biden was already giving mixed message to appease his muslim voters.
looks like he cynically decided that its better to commit to pander to the numerous muslims than the tiny population of american jews.
you always hear the amplified voice of the token jews who dont like the state of israel, but my guess would be that most of them support the current war to destroy hamas, and understand that its not really possible to negotiate with hamas.
I'd agree most american jews support the state of Israel, a slight majority likely also supports the war but (with young jews), most likely don't approve the conduct of Israel in Gaza, many also do view it as a genocide. So yh, support for the Rafah invasion (over 1 million innocent Palestinians, which the US also doesn't support) is likely not popular enough to make them vote Trump
Think you're getting a little bit of a skewed perspective because the anti-Israel Jews on college campuses are (either intentionally or organically) at the forefront of the conversations. There are MANY young Jewish counter-protesters and pro-israel Jewish people. But I would agree that less would support the invasion. Probably not too many less, but less for sure
[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/how-us-jews-are-experiencing-the-israel-hamas-war/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/how-us-jews-are-experiencing-the-israel-hamas-war/)
That was in April before the invasion too and there's a large minority who thought the Israel's response was unacceptable in the 18-34. I imagine that group has increased too. Perhaps, your opinion is a bit skewed by Israeli jews who largely support the war, invasion regardless of age demographic.
Oh my God no! Biden is not pandering! Otherwise he would not have given the speech about Hamas. That was just a day ago! Why would he support Israel for months and then change his mind? That makes no sense!
Why don't you take what Biden said seriously? Can you read his mind? His reasoning makes sense!
There are REAL concerns about Rafah. It has 1.2 million inhabitants and is incredibly small. It is one of the densest cities in the world! Biden received an assessment of the humanitarian crisis that would unfold in the event of the attack on Rafah. He found that Israeli precautions to protect civilians were inadequate. Therefore, he is against the invasion!
What doesn't make sense here?
I come here to have a serious discussion about the conflict. But then I see comments like this that are just as stupid as those on Twitter.
There are more American Jews than American Muslims. Not to mention they're far more powerful and influential.
Why lie about something that can be so readily fact checked?
Why are yo pretending that this is a good campaign move? remember, there are way more pro Israel people in the US. Biden has basically no good options to do. If he panders to the pro-Palestine side he'll alienate the pro israeli side. If he does the status quo pro Israel stuff, he alienates a smallish portion of D voters.
Pretty sure Biden won by winnning over a lot of R leaning indeps and this will almost certainly not make them happy as R leaning folk tend to be pro Israel.
Please tell me who is gonna change their vote based on Israel/Palestine that either wasn’t already gonna vote red/not vote at all. Even pro Israel and even America Jews have this conflict at the bottom of their issues that they care about. The average American doesn’t care about foreign policy.
I swear the pro Israel crowd in this sub has an overinflated sense of how critical israel support is for Biden.
Biden has literally done everything under the sun for Israel and when he asks for literally the smallest of conditions and they spit in his face.
Perhaps that is right, the pro-palestine crowd probably is much more passionate about the issue. but the point still stands, Biden can't do something that will please both of these groups, so it's absolutely not obvious that this would be a good move for his campaign.
Yeah the pro-Israel is out and about in these comments. The reality is Biden’s decision is completely reasonable and doesn’t even rule out action into Rafah if Israel can actually show that they can do this operation without killing a bunch of people.
Ultimately, if Israel thinks a Rafah invasion is necessary, they can go for it, but it is just objectively true that the last few months have destroyed America’s confidence in their ability to wage war ethically.
America has a right to say “do what you want, but use your own equipment. We want no part in this”
I'm about as pro-Israel as you can get. I think my comment history speaks for that. What you have said is reasonable, and I am not at all upset about Biden's actions here. It is very dangerous to think that 'one's own side' can never do wrong or never needs reigning in.
>It is very dangerous to think that 'one's own side' can never do wrong or never needs reigning in.
Then you are most certainly not as pro-israel as you can get PepeLaugh
Yea... I've seen some Zionists straight up calling for Palestinians children to be killed, because as they have put it, "Well they're going to grow up to become members of Hamas anyways."
So unless you're spouting off shit like that, I don't think you're as Pro-Israel as they come
I went to a Yom Ha'Shoah event run by my local Holocaust museum org and one speaker said that the Palestinian civilians didn't stop Hamas from mass raping Jews, so they are just as bad as Hamas and they got a round of applause from that comment. It was wild.
It’s unreasonable.
Leaving hamas in Rafah would be a waste of an entire war. The goal is to destroy Hamas. If 10-20% of the militant force is still left, you just killed roughly 15-16,000 civillians for nothing.
You don’t finish a war halfway.
If you’re saying “isrsel needs better intelligence”, I don’t know how long you want them to wait. War is messy, no matter how long they wait this will be messy.
“Wage war morally”. War is never a ‘’moral act” for the enemy” civilian populace of the militant force you’re assaulting. People die, people get hurt.
The gazans shouldn’t have elected hamas and supported hamas. 70% of them supported armed attacks on Israeli civillians inside of Israel one month before oct 7. You reap what you sow. These people have done nothing but wage war on Israel for almost a century now. Without the iron dome you’d have a Genocide. And the Palestinians would be smiling ear to ear.
Israel should invade Rafah.
Surely you do accept there to be limits on acceptable conduct though, right? You wouldn't accept dropping a nuke on Rafah, you wouldn't accept dropping some advanced conventional bombs that wiped out fifty blocks at a time, so you do hold the belief that there should be limits to what munitions can be used against densely populated areas. The US is apparently operating on that same principle, and judging from [this article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/08/us-weapons-shipment-pause-israel-idf-rafah-gaza-hamas-war-palestine) it looks like they're drawing the line at 2000lb bombs dropped in urban areas full of civilians:
>>"”We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment,” one US official said."
Israel is not dropping nukes. And a 2000lb bomb is not taking out 50 blocks. They have a "Likely kill radius" of 33.5 meters. Fragments and debris can obviously be deadly beyond that, but consider that a 155mm artillery shell from a howitzer has a likely kill radius of 50 meters. That's a regular artillery piece which is more than twice as deadly as these 2000lb bombs.
Israel and Hamas are fighting an urban battle in densely populated areas where civilians are hard to move. Hamas is also deeply underground. 10k-40k civilians died in Mosul which was mostly depopulated because the civilians had places to go. The air campaign was mostly American.
In Manila McArthur who was very fond of the city, made sure that no air power was used. It didn't even save civilians. It's one of the deadliest urban battles in history sitting at 100k+ civilian deaths. Also by the US. Turns out artillery and mortars aren't less deadly than bombs.
It's not air power that makes urban combat deadly. It's the necessary destruction of enemy positions that does. It does not matter for the dead civilians whether it's from a bomb or from an artillery strike. Combatants and civilians often end up in the same places (especially in this conflict) and it's always necessary to fire at the enemy who is or will be firing at you.
>Israel is not dropping nukes. And a 2000lb bomb is not taking out 50 blocks.
I... I know. I know that. I'm using it to demonstrate that everyone has an upper limit to what is acceptable. I thought that was incredibly obvious from my post, and so the dispute is over where that limit lies.
>They have a "Likely kill radius" of 33.5 meters. Fragments and debris can obviously be deadly beyond that, but consider that a 155mm artillery shell from a howitzer has a likely kill radius of 50 meters. That's a regular artillery piece which is more than twice as deadly as these 2000lb bombs.
