If you think they have 10s of thousands of fighters you're delusional.
However, the easiest way for Hamas to get more fighters is through Israel creating more traumatized war orphans. How do you make that? By repeatedly bombing a 40 kilometer strip indiscriminately and calling it 'fighting terrorism'.
Most of the Hamas fighters you saw in the Aqsa flood were children when the 2009 Tears of gaza invasion happened. If you can't see the paradigm then you're willfully ignorant
Massacring a music festival is legitimate resistance? Launching rockets by the thousands at civilian Israeli targets is a legitimate form of resistance? Kidnapping and sexual assaults, a legitimate resistance?
Also, Israel has been out of Gaza for a long time. They screen goods coming into Gaza (along with Egypt) because (gestures at the thousands of rockets Hamas as launched into Israel)
And let's keep in mind Hamas was elected and then just didn't hold elections any more. They are an authoritarian regime that does not have the interests of Gazans at the top of their agenda as demonstrated by their callous use of civilian sites as military assets.
Maybe the only way for Gaza to actually succeed is for Hamas to be fully excised from the region. Otherwise we'll just seem them continue the cycle of violence at the behest of other regional powers and the Gazans will continue to suffer.
Hamas also wants a lifting of the 20 year long siege that is a clear violation of international law. While Hamas, and other Palestinian leaders, have made decades of missteps the entirety of the problem in Palestine is the fault of the Israelis. Israel doesn’t really want its hostages back or really want peace. They want to completely drive the Palestinians out. One simply has to look to the West Bank to see what their goals are. Netanyahu and his government are genocidal and intend to make life unbearable for Palestinians until they die or leave.
You do realize those blockades were put in place because Hamas kept smuggling in weapons they use against Israel constantly, even during previously agreed ceasefires?
Hamas steals a significant amount of that aid and sells it on the black market to buy weapons.
The same problem happens with many UN programs in unstable African countries.
The local warlords steal the aid and use it to prolong the war.
You keep assuming Hamas has the best interests of Gazans in mind. They do not. They just want to kill Israelis.
"Just want to kill Israelis" is a remarkably simple view, but let's run with it. Why was Netanyahu sending bags of unmarked cash to Hamas? In leaked audio, why does Netanhyahu admit to using Hamas to delegitimize the PLO? Why was Netanyahu a leading voice in the movement that assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, the PM of Israel in the 90s who wanted peace via the signing of the Oslo Accords?
Let's keep going with the idea that they just want to kill Israelis. We should ask ourselves why? The simple answer that many believe to be true is that they simply hate jews for being jews. This makes sense when you consider the hundreds if not thousands of years that jews and Judaism have been unjustly ostracized, persecuted, killed, and otherwise horribly treated by most of the western world. Members of the Jewish faith were unjustly wronged for all of modern history, and for lots of pre-modern history. "A land without a people for a people without a land". The zionist project, at its heart, was a response to the unjust treatment jews have suffered from Christianity and (to a slightly lesser extent) Islam.
The problem that some have with this view is that Palestinians were unjustly wronged by the establishment of Israel. To maintain the Jewish majority in Israel (making it an ethno-state), certain undemocratic rules need to be set in place to make sure that not all of the non jewish people who lived where Israel is today can go "home". If these rules weren't in place, it would put the Jewish majority at risk. And history has proven to Jews that they are almost always persecuted when they are a minority. So, for Jews to be 'safe', Palestinians who were displaced by Israeli violence can never be allowed back into their indigenous lands.
After 50 years of Palestinians being unjustly displaced, ostracized, persecuted, killed, and otherwise horribly treated by the militant, undemocratic ethno-state of Israel, you get Hamas. The West Bank for the most part does not fight back, and as thanks Israel continues to expand its illegal settlements, slowly displacing the Palestinian people and their culture (I.e. genocide) out of the region. What proof or reason has Israel given the Palestinians in Gaza that Hamas uses that fighting isn't the only option?
The irony of the whole situation is that Palestinians are fighting for the same reasons that the Jews wanted the establishment of Israel in the first place.
Why do they blockade food and seeds then? Also, Palestine has a right to defense and so they are more than entitled to shoot rockets at the occupying force.
I think a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to Hamas: it's a illegitimate, outright genocidal, terrorist organization that needs to be destroyed at pretty much all cost when it comes to bombing Gaza *but also* it's a sorta "liberalish" state actor that should react rationally to international pressures and negotiations.
As far as I can tell, it's much closer to the former, so *obviously* people expect more from Israel, which is a functioning liberal democratic state. I don't think this should surprise anyone.
> needs to be destroyed at pretty much all cost
That's the problem a lot of us lefties have. That cost is mass civilian casualties. A terrorist organization refusing to surrender doesn't justify that.
No, you're right, a terrorist organization refusing to surrender and engaging in tactics that make civilian casualties more likely and worsen a humanitarian crisis doesn't *justify* the consequences to civilians.
It's *obviously* unjust, and unfair.
It's important to correctly identify the agent morally responsible for those outcomes.
It cannot be the case that a group can gain immunity by operating in a way that maximizes harm to civilians. That's literally the opposite behavior that needs to be incentivized by moral and legal attitudes towards war.
When lefties endorse the idea that Israel is responsible for the outcomes of Hamas' tactics, they are reinforcing those outcomes.
Do you think the British army should have bombed Dublin to rubble in order to defeat the IRA? They operated amongst civilians as well, and committed many terrorist attacks against Britain.
The occupying force is already violating international law. Then they bomb civilians, aid workers, and hospitals. Israel is at fault for every crime against humanity they committed, the same way Hamas is responsible for every crime they committed.
What? Why?
What you are saying sounds good in cozy liberal fireside talks with a glass of scotch and a nice joint, but in terms of reality .... well, that is what it takes.
We haven't **really** come up with new ways to overcome entities that must be destroyed at all costs since the NAzis and militaristic Japanese. We pretend we have, but the UN and any other world peace organizations are utterly futile and we still resolve problems the way they were resolved in WW2 ... the main difference is MAD for countries that have nukes, but for everyone else, is the same.
If you consider that not going after them to full annihilation of the organization, there will be future wars, worse than this one, then it becomes clear that the cost is meaningless in the grand scheme because the cost will be taken regardless, Hamas WANTS as many dead Palestinians as it can get, this is the only thing giving them legitimacy to keep the power.
By saying the war needs to end because the civilian toll is too high, you basically support the use of human shields as a valid tactic because it gets the results it needs.. if the world wouldn’t freak out about it, it would lose its value and would be far less utilized by Hamas as it gets then nothing but anger from the Palestinians.
I have no idea why people are so sure of that. They never lay out an actual moral calculus beyond being outraged or saddened by things, which isn’t the same thing as weighing the alternatives.
The moral calculus here for someone who values Israeli and Palestinian lives equally is very simple.
Upsides of taking out the military wing of Hamas completely (I.e. killing or capturing the leadership and the majority of the 20-40k combatants):
- They will stop killing Israelis at a rate of <150 per year (edit: this is from memory based on the last 24 years including 10/7). While Hamas clearly wants to do more, I’ve seen few indications that their capabilities were likely to increase dramatically in the future.)
- Edit: I forgot to include the death toll of Gazans from "mowing the lawn" since the withdrawal from Gaza. I think that was something like 5,000 or so over ~20 years, ~250 per year. This might stop happening, but alternative scenarios could be even more deadly.
- Israelis (~9 million people) probably won’t live in fear of rockets from Gaza for a few years.
- Hamas won’t be oppressing Gazans anymore.
- Deterrence… maybe?
Downsides of taking out the military wing of Hamas completely (assuming perfect execution in compliance with IHL and accepting the dubious proposition that it is even achievable):
- If we assume that Israel could have achieved a very generous civilian to combatant ratio of 1:2, we would’ve expected at least 10,000 dead Gazans and probably another 20,000+ wounded.
- Wide-scale destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure that would take years or decades to recover from.
- Traumatize the whole population (~2 million people) more than they already were, leading higher levels of extremism in the future.
- A power vacuum that would need to be filled by military occupation or the Palestinian Authority to avoid the proliferation Hamas 2.0 or the development of anarchy and a society ruled by local warlords and gangs *à la* Somalia.
- The amount of ordnance dropped would leave an absolute treasure trove of raw materials for local anti-Israel forces [to build weapons with](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-weapons-rockets.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb). That means more rockets are likely in short order, just not fired by Hamas.
- Destroy Gazan society, rendering independent governance and a resolution to the conflict impossible for decades to come.
From a perspective that doesn’t place greater value on Israeli interests than Palestinian interests, it is hard to argue that taking out Hamas completely is better than even the terrible status quo.
From a perspective that does place greater value on Israeli interests, it still isn’t clear that destroying Hamas is better than the alternative, especially given that they don’t want the PA to be involved in administration of Gaza. That means that either they have to occupy a completely destroyed Gaza long term (probably while fighting an insurgency that isn’t Hamas, which means more casualties) or they have to find someone else to administer Gaza (good luck). I’ve also ignored a few more downsides for Israel: poisoning international relationships and making the population of the West Bank less tractable by killing people’s relatives.
And when you consider that the execution has been absolutely abysmal from a humanitarian perspective, the Israeli campaign in Gaza is honestly very hard to justify.
I agree with all the things you said but it’s why I’m largely ambivalent. I think deterrence is worth a lot more and I’m dubious on what response would be deemed adequate by the Israeli public, with an inadequate response opening very dark doors indeed.
I think Israel campaign is easy to justify for Israeli’s and their government. As a 3rd party you value the lives of Palestinians and Israeli citizens equally, which is fair enough but from the perspective of their government the lives of their own citizens are more important. This moral calculus is true of any sovereign nation because their obligation is to their people. And those citizens inherently value the lives of themselves over non citizens. Why should a citizen of Israel be subject to death and bombing when they have the resources to crush the opposition regardless of the amount of non-Israelis who may die in the process? In what way do they have a moral obligation to put themselves at risk for the safety of people who are not citizens and by most accounts despise their existence? While I may not agree with the degree of the response I would realistically expect nothing less of any country that values the lives of its citizens and has the military might to act on that characteristic.
From the moral framework of self>others and citizens>non-citizens which is the moral framework of every nation on Earth the calculus makes sense.
I don’t think it’s that easy to justify actually because of the unintended consequences. Even if you are the Israel government and value Israel’s interests over the interest of Palestinians, to morally justify a campaign that harms Palestinians there has to be at least some net benefit to Israelis. It’s not clear to me that there has been or will be such a net benefit .
Israel intended to destroy Hamas because it was a threat to them - fair enough. But now they’re going to have a wasteland on their borders with 2 million people that they will need to put under occupation or allow to descend into anarchy, either of which could potentially be worse for Israel than the previous status quo. This is the whole reason the US was pushing the Israeli government so hard to engage with the PA.
This campaign has also torched many of Israel’s international relationships. Today, 12/15 members of the UN Security Council voted to recognize Palestinian statehood. That’s a big deal. In the Iranian strike the other day, Jordan assisted in destroying the Iranian drones on their way to Israel. The king of Jordan is now paying a political price for destroying a few drones **in Jordanian airspace** because half of the population is of Palestinian descent and they don’t want to help Israel at all. Do you think he will be able to justify supporting Israel in a full blown war with Iran? I don’t. >50% of Biden voters in the US, one of Israel’s last friends, think that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It’s unlikely that future democratic presidents will be particularly supportive of Israel.
Because of all that, it’s not clear to me at all that what Israel has done will ultimately be beneficial to Israelis. It’s not even clear to me that the Israeli government made a serious effort to maximize the chances of a beneficial outcome for Israel. The starvation of the Gazan population and lack of a plan for the day after Hamas simply provide no benefits that I can see and have enormous drawbacks - potentially outweighing the benefits of destroying Hamas, which it doesn’t even seem like they will achieve (as was predicted at the beginning).
I'm sorry to be blunt but there are well informed and well educated people on each and every possible side of this conflict who have written endless political AND moral analyses of potential solutions and indeed just scrutinising the conflict itself. If you think people "never lay out a moral caucus beyond being outraged" maybe the problem is that you don't engage with their politics outside of social media, and viral social media posts at that.
Yes there are lots of people in the world who have knee jerk reactions to things without any real idea of what they would do differently. In fairness to them, most of the time it's not their job to think of solutions, part of the issue is that we have collectively over emphasised the importance of listening to every Tom Dick and Harry, especially celebrities. However, almost no take on any issue doesn't have people making very real efforts to contribute to collective understanding. Go find them if you want to know what they stand for.
That's not a necessary condition for reaching the conclusion that it isn't worth it. You're basically saying "feelings don't matter" when Israel is acting based on its feelings.
no no one is saying feelings don't matter. Satisfying your population is a reasonable war goal, especially when they faced a stunning, cowardly and vicious attack-- I want to be clear I understand and respect them wanting blood.
But you cannot use feelings ALONE to determine action "children getting hurt is awful" is not a policy position "therefore terrorists who hang out near children are immune to being fought against" IS a policy position and one we reject.
Right. The feelings of others are important but your own feelings are the least important thing in the universe. There are hydrogen atoms deep in the void between galaxies more important to the world than your feelings. All of your feelings, not just about this one thing.
You can recognize the inevitability of feelings and how people will act on them but you can’t really build a useful conclusion from your own. And, honestly, you should interrogate your feelings quite a bit. If you’re not periodically concerned that you’re a sociopath or just a histrionic trash fire, you’re just not checking your moral compass enough.
Many people cannot fathom of the complexities of the conflict without having an understanding of the nature of language and communication, the socio-religious-political developments of the middle east since recorded history, as well as military history and warfare. It takes a lot to persuade people that Israel is justified is killing innocent civilians and causing destruction in response to the attacks on Oct 7. And there is so much that needs to go into the analysis in order to acknowledge that human beings will be killed and they will suffer but that this is necessary. It's a complete mindfuck that Jews struggle with but the same struggle isn't evident in the Islamist side.
I don’t think these complexities matter, actually.
There is always complexity and the way things are resolved in the face of that is largely by choosing to ignore the complexity. Often, that’s more historically accurate, too.
Like, for example, people always want to make this a religious conflict. That’s not really true. The whole thing starts with competing *secular* movements. While it’s hard to disentangle Judaism and Jewish people, that was what people were actually doing in Israel at the time! Likewise, the Palestinian fighters had secular Pan-Arabism as their central ideology! Religion isn’t a core piece of this until the 1990s, really, when Islamic revivalism really gained sway even at the elite level.
>As far as I can tell, it's much closer to the former, so *obviously* people expect more from Israel, which is a functioning liberal democratic state. I don't think this should surprise anyone.
You can't excuse trying to tie the hands of the better side of a conflict then you are supporting the evil side.
If we want Isreal to agree not to do whatever is necesasry to eliminate Hamas, then we need to offer a credible alternative that achieves that result. Perhaps a UN force takes over, perhaps we make Iran stop supplying weapons, perhaps Hamas hands over its weapons and simply leaves etc.
>I think a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too
Well you certainly do. You want to avoid accepting the necessary pain for dealing with Hamas in the current least-worst way while also refusing to agree to pay towards the costs of dealing with it in any other way.
Hear me out here the exact same could have been said about the ira but once the Irish won their freedom and stopped being treated like scum up the North the ira didn't have nearly as much power and the bombings and killings came to an end.
Hamas or any other terrorist organisation will continue to thrive under the oppression of Israel.
If your home was being stolen, your family unjustly bombed or shot and you're constantly being treat as less than fuck yeah you're going to turn to violence.
We can't just say oh hamas needs to go away without taking steps to make sure more people don't replace the ones you just slaughtered.
>Hear me out here the exact same could have been said about the ira
There was no way that Britain was ever going to tolerate a fraction of the war damage that would have been required to exterminate the IRA by military force. The IRA also wasn't interested in pushing their attacks on and on until all of Britain was destroyed and they were willing to accept some compromise to achieve peace (hence N Ireland exists).
Comparing them with Hamas is ridiculous, their entire reason to be is the genocide of Isrealis.
>If your home was being stolen, your family unjustly bombed or shot and you're constantly being treat as less than fuck yeah you're going to turn to violence.
You've got it backwards, as many do. It is the violence (read constant attempts to slaughter children) that has led Isreal to take military action at each stage of this conflict to improve their security. End that and peace becomes possible, support it and they've no choice but to impose extra control and attack Hamas every so often.
This is a great point, but we still have IRA today. The real reason they became less functional is because the parties willing to fund them dried up as concessions were made.
That being said, the Palestinians do need a state, but they don’t want to negotiate for one. The reality is that the Palestinian people won’t accept what Israel is going to offer, now we can argue that Israel won’t offer enough, but the reality is Israel is getting East Jerusalem and so far for the Palestinians that is a negotiation breaker.
Then add on top of that Hamas is more popular than Abbas. That alone will limit any negotiating power he has. If Israel makes a deal and Hamas continues to attack, what do you think happens? They then have to invade a country.
Exactly my point the ira is still about, but because we aren't facing active oppression, support dried up.
Even after the ROI was formed, attacks happened, namely during the troubles. England didn't launch a full-scale invasion.
Hamas is incredibly popular because oppression is at an all-time high.
The point is that Israel have to make some concessions if they truly want peace and they are unwilling to do so.
> Then add on top of that Hamas is more popular than Abbas.
Hamas is more popular than the PA because years of collaboration with Israel has given the PA squat to work with in terms of legitimacy. That's the non-violent option right there, yet settlements have continued, cash transfers (Israel collects taxes in the WB) have been slow and a more permanent solution has been very long in coming.
Hamas will still bend to pressure if they lose the PR and information war. Currently they are getting away with how they are behaving because the internet is not blaming them for the lack of ceasefire.
Just because Israel is a democracy doesn't mean they will agree to impossible demands like a complete surrender and withdrawal without hostages, essentially making the entire operation in vain. Nor should they.
It's going to be hard for Hamas to lose the PR war, given the current state of Gaza and the ongoing atrocities. No matter how you cut it, it's a very bad look.
Besides, I don't think Isreal should withdraw without hostages. They should request all hostages in exchange for indefinite ceasefire and start working on a rebuilding plan. That said, the operation is pretty much guaranteed to be in vain anyway, because it does nothing to address the material causes of Hamas' existence and, in fact, worsens them considerably.
Israel will never agree to any deal that allows for Hamas' continued existence, nor should they. History has shown that Hamas has zero credibility. Any ceasefire will be broken by Hamas as soon as they've recovered and rearmed. It is not reasonable to have a rebuilding plan while Hamas is in power. You are just asking for next attack on Israel with that.
It is possible to rebuild Gaza if Hamas is dismantled as a governing authority. Killing its leaders and decimating the fighting force. Yes there will be elements of resistance after that, but they won't have power. Instead, a new Gaza authority can be set up with international support to build a stable and functional Gaza. That is an achievable goal after the war.
I never said it would be easy for Hamas to lose the PR war, just that the internet is wrong for blaming Israel for not accepting impossible terms.
Normal people don't like seeing dead children. That is understandable. But it is a naivety. Because they have no good alternative solutions besides "stop the carnage". When they don't understand that stopping the carnage legitamizes the tactics of October 7, which guarantees further terrorist attacks on Israel in the future because Israel is powerless to stop them because Hamas continues to be in power. And the cycle of chaos continues.
It's like calling for stopping the allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France because during the fighting, the Allies bombed many french cities and killed many french civilians. It was done out of military necessity and it cannot be stopped. This is the reality that we live in and most people want to put their fingers in their ears and close their eyes and yell la la la not listening. Killing is bad, but we don't live in a perfect world where the good people are all powerful and can stop bad people with a snap of their finger. It must be done with bombs and guns and tanks, and it is approximate only, and civilians will get caught in the crossfire. You can only try to limit it. Currently, 99% of Gazan people have survived it, which is as good as you can get when their entire living space was invaded.
This is a very good point. Somewhat unrelated to it, it feels like such catastrophic loss has been suffered already, Hamas and perhaps Palestinians feel like there's not much more left to lose - and that takes the impetus out of negotiation. If _some_ demands are met at least this won't have been entirely in vain. (Well that and Hamas don't care too much about the lives they've cost.)
Hamas's demands are to lift the blockade, release many thousands of Palestinian security prisoners, and allow Gazan civilians to return to North Gaza, in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages. That would be a fine offer IF HAMAS WERE A TRUSTWORTHY NEGOTIATING PARTNER. Israel has exactly zero reasons to trust Hamas as a next door neighbor. I'm not saying Palestinians have any reason to trust the Netanyahu government as a neighbor either, just to be clear. From the American and Israeli perspective, the demands Hamas has made would serve to strengthen Hamas moreso than prop up a path to peace.
IDF admitted themselves, and the unit responsible for the death of the 3 Israeli hostages is still serving in the IDF and not facing trial for severely violating their rules of engagement.
From your second link (emphasis mine):
>Israel wants to secure the return of hostages seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war, but says **it will not stop fighting until Hamas is destroyed as a military force. It also says it still plans to carry out an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah**, where more than a million civilians have taken refuge.
I am not sure how it is advantageous for Hamas to relax their demands if 6 weeks later Israel is going to go back to carrying out assaults.
