Due to the severity of the situation and the fast flowing news cycle, we have decided to create a general megathread for discussion regarding the conflict.
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What fucking help does Israel need for fucks sake.
Hey, genocide is hard work! Have some empathy
It's about keeping Iran out of it so it doesn't escalate. Have to demonstrate a willingness to get involved while doing the diplomatic work behind the scenes to de-escalate. They are telling Israel they can have their revenge on Hamas but they need to bring things down a few notches. Don't occupy Gaza, don't starve them out, don't commit war crimes, make an effort to avoid collateral damage, etc. At the same time, they are telling Iran they don't want a wider conflict but are ready to fuck them sideways if they even think about escalating. Israel doesn't need any help fighting unless someone else piles on.
if the US government cared about protecting Palestinians I don't think we would be in this situation
They don’t. They care about keeping this from escalating into a very dangerous regional conflict with the potential to spread further. Israel is absolutely justified in going after Hamas. What they are actually doing is beyond what a reasonable response would look like. Nobody besides the bad guys cares if Israel goes and kills some terrorists, but they can’t displace a million people who had nothing to do with it and then starve them out. In a matter of days, Israel went from being the victims of a heinous attack to committing war crimes on a massive scale. That can’t be. It makes it hard to support Israel and we also can’t turn our backs on an ally. It’s an untenable political situation for the U.S. and risks a major conflict. The U.S. is serving its own interests.
Why? Does Israel want a refund?
How's that working out for the US?
Starving ✅
War crimes ✅
Collateral damage ✅
The US is toothless and their foreign influence is nonexistent even for a country that's one of their closest allies.
It's pretty obvious... the myth of Israeli invulnerability turned out to be just that... mythical. The Palestinians have done a good job proving that.
I talked to an Israeli (we were both vacationing in Vancouver, BC). There never was a feeling of invulnerability, but rather of containment and a tolerable level. Hamas would lob some rockets over the border, the Iron Dome would shoot them down, maybe some would get through. You learn to live with a certain amount of risk.
What this attack shattered was the feeling that Hamas is a threat that could simply be managed and ignored. It should also shatter the illusion that continued mistreatment of the Palestinian is a viable way forward. Unfortunately, I think the Israeli leadership will only take the first lesson.
I was referring to the propaganda we were fed about Israel during the Cold War - you can still see it in a lot of right-wing narratives about Israel.
Here in South Africa, we call it "laager mentality" - in the US, wars fade into the background, but in places like Israel (and Apartheid-South Africa) the "open-ended-war-with-no-end-in-sight" cannot fade into the background. And, eventually, it leads to... consequences.
It's not Hamas - it's Palestinians. Before Hamas it was the PLO, and if Israel (somehow) neutralises Hamas there will be another "big bad" Israelis will have to live in fear of. Israelis know that - they just prefer referring to Hamas to deflect from the fact that their colonial war has always been against the entirety of Palestinians.
But yes... this attack has most definitely shattered the idea of "containment and a tolerable level."
A colonialist project can only act like a colonialist project - if it doesn't, the colonialist state must cease to exist in it's current form and become something else.
Israel is somewhat weakened right now. Doubtless some countries or organizations are thinking this is the perfect time to take a go at it, regardless of the reality of that situation. The US tossing in an aircraft carrier group - one of which equals the air and naval power of most countries - hopefully tilts that calculus back towards keeping out of any conflict.