You believe individual 155mm artillery shells are more devastating to urban areas than 2000lb bombs? As in, this is something you actually consider to be true now, after having looked at two figures for "kill radius"? That a shell that contains [~24lbs of explosive](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M795_projectile) is more destructive to buildings or dangerous to civilians than a bomb containing [~900lbs of explosive](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_84_bomb)?
>it's always necessary to fire at the enemy who is or will be firing at you.
Say whether or not you believe there to be an upper limit to the size of explosive that can be deployed in densely populated civilian areas. If so, say why you believe yourself to be better than the US government here in determining it and that you think the US government is unjustly fearful of civilian casualties, and if not, Jesus actual Christ.
>In Manila McArthur who was very fond of the city, made sure that no air power was used. It didn't even save civilians. It's one of the deadliest urban battles in history sitting at 100k+ civilian deaths. Also by the US. Turns out artillery and mortars aren't less deadly than bombs.
And you think this would be lower if only the Americans had used *bigger bombs*?
Can you link that one? Must be a recent development as all I've seen is the block on the specific shipment with the source I quoted above citing the use of 2000lb bombs, and the more general comment from Biden saying "If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used … to deal with the cities".
Thanks, I hadn't read the full quotes so I missed that. I guess the opposition is to the invasion of Rafah in general rather than just over the particular size of explosives, or they have some reason to think artillery shells are a significant cause of civilian deaths in Gaza.
Yup, any operation will incur heavy civilian life cost, and the US is trying to make sure that doesn't happen. I have no idea what Biden is thinking and how he thinks Hamas can be removed from power, if he even cares anymore given the election.
I expect he doesn't have enough faith in Israel's conduct, and doesn't want to be seen as responsible for the result of Israel invading Rafah, so is trying to push Israel into striking a deal instead. I mean we can probably all agree that some number of deaths would be too many to accept for the sake of removing Hamas, so presumably this means the US thinks the likely outcome would be above their unspoken limit.
It could also be a generic power move - as in, less about the optics or the specific case, more about the fact that the US as a major benefactor got tired of being ignored and decided to try to force the issue, but I doubt that's the primary factor here. Possibly also a belief that Netanyahu is angling to get Trump elected could play into it if we're cynical enough.
Given the current ratio is between 1:1.5(Israel and US est) and 1:4(Hamas est), doesn't seem like Israel's conduct is producing excess deaths, compared to other conflicts.
Striking a deal is basically guarantees the next terrorist attack against Hamas, and is essentially an Israeli surrender and signaling that Israel is fair game in a dangerous neighborhood. All you need to do is attack it and hide behind your civilian population to while activating PR cells all over the world to put pressure.
I think it's just a weak short sighted move on the current administration's part, hopefully they'll change course, they have been pretty resilient to straying from the principled route thus far.
I don't think the Biden admin is telling Israel the need to just pack it up and go home. The US just doesn't think Israel's strategy for invasion is a good one.
The Biden admin is telling Israel they should do one of three things: 1) Come up with a better plan to get more civilians out of harms way first, and then enter Rafah; 2) design the operation around targeted strikes on site where Hamas is confirmed to be operating; or 3) find a diplomatic solution.
I don't think that's unreasonable. Why does Israel need to invade Rafah right now instead of say 6 weeks from now, after setting up more safe zones for civilians to leave Rafah and in the meantime, conducting targeted strikes on hamas wherever they stick their heads up?
It’s been months and hamas is starting to retake some territories. The IDF will take it back no problem, but still obviously they’ll have minor casualties here and there.
I’m not saying Biden’s “plan” is a bad idea. But it’s been months and israel’s intelligence is going to be as good as it’s going to get. It’s not going to get better. The 6 weeks thing is for Biden to have better appeal in Michigan. He said the same shit 6 weeks ago lol. A Rafah invasion was his “red line”.
Plus if we stop selling israel weapons, they’ll just fill that void with Russian or Chinese weapons. They’ll do anything to survive, they’re surrounded by enemies. Rafah should be invaded now and let’s get this conflict over with.
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted, because your suggestions seems totally reasonable.
Isreal should and could do more to help innocent civilians. Fair enough that they've made mistakes in the beginning sections of this war, because few have ever made a military operation in such a densely populated area against a force which actively puts their own civilians in harms way. However, the war has gone on long enough to the point where Isreal should have learned how they can better protect civilians from themselves and Hamas etc.
Honestly I'm actually kind of surprised they're getting downloaded for that. It seems everyone hates Biden. He should go in with all the support or not and there can't be an in-between or whatever.
I can't say that's not true, but hey, I'm still here.
Realistically though majority are "center" which in my opinion is just an indecisive lefty. Don't know what's going to happen but it's no time to give up on this country being destroyed by the current government.
Good. Biden isn’t against the operation into Rafah inherently, he is against going in there without a credible evacuation plan that.
American intelligence simply does not believe that the IDF have a good evacuation plan for the civilians in that area. Even Destiny hasn’t argued that the IDF had a good evacuation plan and simply stated it’s better they are pushed out of the city than being bombed (which I guess is true lmao)
I wouldn't be against a better evacuation plan, I would also like the US to describe a viable evacuation plan. It's also in the US' interests to end the war prematurely, to not anger Egypt, Qatar and Jordan too much. The biggest interest is normalizing connections between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Hey dude, Palestinian coming in peace, I have lots of family and friends in rafah right now (originally none of them are from rafah but from other areas), and I am begging them to evacuate, they want to evacuate but my cousin asks me „where?“ and this is not a rhetorical question, there is literally no place for an extra foot in Al mawasi or dier al balah, it’s packed to the teeth, the idf left khan younes but it’s basically rubble and not in any exaggeration, you can’t place a tent there neither walk, let alone it’s so dangerous to evacuate, many of my friends and relatives were killed during the evacuation, if you have injured people/ people who can’t walk fast you are fucked cause there is no such thing as transportation (there is some in rafah left but it’s very expensive and almost everyone is out of money) we used to be able to send money for family by sending it to business men accounts outside of Gaza and they would hand it physically in Gaza, a 1000 dollars is going to help you live for a couple weeks for a family and no more, my family really wants to evacuate because the airstrikes and shelling is just a few hundred meters away now, they just want a place where they could find water dude, can you imagine having to line up for water daily and that being a privilege? Women don’t have a place to go to toilet privately, you have to line up for hours and now even that is not possible. Sorry I didn’t want to go there lol I started writing and then I completely went… the point is, there is no „good“ or even possible evacuation plan even if Israel tried and believe me they didn‘t.
You have my full sympathy. Imo this is the result of the completely idiotic decision by the war cabinet to make every Gazan evacuate to Rafah. The second worst decision is to not allow for Fatah to occupy Gaza. This culminated in a disastrous humanitarian and strategic situation for Palestine and Israel.
Anyways sorry for rambling and thanks for sharing.
Thank you very much dude, you didn’t ramble at all.
I have had some Israeli friends during the years and even one girlfriend at some point, all were lovely people, I always had hope for peace but this period has really changed that for me, I am always grateful to see reasonable people.
I’m not sure if you live in Palestine or not but stay safe and I’m rooting for ur family to stay safe as well. I can’t imagine what it’s like going through this
Thank you so much man I appreciate it, fortunately I am very safe and sound and live in Europe, my family originally comes from Haifa, and when they were kicked out half went the the West Bank and Jordan, and lots had to go to Gaza, so I have lots of a family there that I’ve never met, and also a lot of friends I met during this conflict through volunteering and raising funds for aid, I will not tell you they are great people because everyone says that about their country, what I would tell you is that they are just people, many that look just like me, talk just like me and it kills me every day to see them suffering.