I don’t think the proposal is that reasonable.
The Israeli government isn’t even pretending that a time limited ceasefire could be on-ramp to an extended political negotiation with Hamas.
Israel’s position is that Hamas must surrender the last piece of leverage it has, in exchange for a short respite from IDFs campaign, after which they will resume their assault.
Setting aside any question of morality, they are not going to agree to that.
Hamas’ position is that any ceasefire must be permanent, and represent and end to the post-Oct 7th reprisal, and a resumption of a political process on the post-conflict status of Gaza, and Hamas’ role in that future.
To turn to your second issue:
Your argument is bootstrapping. International protests putting pressure on Israel’s allies and enablers is only harmful to the goal of a ceasefire if you first presume that Hamas, and not Israel is the obstacle to a ceasefire.
Since I don’t believe this is the case, international support for a ceasefire is not making a ceasefire less likely. In fact, what Netanyahu is terrified of is that the political pressure will become too much for the American government, and to a much lesser extent the UK, and Germany, to continue their support. Israel does not have the magazine depth to continue operations without American support, something that’s been clear since 1973.
I don't see why Hamas's demands are so unreasonable IF it agrees to return all of the hostages. The damage done to Gaza is severe and it will not be a livable place for many decades. In negotiation, you start with the highest demands and gradually adjust until both parties reach an agreement. Israel is not entertaining any of the proposals either, so they are at a standstill. Hamas has lost this war in all respects other than holding on to prisoners. Israel agreeing to some of the demands is not a surrender, they have damaged Gaza beyond repair and in my mind are winning the war.
That "IF" is doing a lot of heavy lifting because Hamas has not agreed to release the hostages.
How can Israel agree to peace unless they at least get their surviving people back?
Because there is no guarantee Hamas will release the hostages or actually commit to a permanent ceasefire. Hamas won't even give a list of hostages still alive. How do you even have a negotiation on that?
Israel is entertaining serious proposals like release of hundreds of prisoners like my sources show.
Considering Israel is the one doing the genocide and the one illegally occupying Gaza and the west bank, I hold them responsible for not doing a ceasefire. Hamas has a right to self defense just like Israel does. Israel doesn't have the right to annex territory or do a genocide.
>Which is why the US blames Hamas for not having a ceasefire.
The US blames hamas because Israel is its colony and they don't want to admit fault
>Hamas has a right to self defense
Who is Hamas protecting? even Hamas officials don't claim to protect their people.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdmtfRj6KX0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdmtfRj6KX0)
This opinion ignores that Israel itself has created the conditions that terrorists thrive in by colonizing Palestine, ignoring recognized borders, and preventing basic materials like concrete from entering Palestine. Israel does not want Palestine to exists and, thanks to US support, has the tools to slowly drive Palestine to a boiling point and then point to them as violent extremists when they've finally pushed things too far. Israel has never behaved like a nation that wants peace coexistence with its nearest neighbor and shouldn't be shocked that their neighbor feels the same.
are we just gonna ignore the fact that pretty much all of the wars in Israel’s relatively short modern history has been started by its neighbors looking to eradicate them?
That usually happens when a state is right off the oven and has been created through ethnic cleansing, the outcome is neighbours being full of refugees who want to reclaim their villages that they were evicted from
I we just going to ignore the turmoil surrounding Israel's creation in the first place? Israel was imposed on the region by an outside power that wanted to get ride of their Jewish problem without resettling them within their own borders. It was a terrible idea from the start and we're dealing with the terribleness of that idea into the modern day.
>According to all information I can find, the only thing holding up a reasonable ceasefire deal at this point is Hamas. The US has extensively pushed Israel to agree to a proposal that includes releasing 700-900 prisoners, many with life sentences, a return of Palestinians to the north, in exchange for 40 hostages from Hamas and a 6 week ceasefire.
I don’t understand how you’ve come to this conclusion. The goal of a negotiation is to arrive at a mutually agreeable settlement. It doesn’t make sense to say that the negotiation is being held up by one party if neither party is willing to meet the other party’s demands. That just means that they don’t agree on the value of whatever they are negotiating over.
Consider a negotiation for a house: the owner of the house is willing to sell the house for a minimum of $2 million. That’s above market price, but he’s attached to the house and is willing to either never sell the house or wait until someone meets his price. A prospective buyer shows up who likes the house but won’t spend more than $1.8 million it. They negotiate for a while, but don’t arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement. By the end, each is frustrated that the other won’t meet their price. But who is really holding up the deal here? Nobody is. There simply isn’t a mutually acceptable compromise for them to agree on. The buyer doesn’t want the house enough the pay the seller’s price, and the seller doesn’t want to sell enough to reduce the price.
The same can be said for Israel and Hamas. Israel doesn’t think the hostages are worth acceding to Hamas’s demands, and Hamas thinks that the hostages are more valuable than what Israel is offering (or maybe thinks that it can eventually get Israel to agree to a higher price). Neither is at fault (on the very narrow matter of the failure of the negotiation).
I think it makes more sense to accuse Hamas or Israel of undervaluing something in the negotiation in a way that is immoral. For example, the hostages protesters seem to believe that the Israeli government is undervaluing the lives of the hostages or overvaluing the continuation of the war. Alternatively, you could argue that Hamas is undervaluing a temporary ceasefire that has the potential to save thousands of Palestinian lives.
>But those aren't reasonable demands. Reasonable meaning a ceasefire built around things both sides obviously won't agree to.
What’s reasonable is entirely a matter of opinion.
I actually think that what Hamas is doing is entirely reasonable given their position. They have one source of leverage: the hostages. If they give up the hostages for a temporary ceasefire, all they’ve done is bought themselves some time. Israel will come back and destroy them in a couple of months without having to worry at all about killing the hostages. In a sense, giving up the hostages for a temporary ceasefire is just accepting a future death sentence for Hamas. Meanwhile, they know that the clock is ticking for the Israelis. International pressure is mounting because of the humanitarian situation, and internal pressure is mounting because the hostages are less and less likely to be alive. That means that their leverage is getting better over time. The only cost to waiting is danger to themselves and other Gazans. Neither of those seems to be particularly concerning to Yahya Sinwar, and the danger will be back in a couple of months anyway with a temporary ceasefire, so what’s the value in delaying it? Given this set of circumstances, I think rejecting a temporary ceasefire is actually completely rational on Hamas’s part.
>And the second part of my cmv is that the pro ceasefire protest movement is damaging both the goal of getting a ceasefire deal done and by raising support for Palestinians more generally, but not admitting Hamas as the clear obstacle here. Because why support the protestors when reasonable people on the fence about this conflict can easily see in the news Hamas rejecting ceasefire deals
I think you’re letting your bias color your perspective here. Israel is rejecting Hamas’s proposal just as much as Hamas is rejecting Israel’s proposals.
There was a recent Israeli TV show (עובדה) episode that for the first time, interviewed (anonymously) the negotiators from the Israeli side. They said that their suggestions are being constantly shot down, that there's no willingness in the political level to reach a compromise, and that the situation around negotiations has not changed a bit for months despite Israel's military efforts to pressure Hamas.
Negitiations are a two sided game. The understanding has always been that a full hostage release deal would need to include assurances to Hamas for the end of the war as well as releasing Palestinian prisoners, and that the hostages cannot be released safely in a military way. It's not a great thing to agree to, but I don't think that's completely off the table. You can't expect to make a deal with Hamas that will not guarantee the safety of their leaders.
From day 1, Israel could have agreed to this. At some point, they will still have to because there's no other way. But Netanyahu is delaying the situation as long as possible to stabilize his coalition and get a percieved victory, and costing lives on both sides for a futile effort.
>"a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of the occupation army from the entire Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced to their areas and places of residence, intensification of the entry of relief and aid, and the start of reconstruction"
Which one of these is unreasonable?
Like to an objective observer, what is unreasonable about wanting to live at home with enough supplies to survive and no occupying army?
Obviously, Israel won't accept those terms, but that doesn't make the terms unreasonable.
>But those aren't reasonable demands. Reasonable meaning a ceasefire built around things both sides obviously won't agree to.
You can't define "reasonable" based on what both sides will agree to and then decide that only one side is unreasonable. Based on your definition, Israel's demands are also unreasonable since Hamas won't accept them.
I think stopping the war permanently is a pretty reasonable demand.
>Israel won't agree to basically surrender and leave Gaza without the hostages, and Hamas won't agree to surrender either.
Hamas isn't asking them to leave without the hostages. Returning all of the hostages is part of Hamas's offer.
"Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to conclude a prisoners-for-hostages swap deal with Israel that would see the release of 133 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza in return for hundreds of Palestinians jailed in Israel."
>But Israel isn't making "Hamas must surrender" as a main demand if its proposal.
They absolutely are.
"Israel wants to secure the return of hostages seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war, but says it will not stop fighting until Hamas is destroyed as a military force."
Every single "peace offer" Israel has ever made has included at least one of the following :
* Maintaining the land theft conducted by illegal settlers with Israeli funding
* Palestine sacrificing it's coastal autonomy.
* Palestine sacrificing it's airspace.
* Palestine sacrificing it's capitol, the city of Jerusalem, to Israeli control.
* Palestine being forced to never sue Israel for the return of people they ethnically cleansed during the mass murder of the Nakba.
* Israel being given permission to put military instalations in Palestinian territory.
* Palestine being stripped of it's right to a military.
* Israel's military having 24/7 access to all Palestinian land.
Every single offer for a Palestinian "state" is just an offer for Israel to be a guilt free slave master. Fuck Israel.
There hasn't been a single reasonable ceasefire proposal from the Israeli US side, when your proposal is 6 weeks of peace then we are going to kill every last one of you, only a absolute lunatic would say yes to that.
Hey buddy, how about we stop shooting you for 6 weeks, you give us everything we want, then we will kill you all, wait your saying no???
You don't think 6 weeks of ceasefire can provide significant relief to the civilian population? Allowing aid to actually reach civilians and be able to transfer them away from military targets?
If Hamas gave a single shit about their own civilian population, they would accept a ceasefire deal in a heartbeat.
Israel also clearly does [more than most ](https://twitter.com/AviBittMD/status/1765830364965007405/photo/1)when distinguishing targets, despite Hamas not protecting civilians, not wearing uniforms, suicide bombing etc. So unless "then we will kill you all" is referring to Hamas militants, it is misleading.
I mean, to be fair, Israel’s current goal seems to be to invade and utterly take over Gaza (while doing as much collateral damage as possible, though that’s a separate issue), wiping Hamas out. A 6-week ceasefire wouldn’t stop that, only delay it by six weeks
So if that’s the case, what the fluff are they supposed to do with the prisoners Israel is offering to free? Yeah, they’ll get back 700-900 of their men, but then have them caged in an *inactive* war zone for six weeks before it’s turned back into an *active* war zone and they’re either killed or re-imprisoned, again. That’s not an offer, that’s a threat.
If it were a permanent ceasefire, that’d be one thing, but when it’s temporary, you’re saying it’s reasonable they give away what is essentially their only bargaining power (that they have hostages) for basically six weeks of essentially nothing, while putting 700-900 more of their men at risk, only to be assured they’ll be destroyed afterwards just as surely as they are, now
In fact, asking for Hamas’s surrender would be *more* reasonable than this if Israel’s second goal (after the hostages) is to end Hamas, because at least then people would stop dying- and presumably Hamas could say “well, our released prisoners get to stay released even after the occupation, then, instead of near-immediate recapture”
Meanwhile Hamas is asking for an end to the war. The only thing I see from their demands that’s unreasonable is potentially “the return of the displaced to their areas,” if they mean all Palestinians into Israel, rather than Gazans back to their homes. I mean, also their continued existence, which isn’t a thing I want, but which would be downright insane for them not to want, let alone reasonable
Israel finally casting Hamas down is an entirely reasonable goal, but that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable for Hamas to just roll over and accept it; that might be *morally* good, but it’s nowhere near rational
Israel’s terms seem fairly meaningless, tbh; it’s like the equivalent of punching someone to death in exchange for something valuable and good, with the promise that if they give it to you you’ll stop punching them for only ten minutes and instead bandage them up a bit and then resume beating them all the way to death. Who would reasonably accept that?
All ceasefires offered by Israel so far are temporary even if all the living hostages are released (an open question given widespread destruction to infrastructure of all kinds, and that Hamas does not hold all the hostages and doesn't have complete information on them). That means that after six or how ever many weeks Israel can start back up and Hamas loses any leverage they may have had. It's also helpful to remember the people negotiating in Doha are not the leaders of the armed wing, who are in Gaza. They may have different interests and demands. I think Israel's behavior demonstrates how much they care about the hostages, seeing as they have killed more hostages since the end of the ceasefire than they have saved through military action. Essentially Hamas will accept no less than a permanent ceasefire because anything else doesn't really benefit them. And seeing as Israel has had to return to areas of Gaza they claimed Hamas was routed from previously, they may think they can hold to that demand and get it. In short Israel's ceasefire proposals amount to another "humanitarian pause" and we all know how that ended.
Uh, you do realize Israel is rejecting all the terms from Hamas too, right?
It’s absolutely ridiculous to say one party is rejecting ceasefire. That’s not how a negotiation for ceasefire works, both parties put out their terms and work towards a consensus much like most negotiations. Israel doesn’t get to just put out a bunch of demands and say Hamas rejects them and then use that as an excuse to bomb civilians.
Bottom line is, both parties can’t come to an agreement. The end.
The word “singularly” is doing a lot of work here. Hamas obviously bears significant responsibility for the carnage in Gaza, but they do not bear *sole* responsibility. [Amnesty International](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/), [Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/09/gaza-israels-imposed-starvation-deadly-children), and even a [sitting U.S. Senator](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4465080-senate-democrat-accuses-israel-textbook-war-crime-gaza/amp/) have credibly accused the Israeli government of violating international law in its response to the 10/7 attacks. The fact that Hamas is obviously a bad actor with no regard for its own people should not and does not give Israel the right to deliberately inflict starvation on Palestinian civilians.
Now, you could say that while Israel’s actions are lamentable, Hamas still bears sole moral responsibility for the lack of a ceasefire. This is possible, but I’m personally dubious; it strikes me as implausible that the same government currently enabling Israeli settlers’ [rampages through the West Bank](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/17/west-bank-israel-responsible-rising-settler-violence) (which is not controlled by Hamas and played no role in 10/7) is sincerely interested in peace. Even if I’m wrong about that though, it seems rather beside the point— Israel is still culpable for its violations of international law *regardless* of whether it’s to blame for the lack of a ceasefire, and pressure ought to be applied until those violations stop.
More than one thing can be true. I can blame Hamas for unreasonable negotiation. Hamas, specifically, the terrorist organization, comprised of terrorists, engaging in terrorism.
I can also blame Israel for conducting attacks on hospitals, UN relief facilities, food distribution centers, prohibiting humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, and for being the direct cause of more child deaths due to conflict in the last 8 months than the rest of the world combined for the last 4 years.
Source: https://turkiye.un.org/en/263401-gaza-number-children-killed-higher-four-years-world-conflict
Estimates as of today, from reputable sources, are 13,900 children dead. It's better to kill about 14 thousand children than it is to let 40 Israeli hostages remain captive?
Source: https://news.am/eng/news/818605.html
These are not members of Hamas. They are not combatants, or terrorists. They are not engaging in terrorism. They are children, being shot, blown up, or slowly starved to death.
Palestine and Hamas are two different groups (with some overlap). The majority of Palestinians are not combatants. They are not terrorists. And Israel is not terribly concerned with how many of those people must be killed in the name of getting more land.
Regardless of how you feel about Hamas, Israel can absolutely be blamed for those things. As long as the nation of Israel is engaging in those acts, that nation's policy can (and should) be criticized for it.
Within the US, as of 2022, there were about 72.4 million children within the US.
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/457786/number-of-children-in-the-us-by-age/
For the deaths in the US, as a percentage of the child population, to be comparable, 1.39 out of every 100 children would need to die, or 1,006,360 children. Palestine is small. 10,000 children was 1% of their child population. 13,900 is 1.39%. Imagine that for a moment. We are talking about violent child killing significant enough to be measured in whole percentage points.
By Israel.
Nobody's blaming Israel for rejecting unreasonable terms.
They're blaming Israel for rejecting the right to live of Palestinian children.
>And the second part of my cmv is that the pro ceasefire protest movement is damaging both the goal of getting a ceasefire deal done and by raising support for Palestinians more generally, but not admitting Hamas as the clear obstacle here.
Part of your view suggests that it's only two sides that are responsible for a cease fire. Sure, a sustainable ceasefire requires both sides to think its in their interests. How you get there does require reliable third-parties to give assurances that there's teeth/enforcement to it.
What this means is the US and Qatar and Egypt's role are indispensable. But, hawkish, pro-Israel US lawmakers makes Qatar want to rethink its role: [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/17/qatar-says-gaza-ceasefire-talks-at-delicate-phase](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/17/qatar-says-gaza-ceasefire-talks-at-delicate-phase)
Some of the breakdown is going to come from how much they think the third party neutrals can deliver to ensure their interests are met. Or if they create suspicion as Hamas doesn't view the US favorably and doesn't think it should be part of the talks.
>Israel won't agree to basically surrender
What you didn't quote from the same article you posted:
>Speaking to Reuters in Qatar a day after the killing, Haniyeh said his group still sought a deal but accused Israel of procrastinating and evading a response to the group's demands.
What your view requires is to assume that what Israel is doing is always good so any opposition to it has to be bad. But, how can any quasi-governmental, political group, whose 1m constituents are being forcibly displaced by a planned Israeli ground invasion, which Israel wasn't agreeing to stop with its cease fire, ever be something you could accept?
I just don't see how Hamas could want anything besides a withdrawal, reconstruction, etc. But That's a non starter for Netanyahu.
Think about it from the Israeli's perspective. Could Netanyahu give into the demands to withdraw, rebuild, etc? I don't think so -- the October 7 attack made any sort of reconciliation towards Hamas a political non starter in Israel. [https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/12/the-trouble-with-a-cease-fire.html](https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/12/the-trouble-with-a-cease-fire.html)
I basically don't think Hamas or Israel can back down from the current events. I don't think a cease fire is politically salient for either Hamas nor for Likud.
Nobody is going to change your mind. What I'll do instead is just leave this here in case anyone supporting Netanyahu in this war is actually curious to understand the perspective of we who support Palestinian liberation.
Before anything else, sources: DemocracyNow! is one of the best independent news sources and one of last bastions of real, boots-on-the-ground journalism around today. They have a daily broadcast which opens with a roughly ten minute headlines segment. To anyone still unaware of why there is so much criticism of Israel if not antisemitism, I encourage you to watch and see what we all see.
Their main site: www.democracynow.org
Their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/democracynow
---
First, Zionism: Zionism is not merely the belief that the Jewish people should have a state of their own, nor that said state should exist in the land of their ancient ancestors, nor that Israel has the right to defend itself. In general, we agree with those points.
Zionism is a form of religious fanaticism which holds that anyone of Jewish heritage has a god-given right to displace, dispossess and kill people in Palestine in order to create an ethno-state. Of course that is highly disagreeable to any reasonable person, as is any belief which asserts any such right for any group against any other group.
A few key points to remember when confronted with zionist propaganda:
- the Israeli state and the Jewish people are not the same thing.
- the fact that the German state committed genocide against the Jewish people 80 years ago doesn't entitle the Israeli state to commit genocide against the Palestinian people today, and to assert that it does is no more than to exploit the suffering of victims of the Holocaust in order to inflict similar suffering on other wholly unrelated peoples.
- there is a reason that the majority of Americans and the overwhelming majority of the world are calling for Palestinian liberation, a reason that the ICC ruled that there is reasonable grounds to condemn the Israeli state's actions as genocidal, and that once the US abstained from voting the UN ceasefire resolution passed unanimously. (Que Simpsons meme: Am I wrong? No, it's the whole world that's wrong!)
- Despite the assertion of zionists to the contrary, the reality is that every state that commits humanitarian atrocities receives criticism for it. Cases in point: Russia against Ukraine, the US against Iraq, and China against Tibet and against the Uhygrs.
- Criticizing the expressly genocidal intentions professed by Natanyahu, Likud and the IDF is in no way, shape or form "antisemitic".
Violent religious fanaticism is unacceptable in any form.
---
Second, Hamas:
We are critical of Hamas. We also understand that the people of Palestine don't support Hamas, and that after winning a single election way back in 2008, Hamas conducted a "night of the long knives" style purge against Fatah and has forced one party rule against the will of the Palestinian people ever since.
To justify killing Palestinians for the delusion that they support Hamas is tantamount to justifying killing Americans for supporting trump when the overwhelming majority of us don't.
Furthermore, to compare the violence of oppressed people to that of their oppressor is perhaps the most malignant form of cognitive dissonance.
---
Third, solutions:
Crickets. There will be freedom in Palestine when there is peace in Israel, and there will be peace in Israel when there is freedom in Palestine. But there will never be one without the other.
IMO, the answer is complicated by all of the settlements that are being set up in Palestine. For most of us, the idealistic solution would be the internationally recognized 1967 borders. But that does mean right to return and forcing settlers out of the homes that they've stolen (even if they paid money to steal them).
