Hamas attacking Israel

[Bob Long]

4 minutes ago, moosehead said:

 

You do realize that Hamas wants Israel to send in ground forces... right ? You do realize that this was Hamas's plan.

 

 

I do. Sometimes groups like Hamas make strategic errors. 

 

There are many ways this thing can play out. My hope is they can drive most of Hamas into the ground quickly and pull back in a few days or so before there's too much of a chance for other countries to escalate things. 

[Warhippy]

1 minute ago, Bob Long said:

 

does it? no I didn't know, so I asked him. 

 

 

PM me your feelings then, I won't report you. 

And risk my lefty cred?

 

Or is it my Maga both side-isms?

 

I'd rather not because much as I stated before while I will call out hypocrisy I sure as hell don't care enough to hide it.  if I can't say it openly it isn't worth speaking behind closed doors or behind other's backs.

 

I respect the hell out of everyone in this thread but much like the covid thread; emotions and personal bias are making people say things I never thought I'd hear from them and I won't hide my feelings about it.

 

I will say.  When the ban hammer does come for me.  I will miss all of you.  But I won't change who I am or hide my feelings.

[Sabrefan1]

1 minute ago, Warhippy said:

This could very well end up like Yemen.  Millions starving.  Neighbouring nations with closed borders but "thoughts and prayers" and we know what happens afterwards

 

The expression I believe was something like, "graves are easier to dig in the sand."

 

Hopefully it doesn't happen, but there's certainly a chance it does.  Even a 10% chance that this turns into a genocide is pretty sobering.

[Bob Long]

Just now, Warhippy said:

And risk my lefty cred?

 

Or is it my Maga both side-isms?

 

I'd rather not because much as I stated before while I will call out hypocrisy I sure as hell don't care enough to hide it.  if I can't say it openly it isn't worth speaking behind closed doors or behind other's backs.

 

I respect the hell out of everyone in this thread but much like the covid thread; emotions and personal bias are making people say things I never thought I'd hear from them and I won't hide my feelings about it.

 

I will say.  When the ban hammer does come for me.  I will miss all of you.  But I won't change who I am or hide my feelings.

 

No one's asking you to. 

[Boudrias]

5 minutes ago, Sabrefan1 said:

 

Hopefully it doesn't happen, but there's certainly a chance it does.  Even a 10% chance that this turns into a genocide is pretty sobering.

I think Israel has the OK to do what they think they have to to finish Hamas. Hamas had to know that after what they did there would be serious fallout. They might have thought they could use their own people as shields but that won't count for much. Perhaps Hezbollah will wait until the IDF is fully engaged in Gaza but I highly doubt the Israelis and Americans haven't prepared for that. I suspect the action in Gaza will force a peace on the Israeli border. The Arab people will witness the death and destruction and choose a different direction. If the Saudi hold firm and recognize Israel then long term peace can be reached. 

[Playoff Beered]

Another piece from the NY Times today, a guest essay by Dennis Ross, a former US envoy to the ME...

 

I Might Have Once Favored a Cease-Fire With Hamas, but Not Now

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/opinion/hamas-war-gaza-israel.html#:~:text=In the past%2C I might,and in control of Gaza.

 

 

Quote

 

For 35 years, I’ve devoted my professional life to U.S. peacemaking policy and conflict resolution and planning — whether in the former Soviet Union, a reunified Germany or postwar Iraq. But nothing has preoccupied me like finding a peaceful and lasting solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

In the past, I might have favored a cease-fire with Hamas during a conflict with Israel. But today it is clear to me that peace is not going to be possible now or in the future as long as Hamas remains intact and in control of Gaza. Hamas’s power and ability to threaten Israel — and subject Gazan civilians to ever more rounds of violence — must end.

After Oct. 7, there are many Israelis who believe their survival as a state is at stake. That may sound like an exaggeration, but to them, it’s not. If Hamas persists as a military force and is still running Gaza after this war is over, it will attack Israel again. And whether or not Hezbollah opens a true second front from Lebanon during this conflict, it, too, will attack Israel in the future. The aim of these groups, both of which are backed by Iran, is to make Israel unlivable and drive Israelis to leave: While Iran has denied involvement in the Hamas attack, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has long talked about Israel not surviving for another 25 years, and his strategy has been to use these militant proxies to achieve that goal.

Given the strength of Israel’s military — by far the most powerful in the region — the aims of Iran and its collaborators seemed implausible until a few weeks ago. But the events of Oct. 7 changed everything. As one commander in the Israeli military said, “If we do not defeat Hamas, we cannot survive here.”

Israel is not alone in believing it must defeat Hamas. Over the past two weeks, when I talked to Arab officials throughout the region whom I have long known, every single one told me that Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza. They made clear that if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, give leverage and momentum to Iran and its collaborators and put their own governments on the defensive.