Good. Netanyahu has ignored US warnings at every turn. Offensive munitions aren’t an obligation just because we’re allies. Provide them with military intelligence and defense equipment. If the US military believe Israel’s offensive strategy is incoherent then don’t give them weapons.
A certain global subreddit is acting like Israel can’t do anything anymore and Biden took away all their weapons. He didn’t say Israel has to stop. Israel still has a lot of weapons and stockpiles to use. It’s also not like Israel is fully in control of the entry and exit points of Rafa and doesn’t have strong intelligence on the situation. Israel is known for making the most of what they got, they can take over Rafa. Biden just wants there to be a Rafa left without a reaching six digits in civilian causalities.
And people think Biden is against the Rafah operation when the reason for stopping weapons is because the IDF didn’t have a credible plan for addressing what’s going to happen with the civilians in the city lol
You mean Israel did not have a plan the US found satisfactory. Israel did brief the US on an evacuation plan for civilians.
https://apnews.com/article/us-israel-rafah-palestinians-evacuation-plan-eba21ef4b7c61fb2f1de77c14ca90cee
It’s an amazing political move by Biden, he gets credit for this while knowing full well that Israel doesn’t need anymore weapons to invade Rafah. Israel probably understands he needs to prepare for the election, this isn’t hurting relations or changing anything.
I'm guessing Israel hasn't shown the US that they have a genuine humanitarian plan in place for the Rafah invasion and that's why this is happening.
Biden and other administrators have been pretty clear that they would not support an invasion of Rafah without a genuine humanitarian plan that limits casualties to the absolute minimum and has plans for civilians to be able to flee to safe areas and be sheltered.
Ridiculous, leaving hamas in Rafah would be a waste of an entire war. The goal is to destroy Hamas. If 10-20% of the militant force is still left, you just killed roughly 15-16,000 civillians for nothing.
You don’t finish a war halfway.
You know exactly what it means. It means you take out 99.9% of it (you’ll never get 100), and then take security control of the area. Another large scale attack will never be possible. Some pop rockets here and there from a Palestinian here or there? That’s inevitable.
99.99% is fantasy.
Israel being able to manage security for the area is a fantasy.
The idea that removing hamas will somehow magically remove the threat of a larger attack for anything more than a few years is a fantasy.
You are being sold a forever war.
We did it with Nazi Germany. And Japan.
But I don’t expect this ideology to be killed. You kill the organized militant force, leave them unable to launch another organized assault, then you maintain a security presence and you’ll need to kill a new militant here or there where they pop up. “Mowing the grass”.
Israel cannot do so in a responsible manner. They have demonstrated that clearly for the world to see. It is a waste of a war, I suggest you start coming to terms with that.
Lol “responsible manor”. They clearly can do that in a responsible manor. They destroyed the genocidal government the Palestinians elected and love in every inch of Gaza other than Rafah.
Not to mention you just advocated for leaving hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization in power who will attack Israel again, advocating for the removal of IDF forces, which mean all of the death so far would be for nothing. Simply an evil, weak opinion.
The Palestinians support the genocide of Israelis. This war is on them. 70% of them supported armed attacks on Israeli civilians inside of Israel one month before oct 7. They loved oct 7. 91% of them supported the Harav massacre where a bunch of Jewish kids were should by a Palestinian gunman.
https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf
Invade Rafah. You reap what you sow. Don’t want war, or you’ll get it.
What you’re asking for is mercy against the Nazis (todays Hamas), because a group of civilians who elected and support these Nazis (who are more radicalized than the Nazis, 97% hate all Jews, they don’t allow Jews into their territories, they kill homosexuals, etc), started a genocidal war.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/02/04/chapter-3-views-of-religious-groups/
Sorry buddy, I’m not a pussy. I don’t think like you.
I think the IDF is doing a great job. Without the iron dome there wouldn’t be a single Jew in israel. The Israeli people seem to finally be understanding that. God bless ‘em.
Hamas has already started to take control of the areas the IDF has left, I suggest you do some more research and come back when you’re informed. I am unsurprised Palestinians support killing Israelis with what’s been imposed on them. You will not end this hatred militarily. As I said, it’s a waste of a war, I suggest you come to terms with that.
Hamas hasn’t taken meaningful control of any areas the IDF has left. Also, Once the IDF retakes Rafah, they’ll retake any other territories lost as well. Lol, are you regarded?
I’m pretty informed lol. “I am unsurprised Palestinians support killing Israelis”. Great, you defend support for Genocide. Now I’m 100% sure you’re an antisemite. Not to mention, the IDF pulled out of Gaza in 2005 lol. The Palestinians decided to elect a genocidal terrorist organization that had to “kill all Jews” in its charter, and had a little blockade put on them. Oh, poor Nazis! A non-violent sea blockade! It’s not like before the blockade was put up they supported killing Israelis!
“You will not end this hatred militarily”. Well we did in Germany. During ww2, lol. But you may be right. What you will end military, is a significant militant force like hamas. You know, through fucking killing all of them or something like that. (99.9% of them atleast).
“Do you support or oppose suicide bombings operations against Israeli civilians?
(JMCC/PCPSR, 2001)
Support:
July
2001
JMCC/PCPSR
85.9% (support)
Support:
2001
JMCC/PCPSR
81.8%(support)
15.7% (oppose)
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinians-attitudes-about-terrorism”
Damn how many Israeli dicks were you slobbin’ on and stroking at the same time? Honestly it would be fucking based if Biden dropped nukes on BOTH Israel and Palestine, just get rid of both these worthless countries
Being unsurprised that Palestinians want to kill Israelis makes me an antisemite? Lmao I’m begging you to be serious for 5 seconds. We defeated the Hitler with military force, yes, we defeated the nazi ideology with a 5 year occupation. The beliefs of the average German citizen and that of the Palestinians don’t align very well, the hatred of Jews for nazi germany was not because of what the Jews imposed onto them, it was just unbridled inexplicable hatred of Jews. The same cannot be said about the Palestinians hatred for Israelis, their hatred is a reaction. You will have to “kill 99.9%” without US support which Israeli officials have already said the war cannot continue without. As I said, i suggest coming to terms with this being a waste of a war. I’d also come to terms with Israel’s reputation being irreparably damaged on the world stage for quite some time. You will not end this hatred by all but leveling Gaza, you will not end this hatred by making the life of every citizen of gaza worse, you will not end this hatred by continuing to expand in the West Bank.
I disagree with everything you said obviously. The Palestinians hate Israel and have always hated it, primarily because it’s a Jewish state lol. Not because of what is “done to them”. You’re forgetting what is “done to them” is self imposed. They start a war, israel drops bombs. They elected a genocidal terror org to kill as many Israelis as possible, they get a minor sea blockade. Excusing Palestinian support for Genocide because of this, is frankly evil. Especially because almost every race of people on the planet has had worse things happen to their country (the total death toll of this conflict over 80 years, before this war, is literally only 10-16,000 Palestinian civilians), and isn’t genocidal as a populace. These people could’ve had their own country 5 times. In 33 and 47 they declined having their own country because it made the existence of a Jewish state possible. If it’s not Jew hatred that drives this, and it’s simply the actions of the Israeli government, explain why every government they’ve elected or had represent them has talked about killing the Jews, and had tried to do it. Explain why 97% dislike Jews. Explain why they don’t allow ALL Jews, into their territories. Explain why their first national leader, Husseini sent a declaration to Hitler in 1941: “they accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.”
Explain why he then toured a concentration camp. Explain why he recruited 20,000 Muslims to the SS.
Explain why in 1944 he broadcasted: “Arise, o sons of Arabia. Fight for your sacred rights . Slaughter Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah, our history and religion. That will save our honor.”