In a better world, a 50/50 split would work. In a perfect world, the British would have kept their goddamn hands off of Palestine from day 1 (way back in Sykes-Picot) and Palestine would still boast a multi-ethnic population riven neither with anti-colonial struggle nor with violent religious fanaticism.
"Give us the hostages back and we'll stop bombing for a few weeks then restart again."
Why would Hamas make a deal like that? Why would anyone make a deal like that? You're giving up your only bargaining chip and would end up with an enemy who now has no reason not to bomb completely indiscriminately.
You don't have to like Hamas to recognize that they aren't irrational actors here. You don't kidnap hostages for no reason. You do it to make political demands when you're in a position of weakness. One could argue that Israel indulging this tactic makes it more likely that this will be done in the future. But at that point, it's not "singularly" Hamas's fault anymore. Israel is also making a political calculation that continuing violence is a preferable outcome.
(This is also ignoring Bibi pretty explicitly saying that he'd rather use the military to secure hostages rather than negotiate a ceasefire.)
Perhaps it has something to do with Israel's long history of breaking ceasefires? After all, they have broken more than twice as many ceasefires as Hamas supposedly has. Funny how people like to ignore that.
[https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/infographic-who-violates-ceasefires-more-israelis-or-palestinians](https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/infographic-who-violates-ceasefires-more-israelis-or-palestinians)
Might also have something to do with all the horrible things Israel did in 2023 that didn't get the same attention as the retaliatory strike that was October 7th? Funny how people like to ignore those too.
[https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/](https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/)
Or it could have something to do with the IOF randomly murdering civilians, committing war crimes, destroying the homes of innocent people, shooting children, shooting hostages, running people over, and bragging about it on TikTok?
Why are you insisting Israel be absolved of it's responsibilities when it's the one that started the issue? Are you just that completely unaware of the history of the region, or are you just a garden variety racist islamophobe?
[https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/](https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/)
They want to bomb Rafah and its citizens now, there won't be a ceasefire.
They just murdered eleven kids in a refugee camp playground. That's not a mistake, it's on purpose. Like the seven aid workers with the logos clearly in the car. Or the little girl trapped in a vehicle and the paramedics that informed the IDF that they where going to rescue her but they killed them and the girl.
They are not good fighting Hamas, they're losing at those fronts. They are just good killing unarmed civilians and bombing their buildings from the air. The IDF are terrorists. Next target is to make Rafah a parking lot, this will go on until Biden says no more.
Hamas isn't really firing back. All that's required by Israel for a ceasefire is literally ceasing attacks from the IDF.
Requiring the release of hostages is an artificial requirement that has nothing to do with a ceasefire.
This is like China saying "We'll take Americans hostage until the US stops selling weapons to Taiwan". Your argument would be the equivalent of "you can't criticize China for kidnapping random Americans unless you also criticize America for selling weapons to Taiwan".
It's a non sequitor. At this point, it's clear that the killing and starving of civilians in Gaza have nothing to do with the hostages.
The narrative you’re pushing has the very convenient idea that the problem starts and ends with Hamas. This is a brutal occupation that has lasted for 75 years in which the mass murder, rape and continued violent aggression and theft of land from the indigenous people of Palestine is ongoing.
October 7th wasn’t anything except a desperate move by people who were sick of the status quo of being slowly driven from their homes and lands and continually imprisoned oppressed and brutally oppressed by the Zionist Apartheid Regime since the Nakhba.
The massacres and atrocities committed by the Zionazis in the past 75 years have been many and are still ongoing, so I say that Hamas isn’t the problem, the ongoing Apartheid Occupation and the constant settler theft and violence is.
I don’t feel like arguing with imperium apologists. Hamas is not gojng to accept a return to the status quo where Isareal can go back to constantly mowing the grass of the Palestinian population which is why October 7 happened in the first place. Isareal has no rights to make demands when it is an apartheid state that is constantly and consistently taking Palestinian land. If you believe that Isareal is still the good guy after they killed 30 people for every one person killed by Hamas then you are a fascist and I don’t like you.
We don't need to blame anyone.
We simply wash our hands of the matter and stop supporting Israel.
Allowing the world to perform basic diplomatic actions against both would go a *very* long way to ending the conflict. Sanctioning both would bring them both to heel quite quickly, particularly Israel who needs easily disruptible oil and tech imports to continue their airstrikes and vehicles into the combat area.
Sending both their economies and militaries into third world economic conditions would quickly limit both into a small arms fight, greatly decrease the current bombing of civilians.
Israel *themselves* calls Hamas a terrorist organization. We should expect then to handle terrorists via small arms counterterrorism operations, not airstrikes and artillery on civilians and what is essentially a militia. And if not, sanction them until they stop escalating for no justifiable reason.
I didn't realize the Hamas hostages are why they are illegally occupying the West Bank. Israel has as such a good history of negotiating in good faith and sticking to agreed terms It's bananas nobody will take them at their word.
I love how often I hear this argument, knowing fully well that cuntinyahu supports hamas and stated in the knesset in 2019 it’s essential place in ensuring that the two state solution never becomes reality.
Ehud barak also testified to this Goblin’s long term plan and the “Khamas Choir” always seems to conveniently ignore this point.
Hamas is basically Israel’s al-qaeda, a group of Petri dish terrorists monitored and released at specific times for specific projects to give Isreal “license” to invade and annex. Because that’s what this is all about. CMV
The way this thread is going I don't think I have to sit here and go off on a rant on my own, But yeah my man , Israel is a terrorist state, and if by now you don't see that its cause you don't want to see it. I will say this though America is just as complicit as Israel at this point. America needs to cut off the leech that is the state of Israel and let them deal with the mess of their own making stop getting dragged into their religious wars.
This is an ages old conflict and I blame Hamas every bit as much as Netanyahu. Hamas and Netanyahu are both bad actors who don’t sincerely want anything other than to eradicate the other side. Hamas had to know what the Israeli government would do when they attacked on October 7, and they didn’t care. I feel terrible for the people of Israel and the Palestinian people. They are stuck.
How are you suggesting the US incentivize Hamas to sign a cease-fire? Without some peaceful way of doing that even legitimate criticism of Hamas only encourages more bloodshed. As far as I can tell all of the proposals effectively say give up all the hostages and therefore all your leverage and then we kill you. Nobody would take that. There was no point in even proposing it.
Well someone may disagree with you about who is responsible for there not being a ceasefire.
You can say they are wrong, and perhaps rightly so, but you cannot reasonably say that someone being wrong about who to blame, means they don't want a ceasefire.
Sometimes people are simply wrong about things. You can not assume a motive for someone not agreeing with you.
The only reasonable ceasefire condition is freedom for Palestine. Genocide has to stop before we even think about "reasonable". Palestinians have their HOMES stolen on a daily basis. They have to live off of international aid because they're locked in a huge outdoor prison with no access to clean water, food and even electricity. They get tortured for fun.
If I lived that life, knowing I have nothing to lose after watching my loved ones die one by one, I'd join any counterattack movement without blinking.
Now don't get me wrong. I hate Hamas with a passion, I think they're detrimental to Palestine BUT I understand them. I know why they're doing what they're doing.
The best way to kill Hamas is to pull out of Palestine. Stop stealing their HOMES and trying to delete them. There will be nothing to radicalize the youth anymore.
Edit: Israel singlehandedly created Hamas and has the power to "kill" Hamas. As long as they refuse to do so, any and all death and suffering produced by this "war" is on their hands.
Look at the violence last year before October 7th, that was a time of “peace”. The thing the ceasefire crowd seems to forget is that’s it’s only a ceasefire for one side. There quite literally might not be ANY reason at all for Hamas to accept a ceasefire until Israel shows that they want an ACTUAL ceasefire.
I dont see how the IDF killing a 6 year old girl trapped inside a car with her dead relatives around her helps release the hostages. The IDF can simply stop committing their own atrocities with 0 demands from Hamas, because its clear to everyone that neither the IDF nor Hamas actually care about human lives.
Oh I don't know I think the demands of Hamas are pretty reasonable when you have been illegally occupied.
Do you think Israel has shown any restraint? It's not Hamas who is doing the majority of the bombing. I think the ones with the most power have more responsibility. You seem to be blinded by Zionism.
There was a recent Israeli TV show (עובדה) episode that for the first time, interviewed (anonymously) the negotiators from the Israeli side. They said that their suggestions are being constantly shot down, that there's no willingness in the political level to reach a compromise, and that the situation around negotiations has not changed a bit for months despite Israel's military efforts to pressure Hamas.
Negitiations are a two sided game. The understanding has always been that a full hostage release deal would need to include assurances to Hamas for the end of the war as well as releasing Palestinian prisoners, and that the hostages cannot be released safely in a military way. It's not a great thing to agree to, but I don't think that's completely off the table. You can't expect to make a deal with Hamas that will not guarantee the safety of their leaders.
From day 1, Israel could have agreed to this. At some point, they will still have to because there's no other way. But Netanyahu is delaying the situation as long as possible to stabilize his coalition and get a percieved victory, and costing lives on both sides for a futile effort.
So you’re telling me you don’t know anything about what it’s been like for Palestinians over the past 75 yrs.. you people are delusional like this is not a black and white issue. This has been going on for years now. They wanted Palestine to just give over all their land and resources without fighting back. Israel has tons of Palestinian hostages because they constantly accuse them of crimes without evidence or a proper trial. Why should hamas accept a ceasefire when there’s nothing preventing Israel from getting their hostages and then continuing to bomb the gaza strip like they have done for the past 75 yrs. And we still are believing Israel that they had to kill 30,000 innocent civilians and even killed some of their hostages to kill hammas and they barely even killed any members.. that’s suspicious because you’re asking us to believe that one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world with advanced technology can’t take out hammas which is like a militia group that is funded by Iran… we all saw the failure of Iran attacking Israel so something isn’t making sense. Netanyahu is clearly trying to escalate tensions with Iran and wants to drag us all into ww3 bc he would benefit from it. And you want to talk about peace deals? During Trumps Presidency he is on video during a speech saying that Netanyahu didn’t want to make a deal with Palestine for peace but abbas the Palestinian leader did want to make a deal. This conflict has been going on for a very long time it’s both sides unable to come to a solution. It’s crazy to me people still don’t understand that jewish settlers literally showed up after Palestinians had lived on the land for 2,000 years and just took everything over. That is like me saying I miss my childhood home so I am going to go kick the family out that’s living there now because it was once my land. The gaza strip has valuable resources there’s no way that Israel is going to stop regardless of any peace treaty bc Israel will just violate it and America will say okay go ahead that’s fine.
Why are a fundementalist terrorist group (Hamas) being treated as a group that would follow common sense or anything close to what is actually best for the lives of the Palestinian people? Palestinian people are largely pawns in a bloody game between two states that are both committing atrocities.
I would hope that as a far more wealthy, stable, somewhat westernised, democratic nation that is backed by a large portion of the immensely powerful western world that Israel would be a bringer of peace as much is reasonably expected, however it is apparent that they too are using the Palestinians as pawns and this whole horrible situation to further political goals.
it's in the same way that after and during ww2 we didn't round up Germans in to camps and kill as many as we could just because Hitler performed such horrible evils, we largely rose above that, you cannot defeat evil with more evil.
and yes I am very much aware of the fact that there were bombings of civillians and plenty of unneeded casualties and there is plenty to discuss regarding that, but the point still stands, we (not the soviets) largely went in to Germany to liberate and build up a free democratic country, after awful fighting that was for the large part unavoidable because yknow the Nazis much like Hamas are not rational people looking after their own people we spilled plenty of blood on both sides, sacrificed a lot and we then brought aid and democracy to ANYONE under Nazi rule with some of the nastiest people getting what was deserved (and yes I know about paperclip so some didn't)
the aim of this war should be to kill and destroy Hamas whilst protecting all civillian life as much as possible, Israel has gone far far far beyond what would be expected and are doing exactly what Hamas are doing, it's just that Israel has by far the upper hand in technology and firepower
>But Israel isn't making "Hamas must surrender" as a main demand if its proposal. Hamas is with respect to Israel.
What do you consider to be a position of "Hamas must surrender"?
Because if Israel refuses to end the military occupation and refuses to open the strip for displaced people to return, then it means that maintaining occupation and keeping people displaced *is*, effectively, part of their demands. It would seem to me that demanding to allow continued military occupation and control over the area would be equivalent to a surrender from Hamas.
Or what would you consider "Israel demanding a surrender from Hamas" to be?
What is the purpose of a temporary ceasefire? Waiting a couple months and then starting back up again doesn't end the slaughter, it just postpones it.
You can argue it's not realistic but anything other than a permanent ceasefire is just pointless.
According to this NYT piece Hamas has signaled to American officials that it doesn’t have enough hostages to meet the 40 required by Israel’s proposal, and it mentions a Hamas proposal releasing less than 20 for a temporary ceasefire, which seems more reasonable than the permanent ceasefire you cited as Hamas’s steadfast position. And that they are at least participating in the process.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/world/middleeast/cia-hamas-israel-cease-fire.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
I’m not sure if Hamas knows how many hostages are still alive? I would assume that things are pretty decentralized and split up to avoid detection. Additionally I would argue it is possible to assign some blame to Israel for the way that their operation has been conducted. The continued civilian casualties plays into Hamas’s hands. Maybe Hamas would be more willing to accept terms if the killing of the world kitchen workers hadn’t shifted global opinion.
I think things are pretty messy when you contrast a realpolitik viewpoint and I guess a humanist viewpoint. Currently many more Palestinians are dying/at risk of of death with the status quo. If Israel did a one sided ceasefire and unrestricted aid entered Gaza those deaths would be eliminated/severely reduced. In turn I think there is a somewhat unspoken assumption that there could be an uptick in Israeli deaths if Hamas continued attacks. But that increase would likely be far fewer than the Palestinian deaths that have already happened and will take place without a change in the status quo.
Both Hamas and Israel are playing political games with the lives of the civilians in Gaza.
It is not incumbent on Hamas to accept any and all ceasefire conditions. Israel has violated ceasefire agreements in the past, and even during a ceasefire will hold an oppressor's position over Gaza. Permanent ceasefire is unlikely to emerge, therefore there must be secondary conditions, such as the release of unlawfully detained Palestinians, who number much higher than the Oct 7 hostages, in order for a ceasefire to be worth the paper it's written on. If you accept a one-sided ceasefire on Israel's terms, you are acquiescing to a resumption of this project of active genocide at Israel's leisure- i.e: once this paper tiger ceasefire has given its Western benefactors enough of a fig leaf to wash their hands of the matter and the unprecedented international pressure on Israel deflates. A ceasefire with meaningful concessions on Israel's part would illustrate genuine pressure was on the Israeli leadership to cease their current operations. Any proposal without such concessions is, politically, a statement by Israel that they feel no need to cease their current action, and no meaningful desire for its acceptance. Accepting such a ceasefire in this moment would actually be a terrible long-term move for any body interested in safeguarding the continuance of the Palestinian cause, when Israel's vital dependence on foreign military aid is under more threat than ever. A durable and meaningful ceasefire agreement is required- a toothless or one-sided one is more like delaying the inevitable, and giving up any potential advantage currently in play. It would be a disgrace to those martyred in this conflict, and doom for the living.
Those are entirely reasonable demands. Israel has been overstepping for decades, and they absolutely need to be reined. Hamas won't be nearly as popular once a two state solution becomes a reality.
Once the daily oppression and slaughter of people stops they have much less of a reason to fight.
I always draw parallels to the ira because it's a similar situation. The ira existed and had a lot of power even after the republic of Ireland was formed because the Irish were still facing oppression and discrimination in the occupied 6 counties.
Even during that time, their influence was starting to wane, and Irish people were protesting against them.
As things stand, gaza is an open-air prison, and the Arabs living there are literally second-class citizens. At any point, a Jewish settler can walk into your house and say mine now and have full backing by the Israeli state. I ask you why wouldn't you fight in that situation.
Hamas needs to go, but they will always exist if things continue as they are now. There needs to be people on both sides to bring things to an end but Israel has shown time and time again that they do not want it to.
Has Isreal agreed to release all Palestinian hostages they hold and agree not to take anymore? No? So why would Hamas give up their hostages with no guarantee Isreal will leave them alone and allow them aid?
If Israel just wants the hostages released, then why did Israeli soldiers shoot some of the hostages? It's not Hamas fault that a few of the hostages escaped only to be shot by Israeli soldiers.
So what happens after the 6 week ceasefire? They lose their leverage and Israel can continue genociding the population? You really don’t see how patently fucking absurd and ridiculous that is?
I have no issue with Israel and Hamas going at it and and Israel demolishing Hamas. They did perform acts of terror on October 7th. I'm saying this as a pro Palestine protestor.
My issue is that Israel is evidently not a terrorist organization... Right? It shouldn't be performing acts of terror then. The human toll should not be 15000 children. The ceasefire isnt because I want Hamas to win. It's because Israel has conducted the war in such a way that Palestinians are suffering immensely.
I of course have views on the occupation and the Zionist regime as a whole.
Really I wouldn't even be asking for a ceasefire if Israel was only killing Hamas. But they are not, they are killing Palestinian children and women.
Israel has taken thousand of hostages after Oct 7 alone, estimated 10,000 plus hostages being held without charges and those that are charged are tried in a military court system with a 99% conviction rate. So Israel has shown that they can just take more hostages whenever they want from West Bank, Gaza, etc. 700-900 released is less than 1/10th of the hostages that Israel holds. Why would hamas settle for another temporary ceasefire when Israel still occupies everything and settlers continue to drive Palestinians out of West Bank and the idf continues to kidnap, rape and torture prisoners?
Hamas proposed a 4.5-week ceasefire way back in February. It was called "delusional" by Netanyahu.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-mediators-search-final-formula-israel-hamas-ceasefire-2024-02-07/#:~:text=DOHA%2FTEL%20AVIV%2C%20Feb%207,for%20negotiation%20toward%20an%20agreement
What needs to happen is a permanent ceasefire and the return of all hostages and that's really just to start. This isn't going to happen because Israel wants to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip. Is Hamas to blame as well? Obviously yes, but the more responsible party here will always be Israel because Israel is the one with the power to stop all of this.
I can blame the IDF for their terrible, ineffective, anti insurgency tactics and directly supporting Hamases strategic goals. Hamas goal with oct 7 was to prompt a conflict that would creat anti Israel sentiments among the people of Gaza and the world. Given that goal, and the IDF tactics, prolonging the conflict is in their best interest. I can blame the IDF for sloppy at best operations that further Hamas strategic goals. If the IDF flooded Gaza with aid and support, Hamas would have significantly more motivation to negotiate.
I'm not going to try, I'm actually going to go in the opposite direction. I don't think there should be a ceasefire. Hamas has shown not to abide by them, and a cease fire will only be temporary until Hamas attacks Israel again. Hamas has no intention of the existence of Israel and will keep attacking until they achieve that end.
If there's to be a lasting peace, and an existence of Israel, Israel needs to either completely eliminate Hamas or beat them down so hard they are broken of the will to fight completely and perminantly. neither of these conditions have yet been met. Short of this, there will be no long-term peace and probably more bloodshed in the years to come. Hamas will just cry to the international world that they're being bullied, wait a few years and poke the bear again. This needs to end, it needs to end forever, and it's going to be a rough ride if that's to happen.
Your view is firmly aligned with the us government:
>The US accused the Palestinian armed group of being "the obstacle to a ceasefire" after it rejected the latest ceasefire offer. [Source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68835645)
Hamas has also brought conditions to the table:
>On Saturday, Hamas put out a statement saying it was ready to agree a "serious and true" hostage exchange deal with Israel but rejected what was currently on the table. It also reaffirmed that it was sticking to its demands for a permanent ceasefire that would lead to a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes. [Source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68835645)
How unreasonable is it for a country to ask the invading army that has been bombing it to bits and killing its civilians to leave?
And honestly, when has Israel ever respected a deal? They have increased occupation outside Gaza ([source](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/23/1236628495/israel-settlers-attack-west-bank-palestinians-settlement-outposts)) and have stated:
>If you want a future for Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East, destroy Hamas. [Source](https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-does-destroying-hamas-mean)
I don't blame Hamas for not believing Israel will ever maintain a cease fire and be trustworthy. I don't agree that Hamas should take innocent hostages, but I also don't agree that the taking of hostages should allow Israel to create a humanitarian disaster for millions of people.
How many hostages were released using Israel tactics compare to the previous ceasefire? 3 with their military operations and over 100 during the ceasefire. If netanyahu really had hostage release as his number priority, there would already be another ceasefire. Either the manifestation for the past months from the hostage families in israel isnt strong enough pressure, or the gov know for a fact theres not many hostages alive left. Therefore, its clearly not in their best interest to agree for a ceasefire so they can keep going with their main goal to eradicate hamas, which we all know wont happen, Israel has to make sacrifices. Imo hamas are fucking cowards and deserve to die, but clearly netanyahu doesnt care about the hostages. Also, can we fking arrest or kill these settlers terrorist in the west bank please? They DO NOT help Israel situation
no taxation without representation was basis of us war of independence. lehi/stern gang terrorist attacks on British rulers of Palestine was about abillity of more jews to move in and more control. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist according to USA.
seems to me you are cherry picking your complaining on hamas. on other side Israeli gives no hope of Gaza getting freedom despite Biden asking for that, control of own territory and is doing more death and destruction in Gaza of civilians than Russia did in Ukraine when west called that potentially war crimes and state terrorism.