But they said this in private. Their public postures have been quite different. Only a few Arab states openly condemned the Hamas massacre of more than 1,400 people in Israel. Why? Because Arab leaders understood that as Israel retaliated and Palestinian casualties and suffering grew, their own citizens would be outraged and they needed to be seen as standing up for the Palestinians, at least rhetorically.

Nowhere was the instinct to cater to the mood of the street more vividly revealed than in the quick denunciations of Israel after Hamas claimed that Israel bombed Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza. Israel has denied hitting the hospital but in several Arab countries, Hamas’s claims were accepted. At this point, multiple national intelligence agencies have said it was most likely a Palestinian rocket that hit the hospital.

 

Nevertheless, people across the region — and the world — saw Israel bombing Gaza and were ready to believe this, too, was deliberately done. Even the United Arab Emirates, which had condemned the Hamas attack, issued a later statement condemning “the Israeli attack that targeted Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of people.” It went on to call on “the international community to intensify efforts to reach an immediate cease-fire to prevent further loss of life.”

As Israel's aerial bombardment of Gaza picks up in pace and civilian casualties rise, international calls for an immediate cease-fire are mounting. Some are calling for Israel to call off a ground invasion. But ending the war now would mean Hamas would win. At present, its military infrastructure still exists, its leadership remains largely intact, and its political control of Gaza is unchallenged. As Hamas did after conflicts with Israel in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, the group will almost certainly rearm and restore. It will be able to add to its system of tunnels running under the enclave. The strip will remain impoverished, and the next round of war will be inevitable, holding both Gazan civilians and much of the rest of the Middle East hostage to Hamas’s aims.

An Israeli ground campaign would come at an extremely high cost. If it proceeds, invading Israeli soldiers will surely lose their lives, and there will be even more Palestinian casualties, a tragedy Hamas has ensured by embedding itself and its military capability in communities, using hospitals, mosques and schools to store its ammunition. But defeating Hamas cannot be done only with strategic strikes from the air, any more than we were able to root out ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, or Raqqa, Syria, from the air. In that fight, the United States had local partners who did the terrible and costly ground fighting in cities while our forces largely devastated them from above.

What would a defeat of Hamas mean? It would mean its military infrastructure, much of which is physically connected to civilian infrastructure, was largely destroyed and its leadership decimated, leaving the group without the capacity to block a reconstruction for demilitarization formula for Gaza, as it did in the past. In essence, this would mean there would be no war-making capacity in Gaza and that capacity could not be rebuilt.

That formula must guide the day-after reality in Gaza. It would require Israel to remain in Gaza after the fighting ends until it could hand over to some kind of an interim administration to prevent a vacuum and begin the enormous task of reconstruction. That administration should be largely run by Palestinian technocrats — from Gaza, the West Bank or the diaspora — under an international umbrella, which would include Arab and non-Arab nations. The United States would need to mobilize and organize the effort, possibly using an umbrella like the United Nations or the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee donor group to the Palestinians or even acting on the proposal by President Emmanuel Macron of France to use the international anti-ISIS coalition to counter Hamas. Such a coalition could help create the division of labor that would be necessary.

For example, Morocco, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain could provide police — not military forces — to ensure security for the new civil administration and those responsible for reconstruction. Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E and Qatar could provide the bulk of the funding for reconstruction, explaining their roles as necessary to relieve the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza and help them recover. Canada and others could provide monitoring mechanisms to ensure that assistance would go to its intended purposes.

Of course, the mood in Gaza after the fighting is over will be grim and angry. Thousands of civilians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry. Vast swaths of the enclave are uninhabitable. But it is worth noting that polls taken not long before the Oct. 7 attack revealed that 62 percent of Gazans were against Hamas breaking the cease-fire at the time with Israel. Getting aid into Gaza quickly and starting the reconstruction effort as soon as the fighting stops could help show residents that life can get better when Hamas is no longer preventing the rebuilding of Gaza.

How Israel would conduct a ground campaign would affect all of this and even whether such a day-after reality could materialize. For Israel to reduce the pressure from its neighbors and the international community to stop its attack, it must demonstrate more convincingly that it is fighting Hamas and is not trying to punish Palestinian civilians. It must create safe corridors for humanitarian assistance, including from Israeli territory through the Kerem Shalom crossing point. To alleviate the suffering, it should allow international groups, such as Doctors Without Borders, to operate safely there and include Israeli doctors who can set up field hospitals — something they have experience doing in Syria and Ukraine.

Israel’s political leaders need to clearly and publicly emphasize they will leave Gaza and lift the siege after Hamas has been militarily defeated and largely disarmed. They must communicate that they understand a political resolution is needed with the Palestinians more generally. That is not a message Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now conveying, given the shock in Israel and the makeup of his government. But it is one Israel’s partners in the region need to hear — and soon.