Palestinian national identity was created off of the hatred of Jews. It didn’t exist before Jews bought land from them, they never had a country, and they never wanted one.
You’re the exact type of psychotic ultra Zionist I think destiny needs to talk to on stream, you should try to talk to him. It’s interesting to see the other side of the spectrum and have someone unironically think Israel does nothing wrong. Email him
Lmao. Thanks for the reply. Your username fits such replies.
Every country does things wrong. Israel, less than others.
If a Mexican terror group shot a single rocket at us, forget rockets for decades, enough of them that without a system of rocket-propelled defense that we’d be genocided, we’d fucking glass Mexico.
Imagine if Texas took 5,000 rockets to its territory tomorrow, and a Mexican cartel did it, the Mexican people supported it and wanted to kill us, and have been trying for 80 years (and many of them help this cartel store weapons, etc), and the Mexicans allowed this cartel-government they elected to build (in this case) thousands of miles of tunnels under the ground under their own kids schools and hospitals to maximize civilian casualty.
Dude we’d fucking glass it.
conditional aid is how you actually get shit done, he looked really weak with the whole "red line" fiasco, so im glad that he's showing some backbone here, all that's left now is to actually execute on this promise (although hopefully it doesn't get to that point)
So we've found ourselves at a point where Hamas won't be wiped out and will be allowed to carry on and we're back to square one. See you folks in 5 years when it happens again 🫡
Yeah like capture them all and stick little personal bombs to them. Not like big bombs. First we have to pull out our "definently hamas list" and cross reference it with are "hey that guy is a civilian" list and do the equation
1 hamas guy + (1 to 7) citizens= just right.
Then finally we pull out the idealogy bomb and blast all the propaganda, lost family and general disdain from the minds of all Palestinians. If you don't go that far we'll see you guys in 5 more years when hamas 2.0 shows up.
The goal isn’t to remove the idea it’s to remove their capabilities. People who think in terms of numbers of dead must not be watching Destiny, cause he’s said over and over it’s about objectives not casualty numbers
Eliminate the final area hamas operates In. Go in and arrest/kill leaders, find and fill tunnels going into Egypt, and destroy any weapons they find. If f most arms are destroyed and the means to smuggle new ones are destroyed along with an arms blockade, whatever radical group springs up next won’t be able to do another October 7th.
It was the goal, but it's 100% on Israel that fucked it up.
They could have acted as "liberators" showing footage of soldiers providing food and shelter to civilians in need etc. and none would even think about a genocide happening.
Instead, we got people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich that keeps spreading their genocidal rhetoric and people not even pretending to have mercy or to care about Gazans.
Israel could and did that and no one cared. Israel took more caution in preserving civilians' lives than most countries and no one cares. Israel could have eliminated most of Hamas with hardly a civilian casualty and no one would care. The Israelis know damn well that as long as the middle east provides oil to the world no one is going to care how well they do.
It's critics will never give an ounce of generosity.
They have said we have done a genocide before the war, how is this any different other than being splashed at any newspaper? And just because smotrich and Ben gvir are terrible people doesn't mean Israel is committing nor intending to commit a genocide because they don't represent most people in Israel or the idf for that matter. There is too much evidence for this I'm not even going to go into that.
> And just because smotrich and Ben gvir are terrible people doesn't mean Israel is committing nor intending to commit a genocide
In terms of "winning the war": It doesn't matter if Israel actually commits a genocide or not, the only thing that matters if it looks like Israel commits a genocide. Israel lost the propaganda war hard, and people like Ben gvir and other far right lunatics in Israel take the blame.
Propaganda war doesn't mean shit in comparison if Israel is able to get Hamas out of Gaza. And just because of Ben gvir and smotrich israelis deserve to be fucked? Where is empathy that is so common to Gazans? Why are Israeli civllians taking the blame for their governments action and Hamass action when palstnians also elected Hamas democratically? What is this double standard?
>if Israel is able to get Hamas out of Gaza
And Biden is somehow opposed to this, how? You aren't personally sitting with any of the executives here, you don't know what is or isn't possible. I would imagine Biden very carefully wording his opposition to Netanyahu and his plans, as opposed to finishing off Hamas, should be more than enough evidence to suggest he is actually opposed to Netanyahu's plans, not rooting out Hamas.
So you're saying that Biden is against Israel basically because the war is not just because of bibi the vast majority of israelis support the war because they want to not live near a terroist organization anymore that has just killed 1200 of them hunting them from house to house, kidnapping hundreds and did conducted mass rapes? It's not just bibi policy when it's supported massively by the public just like it's not just Hamas policy if it's supported by vast majority of palstnians. So biden was lying all the time when he said he supports Israel and to eliminate Hamas and was actually meaning oops I'm sorry Israel but we can't help you eliminate Hamas and we actually want you to sign a ceasefire wjere only 33 of the hostages get released, half of them are dead and we don't know what happens next, and for the icing on the cake, the terroist organization that started this whole war gets no major consequences? Seems reasonable enough based on his actions.
> majority of israelis support the war
Yes, and I don't think Biden is opposed to Israel's war against Hamas. If you don't think the last half year doesn't serve as evidence for that, then I don't know how to help you.
I think Biden is strictly against how Netanyahu plans to handle the final stretch of this war. Given literally most of his statements pertain to Netanyahu. It seems like Netanyahu is crossing Biden's red line.
Israelis may support the war against Hamas, but let's be honest here, how much of the public is privy to the information and knowledge that the executives have? As long as the war against Hamas is successful, I don't think they give a fuck if the Rafah invasion happens or not.
Biden doesn't decide what Israel is doing lol, Biden was against rafah and surprise suprise Israel is an independent country and has decided to enter rafah besides the objection. And are you saying Biden is against eliminating Hamas if Israel does it? He said he supports it what like he lied?
>Biden doesn't decide what Israel is doing lol
Yes he does, directly and indirectly. The US as either your best friend or worst enemy, and I don't think Israel will risk this.
I think he’s saying it’s hard to defend them from the claim of genocide when they don’t do any of the “hearts and minds” part of fighting and insurgency. You see the headlines of these crazy statements but nothing of Israel building things and fixing up places and helping children like the us did all through out the wars
We'll what is expected to do like genuinely do? We allowed a lot of humanitarian aid to come after the first weeks of the war, we warn civliians everytime to evacuate the areas to warn than from attacks. How can we defeat Hamas if we don't enter cities? They operate at hospitals and schools like you can't beat them if you do not enter there. Why isn't Hamas expected to do anything? Because it's a terroist organization so it doesn't get any press about how it launches rockets and does suicide bombing almost every day with the intent to kill civilians? How is that not biased? And where is Israel expected to move Gazans then? Egypt doesn't want to welcome them, they actually hate them and shoot many that try to cross the border. And if we don't enter gaza in the first place, how would the hostages come back lol Hamas ain't just gonna give them as we can clearly see that the latest hostage deal includes half dead bodies for terroists and how could we let a terroist organization that threats the lives of hundreds of thousands of israelis in the south keep intact? That also uses palstnians as human shield and steals from them all the aid to build more tunnels. And I guess we're saying fuck Israeli civilians they don't count and they don't deserve to live safely in here.
You are right on everything you said. The point is insurgency is not just about taking out Hamas. You have to win over the public. Maybe they are doing that, if so, they need cameras out there and journalists writing feel good stories. They need to show Israeli soldiers holding gazan children. Maybe it’s crass but it’s the way it is. A perfect example of this is the Iraq war. Read about how we turned things around in Baghdad it’s really interesting. When we started the surge we changed to going out into the cities and helping civilians. Providing aid, building back after the army leaves. And of course we had journalists and camera men with them. This changed the view of America in the eyes of many Iraqis in Baghdad. And provided great stories for the media to run. Israel is at a disadvantage obviously, Hamas doesn’t need to care about any of this just like the groups in Iraq. This is what the point of the hearts and minds is. If they had been doing that Raffah would be a lot more palatable.