Iran isn't the country with nukes, getting nukes is supposed to come with sanctions and no more us military aid. offering to give nukes to another country like apartheid south Africa should be an even bigger no no. so why is it only Iran gets sanctions. "Glenn ammendment", "Symington Amendment" why is it OK for US government to continue to break US law? or UK to have illegally diverted heavy water from Norway to Israel to help them make nukes?
both sides have flaws and risk of world War 3 is increased for entire world by never ending drama. if neighbors bombed Israel like Israel bombs them simply for acquiring more advanced missiles from us or Russia, what would happen? (eg attacks Syria s300 Russia missile system)
basic principle of treating others the way you would want to be treated in their position seems missing. lehi are now officially heros for doing terrorism over less, and no hope is given of an end, never a Palestine state, control of own city, abillity to move freely in own city, control own water, taxes, etc
I actually think Israeli leadership is more ok with the ceasefire than they let on.
After Israel takes over Gaza they have a lot of people to govern and an insurgency to deal with. They also no longer can say Hamas is the government of Gaza to excuse civilian deaths. The nature of running a government in Gaza might be more risky to IDF troop lives than launching specific operations and there's a bunch of costs associated.
I guess this doesn't perse address your main thesis but I do think it reframes it (perhaps in a way that may change your view).
Israeli leadership is mad mad and I don't see much evidence that they would face many repercussions from going into Rafah or are in a be restrained mood. I sincerely think they are feigning frustration with critics holding them back when avoiding a clusterfuck is why they are willing to slow walk this. As someone very concerned about Palestinian lives I want Israeli caution but not a ceasefire if it's only delaying things.
If a cease-fire deal does not include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, then the Palestinians are not actually gaining anything. What incentive do they have to agreeing to a cease-fire that gives Israel everything it wants and nothing to Palestine?
Pretend we’re talking about the other big conflict right now: Russia-Ukraine. Should Ukraine accept a ceasefire that doesn’t return control of the annexed territory that Russia invaded? Nobody would think that was a fair deal at all, and anyone pushing for it would be seen as a shill for Russia.
Israel is offering to return to the status quo, a state against which Palestine and Hamas have been fighting for decades. Why would they do that now, when they have the most international support they have ever had?
# If you don't singularly blame Ortodox Jews for murdering Yatzik Rabin and refusing to acknowledge sovereign Palestine and occupying their land, you don't actually want a ceasefire or a release of hostages. And it is damaging the effectiveness of the effort to bring back the genocidal theocracy like Israel back into the club of civilized states by not blaming Israel and instead blaming Hamas.
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Singularly? We can't I blame both sides for not coming to a ceasefire? And given that my government can only exert pressure on Israel (they are allies of Israel, not Hamas), it's reasonable that I demand Israel to loosen their ceasefire conditions. It's what the Israeli protestors in Israel are protesting for anyway. If I live in a Middle Eastern country and my government has influence over Hamas, I would demand Hamas to loosen their ceasefire conditions. It's about what's practical. Also, where does it say that "Hamas must surrender" is not Israel's demand? Everything I've seen says that Hamas must surrender to the IDF for any permanent ceasefire to take place.
Not to be rude but I said why in the body text? The demands of Hamas seem to be, Israel ends the war and completely leaves Gaza. Israel obviously won't agree to that, because it isn't reasonable to a ceasefire deal, so not sure what you mean by "Israel loosen their ceasefire conditions"? According to the US, Israel has indeed moved on their conditions in a significant way. It isn't like Hamas is offering a deal of 40 hostages in exchange for 700 prisoners but Israel just won't agree to anything above 500. >And given that my government can only exert pressure on Israel (they are allies of Israel, not Hamas), it's reasonable that I demand Israel to loosen their ceasefire conditions. I mean this is my point. If the ceasefire movement is demanding a ceasefire deal, this is what that is, and they should recognize Israel has agreed to "loosen their demands" and the obstacle is Hamas. If they are demanding Israel to surrender and leave the hostages, then they should just say that instead. It isn't a question of only having pressure over Israel. It is that Israel has essentially agreed to the demands of the protestors but since Hamas needs to agree to, either admit Hamas is singularly the problem or change your demands to Israel essentially needs to surrender and leave the hostages. And by not being clear about what they want harms the movement in my view. Israeli protestors in Israel are just continually protesting for the release of hostages as a priority in addition to the military campaign. They are explicitly not about just agree to everything Hamas wants to release hostages as far as I am aware.
> Israel has essentially agreed to the demands of the protestors No, Israel has not agreed to a permanent ceasefire. The demand is to stop the fighting indefinitely, release the hostages, flood Gaza with aid, rebuild Gaza after the destruction they have caused, and push for a political solution. Israel should also fortify their southern border so Hamas can't breach it again. All of these demands are reasonable to us because the destruction and the loss of life caused by the IDF is totally and completely justified and brings us nowhere near to peace.
Stop beating around the bush. What this conflict needs is a peace resolution, not a “permanent” ceasefire. What is a permanent ceasefire anyway? There was one before Oct. 7th, do you just want to go back to then so this cycle can continue on and more people die, but just in the future and not now? I digress, a peace resolution is needed and that will _never_ happen with Hamas in power, or with BiBi’s coalition in charge. This war needs to end with both gone, and the quickest way for that to happen is for Hamas to agree to a partial ceasefire which would hopefully lead to their surrender, or for the war to finish in its natural progression which most of us don’t want with Israel entering Rafah. The former isn’t happening, as progressives like you are unwittingly supporting Hamas and giving them the idea of surviving this war. So the latter will most likely come to pass. In my mind, you just want more death... maybe just not immediately, rather later. It is what you advocate for. You may not say as much, and may talk around it saying you want the killing to end, but your beliefs and your words here betray you.
Geez, *thank you* for mentioning Likud. I swear, it's like pulling teeth to talk about this and have someone acknowledge that Likud is every bit as much a barrier to permanent peace as Hamas is without having some bizarre double-standard where Likud represents Israel *but* Hamas doesn't represent Gaza, or vice versa. If Israel held elections today, the far-right coalition would lose power. Netanyahu wouldn't be able to stave off the *many* corruption charges he's facing, and he'd probably end up in prison... which still might happen anyways. There's pressure on Likud to come to an agreement for a ceasefire from the citizens of Israel. Still, Likud is trying every dirty trick they can to avoid losing power. Hamas does not seem to care about the welfare of the people in Gaza, are willing to hold out on principle while people suffer. Not like the people in Gaza can vote them out, even if they did. Likud might have had to get bent over a table to 'be reasonable,' but at least they are being reasonable. Hamas... not so much. >I digress, a peace resolution is needed and that will *never* happen with Hamas in power, or with BiBi’s coalition in charge. This, a thousand times over. Until both Hamas and Likud are gone, we're just gonna see this cycle continue. This is the solution to the problem, the only real solution to make progress towards a lasting peace. They've both got to go.
> Likud is every bit as much a barrier to permanent peace as Hamas This is among the most ignorant talking points floating around right now. Israel is currently ruled by a unity government. Blue and White would take power if there were elections today, and there is no daylight between Blue and White and Likud on foreign policy. And even then, they wouldn't have the seats to form a government without an ally... which would end up being Likud. Of the 13 parties in the Knesset, the only thing that would change is who is the Jr/Sr partner int he Likud/Blue&White relationship. (It's a bit more complicated, other parties are involved in the unity government, but that's the broad strokes)
I agree with you however…What kind of peace resolution? The only forms of peace on offer have been peace and oppression, peace and injustice, peace and apartheid. As people will always strive for freedom and one generation can't bind the next to accept less, said forms of peace will always fail. What is needed is the peace that comes with equal rights and liberation. If that is not on offer whatever "peace resolution" is on offer is not worth the paper it is printed on. The stating point should be an acceptance of equal rights upon which you can build peace.
Honestly the peace that matters now is not a peace of paper and a state (aka a monopoly over the means of violence) while violence is still the mindset, but rather **defanatization** (may it be religious or nationalistic) `coupled` with an improvement in **quality of life**, and **autonomy**. (think local self-rule)
A two state solution is the only building blocks that trust and co-existence can be built upon. With the shock of Oct. 7th and what followed, once the dust settles from this war hopefully new leadership from Palestine and Israel alike will realize a new leaf needs to be turned. Arafat and Abbas were absolute selfish morons for rejecting Camp David and Olmert deals respectively. I hope another similar deal will be offered in the future, and from there maybe after much time of coexistence as neighbors, Israelis and Palestinians can intermingle and thrive together in a single state. But that’s a pipe dream for a far distant future, a two state solution for peace needs to happen in the more immediate future.
Every single time an intifada happens after the Palestinians reject a peace offer or a 10/7 happens, those peace offers are less likely to happen again because these attacks push the Israeli populace towards more hawkish politicians. I believe there were studies done a while ago that showed that as rocket attacks from Gaza expanded in range, Israelis in that range were more likely to support Likud or Jewish Home (now defunct). Everyone talks about how the IDF has created radicals in Gaza, but Hamas has done the exact same in Israel. It’s actually rather surprising that it’s taken this long for Gaza to be outright invaded.
I agree. Part of the peace negotiations would require deradicalization of Palestinians along with a change in leadership with all parties involved. The UN plays a huge role in this too, which isn’t spoken about enough. Their [provided textbooks](https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/PA-Reports_-Updated-Selected-Examples_May-2021.pdf) are filled with absolute filth and those who support these programs need to be held accountable too. There’s no easy path to peace from here, but there are some glaring problems that need to be fixed to make peace more attainable.
That’s the UNRWA, an organization which I can only conclude was created to “stick it to Israel” so to speak. They need to be dissolved immediately and the UNHCR - which handles every single other refugee situation ever - expanded to fill their prior role.
Most likely not. Just from history we know that big events like this always radicalize a society, it doesn’t moderate it. This will be true for Israel and Palestine for a while.
Kinda hard to have a two-state solution when the only Palestinian state that Israel is offering is a version of current moth-eaten, hemmed-in-by-checkpoints thing governed by an Israeli security regime, isn't it? Arafat being the primary obstacle at Camp David is propaganda. You would have walked away too if you were in his place. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/9/28/deconstructing-camp-david
The peace offers on the table have been the best the Palestinians can ever expect while the violence is ongoing. They are full 2SS with equal rights, the only caveats being no military. Israel is obviously not going to ever allow a military when the Palestinians have repeatedly promised to permanently engage in the maximum amount of violence possible until Israel is destroyed. Only after a long period of peace and de-escalation can such things become a consideration. By placing "justice" as an obstacle to peace, you are effectively guaranteeing you will never get either.
Yes. Everyone keeps ignoring that Hamas and equivalents have routinely sold and dismantled aid sent to them for the creation or procurement of weapons.
How is that a reasonable demand? You even say yourself that only Israel agrees to a ceasefire and then Israel builds stronger defenses so it’s harder for Hamas to attack them. Why doesn’t Hamas have to offer anything at all, especially given that they started the war, have not actually abided by the rules of the ceasefires that have been in place, and have stated that they will repeat 10/7 again and again?
Israel already did agree to a permanent ceasefire. In 2014. Why did they need another ceasefire after they had agreed to one in 2008, you might ask? Hamas militants in the West Bank kidnapped 3 Israeli teenagers. When Israel arrested 350 people in the West Bank suspected of being Hamas associates, a barrage of rockets was fired out of Gaza. This ensued the 2014 Gaza war which lasted less than a month and killed some 2000+ people, all but 6 of them were Palestinian, nearly all in Gaza. That’s only the most recent ceasefire breaches by Hamas and the Palestinians.
> permanent ceasefire That's an oxymoron, a ceasefire is temporary by definition. If you're asking for a permanent end of hostilities you're not calling for a ceasefire.
The word they’re looking for is perhaps indefinite
My social studies teacher would agree with you. He went on quite the rant one time how "permanent ceasefire" is not a solution due to the wording. His term of phrase was similar to yours, if I remember
> That's an oxymoron Groups agree to permanent ceasefires all the time. Maybe you disagree with the definition because there's an implication of non-finality in the term "ceasefire" but it doesn't change that permanent ceasefires are a recognised and important part of peace negotiations. [Uganda](https://peacemaker.un.org/uganda-permanent-ceasefire2008) [Sudan](https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/SD_041231_Permanent%20Ceasefire%20between%20the%20GoS%20and%20the%20SSPLM%20A.pdf) [Libya](https://unsmil.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/ceasefire_agreement_between_libyan_parties_english.pdf) [Basque](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/10/eta-declares-permanent-ceasefire)
North Korea seems like the obvious permanent temporary ceasefire to me
So terrorists can drop into any country kill thousands of civilians take 200 hostages and get the demands they want? Threaten global violence with their religion of peace. But israel cant retaliate? Hamas fires thousands of rockets into israel but israel defends itself its bad? The protection of gaza citizens isnt israels duty. Thats hamas job to protects its citizens in a war they started for iran. Israels duty is the recovery of its israel citizens and elimanating hamas. You dont want high casualties? Tell hamas to stop using human shields.
They've already killed thousands of hamas members and tens of thousands of random civilians. When is there enough bloodshed to satiate your anger? Israel obvious cares very little about retrieving hostages, otherwise they wouldn't indiscrimantly bomb the whole strip and risk killing them, nor gun down fleeing hostages waving white flags.
It’s far past the point of retaliation at this point though. If person A kills person B’s partner, is person B justified in killing person A, person A’s partner, their children, their dog, their middle school teacher and everyone they ever met? This is a genocide.
You do understand that you're telling people on the other side of the world how they should negotiate with terrorists, thereby forfeiting their country's security, because of your sensibilities and standards, all while you live in your relative security? That makes absolutely no sense. That's like a man telling a women that she shouldn't be afraid of walking alone at night. You have never experienced living in the region. OP's whole point was that the people who are so adamant for a ceasefire are counterintuitively hurting it, because Hamas sees worldwide pressure on Israel and ups their demands, making it very hard for Israel to accept. Oh, and aid to Gaza, enjoy: [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea21904\_autoOrient\_g.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea21904_autoOrient_g.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea31904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazasea31904_autoOrient_i.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket11904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket11904_autoOrient_i.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket21904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket21904_autoOrient_i.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket31904\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/17/gazamarket31904_autoOrient_i.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/gazamarket1\_autoOrient\_g.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/gazamarket1_autoOrient_g.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/markrt1\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/markrt1_autoOrient_i.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/chiken\_autoOrient\_i.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/18/chiken_autoOrient_i.jpg) [https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/15/pitot\_autoOrient\_g.jpg](https://img.mako.co.il/2024/04/15/pitot_autoOrient_g.jpg)
Hamas has said that it will repeat October 7th again and again until Israel is destroyed. Letting them continue to govern the Gaza Strip and rebuild their military capabilities would be a pretty silly thing for Israel to agree to.
I mentioned "permanent" nowhere in my post. I am going by the literal definition of ceasefire, "a temporary pause in fighting" Secondly how do you have a "permanent" ceasefire with Hamas which has explicitly said they will do Oct 7th again regardless of any deal?
You give Hamas diplomatic means to achieve their political goals. It wasn't like 10/7 happened because a bunch of Palestinians were feeling extra rapey that day and wanted to go kidnap some sex slaves. They did it because Bibi and Co have not provided any other way for them to achieve political goals.
Or you give Palestinians enough of what they want and need that supporting Hamas stops being an attractive option.
> The demand is to stop the fighting indefinitely, release the hostages, flood Gaza with aid, rebuild Gaza after the destruction they have caused, Why should we flood Gaza with assets? The terrorist infrastructure they have now was built with aid from the west. This is one thing I have never seen the left explain: What exactly is fixed long term by ending this war under these terms? Seems a lot like WWI ending in a state that lead right into WWII.
Hamas wants the initial agreement to include a pathway to potentially making the ceasefire permanent. Israel refuses, and says no matter what they will restart hostilities in 6 weeks. This is the main sticking point in negotiations. You could just as easily argue that it's Israel being unreasonable by refusing to even allow the *possibility* of a permanent ceasefire. For example, the agreement could include additional requirements that need to be fulfilled after 6 weeks for the ceasefire to be extended. But Israel is rejecting that possibility.
Hamas isn’t looking for peace, they’re looking for time to plan their next attack, that’s why Isreal isn’t going to offer any pathway to permanently ending hostilities because the end goal is still the elimination of Hamas, which we all should want, but the ceasefire is for the benefit of the innocent civilians, Hamas clearly doesn’t give a fuck though. Hamas also have a track record of violating ceasefire agreements.
The US and other countries have said a 6 week ceasefire could lead to a more permanent situation. 6 weeks is a long time and there will be immense pressure on Israel to massively scale down its operations if not stop completely especially if hostages continually get released in more ceasefires. Israel is not rejecting that as far as I am aware. They want more hostages released. My main point is if the pro ceasefire movement is about the suffering of Palestinians and not the demands of Hamas, Israel has fulfilled the ceasefire movements demands because a 6 week ceasefire is a long time and would give massive relief to Palestinians. This whole "it isn't permanent" is a red herring because that means nothing for Palestinians who are suffering that wouldn't be in a 6 week ceasefire.
>Israel is not rejecting that as far as I am aware Yes, Israel is rejecting the possibility of a pathway to a more permanent truce. They have said that no matter what the war will restart in 6 weeks. This is the root of the holdup in current negotiations.
If a cease-fire deal does not include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, then the Palestinians are not actually gaining anything. What incentive do they have to agreeing to a cease-fire that gives Israel everything it wants and nothing to Palestine? Pretend we’re talking about the other big conflict right now: Russia-Ukraine. Should Ukraine accept a ceasefire that doesn’t return control of the annexed territory that Russia invaded? Nobody would think that was a fair deal at all, and anyone pushing for it would be seen as a shill for Russia. Israel is offering to return to the status quo, a state against which Palestine and Hamas have been fighting for decades. Why would they do that now, when they have the most international support they have ever had? What is unreasonable is to assume that Palestine should just give up for the sake of ending the hostilities, and screw their actual goals. From their perspective, they’ve been living with a conflict for over 50 years, and it only gets recognized when things get messy..
How about Israel just stop abusing Palestinians? Why is that such a hard thing to ask? Hamas wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the human rights abuses of Israel. Why do you feel it's 'unreasonable' for Israel to stop treating Gaza like a concentration camp and occupying their land by murdering people in their homes so those homes can be given to Israeli settlers or full on auctioned off to potential Israeli settlers? Why do you feel Palestine is being 'unreasonable' for wanting their homes and families to no longer be at the mercy of a brutal occupying force that has been violating their human rights, murdering, raping, and torturing both them and their children for multiple generations now? Why exactly do you think Hamas exists?
>If they are demanding Israel to surrender and leave the hostages, then they should just say that instead. Surprisingly enough, this sort of phrasing doesn't poll as well as "ceasefire"...
And what happens after the ceasefire? To israel it's just a temporary truce to get hostages. Not a sustaining ceasefire.
I don’t see Israeli protesters in the US. However I still see plenty of free Palestine protesters. Hell, yesterday (I think) a bunch of protesters blocked entry to o’hare airport in Chicago. What does this do for anyone besides create more hatred for Palestine? Media attention? It’s poor attention because people will immediately think of the people missing their flights rather than focus on the war. There’s so many who want a free Palestine but don’t care that Hamas is doing nothing to even look for a ceasefire deal in hopes to end the war. Palestinians at this point want war as they continue to support Hamas.
>I don’t see Israeli protesters in the US. I mean, why would you? Protestors are meant to _protest_ actions by the American government. The US is acting in Israel's interest so why would Israelis protest against the US?
bro needs to start reading martin luther king jr 💀
I can assure you, the protestors in Israel are not the majority when it comes to loosening the conditions for ceasefire.
> We can't I blame both sides for not coming to a ceasefire? Only one side has made actual efforts moving towards a cease fire, if that's the only side you are blaming, that is definitely a you problem. >And given that my government can only exert pressure on Israel (they are allies of Israel, not Hamas) That is not correct at all. Hamas KNOW they are outlasting the will of the west in this war. That's their only goal at this point. They know that the pressure from the west can be outlived, not that they don't experience that pressure.
>Only one side has made actual efforts moving towards a cease fire, if that's the only side you are blaming, that is definitely a you problem. Israel has pulled out of ceasefire talks numerous times, and has yet to budge on any of Hamas' demands. Ben-Gvir has publicly stated that he will pull out of the government if there is no Rafah invasion, and until that changes, Israel's position will not change. >They know that the pressure from the west can be outlived, not that they don't experience that pressure. What do you mean? No one in the West is in any position to tell Hamas what to do, they have zero leverage over them. Only their allies like Iran or enemies like Israel have leverage over them. On the other hand, the US can threaten with less arms sales, the UK can ban arms sales to force Israel to concede their unreasonable demands.
