Hamas strike on Israel - mod warning in OP updated 19/10/23

Must be tiring seeing the world in such bigoted and sectarian framing.

Care to summarize? She is an ex-employee of Russia Today, so I think some skepticism is due anything she states. Especially as she's a 9/11 'truther' as well. Lots of criticism of her politics on her wikipedia page, too. No journalism degree, but some employment in the field.

And after the 2nd world war, the world came together and created the Geneva conventions so that that kind of brutal murderous war of attrition would never be tolerated again

Surely it also reminds you of all the lies perpetrated against Israel, including the biggest one, that they are engaged in genocide.

Yes, maybe read the letter yourself and find out that not even they are claiming that genocide is happening. Plausible risk doesn't mean it's happening, saying that is a huge leap and a libelous and irresponsible lie.

But you're not looking at it 'in the open'

You're looking at it through filters. There are lots of very biased and motivated sources that show you the world through certain points of view that are deliberately framing the narrative in favour of one perspective and in opposition to others.

There are almost 2 billion muslims in the world. The vast majority of them are decent ordinary people with exactly the same kinds of virtues and flaws as christians, buddhists, atheists etc.

If you view the world through a prism that projects everything as either pro-western and anti-western, and constantly talks about the virtues of 'western democracy' vs the violence and repression of other cultures that are portrayed as 'less developed'…

Most people just want to live normal, peaceful, satisfying lives surrounded by their own friends and family and with enough food, shelter and comforts to be able to be comfortable and secure.

That's the same everywhere in the world. And everywhere in the world, there are some people who are more liberal, and some who are more 'conservative' and some who are more permissive and others who are intolerant, some who are peaceful, and others who want to impose their view on others….

People are, for all practical purposes, genetically homogeneous everywhere in the world. We are all the same other than some superficial differences.

If you think someone is lesser or better than anyone else just because they were born somewhere, or have a family background different to your own, then you are not 'observing reality' you are pre-judging people and this is a filter you are placing in front of your observations that distorts your view of reality.

This is not to say that environmental conditions do not cause people to behave differently in different situations. If you take any random group of people and place them into the middle of a brutal war and give them the role of either participants, or civilians, then they will behave very differently to how they would under peaceful conditions. If you take someone and make them extremely insecure, due to poverty or political upheaval, then they will act and behave differently to people in diametrically different circumstances.

This is why the idea of 'become the change you want to see' is so important. If you want people to be kinder and more social and more tolerant, then you should support the fostering of those conditions in your life. If you oppose fundamentalism and intolerance, then it is wrong to oppose that by becoming fundamentalist and intolerant yourself.

They are very clearly engaging in genocide.

People returning to their homes, if they're lucky enough that their house wasn't bombed already, are finding them burnt out from the inside. The IDF went house to house and destroyed homes in Gaza, empty houses being burnt to the ground so that there is no where for the refugees to return to after the war.

The IDF are dedicating military resources to going through residential areas, demolishing apartment blocks, burning out houses, destroying farms and drinking water.

They are doing this, for no other reason, except to make it as difficult as possible for the population of Gaza to return to their homes.

When the homes are vacated, what do you think will happen to them after the war.

If you don't believe that the plan is for 'settlers' to take over that land, then you are extremely naïve

Yes, then let's wait years until we accuse Israel of genocide - serious accusations require serious investigations. Until then the preliminary rule doesn't say it is happening, so you are the one who's ignorant of the actual findings of the court.

And it was wrong then too.

Israel/Likud have a stated objective of having a Jewish controlled state over all the disputed territories.

"The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable… therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty. —Likud Party Platform, 1977"

And that includes Gaza.

The fact that they allowed Gaza to remain Palestinian before does not mean that they ever intended that to be their ultimate solution.

They are thinking in the long term, and it has stages. One of them was splitting Palestine into two separate parts, the West Bank and Gaza, another step is to push the people in Gaza into a smaller and smaller region on the border of Gaza, and at first they may call the empty space a 'buffer' zone, but it will very quickly become settler land

They will keep the Gazan population corralled in the refugee camps in Rafah for as long as it suits them, and then the 'negotiated settlement' will eventually involve those people being relocated somewhere else (or if the people in those camps refuse to accept that fate, they might just be wiped out entirely, any significant acts of resistance or terrorism originating from the refugee camps could be used as pretext for that)

It's hard to understand what the pro Israel supporters actually support here. Do they believe that if enough civilians are bombed or starved in Gaza that Hamas will just disappear? If the killing of aid workers has shown anything its that the IDF don't know what they are doing so I think any figures quoted by them for the amount of Hamas fighters they have killed mustnt be credible. I would say there is a good chance Israel will eventually disengage with Hamas still in place and Gaza in ruins.

It disappointing on this day and age that people still support such cruelty.

Terrorism needs to be treated as a criminal offense and not as a military matter.

What did we learn from 9/11 and waging war against Afghanistan for the crimes of a few dozen Saudis and Afghanis?

Security services are supposed to protect against terrorism, and Israel had plenty of warning that the operation on October 7 was being planned and they failed to prevent it.

Reacting to the attacks by collectively punishing 2 million people is absolutely not the correct thing to do.

Reacting to terrorism by murdering them and their families in their homes while they sleep is not the way to deal with terrorism.

De-escalation, negotiation, planning for a future peace deal are the only way to provide both peace and security.

Hamas will be weakened far more by providing a genuine alternative for the people of Palestine that involves some measure of hope and reconciliation than they ever will, by trying to beat the population into submission.