There are no easy solutions to Gaza, but there is only one path forward in this war. An outcome that leaves Hamas in control will doom not just Gaza but also much of the rest of the Middle East.

 

 

[Sabrefan1]

9 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

I think Israel has the OK to do what they think they have to to finish Hamas. Hamas had to know that after what they did there would be serious fallout. They might have thought they could use their own people as shields but that won't count for much. Perhaps Hezbollah will wait until the IDF is fully engaged in Gaza but I highly doubt the Israelis and Americans haven't prepared for that. I suspect the action in Gaza will force a peace on the Israeli border. The Arab people will witness the death and destruction and choose a different direction. If the Saudi hold firm and recognize Israel then long term peace can be reached. 

 

We'll know for sure sooner or later. 

 

U.S. policy is fluid especially with a president who openly talks about "getting in trouble" with the people who tell him what to do.  Then there's a hard-liner in Netanyahu who has been wanting this exact situation for quite some time.

 

Like I've said a few times, the only way this leaves the region is if the Israelis decide to take back the site that the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits on.  Then it's only a matter of time before they'd implode it and then build a 3rd Temple in it's place.

[Warhippy]

Just now, Sabrefan1 said:

 

We'll know for sure sooner or later. 

 

U.S. policy is fluid especially with a president who openly talks about "getting in trouble" with the people who tell him what to do.  Then there's a hard-liner in Netanyahu who has been wanting this exact situation for quite some time.

 

Like I've said a few times, the only way this leaves the region is if the Israelis decide to take back the site that the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits on.  Then it's only a matter of time before they'd implode it and then build a 3rd Temple in it's place.

What's the +/- on that happening during this ground war with the excuse of "terrorists" hiding inside ?

 

I'd say 60/40

 

28 minutes ago, Sabrefan1 said:

 

Hopefully it doesn't happen, but there's certainly a chance it does.  Even a 10% chance that this turns into a genocide is pretty sobering.

To be fair.  It's been sort of a technical genocide for a while now.  The definition is the killing or destruction of a people with (or) the aim of destroying a nation or state.  With the estimate of Palestine ceasing to exist between 2040 and 2050 due to ongoing annexation or expansion it's been a slow process but it's been happening.

 

I know this will set people off but it's technically the truth.

 

If this gets as ugly as it looks you'll see hundreds of thousands of palestinians running for their lives and even more displaced.  With a nation of less than 5 million in a space 6 times smaller than vancouver island that level of forced migration is going to result in some serious loss

[Bob Long]

17 minutes ago, Playoff Beered said:

Another piece from the NY Times today, a guest essay by Dennis Ross, a former US envoy to the ME...

 

I Might Have Once Favored a Cease-Fire With Hamas, but Not Now

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/opinion/hamas-war-gaza-israel.html#:~:text=In the past%2C I might,and in control of Gaza.

 

 

 

 

excellent piece, one of the best ones I've seen on this yet. 

[Elias Pettersson]

1 hour ago, Bob Long said:

 

I don't think Israel will take it that far. Biden has already publicly stated he won't support that. 

 

I think the goal is to take out most or all of that tunnel system and the places they know are the usual hiding spots for Hamas. Once they do that I can see them pulling back. 

Their hiding spots are hospitals, mosques and schools. That’s the problem. Their headquarters is literally underneath the Al-Shifa hospital. 

[Sabrefan1]

 

18 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

What's the +/- on that happening during this ground war with the excuse of "terrorists" hiding inside ?

 

I'd say 60/40

 

There's no way they could spin that to appease over a billion angry Muslims.  For now, it's 90/10 against is my guess.

 

Quote

To be fair.  It's been sort of a technical genocide for a while now.  The definition is the killing or destruction of a people with (or) the aim of destroying a nation or state.  With the estimate of Palestine ceasing to exist between 2040 and 2050 due to ongoing annexation or expansion it's been a slow process but it's been happening.

 

The aim of what to do with the Palestinians changes between US presidencies and Israeli PM's.  That's what makes this situation potentially unique.  You have a US president who isn't fully in control of his administration due to his age related infirmities and a hard-line PM who wants to "solve" this problem as quickly as he can with the temporary green light that he has been given.

 

Quote

If this gets as ugly as it looks you'll see hundreds of thousands of palestinians running for their lives and even more displaced.  With a nation of less than 5 million in a space 6 times smaller than vancouver island that level of forced migration is going to result in some serious loss

 

There's a realistic chance of worst case happening.  I know one thing, there's a hospital with Hamas HQ located underneath it that's about to get leveled and a whole lot of medical personnel and patients are about to die if they haven't been bombed already.