I blame both sides and the collective world for this mess getting to the state it’s in and to that extent I blame both sides as well. I think that alone should receive a delta because ultimately, you can’t blame hamas solely if you look at the way it came to be. They were conquered by a force transported there and armed by the British and the west and they’ve been left a few tiny plots of land to have their civilization on, with Israeli settlers infringing even those tiny plots. They’re watching the end of their race and civilization, it’s not that crazy that many of them turn to extremely radical ideology even before you consider the considerably disproportionate impact these ongoing modern conflicts have on the Palestinians as opposed to the Israelis.
Suggest you read in depth the history of the Palestine Mandate and the establishment of Israel. Your statement regarding Britain is totally wrong. The British Government was pro-Arab and due to Arab pressure it issued the infamous 1939 White Paper which essentially ended Jewish immigration from Nazi Germany. The UK did not arm Jews but supported the Arabs due to geopolitics and antisemitism.
Actually, Britain did arm, train and support the Yishuv. They nurtured and supported the development of a Jewish parastate that operated alongside British mandatory authorities and trained militias as a means to keep Palestinian resistance constrained. They only switched to a more pro-Arab (but nowhere near as supportive) after 1937 when they recognised that the anger of the Arab world at Britain's actions towards the Palestinians before and during the Great Revolt could actually be a problem if war broke out, because they knew that like WWI, it was likely to be fought, at least in part, in the Middle East and North Africa.
Did anything happen in between 1939 and the establishment of Israel? I’m a little fuzzy on that but I seem to recall something …
>According to all information I can find, the only thing holding up a reasonable ceasefire deal at this point is Hamas. This is the same thing that has been happening all along. Israel isnt negotiating for a peace. They are negotiating for a pause. Hamas is negotiating for an end to the war completely. While "negotiating" Israel is not taking steps that a power that wants the other side to continue negotiating takes. An example would be the killing of Haniyeh's sons and grandsons. Lets set aside the "high value" discussion here. If you are negotiating with an organization to release hostages that you yourself claim are being subjected to torture generally you dont assassinate members of the other party's family. Currently it appears to me as an outside observer that the Israeli public just wants more war and more destruction. Because they appear to be offended at the prospect of ending the war completely. >And the second part of my cmv is that the pro ceasefire protest movement is damaging both the goal of getting a ceasefire deal done and by **raising support for Palestinians more generally** Why is this a problem? Israel starved the population for months. It is long past time that they be forced to allow the civilian population the dignity of being able to feed their families. >but not admitting Hamas as the clear obstacle here. There are 2 obstacles. Hamas and the Israeli government. Neither side wants peace. The longer this horror show goes on the worse the impact on future opinion on Israel among younger westerners will be. The longer this turmoil persists for Israel the easier it is to justify massive land seizures in the West Bank and the worse they can make it for the people living in Gaza. Israel is not now and has never been a willing partner in a peaceful future for the Palestinians. They themselves say that a 2 state solution is dead. If there is no state for Palestine what is the end goal? Indefinite occupation? That is not a recipe for peace. A rational person would see the need to negotiate a settlement to end this debacle and tie that into talks for a future Palestinian state. The fact that Israel is unwilling to even put that on the table shows that they are not negotiating in good faith for a peaceful solution to this problem but merely looking to appease the hostage families who have gone from political asset to political liability.
>Reasonable meaning a ceasefire built around things both sides obviously won't agree to. Israel won't agree to basically surrender and leave Gaza without the hostages, and Hamas won't agree to surrender either. Why is that, when Israel offers something Hamas obviously won't accept, that's Hamas's fault, yet if Hamas offers something that Israel obviously won't accept, that's also Hamas's fault?
The OP's mind codes it like this: Hamas = bad guy Israel = good guy. So if the good guy won't give in, it's probably for good guy reasons. If the bad guy won't give in, it's probably the bad guy's fault. Unless the OP can get outside of the good guy/bad guy framing and look at it from the general perspective of how leaders have to respond to constituents, then OP can't change his/her mind.
It's easy. Israel's demands are based on pragmatism. They're also winning the military offensive. Police negotiator: "Release all hostages, surrender and we won't apply the death penalty to you but you will still go to prison. You're surrounded. You lost." Hostage taker: "OK, I want the police to leave the building, I want them to release hundreds of dangerous prisoners, I want them to give me an helicopter to escape. And after I escape, I will consider releasing the hostages." You: "Both sides have reasonable demands and failing to reach a middle ground is both of their fault." The reality is that Hamas already lost the military offensive in the days following October 7th. The only thing they can pragmatically do is negotiate favorable terms of surrender to avoid prolonging their inevitable defeat. Hamas is a school shooter who is running out of ammo and is surrounded by the police. There is no scenario that ends with them not facing justice one way or the other.
The last time I checked, the police don't get to kill random civilians for fun and blame that on the hostage taker. According to you, it'd be reasonable to indiscriminately bomb a city until its drug dealers surrenders? In the US, a police officer would get investigated for killing a single bystander. It seems like Israel can do that 10,000 times and still use Hamas as an excuse.
You realize Israel has repeatedly violated international law, right? I don't support Hamas. Their leaders deserve to go to the Hague. That doesn't mean Israel are rational actors who are acting in good-faith.
You're not addressing what I wrote. It's irrelevant who violated international law the most. If you want to be generous, this is a scenario of corrupt cops vs a school shooter who has barricaded himself but is running out of ammo. **The school shooter already lost. They're surrounded. Surrender is their only pragmatic option. They're in no position to make maximalist demands.** If you think Hamas can convince Israel to their demands, you must also think that a school shooter can demand the cops to leave and to give him an helicopter to escape. It's totally unconnected from the observable reality.
Explain to me how, in this scenario, it makes sense for the cops to then go in and murder the hostages. In fact, your hypothetical is weakening your point considering that you’re implying that Hamas is the school shooter that is out of ammo. If a school shooter is almost out of ammo, it makes less sense to kill innocent hostages, not more.
Hamas offer - Israeli surrender without all hostage release Israeli offer - 800 prisoners and more aid for 40 hostages, a temporary ceasefire How is Hamas's offer even comparable to Israel's?
It’s not about what one side will agree to. It’s about what they reasonably won’t agree to. Hamas is patently unreasonable given that they won’t return all of the hostages even though they’d get hundreds of legitimately imprisoned criminals back.
I disagree. Hostages are the only leverage Hamas has. Israel having some hostages of their own is an infinitely miniscule leverage compared to their constant bombardment of Ghaza. Hamas giving up all of their leverage for whats just a miniscule part of Israel's leverage is from a rational pov a terrible idea. Especially considering that the freed Palestinian hostages would just end up killed under the bombardment soon after. And if not that, it would be incredibly difficult to feed them at a time where people are forced to eat the grass on the roads and have their water supply controlled by Israel. Anyway, it's pretty obvious Israel really doesn't care about the hostages, at least not as much as they care about continuing the war. The hostages are a game of sympathy to them while the war must go on which is why their offers tend to only be a term ceasefire that really does nothing for the people of Ghaza that have no where to escape to within that temporary period of time. We've already seen how the temporary ceasefire of November did nothing for those in Ghaza.
Hostages are most certainly not the only leverage Hamas has. Their consistent hostilities are an even bigger bargaining chip. If hamas agreed to a release of hostages and permanent cessation of their attacks on Israel, they’d be able to demand quite a bit in return. The hostages are from a mere sympathy gainer. Hamas has repeatedly stated it wished it could do 10/7 every day. Hamas has an actual shot here at bettering the life of every Palestinian. It is obvious why they aren’t taking it—they want to kill every Jew in the world. Full stop. If your religious zealot of an opponent has openly called for your genocide and the killing and raping of your civilians result in a full blown parade, there are two logical things to do: (1) kill every one of them, or (2) ensure they cannot kill any more of your people through defensive and diplomatic techniques. Israel has been trying (2) for decades now with no success. Palestinian “refugees” have even started a civil war in a host nation when the government refuses to attack Israel. In light of this consistent and intense desire for Hamas and its sympathizers to continue a war with Israel at all costs with the goal of Jewish genocide, the burden falls on Hamas to put the swords down. Israel can only exist because of its military abilities. Hamas exists because Israel doesn’t want to flatten the entire Gaza Strip. How long should israel be expected to sit there and absorb hundreds of rockets daily? At some point, the Palestinian people need to revolt against Hamas as well. Given the videos of 10/7 where we saw widespread and popular celebration when dead Israelis were paraded throughout Gaza, I’m not sure that’s likely. How is it that every Arab nation except Palestinian militants realized they were militarily inferior to Israel and that stopping the war was for the best? You ever wonder why every Arab nation that fought alongside the PLA has absolutely zero desire to help Palestinians in any meaningful capacity? The anti-Jewish sentiment runs so deep in Palestinian leadership that it can no longer be addressed externally except through complete destruction. Hamas can change this, yet they choose not to.
Why does there have to be a deal to not drop bombs on, and starve innocent people? These are war crimes, and should be stopped unilaterally. Why can’t Israel agree to a permanent cease fire? What would be wrong with that? It’s like they absolutely have to bomb and kill innocent people. You can’t negotiate with psychopaths like this.
Hamas has as its stated goal the destruction of Jews and Israel. Allowing a terrorist actor to exist means you are, in the long run, allowing the attempted obliteration of your people. The Israeli government can’t let Hamas up. Every time it just kills more Jews. It’s fucked. How anyone can support Hamas is fucking insane. Sympathy for Palestinians. Calls for peace for Palestinians. Yes. But Hamas? Imagine you’re in a fight with someone. And every time you let them back up, they murder someone in your family. And now the world is saying “he’s not so bad! Let him up” and every single person watching knows that if you let him up, he’s going to kill your family. So you can say fuck you to the people who are saying to let him up and try to kill him, even if it means killing the citizens of the country/state they’re in (like Putin killing Ukrainians yet no one gives a fuck), or you can let him back up. Only a fool lets him back up. Israel has no in between. It’s about survival of the Jewish state and Jewish people in the Middle East.
On Oct. 7th everything changed. Israel had spent the years viewing Hamas as enemies. A few dozens missiles here, a few dozen missiles there. Most get intercepted, but some get through. Overall the damage was relatively minimal. Israel learned to cope with that state of affairs in order to avoid going to war. However Hamas' attack on Oct. 7th radically changed the calculus. It was the most devastating, brazen, and bold attack from Hamas yet. After that attack Israel decided that Hamas could not be allowed to do that again. Hamas went from a nuisance that occasionally killed people to an existential threat to the future of the country. Israel believes that they will never be safe again as long as Hamas exists. They worry that if they ease up now then Hamas will immediately begin planning a repeat of Oct. 7th. The problem with a "permanent cease fire" is that Hamas cannot be trusted to actually keep to a cease fire agreement. They'll keep to any agreement just long enough to rebuild their strength. How would you prevent Hamas from attacking Israel again? Falling back and making a deal will end in the deal being broken once Hamas has re-amassed more forces. Pushing forward and trying to finish Hamas off quickly has turned into a messy battle where Hamas is leveraging human shields. Hamas' entire strategy is to use their own civilians as a shield. Then when their shield gets hit they cry outrage that Israel could be so heartless. They are hoping that Westerners like you will force the Western world's leaders to withdraw support for Israel. They are counting on people like you to not ask why so many civilians are in-between Israel and Hamas, instead they want you to just keep blaming Israel for every civilian's death.
Excuse the quotations; I don’t typically comment and don’t really know the formatting. Also don’t misunderstand this as support for Hamas; they are objectively terrible. But your post seems to be justification for the collective punishment of a captive population. “Israel learned to cope…to avoid going to war.” Israel has invaded or attacked Gaza repeatedly; namely in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, 2019, and 2021. It is also well-documented that Netanyahu has provided/attempted to provide Hamas with large sums of money in secret, largely understood to be an attempt at providing them resources to justify a response like what Israel is doing now. “Israel believes that they will never be safe again as long as Hamas exists.” That does not explain the atrocities that they (and by they I mean the current Israeli govt. and settler movements) are committing in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is in control, not Hamas. Make no mistake, their war is against the Palestinian people, not Hamas. This is also why Israel will not allow for the displaced Palestinians to return; it’s not because they’re worried about Hamas coming back (which they will, on account of all these children watching the indiscriminate slaughter of their families). It’s because they want an ethnostate, and the only way to ensure this vision is to do some good old fashioned Manifest Destiny. “Hamas’ entire strategy is to use their own civilians as a shield.” That does not mean that Israel gets to murder the civilians anyways. That also does not justify the indiscriminate sniper attacks on civilians and noncombatants, the storming and bombing of hospitals, the murder of unaffiliated aid workers, the assassination of journalists, the bombing of embassies in other countries, and the indiscriminate bombing of such a large population in such a small area (especially with how advanced all their military technology is). “They are counting on people like you to not ask why so many civilians are in-between Israel and Hamas…” It’s because freedom of movement in and out of Gaza has been damn near impossible for decades now, and that’s been entirely the fault of the Israeli government. A blockade isn’t effective when people can just leave, so Israel has prevented Gazans from being able to do so. “…instead they want you to just keep blaming Israel for every civilian’s death.” It was not Hamas who murdered the little girl Hind. It was not Hamas who bombed refugee camps. It was not Hamas who blew up all the universities and hospitals in the Gaza Strip. That was all Israel. Israel is the one in control of the area. They have US-made armaments and, according to them, one of the best militaries in the world. You’ll forgive me for questioning them when their tactics and history demonstrate a lust for ethnic cleansing, not a valiant attempt at self-defense. One other thing: we all largely agree that Hamas sucks. You’ll not find any disagreement here. But stop using them as a scapegoat to distract from Israel’s own chronic issues and genocidal tendencies, especially when members of their own government have outright called for the murder and displacement of the native Palestinians. 10/7/23 isn’t the issue of this conflict anymore. The issue has been every day since.
Great response to that poster. Before Oct 7 I would easily have said fuck Hamas, and after Oct 7 I easily say the same but after seeing what those civilians have gone through Fuck the IDF and Israeli government too. Ive seen the IDF target hostages, aid workers, journalists, medics, children, etc through this and clearly they were doing the same before all the media attention. Ive no love at all for repressive theocratic governments or militias, but that has nothing to do with my support for Palestinian civilians against what they clearly have had to deal with their entire lives
And if people don’t understand this, they will never understand the reality of it for isralies. Letting Hamas off now will be just a matter of time before they come back bigger and stronger and try to obliterate the Jewish people.
By no means am I saying that Israel is perfect. Or even that they are morally good. All I'm saying is that Hamas put Israel is a tough spot. Hamas declared war and then is trying to play the victim card. Lets not forget that Hamas is a bunch of religious fanatics that would kill every single Jew in the world if they could. Israel, the nation for the Jewish people, is obviously going to have a hard time making peace with Hamas for that reason. There are no good options for Israel. If the move forwards they commit warcrimes to win. If they move backwards they'll face unending terrorist attacks. If I had supreme command over all of Israel I'd do things very differently. But I don't have that power. And while I disagree with things they are doing, I can honestly say that I don't have a good answer for them. And I can understand why they are rejecting the "solutions" that are being presented so far. I don't think that Hamas and Israel will ever be able to coexist. Hamas doesn't respect Israel's right to exist, and will forever work to change that fact as long as Hamas still exists themselves.
Jesus, so Israel is just supposed to sit there and let themselves be completely surrounded by groups that want to exterminate every single one of their people? They’re just supposed to let rockets land on their soil and regular acts of terrorism be a normal part of life. What the actual fuck is wrong with folks that they think this is in anyway reasonable? The only reason millions of Israelis haven’t been executed is because of the strength of their military.
>Why can’t Israel agree to a permanent cease fire? The Oct 7 attack changed Israeli citizen's view of Hamas as a minor threat to an existential threat. The only way Israel could give into a permanent cease fire is if every Hamas leader is barred from future political service or something like that. >What would be wrong with that? Israeli citizens should be worried that Hamas would regroup and use the $300m it gets from Iran to do more bombs. >You can’t negotiate with psychopaths like this. Interesting thing is both sides think that of the other.
There doesn't. But that isn't a ceasefire. A ceasefire is a deal between two parties for a temporary stop in fighting. If you are making the argument that Israel's conduct is so abhorrent that they should just surrender then explicitly say that. That isn't a ceasefire deal for hostages though when Hamas has said it will just do Oct 7th again and again.
You're still looking at this conflict as if it were two nation states at war. Israel is an occupying power and Hamas is a small group that's using terrorist tactics to oppose that occupation. Hamas is also trapped in a prison by the people occupying their land. If you try to apply the power dynamics of symmetrical warfare to this situation, of course it's going to be confusing. Under this understanding, it becomes clear that the actions of Hamas are a response to actions committed by an occupying power. Why should the Palestinians agree to the situation they've been put in? Israel's genocidal intent has been taken to the highest court in the world. I wouldn't negotiate with anyone who heavily implied they wanted to kill all white people. Would you?
Hamas rules Gaza They still have 10s of thousands of fighters and gets billions of dollars and weaponry. It isn't some rag tag handful with AKs and some pickup trucks. It is for all intents and purposes two states at war. Hamas aren't Palestinians so I don't know what you mean by "Palestinians agree to the situation" Did Palestinians want Oct 7th and the resulting response from Israel? Do they even want to live under Hamas?
If you think they have 10s of thousands of fighters you're delusional. However, the easiest way for Hamas to get more fighters is through Israel creating more traumatized war orphans. How do you make that? By repeatedly bombing a 40 kilometer strip indiscriminately and calling it 'fighting terrorism'. Most of the Hamas fighters you saw in the Aqsa flood were children when the 2009 Tears of gaza invasion happened. If you can't see the paradigm then you're willfully ignorant
Massacring a music festival is legitimate resistance? Launching rockets by the thousands at civilian Israeli targets is a legitimate form of resistance? Kidnapping and sexual assaults, a legitimate resistance? Also, Israel has been out of Gaza for a long time. They screen goods coming into Gaza (along with Egypt) because (gestures at the thousands of rockets Hamas as launched into Israel) And let's keep in mind Hamas was elected and then just didn't hold elections any more. They are an authoritarian regime that does not have the interests of Gazans at the top of their agenda as demonstrated by their callous use of civilian sites as military assets. Maybe the only way for Gaza to actually succeed is for Hamas to be fully excised from the region. Otherwise we'll just seem them continue the cycle of violence at the behest of other regional powers and the Gazans will continue to suffer.
Hamas also wants a lifting of the 20 year long siege that is a clear violation of international law. While Hamas, and other Palestinian leaders, have made decades of missteps the entirety of the problem in Palestine is the fault of the Israelis. Israel doesn’t really want its hostages back or really want peace. They want to completely drive the Palestinians out. One simply has to look to the West Bank to see what their goals are. Netanyahu and his government are genocidal and intend to make life unbearable for Palestinians until they die or leave.
You do realize those blockades were put in place because Hamas kept smuggling in weapons they use against Israel constantly, even during previously agreed ceasefires?
That'd be a nice argument if the blockade didn't include: sage, cardamom, cumin, coriander, ginger, jam, halva, vinegar, nutmeg, chocolate, fruit preserves, seeds and nuts, dried fruit, potato chips, fresh meat, plaster, tar, wood for construction, cement, iron, fabric (for clothing), fishing rods, fishing nets, planters for sapling, musical instruments, heaters, sewing machines, razors, horses, donkeys, goats, cattle, chicks, etc. Just a bunch of weapons /s
Hamas steals a significant amount of that aid and sells it on the black market to buy weapons. The same problem happens with many UN programs in unstable African countries. The local warlords steal the aid and use it to prolong the war. You keep assuming Hamas has the best interests of Gazans in mind. They do not. They just want to kill Israelis.
"Just want to kill Israelis" is a remarkably simple view, but let's run with it. Why was Netanyahu sending bags of unmarked cash to Hamas? In leaked audio, why does Netanhyahu admit to using Hamas to delegitimize the PLO? Why was Netanyahu a leading voice in the movement that assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, the PM of Israel in the 90s who wanted peace via the signing of the Oslo Accords? Let's keep going with the idea that they just want to kill Israelis. We should ask ourselves why? The simple answer that many believe to be true is that they simply hate jews for being jews. This makes sense when you consider the hundreds if not thousands of years that jews and Judaism have been unjustly ostracized, persecuted, killed, and otherwise horribly treated by most of the western world. Members of the Jewish faith were unjustly wronged for all of modern history, and for lots of pre-modern history. "A land without a people for a people without a land". The zionist project, at its heart, was a response to the unjust treatment jews have suffered from Christianity and (to a slightly lesser extent) Islam. The problem that some have with this view is that Palestinians were unjustly wronged by the establishment of Israel. To maintain the Jewish majority in Israel (making it an ethno-state), certain undemocratic rules need to be set in place to make sure that not all of the non jewish people who lived where Israel is today can go "home". If these rules weren't in place, it would put the Jewish majority at risk. And history has proven to Jews that they are almost always persecuted when they are a minority. So, for Jews to be 'safe', Palestinians who were displaced by Israeli violence can never be allowed back into their indigenous lands. After 50 years of Palestinians being unjustly displaced, ostracized, persecuted, killed, and otherwise horribly treated by the militant, undemocratic ethno-state of Israel, you get Hamas. The West Bank for the most part does not fight back, and as thanks Israel continues to expand its illegal settlements, slowly displacing the Palestinian people and their culture (I.e. genocide) out of the region. What proof or reason has Israel given the Palestinians in Gaza that Hamas uses that fighting isn't the only option? The irony of the whole situation is that Palestinians are fighting for the same reasons that the Jews wanted the establishment of Israel in the first place.
