Major attack on Israel by Hamas

[Josh]

You are certainly within your Free Will as given by God.

For the record the Pope and the Catholic Church official statements condemned the Hamas and subsequent Hezbollah attacks that started this warfare. Killing children and their parents was started by Hamas. Their rockets as well as Hezbollah’s have targeted civilians in Israel both presently and in the past. The Vatican diplomatic corps is fully aware of Iran’s role in all of this. They do not support Iran’s and by proxie, Hamas/Hezbollah actions against Israel nor Palestinian civilians.

The Catholic Church is offering to mediate negotiations for the release of hostages and the cessation of hostilities. It may be accepted or Iran will continue to pour munitions and support into the destruction of Israel. We shall see.

Your assertions that the Vatican is somehow choosing a “side” in this is way off base.

[Bootstrap]

It sounds to me like you are saying that if a person doesn't meet a certain threshhold of expressing compassion and sympathy for the Palestinian victims then that person are "arguing that all civilians and places of worship and residential buildings are fair game", arguing that retaliation and revenge against innocent citizens is fair game", and saying that the Palestinians living in Gaza deserve retribution for the attacks on Israel.

It's precisely when people push back against those who are expressing sympathy that I start to feel that way. When people say that we should be expressing sympathy for the victims of October 7th INSTEAD, not TOO.

I believe that Gary, Max and RZehr have expressed compassion and sympathy for the Palestinian victims, so I'm not sure who this horrible crowd on MN is that you're referring to.

I'm not sure which quotes you are thinking of, and I don't want to make a list of individuals I am accusing. But I really would like to see sympathy without the BUT. You know, "yeah, it's sad that's happening, but war is hell", or "too bad about those hospitals, but there may be military targets", or other things that seem to focus on excusing the killings.

Are there a lot of quotes here that express that kind of clear sympathy without the BUT? Can you quote some of them? It's quite possible that I'm missing them.

[ken_sylvania]

I'm not seeing much expression of compassion at all. Show me those quotes. I'm seeing a lot of 'well, Hamas started it, war is hell, shrug'. I'm seeing a lot of statements saying Israel is doing what is reasonable.

Are you seeing a whole lot of people doing the opposite of justifying these deaths? Some people seem to be mostly trying to shut down people who express compassion or outrage.

Do you have Josh on your foe block list? You don’t read any of what he is saying?

Yes, I see Josh expressing compassion for both sides. I see Barnhart doing that. I see Szdfan and Ken doing that. There are probably others.

I also see some people pushing back when someone expresses compassion for Palestinians.

I went back through the first 22 pages of this thread. Virtually everybody that posted expressed sympathy for the victims in Gaza. Nobody pushed back against expressions of compassion for Palestinians. There were a number of people who blamed Israel for repressing the Palestinians and essentially causing the desperation and hatred that precipitated the Hamas attacks, as well as others who disagreed and said the hatred and violence preceded anything Israel did. Then there were those who expressed a belief that Hamas was the clear aggressor here and bears the brunt of the responsibility for the violence. You responded pretty much every time with a list of Israel's wrongs. When Mike asked if you felt their was a moral equivalence between Hamas' actions and Israel's actions, you dodged the question but laid out basically equal lists of what you felt were wrongs committed by each. Interestingly, I don't think you ever mentioned Hamas' role in the violence without giving equal attention to Israel's role, but a number of posts criticize only Israel, or at least say "both sides bad" followed by detailed criticizm only of Israel.

I think it's fair to say that in all of your posting about the wrongs committed by Israel, only once or twice did you mention that you have any sympathy for the victims of Hamas' attack - mostly your expressions of sympathy have been reserved for the victims in Gaza. I don't think this is wrong necessarily, but since you invited me to make a list of people who have clearly expressed compassion and sympathy for Palestinian victims, I can give you the results of what I found in the first 22 pages, which is that virtually everyone expressed as much or more sympathy for the Palestinian victims than you expressed for the Israeli victims.

It has felt to me in this thread like you believe there is a "just" or "humane" way to wage war, and that war is somehow less reprehensible if the parties involved follow certain rules and only kill, maim, and destroy soldiers of the other side rather than civilians. I think the idea of a "clean" war is an illusion, and I certainly don't know how Israel can effectively deal with the threat it faces without horrific civilian casualties. Early in WW2, some US war planners thought that they could fight a clean war against military targets, using techniques such as precision bombing, etc. This failed, and the Allies resorted to carpet bombing, fire bombing, and finally the atomic bomb to shatter the resistence of the Axis powers. Technology has improved since then, but even with all the sympathy that I have for the civilian victims, I don't see a bloodless solution to the Hamas-Israeli conflict.

