I don’t feel like looking it up, but I’ve heard statistics like the Breaking Bad finale had half the viewers of the average episode of CSI Miami. The general lesson is don’t underestimate the average person’s appetite for garbage.

Facebook is the closest thing to the Chinese concept of an everything app that the US has.

As a listener of Knowledge Fight, and thus Alex Jones Infowars, part of his explanation has something to do with god and the literal devil and (I swear) intergalactic contract law. Something about the globalists can only get away with their depopulation plans if they provide warning first, and thus we all accept the contract or something, so that’s why the globalists leave clues in plain site. Cause they have to, cause intergalactic contract law.

People who meme “the frogs are gay” are truly only scratching the surface of how insane and dangerous that guy and his followers are.

Sacrifice your soldiers today for potential enemy soldiers in the future, while you’re at war and under attack by said enemy? Great plan.

My plan is to comply with international humanitarian law. It is a great plan. Its an awesome fucking plan in fact.

You’re suggesting Israel should have to keep open supply lines open for enemy forces.

And here you acknowledge the cage.

Embargoing and cutting off your supplies from a hostile force is pretty standard when it comes to warfare.

2.1 million Palestinians are a hostile force? Also its literally a requirement of international humanitiarian law

IHL provides that civilians under the power of enemy forces must be treated humanely in all circumstances, without any adverse distinction. They must be protected against all forms of violence and degrading treatment, including murder and torture. Moreover, in case of prosecution, they are entitled to a fair trial affording all essential judicial guarantees. The protection of civilians extends to those trying to help them, in particular medical units and humanitarian or relief bodies providing essentials such as food, clothing and medical supplies. The warring parties are required to allow access to such organizations. The Fourth Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I specifically require belligerents to facilitate the work of the ICRC. While IHL protects all civilians without discrimination, certain groups are singled out for special mention. Women and children, the aged and sick are highly vulnerable during armed conflict. So too are those who flee their homes and become internally displaced or refugees. IHL prohibits forced displacements by intimidation, violence or starvation.>

Your literally defending war crimes buddy. Maybe take a look in the mirror.

I was specifically referring to the 2021 elections and Israel’s refusal to allow East Jerusalem to vote after Israel annexed the territory. But you probably knew that. Palestinians dislike Hamas, an election likely would have removed them from power, but Israel gave Hamas the bullshit excuse it needed to stay in power. Great job!

Hamas has made it clear they will not surrender or negotiate for a viable peace

I don’t know if you have reading comprehension problems or were specifically ignoring the point, but I was explicitly talking about what comes after Hamas. You have 2.1 million people in a cage for decades. You cut off their food and water for weeks, kill 10,000 people, over half children, and you think even after you kill every Hamas leader and solider that the citizens that left are just going to go back to living in their cage without human rights? This is something the US learned in Afghanistan, you kill one civilian, you create two new terrorists. The same will happen here. Unless, of course, your intention was to lump all Palestinians under the label of “Hamas”, in which case consider your true colors seen!

I suspect for this reason we’re probably going to see a forcible regime change and/or some annexation in Gaza very soon.

I also agree that Israel intends to engage in illegal ethnic cleansing. Glad we’re on the same page about that at least.

Sacrificing significant numbers of your own soldiers to save enemy civilians sounds noble

It sounds consistent with the international laws of war. Everything you listed, especially being politically unpopular, is not a legitimate consideration for the use of military force against civilian populations. Under international law, the party using force must weigh the expected military advantage against the anticipated harm to civilians and civilian objects. If the same objective could be achieved via a means less harmful to civilians, that is the required option. Maybe you don’t give a shit about international law, Israel never has. It is also completely disingenuous to frame loss of IDF soldiers on the battlefield as some “win” for Hamas or a risk to Israel’s security. Hamas is terrorist organization fighting with soviet era junk and homemade rockets going up against a nation-state backed by the US. IDF losses would be in the hundreds at most in the worst conditions.

They certainly aren’t trying to maximize civilian casualties…At very least it’s obvious they want to minimize the blowback from the media

Now that’s just silly. Israel doesn’t care about the media. The Israeli UN ambassadors were wearing gold stars to protest the overwhelming UN resolution calling for a humanitarian cease fire, and Israel got called out by the Holocaust Musuem for the tactic. Israel does not care about media criticism. But you are right, they are not trying to maximize civilian casualties. They are trying to inflict maximum suffering as a means of ethnic cleansing.

See the link in my above post for detailed info and examples of how Hamas intentionally uses human shields and puts their bases in and under hospitals, churches, mosques, etc.,

Your link is nearly 10 years out of date. Also, there’s no “its ok to bomb entire neighborhoods if a enemy combatant has a home in the neighborhood so is therefore using human shields” exception to the international law of war obligation to protect civilians. Not even if you, like Israel, view Palestinians as subhuman and not deserving of basic rights.

