Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 534142)

Can anyone explain to me Israel's military strategy?

If their goal is to kill Hamas fighters, they are very very bad at it. High estimates from Israeli sources are running to 400 dead, and both Israeli and US sources are now saying the 10,000 estimated dead from the Gazan health folks is likely significantly low. That's a stunningly bad ratio (for example, in the battle of Mosul, the battle with the highest civilian death count during the war on terror, we killed 10,000 combatants and about 10,000 civilians died - and in that case, there were a lot of civilians killed by IS, not us).

They are now explicitly targeting both journalists and hospitals with bombs - these aren't even vaguely defensible, and is a great way to isolate themselves internationally.

They seem to have no traction on either recapturing or negotiating for the release of hostages, and have almost certainly put hostages at risk with indiscriminate bombing.

There are only two explanations I see - one is that their military just isn't very good, the other is that their strategy is something other than freeing the hostages and killing Hamas combatants.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534143)

And the fallout has mainly been Jewish kids getting beaten on college campuses.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534145)

Netanyahu was on a Sunday morning news show earlier and just kept repeating “the destruction of Hamas” as its objective.

It looks a lot like what we did in Afghanistan right after 9/11. A cathartic display of might and ruthlessness, but ultimately of dubious effectiveness.

A better angle, IMO, is a policy of assassination of all Hamas members. Deem their lives forfeit and start killing then, regardless of whether they’ve done anything, from this day forward. And start assassinating them in Doha as well. Pre-emptive murder. That’s the only way to even attempt to “destroy Hamas” w/o mass innocent casualties like what we’re seeing now.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534147)

If you ignore the violence against others, then the fallout is mainly Jewish kids getting beaten. All of it is awful.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534147)

If you ignore the violence against others, then the fallout is mainly Jewish kids getting beaten. All of it is awful.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534151)

3 crazy people acting on their own are the same as group attacks of seemingly sane, but strident, people attacking Jews? SMH.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 534153)

You really think Islamaphobia and bias against people from the Middle East is limited to three crazy people?

Really?

Remember, this isn't a competition, it's possible to be opposed to multiple forms of bigotry at once.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534154)

I'm from a place with a very large Middle Eastern population so I do not see much of it. But of course I know there is a lot of it, especially in Trumpian circles.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 534151)

3 crazy people acting on their own are the same as group attacks of seemingly sane, but strident, people attacking Jews? SMH.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 534155)

You should make friends with some of your Middle Eastern population and ask them about their experiences.

There were a bunch of very Islamaphobic signs, some of them genocidal, at the Israel rally yesterday. Here I think that genocidal stuff is a fringe, even if that fringe includes a bunch of billionaires; in Israel, of course, genocidal statements towards Palestinians are made by government ministers.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 534147)

If you ignore the violence against others, then the fallout is mainly Jewish kids getting beaten. All of it is awful.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 534157)

We keep having fires at mosques.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 534159)

Repugnant.

However, I have no problem with anyone doing whatever he or she likes to Hamas apologists. And there are lots of Hamas apologists out there.

The pro-Palestinians will argue that the Israeli attack kills the innocent. That’s a fair argument. The Hamas apologists will argue the extreme violence was necessitated because the Gazans had no other way to fight back. The former should be engaged. The latter should be ignored, and if they should refuse to be ignored, have their teeth scattered about the pavement on which they stand.

If you apologize for Hamas, I have a right to escalate. You’re a degenerate fool. And you should suffer physical damage.

ETA: But if I should force one of those lovely little college student justice warriors to choke on that flag because he’s blocked my ingress to a public building, that’s on me. I should be prosecuted. I’ll be in violation of a principle - free speech - observed by Israel and the US, which renders us, and all other Enlightenment-informed cultures, superior to the rest of the world.

I’ll happily pay the fine, take the misdemeanor.