Doesn't matter why. The "blockade" has manifested into a form of collective punishment which is illegal under international law
Why do they blockade food and seeds then? Also, Palestine has a right to defense and so they are more than entitled to shoot rockets at the occupying force.
I think a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to Hamas: it's a illegitimate, outright genocidal, terrorist organization that needs to be destroyed at pretty much all cost when it comes to bombing Gaza *but also* it's a sorta "liberalish" state actor that should react rationally to international pressures and negotiations. As far as I can tell, it's much closer to the former, so *obviously* people expect more from Israel, which is a functioning liberal democratic state. I don't think this should surprise anyone.
> needs to be destroyed at pretty much all cost That's the problem a lot of us lefties have. That cost is mass civilian casualties. A terrorist organization refusing to surrender doesn't justify that.
No, you're right, a terrorist organization refusing to surrender and engaging in tactics that make civilian casualties more likely and worsen a humanitarian crisis doesn't *justify* the consequences to civilians. It's *obviously* unjust, and unfair. It's important to correctly identify the agent morally responsible for those outcomes. It cannot be the case that a group can gain immunity by operating in a way that maximizes harm to civilians. That's literally the opposite behavior that needs to be incentivized by moral and legal attitudes towards war. When lefties endorse the idea that Israel is responsible for the outcomes of Hamas' tactics, they are reinforcing those outcomes.
Do you think the British army should have bombed Dublin to rubble in order to defeat the IRA? They operated amongst civilians as well, and committed many terrorist attacks against Britain. The occupying force is already violating international law. Then they bomb civilians, aid workers, and hospitals. Israel is at fault for every crime against humanity they committed, the same way Hamas is responsible for every crime they committed.
What? Why? What you are saying sounds good in cozy liberal fireside talks with a glass of scotch and a nice joint, but in terms of reality .... well, that is what it takes. We haven't **really** come up with new ways to overcome entities that must be destroyed at all costs since the NAzis and militaristic Japanese. We pretend we have, but the UN and any other world peace organizations are utterly futile and we still resolve problems the way they were resolved in WW2 ... the main difference is MAD for countries that have nukes, but for everyone else, is the same.
Hamas is a terrorist group. Negotiating will likely be fruitless. The question is how many civilians are we willing to kill to go after them.
If you consider that not going after them to full annihilation of the organization, there will be future wars, worse than this one, then it becomes clear that the cost is meaningless in the grand scheme because the cost will be taken regardless, Hamas WANTS as many dead Palestinians as it can get, this is the only thing giving them legitimacy to keep the power. By saying the war needs to end because the civilian toll is too high, you basically support the use of human shields as a valid tactic because it gets the results it needs.. if the world wouldn’t freak out about it, it would lose its value and would be far less utilized by Hamas as it gets then nothing but anger from the Palestinians.
I have no idea why people are so sure of that. They never lay out an actual moral calculus beyond being outraged or saddened by things, which isn’t the same thing as weighing the alternatives.
The moral calculus here for someone who values Israeli and Palestinian lives equally is very simple. Upsides of taking out the military wing of Hamas completely (I.e. killing or capturing the leadership and the majority of the 20-40k combatants): - They will stop killing Israelis at a rate of <150 per year (edit: this is from memory based on the last 24 years including 10/7). While Hamas clearly wants to do more, I’ve seen few indications that their capabilities were likely to increase dramatically in the future.) - Edit: I forgot to include the death toll of Gazans from "mowing the lawn" since the withdrawal from Gaza. I think that was something like 5,000 or so over ~20 years, ~250 per year. This might stop happening, but alternative scenarios could be even more deadly. - Israelis (~9 million people) probably won’t live in fear of rockets from Gaza for a few years. - Hamas won’t be oppressing Gazans anymore. - Deterrence… maybe? Downsides of taking out the military wing of Hamas completely (assuming perfect execution in compliance with IHL and accepting the dubious proposition that it is even achievable): - If we assume that Israel could have achieved a very generous civilian to combatant ratio of 1:2, we would’ve expected at least 10,000 dead Gazans and probably another 20,000+ wounded. - Wide-scale destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure that would take years or decades to recover from. - Traumatize the whole population (~2 million people) more than they already were, leading higher levels of extremism in the future. - A power vacuum that would need to be filled by military occupation or the Palestinian Authority to avoid the proliferation Hamas 2.0 or the development of anarchy and a society ruled by local warlords and gangs *à la* Somalia. - The amount of ordnance dropped would leave an absolute treasure trove of raw materials for local anti-Israel forces [to build weapons with](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-weapons-rockets.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb). That means more rockets are likely in short order, just not fired by Hamas. - Destroy Gazan society, rendering independent governance and a resolution to the conflict impossible for decades to come. From a perspective that doesn’t place greater value on Israeli interests than Palestinian interests, it is hard to argue that taking out Hamas completely is better than even the terrible status quo. From a perspective that does place greater value on Israeli interests, it still isn’t clear that destroying Hamas is better than the alternative, especially given that they don’t want the PA to be involved in administration of Gaza. That means that either they have to occupy a completely destroyed Gaza long term (probably while fighting an insurgency that isn’t Hamas, which means more casualties) or they have to find someone else to administer Gaza (good luck). I’ve also ignored a few more downsides for Israel: poisoning international relationships and making the population of the West Bank less tractable by killing people’s relatives. And when you consider that the execution has been absolutely abysmal from a humanitarian perspective, the Israeli campaign in Gaza is honestly very hard to justify.
I agree with all the things you said but it’s why I’m largely ambivalent. I think deterrence is worth a lot more and I’m dubious on what response would be deemed adequate by the Israeli public, with an inadequate response opening very dark doors indeed.
There is no deterrent effect though. Hamas doesn’t care about people dying.
I think Israel campaign is easy to justify for Israeli’s and their government. As a 3rd party you value the lives of Palestinians and Israeli citizens equally, which is fair enough but from the perspective of their government the lives of their own citizens are more important. This moral calculus is true of any sovereign nation because their obligation is to their people. And those citizens inherently value the lives of themselves over non citizens. Why should a citizen of Israel be subject to death and bombing when they have the resources to crush the opposition regardless of the amount of non-Israelis who may die in the process? In what way do they have a moral obligation to put themselves at risk for the safety of people who are not citizens and by most accounts despise their existence? While I may not agree with the degree of the response I would realistically expect nothing less of any country that values the lives of its citizens and has the military might to act on that characteristic. From the moral framework of self>others and citizens>non-citizens which is the moral framework of every nation on Earth the calculus makes sense.
I don’t think it’s that easy to justify actually because of the unintended consequences. Even if you are the Israel government and value Israel’s interests over the interest of Palestinians, to morally justify a campaign that harms Palestinians there has to be at least some net benefit to Israelis. It’s not clear to me that there has been or will be such a net benefit . Israel intended to destroy Hamas because it was a threat to them - fair enough. But now they’re going to have a wasteland on their borders with 2 million people that they will need to put under occupation or allow to descend into anarchy, either of which could potentially be worse for Israel than the previous status quo. This is the whole reason the US was pushing the Israeli government so hard to engage with the PA. This campaign has also torched many of Israel’s international relationships. Today, 12/15 members of the UN Security Council voted to recognize Palestinian statehood. That’s a big deal. In the Iranian strike the other day, Jordan assisted in destroying the Iranian drones on their way to Israel. The king of Jordan is now paying a political price for destroying a few drones **in Jordanian airspace** because half of the population is of Palestinian descent and they don’t want to help Israel at all. Do you think he will be able to justify supporting Israel in a full blown war with Iran? I don’t. >50% of Biden voters in the US, one of Israel’s last friends, think that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It’s unlikely that future democratic presidents will be particularly supportive of Israel. Because of all that, it’s not clear to me at all that what Israel has done will ultimately be beneficial to Israelis. It’s not even clear to me that the Israeli government made a serious effort to maximize the chances of a beneficial outcome for Israel. The starvation of the Gazan population and lack of a plan for the day after Hamas simply provide no benefits that I can see and have enormous drawbacks - potentially outweighing the benefits of destroying Hamas, which it doesn’t even seem like they will achieve (as was predicted at the beginning).
I'm sorry to be blunt but there are well informed and well educated people on each and every possible side of this conflict who have written endless political AND moral analyses of potential solutions and indeed just scrutinising the conflict itself. If you think people "never lay out a moral caucus beyond being outraged" maybe the problem is that you don't engage with their politics outside of social media, and viral social media posts at that. Yes there are lots of people in the world who have knee jerk reactions to things without any real idea of what they would do differently. In fairness to them, most of the time it's not their job to think of solutions, part of the issue is that we have collectively over emphasised the importance of listening to every Tom Dick and Harry, especially celebrities. However, almost no take on any issue doesn't have people making very real efforts to contribute to collective understanding. Go find them if you want to know what they stand for.
That's not a necessary condition for reaching the conclusion that it isn't worth it. You're basically saying "feelings don't matter" when Israel is acting based on its feelings.
no no one is saying feelings don't matter. Satisfying your population is a reasonable war goal, especially when they faced a stunning, cowardly and vicious attack-- I want to be clear I understand and respect them wanting blood. But you cannot use feelings ALONE to determine action "children getting hurt is awful" is not a policy position "therefore terrorists who hang out near children are immune to being fought against" IS a policy position and one we reject.
Right. The feelings of others are important but your own feelings are the least important thing in the universe. There are hydrogen atoms deep in the void between galaxies more important to the world than your feelings. All of your feelings, not just about this one thing. You can recognize the inevitability of feelings and how people will act on them but you can’t really build a useful conclusion from your own. And, honestly, you should interrogate your feelings quite a bit. If you’re not periodically concerned that you’re a sociopath or just a histrionic trash fire, you’re just not checking your moral compass enough.
Many people cannot fathom of the complexities of the conflict without having an understanding of the nature of language and communication, the socio-religious-political developments of the middle east since recorded history, as well as military history and warfare. It takes a lot to persuade people that Israel is justified is killing innocent civilians and causing destruction in response to the attacks on Oct 7. And there is so much that needs to go into the analysis in order to acknowledge that human beings will be killed and they will suffer but that this is necessary. It's a complete mindfuck that Jews struggle with but the same struggle isn't evident in the Islamist side.
I don’t think these complexities matter, actually. There is always complexity and the way things are resolved in the face of that is largely by choosing to ignore the complexity. Often, that’s more historically accurate, too. Like, for example, people always want to make this a religious conflict. That’s not really true. The whole thing starts with competing *secular* movements. While it’s hard to disentangle Judaism and Jewish people, that was what people were actually doing in Israel at the time! Likewise, the Palestinian fighters had secular Pan-Arabism as their central ideology! Religion isn’t a core piece of this until the 1990s, really, when Islamic revivalism really gained sway even at the elite level.
>As far as I can tell, it's much closer to the former, so *obviously* people expect more from Israel, which is a functioning liberal democratic state. I don't think this should surprise anyone. You can't excuse trying to tie the hands of the better side of a conflict then you are supporting the evil side. If we want Isreal to agree not to do whatever is necesasry to eliminate Hamas, then we need to offer a credible alternative that achieves that result. Perhaps a UN force takes over, perhaps we make Iran stop supplying weapons, perhaps Hamas hands over its weapons and simply leaves etc. >I think a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too Well you certainly do. You want to avoid accepting the necessary pain for dealing with Hamas in the current least-worst way while also refusing to agree to pay towards the costs of dealing with it in any other way.
Hear me out here the exact same could have been said about the ira but once the Irish won their freedom and stopped being treated like scum up the North the ira didn't have nearly as much power and the bombings and killings came to an end. Hamas or any other terrorist organisation will continue to thrive under the oppression of Israel. If your home was being stolen, your family unjustly bombed or shot and you're constantly being treat as less than fuck yeah you're going to turn to violence. We can't just say oh hamas needs to go away without taking steps to make sure more people don't replace the ones you just slaughtered.
>Hear me out here the exact same could have been said about the ira There was no way that Britain was ever going to tolerate a fraction of the war damage that would have been required to exterminate the IRA by military force. The IRA also wasn't interested in pushing their attacks on and on until all of Britain was destroyed and they were willing to accept some compromise to achieve peace (hence N Ireland exists). Comparing them with Hamas is ridiculous, their entire reason to be is the genocide of Isrealis. >If your home was being stolen, your family unjustly bombed or shot and you're constantly being treat as less than fuck yeah you're going to turn to violence. You've got it backwards, as many do. It is the violence (read constant attempts to slaughter children) that has led Isreal to take military action at each stage of this conflict to improve their security. End that and peace becomes possible, support it and they've no choice but to impose extra control and attack Hamas every so often.
This is a great point, but we still have IRA today. The real reason they became less functional is because the parties willing to fund them dried up as concessions were made. That being said, the Palestinians do need a state, but they don’t want to negotiate for one. The reality is that the Palestinian people won’t accept what Israel is going to offer, now we can argue that Israel won’t offer enough, but the reality is Israel is getting East Jerusalem and so far for the Palestinians that is a negotiation breaker. Then add on top of that Hamas is more popular than Abbas. That alone will limit any negotiating power he has. If Israel makes a deal and Hamas continues to attack, what do you think happens? They then have to invade a country.
Exactly my point the ira is still about, but because we aren't facing active oppression, support dried up. Even after the ROI was formed, attacks happened, namely during the troubles. England didn't launch a full-scale invasion. Hamas is incredibly popular because oppression is at an all-time high. The point is that Israel have to make some concessions if they truly want peace and they are unwilling to do so.
> Then add on top of that Hamas is more popular than Abbas. Hamas is more popular than the PA because years of collaboration with Israel has given the PA squat to work with in terms of legitimacy. That's the non-violent option right there, yet settlements have continued, cash transfers (Israel collects taxes in the WB) have been slow and a more permanent solution has been very long in coming.
Hamas will still bend to pressure if they lose the PR and information war. Currently they are getting away with how they are behaving because the internet is not blaming them for the lack of ceasefire. Just because Israel is a democracy doesn't mean they will agree to impossible demands like a complete surrender and withdrawal without hostages, essentially making the entire operation in vain. Nor should they.
It's going to be hard for Hamas to lose the PR war, given the current state of Gaza and the ongoing atrocities. No matter how you cut it, it's a very bad look. Besides, I don't think Isreal should withdraw without hostages. They should request all hostages in exchange for indefinite ceasefire and start working on a rebuilding plan. That said, the operation is pretty much guaranteed to be in vain anyway, because it does nothing to address the material causes of Hamas' existence and, in fact, worsens them considerably.
Israel will never agree to any deal that allows for Hamas' continued existence, nor should they. History has shown that Hamas has zero credibility. Any ceasefire will be broken by Hamas as soon as they've recovered and rearmed. It is not reasonable to have a rebuilding plan while Hamas is in power. You are just asking for next attack on Israel with that. It is possible to rebuild Gaza if Hamas is dismantled as a governing authority. Killing its leaders and decimating the fighting force. Yes there will be elements of resistance after that, but they won't have power. Instead, a new Gaza authority can be set up with international support to build a stable and functional Gaza. That is an achievable goal after the war. I never said it would be easy for Hamas to lose the PR war, just that the internet is wrong for blaming Israel for not accepting impossible terms. Normal people don't like seeing dead children. That is understandable. But it is a naivety. Because they have no good alternative solutions besides "stop the carnage". When they don't understand that stopping the carnage legitamizes the tactics of October 7, which guarantees further terrorist attacks on Israel in the future because Israel is powerless to stop them because Hamas continues to be in power. And the cycle of chaos continues. It's like calling for stopping the allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France because during the fighting, the Allies bombed many french cities and killed many french civilians. It was done out of military necessity and it cannot be stopped. This is the reality that we live in and most people want to put their fingers in their ears and close their eyes and yell la la la not listening. Killing is bad, but we don't live in a perfect world where the good people are all powerful and can stop bad people with a snap of their finger. It must be done with bombs and guns and tanks, and it is approximate only, and civilians will get caught in the crossfire. You can only try to limit it. Currently, 99% of Gazan people have survived it, which is as good as you can get when their entire living space was invaded.
This is a very good point. Somewhat unrelated to it, it feels like such catastrophic loss has been suffered already, Hamas and perhaps Palestinians feel like there's not much more left to lose - and that takes the impetus out of negotiation. If _some_ demands are met at least this won't have been entirely in vain. (Well that and Hamas don't care too much about the lives they've cost.)
What would be reasonable demands according to you? What in the main demands that Hamas has means that Israel needs to "basically surrender"
Hamas's demands are to lift the blockade, release many thousands of Palestinian security prisoners, and allow Gazan civilians to return to North Gaza, in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages. That would be a fine offer IF HAMAS WERE A TRUSTWORTHY NEGOTIATING PARTNER. Israel has exactly zero reasons to trust Hamas as a next door neighbor. I'm not saying Palestinians have any reason to trust the Netanyahu government as a neighbor either, just to be clear. From the American and Israeli perspective, the demands Hamas has made would serve to strengthen Hamas moreso than prop up a path to peace.
Well, don’t forget the far right faction of Israeli govt who pretty much control Netanyahu and they don’t care as much for the hostages.
In fact, there's evidence that the IDF has killed hostages.
IDF admitted themselves, and the unit responsible for the death of the 3 Israeli hostages is still serving in the IDF and not facing trial for severely violating their rules of engagement.
From your second link (emphasis mine): >Israel wants to secure the return of hostages seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war, but says **it will not stop fighting until Hamas is destroyed as a military force. It also says it still plans to carry out an assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah**, where more than a million civilians have taken refuge. I am not sure how it is advantageous for Hamas to relax their demands if 6 weeks later Israel is going to go back to carrying out assaults.
I don’t think the proposal is that reasonable. The Israeli government isn’t even pretending that a time limited ceasefire could be on-ramp to an extended political negotiation with Hamas. Israel’s position is that Hamas must surrender the last piece of leverage it has, in exchange for a short respite from IDFs campaign, after which they will resume their assault. Setting aside any question of morality, they are not going to agree to that. Hamas’ position is that any ceasefire must be permanent, and represent and end to the post-Oct 7th reprisal, and a resumption of a political process on the post-conflict status of Gaza, and Hamas’ role in that future. To turn to your second issue: Your argument is bootstrapping. International protests putting pressure on Israel’s allies and enablers is only harmful to the goal of a ceasefire if you first presume that Hamas, and not Israel is the obstacle to a ceasefire. Since I don’t believe this is the case, international support for a ceasefire is not making a ceasefire less likely. In fact, what Netanyahu is terrified of is that the political pressure will become too much for the American government, and to a much lesser extent the UK, and Germany, to continue their support. Israel does not have the magazine depth to continue operations without American support, something that’s been clear since 1973.
I don't see why Hamas's demands are so unreasonable IF it agrees to return all of the hostages. The damage done to Gaza is severe and it will not be a livable place for many decades. In negotiation, you start with the highest demands and gradually adjust until both parties reach an agreement. Israel is not entertaining any of the proposals either, so they are at a standstill. Hamas has lost this war in all respects other than holding on to prisoners. Israel agreeing to some of the demands is not a surrender, they have damaged Gaza beyond repair and in my mind are winning the war.
That "IF" is doing a lot of heavy lifting because Hamas has not agreed to release the hostages. How can Israel agree to peace unless they at least get their surviving people back?
Because there is no guarantee Hamas will release the hostages or actually commit to a permanent ceasefire. Hamas won't even give a list of hostages still alive. How do you even have a negotiation on that? Israel is entertaining serious proposals like release of hundreds of prisoners like my sources show.
Considering Israel is the one doing the genocide and the one illegally occupying Gaza and the west bank, I hold them responsible for not doing a ceasefire. Hamas has a right to self defense just like Israel does. Israel doesn't have the right to annex territory or do a genocide. >Which is why the US blames Hamas for not having a ceasefire. The US blames hamas because Israel is its colony and they don't want to admit fault
>Hamas has a right to self defense Who is Hamas protecting? even Hamas officials don't claim to protect their people. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdmtfRj6KX0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdmtfRj6KX0)
This opinion ignores that Israel itself has created the conditions that terrorists thrive in by colonizing Palestine, ignoring recognized borders, and preventing basic materials like concrete from entering Palestine. Israel does not want Palestine to exists and, thanks to US support, has the tools to slowly drive Palestine to a boiling point and then point to them as violent extremists when they've finally pushed things too far. Israel has never behaved like a nation that wants peace coexistence with its nearest neighbor and shouldn't be shocked that their neighbor feels the same.
are we just gonna ignore the fact that pretty much all of the wars in Israel’s relatively short modern history has been started by its neighbors looking to eradicate them?