These countries are at war with each other,

There are not two countries at war. There is one country, Israel. This is an anti-terrorism operation, by definition.

and someone currently on your side today is better for your national interests than someone who might potentially be on your enemy’s side in the future.

That’s just some cold ass shit. Really all about wining those hearts and minds. At any rate, its a violation of international law so ok.

Would you enthusiastically join them in such an incursion, without air support, to save enemy civilians who are likely to support said enemy?

Ah this old chesnut, how lazy. I could easily ask the same thing to you - would you enthusiastically support your country bombing civilian neighborhood because there might be an enemy combatant in a tunnel underneath the homes? Really waiving the flag after that one?

How about the cutting off food and water for millions of people? That’s a legitimate thing to do, right?

Hamas has a leader in a tunnel under a refugee camp. You can 1) go into the tunnel and kill the Hamas fighters, possibly losing IDF soilders along the way, or 2) you can bomb the fuck out of the civilian houses on top of the tunnel and hope that collapses the tunnel and kills the leader, killing hundreds of civilians. A righteous country, an explicitly religious country who answers to god, would choose to sacrifice it’s soilders over sacrificing innocent lives. Israel instead decided to commit a war crime. And then after being called out by the international community, did the same thing the next day.

Since you like asking questions, maybe you can answer one. Please explain how cutting off food and water for 2.1 million people is a legitimate military tactic and not just the war crime of collective punishment?

Maybe if Israel actually allowed Gaza to hold elections, Hamas wouldn’t be in power 🤔 instead Bibi needed a bad guy on his doorstep to keep in power, and he was too busy engaging in ethnic cleansing in the west bank to actually secure the “border” (i.e, the walls of the open air prison Palestinians are kept in) with Gaza.

Israel is never going to have true security keeping a group of people trapped, without political rights, with strict controls on their access to basic goods. Fuck Hamas, but violence is the predictable result of depriving people of political rights and basic freedoms. Today it’s Hamas, tomorrow it’s some other group, it will keep happening. Building a better cage will only do so much good, desperate people are dangerous. Until that is resolved, Israel will have no real security.

The alternative to air strikes is to send in IDF troops to kill Hamas in close combat. That option would likely lead to many more IDF deaths, as ypu notes, but dont pretend Hamas rockets are an actual threat, there are no Israeli civilians at risk, or at best a small number. The airstrike option saves IDF lives, but will lead to vastly more civil deaths. There are options here, you just have to make a judgement call on who you are willing to sacrifice, your own soldiers or innocent civilians, mostly children. Israel has made it’s choice, they have to live with it, and one day they can tell their god all about how letting IDF soilders die on the battle field was a politically more costly option than killing thousands of innocent children from the air, after forcing those same children to live in unsanitary conditions, starving and without access to water, for weeks before sending someone in a jet to flip a switch and end their lives.

There are options. There are choices.

Also all of this assumes that Israel, an apartied state, is actually trying to minimize civilian causalities and that Hamas is using civilians as human shields by I guess existing in the same densely populated area, that Hamas governs, as the civilians? And that Israel isn’t just using this as an opportunity to end the Palestinian problem once and for all, to cause so much suffering that the Palestinians abandoned their homes and seek refuge in Egypt, kind of like the plans drawn up and recommended by the Israeli government suggest. As you said “annexing” the territory. That’s ethnic cleansing btw, but who’s counting. Even ignoring all that, and assuming Israel is acting in complete good faith, they are still making a choice that an IDF soilders life is more valuable than a Palestinian childs.

Hamas is evil, btw, fuck them to hell. I hope Israel succeeds in wiping them off the face of the earth. But that doesn’t mean I am going to mindlessly defend an explicitly racist country cowardly killing thousands of civilians from the air and starving the survivors. The only Innocents here are the civilians, but the Israeli civilians slightly less so because they at least have political control of their government which is taking these actions and have confined Palestinians to open air prisons for decades.

I’m so tired of these millennials and their excuses. Grow up, put on your big boy pants, find your way out of the Chinese black site, and get your ass to work on time. Stop blamiglng everyone else for your problems. If your going to skip work everytime you run into a little inconvenience like being targeted for a political kidnapping, well don’t be surprised if your employer gives you the boot.

What is it with this generation and all the excuses? Boohoo, my alarm didn’t go off, my car wouldn’t start, I was perceived as a threat to the leadership of the CCP and kidnapped in the night. Back in my day, you show up to work on time no matter what, no excuses. This guy deserved to be fired.