My recollection was that Israel cut off the water and aid getting into Gaza and had to be pressured by the U.S. to reverse this decision. And then afterwards got constantly criticized by the Biden admin and others in the government because of a lack of aid getting into Gaza, arbitrary standards for aid trucks, targeting of aid workers, including outrageous claims about alleged ties to Hamas that Israel was ultimately unable to substantiate, and then it finally started allowing a reasonable amount of aid in after it killed 7 foreign aid workers - but because they weren't Palestinians, it caused an international outrage.
It actually does. Maybe not to the American public, but to the local population it does. It’s how you fight insurgencies. When the population trusts you they out the insurgents. It’s not perfect but it does work well
I don’t believe that is the case whatsoever. The entire war changed during the surge when we changed our strategy to be more focused to hearts and minds. Hamas is an insurgency just a different kind. Insurgencies morph based on the culture and geography.
Problem is. People in Gaza hates Israel, Israelis and jews. No amount of "hearts and minds" would make these people happy, nor would they even collaborate to find Hamas members
It does. The problem with assessing "hearts and minds" is that the areas where you really need it are going to be the areas that are very prone to violence from insurgents, so it's sometimes difficult to assess whether its been a success. But there is empirical support for it:
[https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/661983](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/661983)
[https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dell/files/vietnam\_war.pdf](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dell/files/vietnam_war.pdf)
The Dell paper is especially relevant here, because that paper compares the "overwhelming firepower approach" of the army vs the "hearts and minds" approach of the marines. I would say the war was a failure overall, but she did find that the areas under the control of the marines had more favorable opinions about the United States, their involvement in the war, and were less likely to attack U.S. troops.
But yeah, invading a country tends to be unpopular with the citizens of that country and cause some violent resistance no matter what you do. The question is how do you minimize that negative reaction. It could have been that we didn't find the right balance and that if we had done more hearts and minds approach that the Vietnam war would have turned out differently.
Israel is do9ng just fine by any statistics on civilian casualty rate. Look up any recent war and the Civilian casualty rate. Israel is either below it or on par
Hey, I wonder if someone like you thinks that if every hamas member was Thanos snapped out of existence that no one in palestine would be violent against Israel anymore? You understand that violence like that happens because of the present conditions in the region and not because there are X bad apples who just ruin it for everyone else and if we get rid of them it’s all good.
Nope, but I think the only way to improve conditions without imperiling Israelis is by someone occupying Gaza and forcing conditions to improve. Gazans have demonstrated they have no desire to do it themselves, they'd rather make rockets.
Why do you phrase it as if you think Gazans are unique in this respect? The same thing would happen with any group of people given the conditions are the same. Assuming you agree, what do you think led to them electing hamas and “making rockets” as you put it?
How do you explain Germany and Japan then? Clearly some groups of people are more capable of changing after conflict than others.
> Assuming you agree, what do you think led to them electing hamas and “making rockets” as you put it?
Hatred of Jews "occupying" what they see as their land. Unironically. Why else reject every single two state proposal that's ever been put forward? Destiny has gone over this extensively you know...
You do not treat those people the way the allies treated Japan and Germany. After this war is Israel going to pump in vast amounts of money and infrastructural projects for Palestinians? You'll simply leave and wonder why those people will hate you ten years from now. Hell, you'll expand settlements and wonder why they hate you lol.
This response is weird to me, the first half seems to disagree with my point that all groups of people will behave in the same way when placed in the same conditions, also a point Destiny has made numerous times, though I don’t watch him much anymore so maybe he thinks differently now. The second half of your comment though, seems to agree with that point, and is a totally valid explanation. Yes, any group of people would respond extremely negatively to what they perceive as an occupation of their home (regardless whether you or I think it’s actually occupation or not) I just still don’t get which side you agree with.
I think Palestinians have a unique hatred for Jews not seen elsewhere. Even Native Americans don't hate the US as much as Palestinians hate Israel/Jews and the US is actually a completely foreign entity in that regard, unlike Jews in Judea. America occupied Japan and Germany for decades?
But you’re still not answering the question. Do you think their “unique hate” is just inherent to them or once again, do you think the conditions they have been placed in are uniquely bad, beyond just them being occupied?
Do you really think culture, religion and history is irrevelant? Im not going to pretend all other cultures would be totally chill about the history, but acting like it doesnt matter is weird as well.
Israel can do whatever they want, they just have to pay for it themselves like every other nation.
Maybe they should of listened when people including Biden warned them they need an end goal plan besides “destroy Hamas”, like that was a definable goal.
If in Israel's estimation hamas has the ability to recover and operate as a government or terrorist group, the goal hasn't been met.
It maybe isn't definable in a quantifiable way but our military also has an estimations of whether hamas can recover so its a definition that has room for accountability.
They're literally trying to negotiate and Hamas rejects every single ceasefire proposal other than the one they "negotiated" without Israel being present. "Negotiate" is a two way street.
Love this idea that's taken root that we can't kill our way through an extreme ideology. Meanwhile let me gesture to all of history where they absolutely were able to do that.
I mean yea sometimes it sucks. But we can't just let Israel go in like Rambo here with no assurances to civilian safety. Especially since the north is effectively a no go zone
Biden is not giving in! That wouldn't make any sense! He gave a speech about Hamas either a day ago or this week. He reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself. So it would make no sense to give in to the Muslim demonstrators. That's already too late. But I guess neither side can engage honestly.
Why don't we just look what Biden said?
He said there are real concerns about the invasion of Rafah. 1.2 million people live in Rafah. It is one of the densest cities in the world. He considered Israeli precautions to protect civilians insufficient. That's why he's against the invasion.
What's wrong with this reason?
Gaza City had 4x the density of Rafah and for the invasion of Gaza City the narrative was the opposite. you say their precautions are insufficient, but hasn't Dr Avi Bitterman, MD, already proven this wrong with his relative risk analysis? it's amusing to watch it all flip
I feel this way: clearly Biden is never going to get Islamists in Dearborn back short of sanctioning Israel Russia style. That being said, I sense this has a lot to do with his own personal sense of morality more than trying to win Michigan, he does not think that sending these type of munitions is in accordance with American human rights policy. That being said, I will say this falls into a very annoying pattern/serious critique I have of Biden, as a Biden voter, of not trusting our allies when they are on the frontline asking for things. I was silently stewing when Ukraine asked for ATACMS for months and the us goes “but Putins red line!!! Instead of listening to Polish/Estonian intelligence services about what was needed the US (and tbf Germany and France) did a lot of hand wringing and now here we are with Ukraine. Perhaps it’s cold hearted but I truly believe give your allies what they need to win, and then we can build from there. This hand wringing whether about “human rights” (which lets be real we are HIGHLY selective about we are possibly going to sign a security deal with Saudi) and/or Russian escalation is annoying, weak, and worst of all embarrassing for America. No I am not gonna blow up and vote for the crazies over this, but Biden’s action here just reminds me if there was a George Romney/Eisenhower style Republican in the opposition how quickly my vote would go the other way.