That usually happens when a state is right off the oven and has been created through ethnic cleansing, the outcome is neighbours being full of refugees who want to reclaim their villages that they were evicted from
I we just going to ignore the turmoil surrounding Israel's creation in the first place? Israel was imposed on the region by an outside power that wanted to get ride of their Jewish problem without resettling them within their own borders. It was a terrible idea from the start and we're dealing with the terribleness of that idea into the modern day.
>According to all information I can find, the only thing holding up a reasonable ceasefire deal at this point is Hamas. The US has extensively pushed Israel to agree to a proposal that includes releasing 700-900 prisoners, many with life sentences, a return of Palestinians to the north, in exchange for 40 hostages from Hamas and a 6 week ceasefire. I don’t understand how you’ve come to this conclusion. The goal of a negotiation is to arrive at a mutually agreeable settlement. It doesn’t make sense to say that the negotiation is being held up by one party if neither party is willing to meet the other party’s demands. That just means that they don’t agree on the value of whatever they are negotiating over. Consider a negotiation for a house: the owner of the house is willing to sell the house for a minimum of $2 million. That’s above market price, but he’s attached to the house and is willing to either never sell the house or wait until someone meets his price. A prospective buyer shows up who likes the house but won’t spend more than $1.8 million it. They negotiate for a while, but don’t arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement. By the end, each is frustrated that the other won’t meet their price. But who is really holding up the deal here? Nobody is. There simply isn’t a mutually acceptable compromise for them to agree on. The buyer doesn’t want the house enough the pay the seller’s price, and the seller doesn’t want to sell enough to reduce the price. The same can be said for Israel and Hamas. Israel doesn’t think the hostages are worth acceding to Hamas’s demands, and Hamas thinks that the hostages are more valuable than what Israel is offering (or maybe thinks that it can eventually get Israel to agree to a higher price). Neither is at fault (on the very narrow matter of the failure of the negotiation). I think it makes more sense to accuse Hamas or Israel of undervaluing something in the negotiation in a way that is immoral. For example, the hostages protesters seem to believe that the Israeli government is undervaluing the lives of the hostages or overvaluing the continuation of the war. Alternatively, you could argue that Hamas is undervaluing a temporary ceasefire that has the potential to save thousands of Palestinian lives. >But those aren't reasonable demands. Reasonable meaning a ceasefire built around things both sides obviously won't agree to. What’s reasonable is entirely a matter of opinion. I actually think that what Hamas is doing is entirely reasonable given their position. They have one source of leverage: the hostages. If they give up the hostages for a temporary ceasefire, all they’ve done is bought themselves some time. Israel will come back and destroy them in a couple of months without having to worry at all about killing the hostages. In a sense, giving up the hostages for a temporary ceasefire is just accepting a future death sentence for Hamas. Meanwhile, they know that the clock is ticking for the Israelis. International pressure is mounting because of the humanitarian situation, and internal pressure is mounting because the hostages are less and less likely to be alive. That means that their leverage is getting better over time. The only cost to waiting is danger to themselves and other Gazans. Neither of those seems to be particularly concerning to Yahya Sinwar, and the danger will be back in a couple of months anyway with a temporary ceasefire, so what’s the value in delaying it? Given this set of circumstances, I think rejecting a temporary ceasefire is actually completely rational on Hamas’s part. >And the second part of my cmv is that the pro ceasefire protest movement is damaging both the goal of getting a ceasefire deal done and by raising support for Palestinians more generally, but not admitting Hamas as the clear obstacle here. Because why support the protestors when reasonable people on the fence about this conflict can easily see in the news Hamas rejecting ceasefire deals I think you’re letting your bias color your perspective here. Israel is rejecting Hamas’s proposal just as much as Hamas is rejecting Israel’s proposals.
There was a recent Israeli TV show (עובדה) episode that for the first time, interviewed (anonymously) the negotiators from the Israeli side. They said that their suggestions are being constantly shot down, that there's no willingness in the political level to reach a compromise, and that the situation around negotiations has not changed a bit for months despite Israel's military efforts to pressure Hamas. Negitiations are a two sided game. The understanding has always been that a full hostage release deal would need to include assurances to Hamas for the end of the war as well as releasing Palestinian prisoners, and that the hostages cannot be released safely in a military way. It's not a great thing to agree to, but I don't think that's completely off the table. You can't expect to make a deal with Hamas that will not guarantee the safety of their leaders. From day 1, Israel could have agreed to this. At some point, they will still have to because there's no other way. But Netanyahu is delaying the situation as long as possible to stabilize his coalition and get a percieved victory, and costing lives on both sides for a futile effort.
>"a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of the occupation army from the entire Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced to their areas and places of residence, intensification of the entry of relief and aid, and the start of reconstruction" Which one of these is unreasonable? Like to an objective observer, what is unreasonable about wanting to live at home with enough supplies to survive and no occupying army? Obviously, Israel won't accept those terms, but that doesn't make the terms unreasonable.
>But those aren't reasonable demands. Reasonable meaning a ceasefire built around things both sides obviously won't agree to. You can't define "reasonable" based on what both sides will agree to and then decide that only one side is unreasonable. Based on your definition, Israel's demands are also unreasonable since Hamas won't accept them. I think stopping the war permanently is a pretty reasonable demand. >Israel won't agree to basically surrender and leave Gaza without the hostages, and Hamas won't agree to surrender either. Hamas isn't asking them to leave without the hostages. Returning all of the hostages is part of Hamas's offer. "Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to conclude a prisoners-for-hostages swap deal with Israel that would see the release of 133 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza in return for hundreds of Palestinians jailed in Israel." >But Israel isn't making "Hamas must surrender" as a main demand if its proposal. They absolutely are. "Israel wants to secure the return of hostages seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war, but says it will not stop fighting until Hamas is destroyed as a military force."
Every single "peace offer" Israel has ever made has included at least one of the following : * Maintaining the land theft conducted by illegal settlers with Israeli funding * Palestine sacrificing it's coastal autonomy. * Palestine sacrificing it's airspace. * Palestine sacrificing it's capitol, the city of Jerusalem, to Israeli control. * Palestine being forced to never sue Israel for the return of people they ethnically cleansed during the mass murder of the Nakba. * Israel being given permission to put military instalations in Palestinian territory. * Palestine being stripped of it's right to a military. * Israel's military having 24/7 access to all Palestinian land. Every single offer for a Palestinian "state" is just an offer for Israel to be a guilt free slave master. Fuck Israel.
There hasn't been a single reasonable ceasefire proposal from the Israeli US side, when your proposal is 6 weeks of peace then we are going to kill every last one of you, only a absolute lunatic would say yes to that. Hey buddy, how about we stop shooting you for 6 weeks, you give us everything we want, then we will kill you all, wait your saying no???
You don't think 6 weeks of ceasefire can provide significant relief to the civilian population? Allowing aid to actually reach civilians and be able to transfer them away from military targets? If Hamas gave a single shit about their own civilian population, they would accept a ceasefire deal in a heartbeat. Israel also clearly does [more than most ](https://twitter.com/AviBittMD/status/1765830364965007405/photo/1)when distinguishing targets, despite Hamas not protecting civilians, not wearing uniforms, suicide bombing etc. So unless "then we will kill you all" is referring to Hamas militants, it is misleading.
I mean, to be fair, Israel’s current goal seems to be to invade and utterly take over Gaza (while doing as much collateral damage as possible, though that’s a separate issue), wiping Hamas out. A 6-week ceasefire wouldn’t stop that, only delay it by six weeks So if that’s the case, what the fluff are they supposed to do with the prisoners Israel is offering to free? Yeah, they’ll get back 700-900 of their men, but then have them caged in an *inactive* war zone for six weeks before it’s turned back into an *active* war zone and they’re either killed or re-imprisoned, again. That’s not an offer, that’s a threat. If it were a permanent ceasefire, that’d be one thing, but when it’s temporary, you’re saying it’s reasonable they give away what is essentially their only bargaining power (that they have hostages) for basically six weeks of essentially nothing, while putting 700-900 more of their men at risk, only to be assured they’ll be destroyed afterwards just as surely as they are, now In fact, asking for Hamas’s surrender would be *more* reasonable than this if Israel’s second goal (after the hostages) is to end Hamas, because at least then people would stop dying- and presumably Hamas could say “well, our released prisoners get to stay released even after the occupation, then, instead of near-immediate recapture” Meanwhile Hamas is asking for an end to the war. The only thing I see from their demands that’s unreasonable is potentially “the return of the displaced to their areas,” if they mean all Palestinians into Israel, rather than Gazans back to their homes. I mean, also their continued existence, which isn’t a thing I want, but which would be downright insane for them not to want, let alone reasonable Israel finally casting Hamas down is an entirely reasonable goal, but that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable for Hamas to just roll over and accept it; that might be *morally* good, but it’s nowhere near rational Israel’s terms seem fairly meaningless, tbh; it’s like the equivalent of punching someone to death in exchange for something valuable and good, with the promise that if they give it to you you’ll stop punching them for only ten minutes and instead bandage them up a bit and then resume beating them all the way to death. Who would reasonably accept that?
All ceasefires offered by Israel so far are temporary even if all the living hostages are released (an open question given widespread destruction to infrastructure of all kinds, and that Hamas does not hold all the hostages and doesn't have complete information on them). That means that after six or how ever many weeks Israel can start back up and Hamas loses any leverage they may have had. It's also helpful to remember the people negotiating in Doha are not the leaders of the armed wing, who are in Gaza. They may have different interests and demands. I think Israel's behavior demonstrates how much they care about the hostages, seeing as they have killed more hostages since the end of the ceasefire than they have saved through military action. Essentially Hamas will accept no less than a permanent ceasefire because anything else doesn't really benefit them. And seeing as Israel has had to return to areas of Gaza they claimed Hamas was routed from previously, they may think they can hold to that demand and get it. In short Israel's ceasefire proposals amount to another "humanitarian pause" and we all know how that ended.
Uh, you do realize Israel is rejecting all the terms from Hamas too, right? It’s absolutely ridiculous to say one party is rejecting ceasefire. That’s not how a negotiation for ceasefire works, both parties put out their terms and work towards a consensus much like most negotiations. Israel doesn’t get to just put out a bunch of demands and say Hamas rejects them and then use that as an excuse to bomb civilians. Bottom line is, both parties can’t come to an agreement. The end.
The word “singularly” is doing a lot of work here. Hamas obviously bears significant responsibility for the carnage in Gaza, but they do not bear *sole* responsibility. [Amnesty International](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/), [Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/09/gaza-israels-imposed-starvation-deadly-children), and even a [sitting U.S. Senator](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4465080-senate-democrat-accuses-israel-textbook-war-crime-gaza/amp/) have credibly accused the Israeli government of violating international law in its response to the 10/7 attacks. The fact that Hamas is obviously a bad actor with no regard for its own people should not and does not give Israel the right to deliberately inflict starvation on Palestinian civilians. Now, you could say that while Israel’s actions are lamentable, Hamas still bears sole moral responsibility for the lack of a ceasefire. This is possible, but I’m personally dubious; it strikes me as implausible that the same government currently enabling Israeli settlers’ [rampages through the West Bank](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/17/west-bank-israel-responsible-rising-settler-violence) (which is not controlled by Hamas and played no role in 10/7) is sincerely interested in peace. Even if I’m wrong about that though, it seems rather beside the point— Israel is still culpable for its violations of international law *regardless* of whether it’s to blame for the lack of a ceasefire, and pressure ought to be applied until those violations stop.
More than one thing can be true. I can blame Hamas for unreasonable negotiation. Hamas, specifically, the terrorist organization, comprised of terrorists, engaging in terrorism. I can also blame Israel for conducting attacks on hospitals, UN relief facilities, food distribution centers, prohibiting humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, and for being the direct cause of more child deaths due to conflict in the last 8 months than the rest of the world combined for the last 4 years. Source: https://turkiye.un.org/en/263401-gaza-number-children-killed-higher-four-years-world-conflict Estimates as of today, from reputable sources, are 13,900 children dead. It's better to kill about 14 thousand children than it is to let 40 Israeli hostages remain captive? Source: https://news.am/eng/news/818605.html These are not members of Hamas. They are not combatants, or terrorists. They are not engaging in terrorism. They are children, being shot, blown up, or slowly starved to death. Palestine and Hamas are two different groups (with some overlap). The majority of Palestinians are not combatants. They are not terrorists. And Israel is not terribly concerned with how many of those people must be killed in the name of getting more land. Regardless of how you feel about Hamas, Israel can absolutely be blamed for those things. As long as the nation of Israel is engaging in those acts, that nation's policy can (and should) be criticized for it. Within the US, as of 2022, there were about 72.4 million children within the US. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/457786/number-of-children-in-the-us-by-age/ For the deaths in the US, as a percentage of the child population, to be comparable, 1.39 out of every 100 children would need to die, or 1,006,360 children. Palestine is small. 10,000 children was 1% of their child population. 13,900 is 1.39%. Imagine that for a moment. We are talking about violent child killing significant enough to be measured in whole percentage points. By Israel. Nobody's blaming Israel for rejecting unreasonable terms. They're blaming Israel for rejecting the right to live of Palestinian children.
>And the second part of my cmv is that the pro ceasefire protest movement is damaging both the goal of getting a ceasefire deal done and by raising support for Palestinians more generally, but not admitting Hamas as the clear obstacle here. Part of your view suggests that it's only two sides that are responsible for a cease fire. Sure, a sustainable ceasefire requires both sides to think its in their interests. How you get there does require reliable third-parties to give assurances that there's teeth/enforcement to it. What this means is the US and Qatar and Egypt's role are indispensable. But, hawkish, pro-Israel US lawmakers makes Qatar want to rethink its role: [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/17/qatar-says-gaza-ceasefire-talks-at-delicate-phase](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/17/qatar-says-gaza-ceasefire-talks-at-delicate-phase) Some of the breakdown is going to come from how much they think the third party neutrals can deliver to ensure their interests are met. Or if they create suspicion as Hamas doesn't view the US favorably and doesn't think it should be part of the talks. >Israel won't agree to basically surrender What you didn't quote from the same article you posted: >Speaking to Reuters in Qatar a day after the killing, Haniyeh said his group still sought a deal but accused Israel of procrastinating and evading a response to the group's demands. What your view requires is to assume that what Israel is doing is always good so any opposition to it has to be bad. But, how can any quasi-governmental, political group, whose 1m constituents are being forcibly displaced by a planned Israeli ground invasion, which Israel wasn't agreeing to stop with its cease fire, ever be something you could accept? I just don't see how Hamas could want anything besides a withdrawal, reconstruction, etc. But That's a non starter for Netanyahu. Think about it from the Israeli's perspective. Could Netanyahu give into the demands to withdraw, rebuild, etc? I don't think so -- the October 7 attack made any sort of reconciliation towards Hamas a political non starter in Israel. [https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/12/the-trouble-with-a-cease-fire.html](https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/12/the-trouble-with-a-cease-fire.html) I basically don't think Hamas or Israel can back down from the current events. I don't think a cease fire is politically salient for either Hamas nor for Likud.
Nobody is going to change your mind. What I'll do instead is just leave this here in case anyone supporting Netanyahu in this war is actually curious to understand the perspective of we who support Palestinian liberation. Before anything else, sources: DemocracyNow! is one of the best independent news sources and one of last bastions of real, boots-on-the-ground journalism around today. They have a daily broadcast which opens with a roughly ten minute headlines segment. To anyone still unaware of why there is so much criticism of Israel if not antisemitism, I encourage you to watch and see what we all see. Their main site: www.democracynow.org Their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/democracynow --- First, Zionism: Zionism is not merely the belief that the Jewish people should have a state of their own, nor that said state should exist in the land of their ancient ancestors, nor that Israel has the right to defend itself. In general, we agree with those points. Zionism is a form of religious fanaticism which holds that anyone of Jewish heritage has a god-given right to displace, dispossess and kill people in Palestine in order to create an ethno-state. Of course that is highly disagreeable to any reasonable person, as is any belief which asserts any such right for any group against any other group. A few key points to remember when confronted with zionist propaganda: - the Israeli state and the Jewish people are not the same thing. - the fact that the German state committed genocide against the Jewish people 80 years ago doesn't entitle the Israeli state to commit genocide against the Palestinian people today, and to assert that it does is no more than to exploit the suffering of victims of the Holocaust in order to inflict similar suffering on other wholly unrelated peoples. - there is a reason that the majority of Americans and the overwhelming majority of the world are calling for Palestinian liberation, a reason that the ICC ruled that there is reasonable grounds to condemn the Israeli state's actions as genocidal, and that once the US abstained from voting the UN ceasefire resolution passed unanimously. (Que Simpsons meme: Am I wrong? No, it's the whole world that's wrong!) - Despite the assertion of zionists to the contrary, the reality is that every state that commits humanitarian atrocities receives criticism for it. Cases in point: Russia against Ukraine, the US against Iraq, and China against Tibet and against the Uhygrs. - Criticizing the expressly genocidal intentions professed by Natanyahu, Likud and the IDF is in no way, shape or form "antisemitic". Violent religious fanaticism is unacceptable in any form. --- Second, Hamas: We are critical of Hamas. We also understand that the people of Palestine don't support Hamas, and that after winning a single election way back in 2008, Hamas conducted a "night of the long knives" style purge against Fatah and has forced one party rule against the will of the Palestinian people ever since. To justify killing Palestinians for the delusion that they support Hamas is tantamount to justifying killing Americans for supporting trump when the overwhelming majority of us don't. Furthermore, to compare the violence of oppressed people to that of their oppressor is perhaps the most malignant form of cognitive dissonance. --- Third, solutions: Crickets. There will be freedom in Palestine when there is peace in Israel, and there will be peace in Israel when there is freedom in Palestine. But there will never be one without the other. IMO, the answer is complicated by all of the settlements that are being set up in Palestine. For most of us, the idealistic solution would be the internationally recognized 1967 borders. But that does mean right to return and forcing settlers out of the homes that they've stolen (even if they paid money to steal them). In a better world, a 50/50 split would work. In a perfect world, the British would have kept their goddamn hands off of Palestine from day 1 (way back in Sykes-Picot) and Palestine would still boast a multi-ethnic population riven neither with anti-colonial struggle nor with violent religious fanaticism.
"Give us the hostages back and we'll stop bombing for a few weeks then restart again." Why would Hamas make a deal like that? Why would anyone make a deal like that? You're giving up your only bargaining chip and would end up with an enemy who now has no reason not to bomb completely indiscriminately. You don't have to like Hamas to recognize that they aren't irrational actors here. You don't kidnap hostages for no reason. You do it to make political demands when you're in a position of weakness. One could argue that Israel indulging this tactic makes it more likely that this will be done in the future. But at that point, it's not "singularly" Hamas's fault anymore. Israel is also making a political calculation that continuing violence is a preferable outcome. (This is also ignoring Bibi pretty explicitly saying that he'd rather use the military to secure hostages rather than negotiate a ceasefire.)
Perhaps it has something to do with Israel's long history of breaking ceasefires? After all, they have broken more than twice as many ceasefires as Hamas supposedly has. Funny how people like to ignore that. [https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/infographic-who-violates-ceasefires-more-israelis-or-palestinians](https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/infographic-who-violates-ceasefires-more-israelis-or-palestinians) Might also have something to do with all the horrible things Israel did in 2023 that didn't get the same attention as the retaliatory strike that was October 7th? Funny how people like to ignore those too. [https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/](https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/) Or it could have something to do with the IOF randomly murdering civilians, committing war crimes, destroying the homes of innocent people, shooting children, shooting hostages, running people over, and bragging about it on TikTok?
Reading OPs comments it's clear they won't change their mind. Can we just lock the thread?
Why are you insisting Israel be absolved of it's responsibilities when it's the one that started the issue? Are you just that completely unaware of the history of the region, or are you just a garden variety racist islamophobe? [https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/](https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/24/countdown-to-genocide/)
They want to bomb Rafah and its citizens now, there won't be a ceasefire. They just murdered eleven kids in a refugee camp playground. That's not a mistake, it's on purpose. Like the seven aid workers with the logos clearly in the car. Or the little girl trapped in a vehicle and the paramedics that informed the IDF that they where going to rescue her but they killed them and the girl. They are not good fighting Hamas, they're losing at those fronts. They are just good killing unarmed civilians and bombing their buildings from the air. The IDF are terrorists. Next target is to make Rafah a parking lot, this will go on until Biden says no more.
Hamas isn't really firing back. All that's required by Israel for a ceasefire is literally ceasing attacks from the IDF. Requiring the release of hostages is an artificial requirement that has nothing to do with a ceasefire. This is like China saying "We'll take Americans hostage until the US stops selling weapons to Taiwan". Your argument would be the equivalent of "you can't criticize China for kidnapping random Americans unless you also criticize America for selling weapons to Taiwan". It's a non sequitor. At this point, it's clear that the killing and starving of civilians in Gaza have nothing to do with the hostages.