I mean if you don’t show up for work for two months, you shouldn’t be surprised when you get fired…

On the one hand, bombing a hospital is pretty brazen even for Israel, especially as your most important ally is en route for a visit, and the explanation of a Hamas rocket going astray does seem plausible. On the other hand, I’m not inclined to trust the word of a country that has proudly cut off food and water for 2.2 million people for over a week now. You don’t get the benefit of the doubt when your actively committing war crimes. Also it may not have been intentional, a IDF pilot could have just missed a target or gone rogue. I’m sure no UN inspectors will ever be let in to examine the scene to make a determination, so we’ll probably never know the truth. It probably doesn’t matter much, the dead are dead either way, the grieving families will grieve either way, and all sides of the conflict will believe what they want to further their political ends, including Hezbollah using potentially using this as a justification for a broader conflict. It’s just tragedy on top of tragedy.

Perhaps. I mean your right on the eventual ending being bad. But the administration could at least pay lip service to “ending violence” and “restoring calm” even if they know that won’t happen. This memo demonstrates that the administration doesn’t want there to be any suggestion that the US is critical of whatever actions Israel chooses to take, up to and including genocide. They want the public to know the US is 100% behind Israel, no matter what. While also fully knowing Israel is currently committing war crimes and likely to escalate the violence. It’s not a good look.

Have you never seen a disaster movie? Have you never been stuck in traffic on a holiday weekend where lots of people are traveling? I can’t imagine how it’s possible that you think a million people are just going to pack up and move, all at once, in a 24 hour window, like that is in anyway a reasonable request. Especially after these people were cut off from from food, water, and fuel (you know, the stuff you need for traveling) almost a week ago. And have all those people go to an area where there isn’t space, and still no food, water, or electricity. Common guy really?

Israel is not operating in good faith, that is abundantly clear. This warning is just for the record, so that after Israel commits genocide they can point to that warning and say it’s the civilians fault for not leaving like we told them too.

Your probably right about Hamas motives. Fine. But what your ignoring is that the Israeli government views all Palestinians as subhuman, and they intend to exact revenge on all of the people. Hamas and Israel are both happy with Palestinian civilian casualties, but for different reasons. The only differences between them is one side basically admits it’s a terrorist organization, while the other side benefits from the political and military support of the west, as well as people like you who are eager to make excuses for outright genocide. Remember, where here in the comments on an article about Israel using white phosphorus in a populated area which is a fucking war crime.

We sure do. I can hear the college version of me that believed “both parties are just two sides of the same captofacist coin” calling out from my memory saying “I told you so!”

I agree with everything you said about Isreal, and even that violence from Palestinians is expected given the circumstances. But I’d ask, what is Hamas goal? To free the Palestinians or to entrench their political power within Gaza? If their goal is the former, this attack seems entirely counter productive. Bibi led a fractured government engulfed in protests over his reforms to the supreme court, with reservists promising not to show up for duty as a result. Hamas just cured that problem, Bibi’s government is united and reservists are showing up in record numbers. In America, there was a growing political movement for recognizing the vast problems and human rights abuses in Israel, to the point where Biden didn’t invite Bibi to the Whitehouse given progressive pressure and the pro Israel lobby starting to freak out. That’s gone, killing civilians at a festival, including American citizens, just snuffed out whatever political resistance to the Israel orthodoxy that existed in America. Bibi now has the political freedom to engage in a ground invasion, if not all out genocide in Gaza, and anybody who calls it out will be forced into a position of answering for the murder and rape and other attrocities carried out by Hamas. Nobody is going to go out of their way to defend terrorists who target civilians. If Hamas wanted liberation of Palestinians, they did that cause immense violence this weekend.

If, on the other hand, Hamas wants to secure power, to keep the people in Gaza angry and looking to Hamas for revenge, then this assault and the predictable Israeli response will do that cause wonders.

Israel has turned Gaza into an open air prison. Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide, but I’ll save that criticism until it actually plays out. In general, Israel is an apartied state. Hamas is a bunch of murderous terrorists committing war crimes, doing far more harm to their supposed cause than good. This attack will result in far more of their people suffering. But they count on that, hate within the Palestine community in Gaza is what gives them political power, so the civilians Isreal is currently killing will just continue to fuel the cycle of violence.

Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn’t make Israel “good”. If you compare Nazi Germany to apartied South Africa, the former is going to win the evil country contest everytime. But that doesn’t make apartied South Africa good. If it wasn’t for the Book of Revelations, America (it’s government and it’s people) would care as much about this conflict as it does about various civil wars and genocides happening all over the world, which is to say not at all (unless oil or other natural resources are imperilled).

Welcome! Former long time Relay user, but I left reddit in June. For what it’s worth, I like Thunder and Connect. They are both open source and add free (no offense to ad supported apps). Just thought you might like to know what a fellow Relay user settles on after months of trying them all out.

Checks out! I know if I listen on a road trip with my wife, I put a piddlepad on her seat first.