You seem to keep moving the goalposts and I don't understand why. Some Gazans don't support Hamas and some do. It's really that simple. People that support bad people are themselves bad people and complicit in the actions of the bad actors. If you support an organization that uses barbaric tactics and genocide you have blood on your hands.
I think I will be done arguing this point because I for the life of me see can't understand your weddedness to the idea of letting supporters of evil off the hook.
I'm not entirely clear on your position. In a previous post you seemed to suggest that Israel should in fact be using a wall, control of airspace and aid (all things they've been doing for years) in order to pacify the population and turn them against Hamas.Josh wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 7:40 pmGaza has no access to its own coastline or freedom of navigation in the sea. Israel blockades it and controls everything that goes in and out.
Likewise, Gaza's airspace is blockaded. Gaza has no freedom to conduct any aviation and the Israelis bombed the daylights out of their airport, which used to be the only regularly used airport in Palestinian controlled territory.
In such a blockaided, sieged environment, an organisation like Hamas thrives.
Now you're saying that doing those things is what causes Hamas to thrive?
Gaza alone annually receives billions in aid from dozens of countries, including Israel. Much of that aid seems to be siphoned off by Hamas and redirected to military purposes. In a sense Israel is giving Hamas the gun that it turns around and uses on Israel.
How would giving more aid dismantle Hamas?
Well that's the thing of it. Iron Dome was built to mitigate and neutralize the novel threat of rocket launches into Israel, and it worked very well for a very long time. It still does. Hamas though, seeing how well it worked, evolved their tactics to find new ways of killing Jews. Israel could go back to the drawing board and find novel ways to ward off these new types of attacks but it seems, Hamas being Hamas, they will simply find new ways around those mitigation strategies.
I don't see how that's a tenable situation for Israel. Nor do I see how it's reasonable to expect that Israel subject itself to a certain number of deaths and kidnappings every year as it's price to pay for simply existing.
This seems uncharacteristically naive of you, Josh. If Hamas stopped what they were doing they would cease to be Hamas. Their entire raison d'etre is the murdering of Jews and the annihilation of Israel. They have no reason, no rationale and no incentive to stop. They are funded and encouraged and trained by Iran. They teach their children through cartoons, school curriculum and "summer camps" that it's good to kill Jews, to give their lives for the destruction of Israel and how to fire weapons and kidnap Israelis.
Hamas will not be going away on its own any time soon.
Fair enough, the reports I saw from CBS, FOX, the Jerusalem Post and a local outlet here in Honduras all stated the claim as though it were confirmed. I was under that impression as a result.Josh wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 7:40 pmI think the "decapitation of babies" thing is largely emotive (there is, as of yet, still no evidence this actually happened). If we want to have a grown-up discussion about this, it starts with not giving into violent rhetoric that is then used to justify why killing Gazan children and babies is okay.
It seems indisputable though that Hamas used tactics like: rape, kidnapping, the targeting of civilians, massacring families in their homes, shooting babies, beheading soldiers, and burning people. Tactics that are barbaric, meant to demoralize and notably not used by Israel.
So my question still stands:
How do you suggest Israel deal with an organization bent on their destruction