[ken_sylvania]

It sounds to me like you are saying that if a person doesn't meet a certain threshhold of expressing compassion and sympathy for the Palestinian victims then that person are "arguing that all civilians and places of worship and residential buildings are fair game", arguing that retaliation and revenge against innocent citizens is fair game", and saying that the Palestinians living in Gaza deserve retribution for the attacks on Israel.

It's precisely when people push back against those who are expressing sympathy that I start to feel that way. When people say that we should be expressing sympathy for the victims of October 7th INSTEAD, not TOO.

Have you seen this in this thread?

I think only once in the first 22 pages of this thread did you express any sympathy for the October 7th victims (when you said your heart goes out to those on both sides, especially the victims) but your next few posts after that seemed, to me, to be focused on detailing all of Israel's wrongs implying they were at fault for what happened.

[Soloist]

Sounds to me like you were thinking of me in some of those comments.
I tend to look at things from a secular militaristic view when looking at this especially “your” leading questions. I called you out on it as you had given the impression (apparently to more then just me) that urban warfare could happen without civilian casualties. You also evaded what is a acceptable amount of casualties from war action.
Hamas certainly didn’t care about causing civilian casualties and perhaps Israel doesn’t either.
Any and I say any military action will result in civilian casualties. This is considered acceptable losses generally if they can spin it.
You do not understand military and saying you do by talking to civilians you only express that you don’t. We don’t think the same way or interact the same way. We have developed a culture that remains long after the military. If you want to understand how the military chooses to conduct its tactics, you have to understand the weapons, the training and who is leading the action.
I don’t have that information but I know that urban warfare has always been extremely messy and very bad for civilians.
With all that said, just like any other war, I’m not going to pick a side and wave the flag and boo anyone on the other side. I say… all lives matter, not just the Palestine people but the Israel people too.

[MaxPC]

You are certainly within your Free Will as given by God.

For the record the Pope and the Catholic Church official statements condemned the Hamas and subsequent Hezbollah attacks that started this warfare. Killing children and their parents was started by Hamas. Their rockets as well as Hezbollah’s have targeted civilians in Israel both presently and in the past. The Vatican diplomatic corps is fully aware of Iran’s role in all of this. They do not support Iran’s and by proxie, Hamas/Hezbollah actions against Israel nor Palestinian civilians.

The Catholic Church is offering to mediate negotiations for the release of hostages and the cessation of hostilities. It may be accepted or Iran will continue to pour munitions and support into the destruction of Israel. We shall see.

Your assertions that the Vatican is somehow choosing a “side” in this is way off base.

I believe you missed the point of my response and made an incorrect assumption about the RCC taking sides. You claim Catholic representatives are condemning Israel’s response. I made it clear what the official RCC response has been.

The RCC IS OFFERING TO MEDIATE cessation of hostilities and the return of hostages. Part of that offer has been the condemnation of the violence with the first statement addressing the terrorist’s actions. The next statement was asking Israel to slow their response. Peacemaking is a thankless task when there is outside kibitzing from the media. Still, the Pope has offered. We will see what happens. In the meantime a Bishop in the area has offered to exchange places with the hostages held by Hamas so that they can be released.

[Josh]

The Orthodox patriarchate of Jerusalem officially condemned the bombing of the Orthodox Church in Gaza. Can’t say that I blame them.

Regarding civilians killed and hurt - it’s horrible Israelis partying in the desert got killed and captured by paratroopers on powered paragliders. It’s horrible people were injured in rocket attacks that land indiscriminately in civilian areas. (The one that landed in Tel Aviv / Jaffa landed at an intersection I remember standing in - it’s actually in a Palestinian neighbourhood, one of the tiny ones left in Tel Aviv / Jaffa.)

It’s horrible churches got bombed that were being used as makeshift refugee camps. It’s horrible refugee camps, ambulances, and hospitals were bombed. It’s horrible that children have been maimed and died and pregnant women trying to give birth rushed out of the hospital because it’s not safe to be there anymore.

I think a lot of sympathy has been shown for victims but I do find it disturbing the sympathy for Gazan victims comes with a “but”. Like German, English, and Japanese victims of indiscriminate bombing, it is wrong, wrong, wrong, and inexcusable.

[Robert]

Insurrection?

[Ken]

I don’t know if it meets the legal definition of insurrection under US law. But any of them who are destroying Federal property, trespassing, or assaulting Federal officers need to be arrested and charged.

The video doesn’t actually show any of that from what I can see. Just people carrying flags and yelling.

But if they are engaged in violent crimes they need to be arrested and charged. There should be zero tolerance for that kind of behavior no matter who is doing it. I’m sure if it is the White House fence they all are being filmed by hundreds of high definition cameras from every single angle. So they can track them all down.

[Robert]