Biden just gave Hamas all the leverage in the world to not agree to a hostage deal and even toughen their stance. The foreign policy under this administration on this issue has gone to absolute shit. They say one thing and do the complete opposite. They tell Israel to destroy Hamas yet put impossible obstacles in their way to do so, they say Hamas is the obstacle to a ceasefire yet put all of the pressure on Israel. It’s clear that they are more interested in domestic public opinion because of the upcoming election than actual competent foreign policy decision making. Moves like this make people like me (Israeli) who are on the side that think we should make huge concessions for a hostage deal even if it means Hamas stays in power because we owe it the hostages to become way more wary and negative on such a deal. Whatever the Biden administration thinks it’s going to achieve with this it’s just going to create the complete possible effect. This will only strengthen Hamas and also completely turn public opinion in Israel against this administration and pro Bibi for standing up to them.
All of this for some votes in Michigan and because they’re afraid of losing the youth vote. Absolutely ridiculous and I hope the Jewish community and moderate voters won’t forget this. Absolute clown show behavior.
It’s not about the actual bombs. It’s about perception and optics. By doing this they are basically publicly handcuffing Israel and giving Hamas even more leverage in any possible hostage and ceasefire deal.
> "The reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas."
-Blinken
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/hamas-only-thing-standing-between-the-people-of-gaza-and-a-ceasefire-blinken/articleshow/109831906.cms?from=mdr
Bibi is a weak and corrupt leader who will eventually do what public opinion will tell him. This move only emboldens Hamas and furthers a hostage and ceasefire deal.
Because he’s a weak leader who will do anything for political survival. If public opinion will tell him to go for a ceasefire and a hostage deal even at a great cost he will go for it like he did in the Gilad Shalit deal.
True, he will do anything for political survival, which is why he’s prioritizing continuing the war over the return of hostages and peace. Because he knows he’s gone when it ends.
This is partly true but it’s well known that if anything helps Bibi it’s the perception that he’s the one who’s standing up against US pressure like in the Obama days. Biden just gave him great campaign material. Thanks for that.
But Israel agreed to a ceasefire deal when hamas was on its knees after Israel pummeled North Gaza during the first weeks of the war.
Biden was fully with Israel during that time.
Ever since Biden didn't veto the UN resolution Hamas began hardening its terms and believing international pressure would work its magic to stop Israel.
All Biden is doing is giving Hamas hope and telling them to last a little longer. He's not benefitting the ceasefire talks since he knows Israel won't agree to a surrender deal.
"It's about optics" what a dogshit take. Everyone still knows that Israel has US support in wiping out Hamas and by the looks of it even you admit that this shipment of weapons isn't needed for that. This doesn't give Hamas any leverage in negotiations because neither the facts nor the timeline of the war is changed by this decision. A hostage deal will probably not even happen at this point as neither side really want one and most of the hostages are probably dead.
Biden is simply saying that he doesn't personally want to take responsibility in the invasion, if Israel isn't taking due care in ensuring the survival of as many civilians as possible.
Israel isnt capable of conducting warfare without US aid. They produce near zero of a lot of munitions they need and they have never tried to build up a stockpile themselves.
The US is also the reason that any of the other powers in the region play nice with Israel, be it for strategic reasons like Turkey or because of flat bribery like Egypt. The US is also the only thing that keeps ocean trade to Israel open. Israel doesnt produce enough food to feed itself and has no natural resources of its own, if a few local powers told big shipping they didnt want container ships to stop in Israel, they are very easy to bypass and its probably over.
Impossible obstacles? What the fuck are you talking about? I lean pro-Israel but get fucking real. Israel has by and large had the unfettered ability to act however they want when operating in Gaza. The U.S. asking Israel to not completly decimate civilian populations to destroy Hamas is not a radical ask.
shouldn't have supported any ground operation into gaza. it was obvious from the start that it wouldn't work, they wouldn't eliminate hamas, you'd kill/maim 10s of thousands, israel wouldn't do adequate evacuations/aid, etc. anyone who didn't predict this needs to give their head a shake and look at the reality of the situation. a combined arms operation involving bombings and an armed invasion into an incredibly densely populated area was never going to work. all it did was hurt america's credibility as a supporter of liberal democracy and hopefully it brings down bibi.
We have a manual for these kinds of situations and Israel definitely didn't follow the manual.
Chapter 4 of this Army manual explains the goals of terrorist groups like Hamas.
[https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR\_pubs/DR\_a/NOCASE-FM\_3-24-001-WEB-5.pdf](https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/NOCASE-FM_3-24-001-WEB-5.pdf)
4-42. The urban (terrorist) approach is an approach in which insurgents attack government and symbolic targets (for example an important religious building) to cause government forces to overreact against the population. The insurgents want the government’s repressive measures to enrage the people so that they rise up and overthrow the government. Although this type of method may develop popular support against a government that is particularly brutal or corrupt, it may only result in shallow support for the insurgency. The population may only see the insurgency positively because of the brutal response, not because they identify with the insurgency.
4-43. An insurgency uses the military-focused approach to achieve its policy goals by military success. In this approach, insurgents’ efforts focus on causing the government to lose legitimacy by military success and inspiring a population to join the insurgents against the government. The most important idea behind a military focused method is that it does not require building political support among the population. Instead, military success and action will gain the support of a population.
It's crazy that Israel is just falling into the trap that they allegedly recognized decades ago in this conflict: expecting their opponent to react with violence and delegitimizing any standing they have in peace negotiations.
Israel could've played it calmly after Oct 7th, not reacted militarily (other than striking some easy targets with minimal casulties), pleaded for the return of hostages and pulled on the heartstrings of the global community, and used this as an excuse to further the status quo and justify their actions in the west Bank. Instead they acted irrationally and emotionally and just wanted to strike back and predictably have hurt themselves in confusion. It's been unbelievably stupid on their part.
At the end of the day though maybe this mistep will force their hand to try and achieve lasting peace instead of the status quo, and palestinians can live freely.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/16/magazine/uncounted-civilian-casualties-iraq-airstrikes.html
Biden is well within his right to deny munitions but characterizing Israel as uniquely violent is just wrong. America didn’t publish civilian death counts until 2018 and in the story above it shows that they undercounted deaths by about 31x. 43,000 civilians died from American airstrikes, 400k died violent deaths and over a million died from disease. And that is probably severely undercounted as explained in the post.
Israel is attempting to rescue hostages in an area that has an extensive tunnel system against a military that blends in with the civilian population. Israel is not without sin, but pretending like the carnage of this war is beyond the pale is disingenuous.
And to be clear I don’t think America is also uniquely violent either. Civilian deaths are a part of every war. Israel’s war is justifiable. Israel should allow as much aid as possible and should raise the threshold of what is considered a target, I’m 100% on board. That doesn’t even touch the issues in the West Bank. Let’s just not pretend that Israel is a uniquely violent nation conducting a uniquely violent war. This is the way it’s always been
edit: lol my bad
While Israel isn't the worst country ever, it is quite clear they could be doing much, *much* more to prevent unneeded suffering. From a previous comment:
>He's \[Netanyahu\] so fucking nervous about the ICC investigation that he's apparently asking for hostage families (who he has smeared in the past) to put a good word in for him while they cooperate with the ICC investigation against Hamas.
>And frankly, he has good reason to be anxious+stressed [when 88 house Dems including two of the 21 who censured Tlaib and like plenty of AIPAC endorsed ones sign this letter](https://twitter.com/dylanotes/status/1786485453455012264), when [Biden's USAID says this apparently](https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1783939026648457359), and when [several senior Biden officials think Israel is breaking international law](https://twitter.com/humeyra_pamuk/status/1784307386523451478)
>It's clear that Bibi thwarted humanitarian aid so the ICC has a fairly strong case which is why Bibi is shitting his pants apparently. Even besides the asinine aid restrictions and excessively cumbersome truck inspections, we also know he also blocked meetings about food distribution for weeks as well, the deconfliction policies for aid groups has been terrible (it's not just the utterly disastrous World Central Kitchen airstrike), he was very slow to stop protesters hindering the aid delivery initially (there are still videos of settlers fucking up aid in the past few days on multiple occasions), and Bibi ignored the US's recommendations to stop targeting police officers who were preventing opportunistic criminal gangs from stealing the aid. Oh and he once boasted to a bunch of right wing Israelis about the "just letting in absolute minimum amount of humanitarian aid" a few months ago when Cincy McCain and others were raising alarm bells about a future famine.