[Sabrefan1]

1 minute ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Their hiding spots are hospitals, mosques and schools. That’s the problem. Their headquarters is literally underneath the Al-Shifa hospital. 

 

You just beat me to it by one minute.  I wondered how many people here knew where Hamas keeps/kept their HQ.

[Playoff Beered]

Piers Morgan can Fu@k off but he interviewed the son of one of Hamas's founders...

 

 

 

[moosehead]

1 hour ago, Boudrias said:

I think Israel has the OK to do what they think they have to to finish Hamas. Hamas had to know that after what they did there would be serious fallout. They might have thought they could use their own people as shields but that won't count for much. Perhaps Hezbollah will wait until the IDF is fully engaged in Gaza but I highly doubt the Israelis and Americans haven't prepared for that. I suspect the action in Gaza will force a peace on the Israeli border. The Arab people will witness the death and destruction and choose a different direction. If the Saudi hold firm and recognize Israel then long term peace can be reached. 

 

 No one has the right to kill innocent women and children. It is a War Crime you are supporting. 

[Playoff Beered]

 

[Playoff Beered]

4 hours ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

 

 

Elon Muskovite should stick to what he's good at (which isn't politics).

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by Playoff Beered

[Playoff Beered]

44 minutes ago, moosehead said:

No one has the right to kill innocent women and children. It is a War Crime you are supporting. 

 

After seeing you type that for the twentieth time it just seems like you're virtue signalling. Nobody wants to see women and children killed but Hamas must be removed before there can ever be any chance of peace in Gaza. No Arab country is willing to put boots on the ground and the US or EU would never get accepted by the Palestinians. What other option is there? If they go back to the status quo then Hamas will re-arm and do it again in a few years. If you support peace for Gaza then Hamas must be removed. You can do it now with a bunch of casualties or you can do nothing and suffer even more casualties in the long run.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Playoff Beered

[moosehead]

15 minutes ago, Playoff Beered said:

 

After seeing you type that for the twentieth time it just seems like you're virtue signalling. Nobody wants to see women and children killed but Hamas must be removed before there can ever be any chance of peace in Gaza. No Arab country is willing to put boots on the ground and the US or EU would never get accepted by the Palestinians. What other option is there? If they go back to the status quo then Hamas will re-arm and do it again in a few years. If you support peace for Gaza then Hamas must be removed. You can do it now with a bunch of casualties or you can do nothing and suffer even more casualties in the long run.

 

It is the 20th time you have called for the murder of innocents...

 

So easy for internet posters to call for death of others...  So easy for people that have never seen a mutilated body...... to blindly support war as the only option. 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by moosehead

[Ilunga]

7 hours ago, Playoff Beered said:

 

 

 The mullahs all think they're going to heaven to bang 72 is it? virgins. I don't think Putin shares that view.

 

Don't believe so, it's just the bullshit they tell young teenagers to motivate them to kill others 

 

 

 

 

[moosehead]

Hundreds of Pro-Palestinian protesters forced the temporary closure of NY city  Grand Central Terminal during the Friday evening rush as they staged a massive sit-in inside the station’s concourse.

 

 

The sea of demonstrators, wearing black shirts that said “Jews say cease fire now,” took over the station’s vast concourse chanting “no more weapons. No more war. Ceasefire is what we’re fighting for.”

Other protesters climbed atop the ticket counter with large banners that read “Palestinians should be FREE” and “Never again for anyone.”

 

The sit-in demonstration, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, 

 

https://nypost.com/2023/10/27/metro/pro-palestinian-protesters-shut-down-grand-central-terminal-during-evening-rush/

Edited October 28, 2023 by moosehead

[Playoff Beered]

4 minutes ago, moosehead said:

It is the 20th time you have called for the murder of innocents...

 

So easy for internet posters to call for death of others...

 

Yes what I'm saying is harsh, but your lack of a solution will kill more in the long run. 

[moosehead]

Just now, Playoff Beered said:

 

Yes what I'm saying is harsh, but your lack of a solution will kill more in the long run. 

 

What you are saying / supporting  is  actually criminal.

[Playoff Beered]

1 minute ago, moosehead said:

What you are saying / supporting  is  actually criminal.

 

Well, then I'm a criminal for wanting this to end with the least amount of suffering.

[Ilunga]

7 hours ago, Bob Long said:

 

If pooty thinks he's going to lose the Ukraine invasion yes I do think he's capable of that.

 

Do you remember who was responsible for screwing up the Iran nuclear deal ? 

 

America - PO11355809

[Bob Long]

1 minute ago, Ilunga said:

 

Do you remember who was responsible for screwing up the Iran nuclear deal ? 

 

America - PO11355809

 

I'm pretty sure he works for Putin