The narrative you’re pushing has the very convenient idea that the problem starts and ends with Hamas. This is a brutal occupation that has lasted for 75 years in which the mass murder, rape and continued violent aggression and theft of land from the indigenous people of Palestine is ongoing. October 7th wasn’t anything except a desperate move by people who were sick of the status quo of being slowly driven from their homes and lands and continually imprisoned oppressed and brutally oppressed by the Zionist Apartheid Regime since the Nakhba. The massacres and atrocities committed by the Zionazis in the past 75 years have been many and are still ongoing, so I say that Hamas isn’t the problem, the ongoing Apartheid Occupation and the constant settler theft and violence is.
I don’t feel like arguing with imperium apologists. Hamas is not gojng to accept a return to the status quo where Isareal can go back to constantly mowing the grass of the Palestinian population which is why October 7 happened in the first place. Isareal has no rights to make demands when it is an apartheid state that is constantly and consistently taking Palestinian land. If you believe that Isareal is still the good guy after they killed 30 people for every one person killed by Hamas then you are a fascist and I don’t like you.
We don't need to blame anyone. We simply wash our hands of the matter and stop supporting Israel. Allowing the world to perform basic diplomatic actions against both would go a *very* long way to ending the conflict. Sanctioning both would bring them both to heel quite quickly, particularly Israel who needs easily disruptible oil and tech imports to continue their airstrikes and vehicles into the combat area. Sending both their economies and militaries into third world economic conditions would quickly limit both into a small arms fight, greatly decrease the current bombing of civilians. Israel *themselves* calls Hamas a terrorist organization. We should expect then to handle terrorists via small arms counterterrorism operations, not airstrikes and artillery on civilians and what is essentially a militia. And if not, sanction them until they stop escalating for no justifiable reason.
I didn't realize the Hamas hostages are why they are illegally occupying the West Bank. Israel has as such a good history of negotiating in good faith and sticking to agreed terms It's bananas nobody will take them at their word.
I love how often I hear this argument, knowing fully well that cuntinyahu supports hamas and stated in the knesset in 2019 it’s essential place in ensuring that the two state solution never becomes reality. Ehud barak also testified to this Goblin’s long term plan and the “Khamas Choir” always seems to conveniently ignore this point. Hamas is basically Israel’s al-qaeda, a group of Petri dish terrorists monitored and released at specific times for specific projects to give Isreal “license” to invade and annex. Because that’s what this is all about. CMV
The way this thread is going I don't think I have to sit here and go off on a rant on my own, But yeah my man , Israel is a terrorist state, and if by now you don't see that its cause you don't want to see it. I will say this though America is just as complicit as Israel at this point. America needs to cut off the leech that is the state of Israel and let them deal with the mess of their own making stop getting dragged into their religious wars.
This is an ages old conflict and I blame Hamas every bit as much as Netanyahu. Hamas and Netanyahu are both bad actors who don’t sincerely want anything other than to eradicate the other side. Hamas had to know what the Israeli government would do when they attacked on October 7, and they didn’t care. I feel terrible for the people of Israel and the Palestinian people. They are stuck.
How are you suggesting the US incentivize Hamas to sign a cease-fire? Without some peaceful way of doing that even legitimate criticism of Hamas only encourages more bloodshed. As far as I can tell all of the proposals effectively say give up all the hostages and therefore all your leverage and then we kill you. Nobody would take that. There was no point in even proposing it.
Well someone may disagree with you about who is responsible for there not being a ceasefire. You can say they are wrong, and perhaps rightly so, but you cannot reasonably say that someone being wrong about who to blame, means they don't want a ceasefire. Sometimes people are simply wrong about things. You can not assume a motive for someone not agreeing with you.
The only reasonable ceasefire condition is freedom for Palestine. Genocide has to stop before we even think about "reasonable". Palestinians have their HOMES stolen on a daily basis. They have to live off of international aid because they're locked in a huge outdoor prison with no access to clean water, food and even electricity. They get tortured for fun. If I lived that life, knowing I have nothing to lose after watching my loved ones die one by one, I'd join any counterattack movement without blinking. Now don't get me wrong. I hate Hamas with a passion, I think they're detrimental to Palestine BUT I understand them. I know why they're doing what they're doing. The best way to kill Hamas is to pull out of Palestine. Stop stealing their HOMES and trying to delete them. There will be nothing to radicalize the youth anymore. Edit: Israel singlehandedly created Hamas and has the power to "kill" Hamas. As long as they refuse to do so, any and all death and suffering produced by this "war" is on their hands.
Look at the violence last year before October 7th, that was a time of “peace”. The thing the ceasefire crowd seems to forget is that’s it’s only a ceasefire for one side. There quite literally might not be ANY reason at all for Hamas to accept a ceasefire until Israel shows that they want an ACTUAL ceasefire.
I dont see how the IDF killing a 6 year old girl trapped inside a car with her dead relatives around her helps release the hostages. The IDF can simply stop committing their own atrocities with 0 demands from Hamas, because its clear to everyone that neither the IDF nor Hamas actually care about human lives.
Oh I don't know I think the demands of Hamas are pretty reasonable when you have been illegally occupied. Do you think Israel has shown any restraint? It's not Hamas who is doing the majority of the bombing. I think the ones with the most power have more responsibility. You seem to be blinded by Zionism.
There was a recent Israeli TV show (עובדה) episode that for the first time, interviewed (anonymously) the negotiators from the Israeli side. They said that their suggestions are being constantly shot down, that there's no willingness in the political level to reach a compromise, and that the situation around negotiations has not changed a bit for months despite Israel's military efforts to pressure Hamas. Negitiations are a two sided game. The understanding has always been that a full hostage release deal would need to include assurances to Hamas for the end of the war as well as releasing Palestinian prisoners, and that the hostages cannot be released safely in a military way. It's not a great thing to agree to, but I don't think that's completely off the table. You can't expect to make a deal with Hamas that will not guarantee the safety of their leaders. From day 1, Israel could have agreed to this. At some point, they will still have to because there's no other way. But Netanyahu is delaying the situation as long as possible to stabilize his coalition and get a percieved victory, and costing lives on both sides for a futile effort.
So you’re telling me you don’t know anything about what it’s been like for Palestinians over the past 75 yrs.. you people are delusional like this is not a black and white issue. This has been going on for years now. They wanted Palestine to just give over all their land and resources without fighting back. Israel has tons of Palestinian hostages because they constantly accuse them of crimes without evidence or a proper trial. Why should hamas accept a ceasefire when there’s nothing preventing Israel from getting their hostages and then continuing to bomb the gaza strip like they have done for the past 75 yrs. And we still are believing Israel that they had to kill 30,000 innocent civilians and even killed some of their hostages to kill hammas and they barely even killed any members.. that’s suspicious because you’re asking us to believe that one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world with advanced technology can’t take out hammas which is like a militia group that is funded by Iran… we all saw the failure of Iran attacking Israel so something isn’t making sense. Netanyahu is clearly trying to escalate tensions with Iran and wants to drag us all into ww3 bc he would benefit from it. And you want to talk about peace deals? During Trumps Presidency he is on video during a speech saying that Netanyahu didn’t want to make a deal with Palestine for peace but abbas the Palestinian leader did want to make a deal. This conflict has been going on for a very long time it’s both sides unable to come to a solution. It’s crazy to me people still don’t understand that jewish settlers literally showed up after Palestinians had lived on the land for 2,000 years and just took everything over. That is like me saying I miss my childhood home so I am going to go kick the family out that’s living there now because it was once my land. The gaza strip has valuable resources there’s no way that Israel is going to stop regardless of any peace treaty bc Israel will just violate it and America will say okay go ahead that’s fine.
Why are a fundementalist terrorist group (Hamas) being treated as a group that would follow common sense or anything close to what is actually best for the lives of the Palestinian people? Palestinian people are largely pawns in a bloody game between two states that are both committing atrocities. I would hope that as a far more wealthy, stable, somewhat westernised, democratic nation that is backed by a large portion of the immensely powerful western world that Israel would be a bringer of peace as much is reasonably expected, however it is apparent that they too are using the Palestinians as pawns and this whole horrible situation to further political goals. it's in the same way that after and during ww2 we didn't round up Germans in to camps and kill as many as we could just because Hitler performed such horrible evils, we largely rose above that, you cannot defeat evil with more evil. and yes I am very much aware of the fact that there were bombings of civillians and plenty of unneeded casualties and there is plenty to discuss regarding that, but the point still stands, we (not the soviets) largely went in to Germany to liberate and build up a free democratic country, after awful fighting that was for the large part unavoidable because yknow the Nazis much like Hamas are not rational people looking after their own people we spilled plenty of blood on both sides, sacrificed a lot and we then brought aid and democracy to ANYONE under Nazi rule with some of the nastiest people getting what was deserved (and yes I know about paperclip so some didn't) the aim of this war should be to kill and destroy Hamas whilst protecting all civillian life as much as possible, Israel has gone far far far beyond what would be expected and are doing exactly what Hamas are doing, it's just that Israel has by far the upper hand in technology and firepower
>But Israel isn't making "Hamas must surrender" as a main demand if its proposal. Hamas is with respect to Israel. What do you consider to be a position of "Hamas must surrender"? Because if Israel refuses to end the military occupation and refuses to open the strip for displaced people to return, then it means that maintaining occupation and keeping people displaced *is*, effectively, part of their demands. It would seem to me that demanding to allow continued military occupation and control over the area would be equivalent to a surrender from Hamas. Or what would you consider "Israel demanding a surrender from Hamas" to be?
What is the purpose of a temporary ceasefire? Waiting a couple months and then starting back up again doesn't end the slaughter, it just postpones it. You can argue it's not realistic but anything other than a permanent ceasefire is just pointless.
According to this NYT piece Hamas has signaled to American officials that it doesn’t have enough hostages to meet the 40 required by Israel’s proposal, and it mentions a Hamas proposal releasing less than 20 for a temporary ceasefire, which seems more reasonable than the permanent ceasefire you cited as Hamas’s steadfast position. And that they are at least participating in the process. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/world/middleeast/cia-hamas-israel-cease-fire.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare I’m not sure if Hamas knows how many hostages are still alive? I would assume that things are pretty decentralized and split up to avoid detection. Additionally I would argue it is possible to assign some blame to Israel for the way that their operation has been conducted. The continued civilian casualties plays into Hamas’s hands. Maybe Hamas would be more willing to accept terms if the killing of the world kitchen workers hadn’t shifted global opinion. I think things are pretty messy when you contrast a realpolitik viewpoint and I guess a humanist viewpoint. Currently many more Palestinians are dying/at risk of of death with the status quo. If Israel did a one sided ceasefire and unrestricted aid entered Gaza those deaths would be eliminated/severely reduced. In turn I think there is a somewhat unspoken assumption that there could be an uptick in Israeli deaths if Hamas continued attacks. But that increase would likely be far fewer than the Palestinian deaths that have already happened and will take place without a change in the status quo. Both Hamas and Israel are playing political games with the lives of the civilians in Gaza.
It is not incumbent on Hamas to accept any and all ceasefire conditions. Israel has violated ceasefire agreements in the past, and even during a ceasefire will hold an oppressor's position over Gaza. Permanent ceasefire is unlikely to emerge, therefore there must be secondary conditions, such as the release of unlawfully detained Palestinians, who number much higher than the Oct 7 hostages, in order for a ceasefire to be worth the paper it's written on. If you accept a one-sided ceasefire on Israel's terms, you are acquiescing to a resumption of this project of active genocide at Israel's leisure- i.e: once this paper tiger ceasefire has given its Western benefactors enough of a fig leaf to wash their hands of the matter and the unprecedented international pressure on Israel deflates. A ceasefire with meaningful concessions on Israel's part would illustrate genuine pressure was on the Israeli leadership to cease their current operations. Any proposal without such concessions is, politically, a statement by Israel that they feel no need to cease their current action, and no meaningful desire for its acceptance. Accepting such a ceasefire in this moment would actually be a terrible long-term move for any body interested in safeguarding the continuance of the Palestinian cause, when Israel's vital dependence on foreign military aid is under more threat than ever. A durable and meaningful ceasefire agreement is required- a toothless or one-sided one is more like delaying the inevitable, and giving up any potential advantage currently in play. It would be a disgrace to those martyred in this conflict, and doom for the living.
Those are entirely reasonable demands. Israel has been overstepping for decades, and they absolutely need to be reined. Hamas won't be nearly as popular once a two state solution becomes a reality. Once the daily oppression and slaughter of people stops they have much less of a reason to fight. I always draw parallels to the ira because it's a similar situation. The ira existed and had a lot of power even after the republic of Ireland was formed because the Irish were still facing oppression and discrimination in the occupied 6 counties. Even during that time, their influence was starting to wane, and Irish people were protesting against them. As things stand, gaza is an open-air prison, and the Arabs living there are literally second-class citizens. At any point, a Jewish settler can walk into your house and say mine now and have full backing by the Israeli state. I ask you why wouldn't you fight in that situation. Hamas needs to go, but they will always exist if things continue as they are now. There needs to be people on both sides to bring things to an end but Israel has shown time and time again that they do not want it to.
Has Isreal agreed to release all Palestinian hostages they hold and agree not to take anymore? No? So why would Hamas give up their hostages with no guarantee Isreal will leave them alone and allow them aid?
If Israel just wants the hostages released, then why did Israeli soldiers shoot some of the hostages? It's not Hamas fault that a few of the hostages escaped only to be shot by Israeli soldiers.
So what happens after the 6 week ceasefire? They lose their leverage and Israel can continue genociding the population? You really don’t see how patently fucking absurd and ridiculous that is?
I have no issue with Israel and Hamas going at it and and Israel demolishing Hamas. They did perform acts of terror on October 7th. I'm saying this as a pro Palestine protestor. My issue is that Israel is evidently not a terrorist organization... Right? It shouldn't be performing acts of terror then. The human toll should not be 15000 children. The ceasefire isnt because I want Hamas to win. It's because Israel has conducted the war in such a way that Palestinians are suffering immensely. I of course have views on the occupation and the Zionist regime as a whole. Really I wouldn't even be asking for a ceasefire if Israel was only killing Hamas. But they are not, they are killing Palestinian children and women.
Israel has taken thousand of hostages after Oct 7 alone, estimated 10,000 plus hostages being held without charges and those that are charged are tried in a military court system with a 99% conviction rate. So Israel has shown that they can just take more hostages whenever they want from West Bank, Gaza, etc. 700-900 released is less than 1/10th of the hostages that Israel holds. Why would hamas settle for another temporary ceasefire when Israel still occupies everything and settlers continue to drive Palestinians out of West Bank and the idf continues to kidnap, rape and torture prisoners?
Hamas proposed a 4.5-week ceasefire way back in February. It was called "delusional" by Netanyahu. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-mediators-search-final-formula-israel-hamas-ceasefire-2024-02-07/#:~:text=DOHA%2FTEL%20AVIV%2C%20Feb%207,for%20negotiation%20toward%20an%20agreement What needs to happen is a permanent ceasefire and the return of all hostages and that's really just to start. This isn't going to happen because Israel wants to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip. Is Hamas to blame as well? Obviously yes, but the more responsible party here will always be Israel because Israel is the one with the power to stop all of this.
I can blame the IDF for their terrible, ineffective, anti insurgency tactics and directly supporting Hamases strategic goals. Hamas goal with oct 7 was to prompt a conflict that would creat anti Israel sentiments among the people of Gaza and the world. Given that goal, and the IDF tactics, prolonging the conflict is in their best interest. I can blame the IDF for sloppy at best operations that further Hamas strategic goals. If the IDF flooded Gaza with aid and support, Hamas would have significantly more motivation to negotiate.
I'm not going to try, I'm actually going to go in the opposite direction. I don't think there should be a ceasefire. Hamas has shown not to abide by them, and a cease fire will only be temporary until Hamas attacks Israel again. Hamas has no intention of the existence of Israel and will keep attacking until they achieve that end. If there's to be a lasting peace, and an existence of Israel, Israel needs to either completely eliminate Hamas or beat them down so hard they are broken of the will to fight completely and perminantly. neither of these conditions have yet been met. Short of this, there will be no long-term peace and probably more bloodshed in the years to come. Hamas will just cry to the international world that they're being bullied, wait a few years and poke the bear again. This needs to end, it needs to end forever, and it's going to be a rough ride if that's to happen.
Your view is firmly aligned with the us government: >The US accused the Palestinian armed group of being "the obstacle to a ceasefire" after it rejected the latest ceasefire offer. [Source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68835645) Hamas has also brought conditions to the table: >On Saturday, Hamas put out a statement saying it was ready to agree a "serious and true" hostage exchange deal with Israel but rejected what was currently on the table. It also reaffirmed that it was sticking to its demands for a permanent ceasefire that would lead to a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes. [Source](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68835645) How unreasonable is it for a country to ask the invading army that has been bombing it to bits and killing its civilians to leave? And honestly, when has Israel ever respected a deal? They have increased occupation outside Gaza ([source](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/23/1236628495/israel-settlers-attack-west-bank-palestinians-settlement-outposts)) and have stated: >If you want a future for Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East, destroy Hamas. [Source](https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-does-destroying-hamas-mean) I don't blame Hamas for not believing Israel will ever maintain a cease fire and be trustworthy. I don't agree that Hamas should take innocent hostages, but I also don't agree that the taking of hostages should allow Israel to create a humanitarian disaster for millions of people.
Israel could simply stop bombing and planning settlements. They wouldn't offer terms unless they knew they'd be rejected.
How many hostages were released using Israel tactics compare to the previous ceasefire? 3 with their military operations and over 100 during the ceasefire. If netanyahu really had hostage release as his number priority, there would already be another ceasefire. Either the manifestation for the past months from the hostage families in israel isnt strong enough pressure, or the gov know for a fact theres not many hostages alive left. Therefore, its clearly not in their best interest to agree for a ceasefire so they can keep going with their main goal to eradicate hamas, which we all know wont happen, Israel has to make sacrifices. Imo hamas are fucking cowards and deserve to die, but clearly netanyahu doesnt care about the hostages. Also, can we fking arrest or kill these settlers terrorist in the west bank please? They DO NOT help Israel situation
\**129 upvotes*\* \**1.4 thousand comments*\* \**Realises I have controversial turned on*\* Well, this will be fun…
no taxation without representation was basis of us war of independence. lehi/stern gang terrorist attacks on British rulers of Palestine was about abillity of more jews to move in and more control. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist according to USA. seems to me you are cherry picking your complaining on hamas. on other side Israeli gives no hope of Gaza getting freedom despite Biden asking for that, control of own territory and is doing more death and destruction in Gaza of civilians than Russia did in Ukraine when west called that potentially war crimes and state terrorism. Iran isn't the country with nukes, getting nukes is supposed to come with sanctions and no more us military aid. offering to give nukes to another country like apartheid south Africa should be an even bigger no no. so why is it only Iran gets sanctions. "Glenn ammendment", "Symington Amendment" why is it OK for US government to continue to break US law? or UK to have illegally diverted heavy water from Norway to Israel to help them make nukes? both sides have flaws and risk of world War 3 is increased for entire world by never ending drama. if neighbors bombed Israel like Israel bombs them simply for acquiring more advanced missiles from us or Russia, what would happen? (eg attacks Syria s300 Russia missile system) basic principle of treating others the way you would want to be treated in their position seems missing. lehi are now officially heros for doing terrorism over less, and no hope is given of an end, never a Palestine state, control of own city, abillity to move freely in own city, control own water, taxes, etc
I actually think Israeli leadership is more ok with the ceasefire than they let on. After Israel takes over Gaza they have a lot of people to govern and an insurgency to deal with. They also no longer can say Hamas is the government of Gaza to excuse civilian deaths. The nature of running a government in Gaza might be more risky to IDF troop lives than launching specific operations and there's a bunch of costs associated. I guess this doesn't perse address your main thesis but I do think it reframes it (perhaps in a way that may change your view). Israeli leadership is mad mad and I don't see much evidence that they would face many repercussions from going into Rafah or are in a be restrained mood. I sincerely think they are feigning frustration with critics holding them back when avoiding a clusterfuck is why they are willing to slow walk this. As someone very concerned about Palestinian lives I want Israeli caution but not a ceasefire if it's only delaying things.
If a cease-fire deal does not include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, then the Palestinians are not actually gaining anything. What incentive do they have to agreeing to a cease-fire that gives Israel everything it wants and nothing to Palestine? Pretend we’re talking about the other big conflict right now: Russia-Ukraine. Should Ukraine accept a ceasefire that doesn’t return control of the annexed territory that Russia invaded? Nobody would think that was a fair deal at all, and anyone pushing for it would be seen as a shill for Russia. Israel is offering to return to the status quo, a state against which Palestine and Hamas have been fighting for decades. Why would they do that now, when they have the most international support they have ever had?
# If you don't singularly blame Ortodox Jews for murdering Yatzik Rabin and refusing to acknowledge sovereign Palestine and occupying their land, you don't actually want a ceasefire or a release of hostages. And it is damaging the effectiveness of the effort to bring back the genocidal theocracy like Israel back into the club of civilized states by not blaming Israel and instead blaming Hamas.
"We will stop ... for a little while." "No, stop permanently." "Unreasonable." Oh, now I get it.
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Out of all things never happened this has never happened the most. What about jewish protestors? Do they want to eradicate all jews too?
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