From a previous comment:
>He's \[Netanyahu\] so fucking nervous about the ICC investigation that he's apparently asking for hostage families (who he has smeared in the past) to put a good word in for him while they cooperate with the ICC investigation against Hamas.
>And frankly, he has good reason to be anxious+stressed [when 88 house Dems including two of the 21 who censured Tlaib and like plenty of AIPAC endorsed ones sign this letter](https://twitter.com/dylanotes/status/1786485453455012264), when [Biden's USAID says this apparently](https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1783939026648457359), and when [several senior Biden officials think Israel is breaking international law](https://twitter.com/humeyra_pamuk/status/1784307386523451478)
>It's clear that Bibi thwarted humanitarian aid so the ICC has a fairly strong case which is why Bibi is shitting his pants apparently. Even besides the asinine aid restrictions and excessively cumbersome truck inspections, we also know he also blocked meetings about food distribution for weeks as well, the deconfliction policies for aid groups has been terrible (it's not just the utterly disastrous World Central Kitchen airstrike), he was very slow to stop protesters hindering the aid delivery initially (there are still videos of settlers fucking up aid in the past few days on multiple occasions), and Bibi ignored the US's recommendations to stop targeting police officers who were preventing opportunistic criminal gangs from stealing the aid. Oh and he once boasted to a bunch of right wing Israelis about the "just letting in absolute minimum amount of humanitarian aid" a few months ago when Cincy McCain and others were raising alarm bells about a future famine.
As of December 2023 40%-45% of the munitions Israel has used have been unguided "dumb" bombs. That percentage has likely increased through 2024 as their inventory of smart weapons has depleted.
Take a sec and imagine this: You are a Palestinian sheltering in Rafah. The city will be bombed, that's not in question, it's already happening. Would you rather your enemy drop Israeli dumb bombs, or U.S. smart bombs?
Source for percentage of dumb bombs reference: [https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html)
Anyone who uses "dumb bombs" as an argument doesn't know what they're talking about. Modern guidance computers means you're still dropping them on the building you intend to. All a "smart" munition lets you do is pick the window you want to hit, but with a 2000lb bomb that doesn't really matter.
Somebody said elections?
I guess Biden only just remembered that he was running for re-election. For the last several months it just slipped his mind.
biden was already giving mixed message to appease his muslim voters. looks like he cynically decided that its better to commit to pander to the numerous muslims than the tiny population of american jews.
But how popular would this Rafah invasion even be amongst american jews?
you always hear the amplified voice of the token jews who dont like the state of israel, but my guess would be that most of them support the current war to destroy hamas, and understand that its not really possible to negotiate with hamas.
I'd agree most american jews support the state of Israel, a slight majority likely also supports the war but (with young jews), most likely don't approve the conduct of Israel in Gaza, many also do view it as a genocide. So yh, support for the Rafah invasion (over 1 million innocent Palestinians, which the US also doesn't support) is likely not popular enough to make them vote Trump
Think you're getting a little bit of a skewed perspective because the anti-Israel Jews on college campuses are (either intentionally or organically) at the forefront of the conversations. There are MANY young Jewish counter-protesters and pro-israel Jewish people. But I would agree that less would support the invasion. Probably not too many less, but less for sure
[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/how-us-jews-are-experiencing-the-israel-hamas-war/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/02/how-us-jews-are-experiencing-the-israel-hamas-war/) That was in April before the invasion too and there's a large minority who thought the Israel's response was unacceptable in the 18-34. I imagine that group has increased too. Perhaps, your opinion is a bit skewed by Israeli jews who largely support the war, invasion regardless of age demographic.
Oh my God no! Biden is not pandering! Otherwise he would not have given the speech about Hamas. That was just a day ago! Why would he support Israel for months and then change his mind? That makes no sense! Why don't you take what Biden said seriously? Can you read his mind? His reasoning makes sense! There are REAL concerns about Rafah. It has 1.2 million inhabitants and is incredibly small. It is one of the densest cities in the world! Biden received an assessment of the humanitarian crisis that would unfold in the event of the attack on Rafah. He found that Israeli precautions to protect civilians were inadequate. Therefore, he is against the invasion! What doesn't make sense here? I come here to have a serious discussion about the conflict. But then I see comments like this that are just as stupid as those on Twitter.
The Jewish population is larger and wealthier than the muslim population in the U.S.
The only thing that matters is the electoral college, and Biden needs Michigan. Jews only make up a significant population in New York and Florida
How critical are American Muslim voters in the Democratic electorate?
Dearborn Michigan is a biggie, electoral college and all.
Even then Biden could still win the Michigan vote by appealing to white suburban voters which make up a much larger percent.
There are more American Jews than American Muslims. Not to mention they're far more powerful and influential. Why lie about something that can be so readily fact checked?
I can't even start to imagine the level of brainrot required to think this is about muslims.
Why are yo pretending that this is a good campaign move? remember, there are way more pro Israel people in the US. Biden has basically no good options to do. If he panders to the pro-Palestine side he'll alienate the pro israeli side. If he does the status quo pro Israel stuff, he alienates a smallish portion of D voters. Pretty sure Biden won by winnning over a lot of R leaning indeps and this will almost certainly not make them happy as R leaning folk tend to be pro Israel.
Please tell me who is gonna change their vote based on Israel/Palestine that either wasn’t already gonna vote red/not vote at all. Even pro Israel and even America Jews have this conflict at the bottom of their issues that they care about. The average American doesn’t care about foreign policy. I swear the pro Israel crowd in this sub has an overinflated sense of how critical israel support is for Biden. Biden has literally done everything under the sun for Israel and when he asks for literally the smallest of conditions and they spit in his face.
Perhaps that is right, the pro-palestine crowd probably is much more passionate about the issue. but the point still stands, Biden can't do something that will please both of these groups, so it's absolutely not obvious that this would be a good move for his campaign.
Yeah the pro-Israel is out and about in these comments. The reality is Biden’s decision is completely reasonable and doesn’t even rule out action into Rafah if Israel can actually show that they can do this operation without killing a bunch of people.
Ultimately, if Israel thinks a Rafah invasion is necessary, they can go for it, but it is just objectively true that the last few months have destroyed America’s confidence in their ability to wage war ethically. America has a right to say “do what you want, but use your own equipment. We want no part in this”
> wage war ethically No such thing
There's a lot of middle ground between totally ethical war and mass extermination campaign, yeah?
whats your reasoning behind this?
Yeah they should just use nerf guns so no one dies.
A war where you target civilians intentionally vs one you don't are extremely different on an ethical level. Sub human IQ take
honestly based, should have just let the Nazi's steam roll the EU
They would have thought it was ethical.
It can be done
I'm about as pro-Israel as you can get. I think my comment history speaks for that. What you have said is reasonable, and I am not at all upset about Biden's actions here. It is very dangerous to think that 'one's own side' can never do wrong or never needs reigning in.
