Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 8:37 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 8:24 am
So your thought is that they never actually intended genocide at all? For you write, "...you presented it as if genocide is on the table. It's not." It was never "on the table," right?
Not as real threat, as you presented it, no. Israel's military alone makes this impossible. And the US immediately sent ships to support Israel. Not a chance. Just as in every single conflict going back decades, more Palestinians die than Israelis, and nothing remotely even when 6 or however many Arab nations joined together to attack Israel.
So, making it seem like anyone being for the ceasefire is accepting genocide is a lie and hysteria.
I think that's naive, honestly. I agree that the effort was foolish and obviously ineffective, at the end of the day; but its intention was very clear. And Hamas's subsequent actions and defiant claims have only reinforced the obvious fact that, however misguided, the purpose was clearly eradication of the entirety of Israel "from the river to the sea," meaning genocide.
So Israel is not in a safe position to put any trust in these people. Given their own territory and bundles of international aid, they used it for nothing but preparing guns, terrorist tunnels and other supplies for attacking Israel -- and, most telling of all, thousands and thousands of rockets that can only be used indescriminately and against civilian targets, and have neither the precision nor the power to destroy military targets. And these, they have not ceased to fire, even while under seige themselves, and at the cost of their own destruction.
The intention is clear: kill all the Jews, and take all the territory Israel now has. It's nothing less than that. And when such intentions are what one's enemy has, one would only be foolish to give them time and means to summon the rest of the force necessary for them to achieve their intention. So they may have failed today; but Hamas has not given up, and will not give up. So I understand very well Israel's belief that this enemy must be removed.
Now, I'm not saying they were being realistic.
But you presented it as a realistic threat before.
It IS a realistic "threat." That threat simply went unfulfilled -- for now. But one cannot allow Hamas time and space to act on its expressed desires any further, obviously. So yes, the "threat" as you call it, is very real, and obviously so, their current failure notwithstanding.
Hamas are clearly homicidal maniacs who have passed the point where conscience even functions for them. You can see that in their slaughter in southern Israel: no women, children or elderly persons are so helpless that they will not torture, rape and murder them with impunity. That they are
presently-failed maniacs doesn't make them any less dangerous. They have not just present efforts, but clearly-expressed intentions going forward, as well.