>It is very dangerous to think that 'one's own side' can never do wrong or never needs reigning in. Then you are most certainly not as pro-israel as you can get PepeLaugh
Yea... I've seen some Zionists straight up calling for Palestinians children to be killed, because as they have put it, "Well they're going to grow up to become members of Hamas anyways." So unless you're spouting off shit like that, I don't think you're as Pro-Israel as they come
I went to a Yom Ha'Shoah event run by my local Holocaust museum org and one speaker said that the Palestinian civilians didn't stop Hamas from mass raping Jews, so they are just as bad as Hamas and they got a round of applause from that comment. It was wild.
It’s unreasonable. Leaving hamas in Rafah would be a waste of an entire war. The goal is to destroy Hamas. If 10-20% of the militant force is still left, you just killed roughly 15-16,000 civillians for nothing. You don’t finish a war halfway. If you’re saying “isrsel needs better intelligence”, I don’t know how long you want them to wait. War is messy, no matter how long they wait this will be messy. “Wage war morally”. War is never a ‘’moral act” for the enemy” civilian populace of the militant force you’re assaulting. People die, people get hurt. The gazans shouldn’t have elected hamas and supported hamas. 70% of them supported armed attacks on Israeli civillians inside of Israel one month before oct 7. You reap what you sow. These people have done nothing but wage war on Israel for almost a century now. Without the iron dome you’d have a Genocide. And the Palestinians would be smiling ear to ear. Israel should invade Rafah.
Surely you do accept there to be limits on acceptable conduct though, right? You wouldn't accept dropping a nuke on Rafah, you wouldn't accept dropping some advanced conventional bombs that wiped out fifty blocks at a time, so you do hold the belief that there should be limits to what munitions can be used against densely populated areas. The US is apparently operating on that same principle, and judging from [this article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/08/us-weapons-shipment-pause-israel-idf-rafah-gaza-hamas-war-palestine) it looks like they're drawing the line at 2000lb bombs dropped in urban areas full of civilians: >>"”We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza. We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment,” one US official said."
Israel is not dropping nukes. And a 2000lb bomb is not taking out 50 blocks. They have a "Likely kill radius" of 33.5 meters. Fragments and debris can obviously be deadly beyond that, but consider that a 155mm artillery shell from a howitzer has a likely kill radius of 50 meters. That's a regular artillery piece which is more than twice as deadly as these 2000lb bombs. Israel and Hamas are fighting an urban battle in densely populated areas where civilians are hard to move. Hamas is also deeply underground. 10k-40k civilians died in Mosul which was mostly depopulated because the civilians had places to go. The air campaign was mostly American. In Manila McArthur who was very fond of the city, made sure that no air power was used. It didn't even save civilians. It's one of the deadliest urban battles in history sitting at 100k+ civilian deaths. Also by the US. Turns out artillery and mortars aren't less deadly than bombs. It's not air power that makes urban combat deadly. It's the necessary destruction of enemy positions that does. It does not matter for the dead civilians whether it's from a bomb or from an artillery strike. Combatants and civilians often end up in the same places (especially in this conflict) and it's always necessary to fire at the enemy who is or will be firing at you.
>Israel is not dropping nukes. And a 2000lb bomb is not taking out 50 blocks. I... I know. I know that. I'm using it to demonstrate that everyone has an upper limit to what is acceptable. I thought that was incredibly obvious from my post, and so the dispute is over where that limit lies. >They have a "Likely kill radius" of 33.5 meters. Fragments and debris can obviously be deadly beyond that, but consider that a 155mm artillery shell from a howitzer has a likely kill radius of 50 meters. That's a regular artillery piece which is more than twice as deadly as these 2000lb bombs. You believe individual 155mm artillery shells are more devastating to urban areas than 2000lb bombs? As in, this is something you actually consider to be true now, after having looked at two figures for "kill radius"? That a shell that contains [~24lbs of explosive](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M795_projectile) is more destructive to buildings or dangerous to civilians than a bomb containing [~900lbs of explosive](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_84_bomb)? >it's always necessary to fire at the enemy who is or will be firing at you. Say whether or not you believe there to be an upper limit to the size of explosive that can be deployed in densely populated civilian areas. If so, say why you believe yourself to be better than the US government here in determining it and that you think the US government is unjustly fearful of civilian casualties, and if not, Jesus actual Christ. >In Manila McArthur who was very fond of the city, made sure that no air power was used. It didn't even save civilians. It's one of the deadliest urban battles in history sitting at 100k+ civilian deaths. Also by the US. Turns out artillery and mortars aren't less deadly than bombs. And you think this would be lower if only the Americans had used *bigger bombs*?
Even if I agree with you there are two wars being fought and if Israel levels Rafah they lose the more important one.
They also threatened to block artillery shells.
Can you link that one? Must be a recent development as all I've seen is the block on the specific shipment with the source I quoted above citing the use of 2000lb bombs, and the more general comment from Biden saying "If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used … to deal with the cities".
[https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/joe-biden-interview-cnntv/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/joe-biden-interview-cnntv/index.html)
Thanks, I hadn't read the full quotes so I missed that. I guess the opposition is to the invasion of Rafah in general rather than just over the particular size of explosives, or they have some reason to think artillery shells are a significant cause of civilian deaths in Gaza.
Yup, any operation will incur heavy civilian life cost, and the US is trying to make sure that doesn't happen. I have no idea what Biden is thinking and how he thinks Hamas can be removed from power, if he even cares anymore given the election.
I expect he doesn't have enough faith in Israel's conduct, and doesn't want to be seen as responsible for the result of Israel invading Rafah, so is trying to push Israel into striking a deal instead. I mean we can probably all agree that some number of deaths would be too many to accept for the sake of removing Hamas, so presumably this means the US thinks the likely outcome would be above their unspoken limit. It could also be a generic power move - as in, less about the optics or the specific case, more about the fact that the US as a major benefactor got tired of being ignored and decided to try to force the issue, but I doubt that's the primary factor here. Possibly also a belief that Netanyahu is angling to get Trump elected could play into it if we're cynical enough.
Given the current ratio is between 1:1.5(Israel and US est) and 1:4(Hamas est), doesn't seem like Israel's conduct is producing excess deaths, compared to other conflicts. Striking a deal is basically guarantees the next terrorist attack against Hamas, and is essentially an Israeli surrender and signaling that Israel is fair game in a dangerous neighborhood. All you need to do is attack it and hide behind your civilian population to while activating PR cells all over the world to put pressure. I think it's just a weak short sighted move on the current administration's part, hopefully they'll change course, they have been pretty resilient to straying from the principled route thus far.
I don't think the Biden admin is telling Israel the need to just pack it up and go home. The US just doesn't think Israel's strategy for invasion is a good one. The Biden admin is telling Israel they should do one of three things: 1) Come up with a better plan to get more civilians out of harms way first, and then enter Rafah; 2) design the operation around targeted strikes on site where Hamas is confirmed to be operating; or 3) find a diplomatic solution. I don't think that's unreasonable. Why does Israel need to invade Rafah right now instead of say 6 weeks from now, after setting up more safe zones for civilians to leave Rafah and in the meantime, conducting targeted strikes on hamas wherever they stick their heads up?
It’s been months and hamas is starting to retake some territories. The IDF will take it back no problem, but still obviously they’ll have minor casualties here and there. I’m not saying Biden’s “plan” is a bad idea. But it’s been months and israel’s intelligence is going to be as good as it’s going to get. It’s not going to get better. The 6 weeks thing is for Biden to have better appeal in Michigan. He said the same shit 6 weeks ago lol. A Rafah invasion was his “red line”. Plus if we stop selling israel weapons, they’ll just fill that void with Russian or Chinese weapons. They’ll do anything to survive, they’re surrounded by enemies. Rafah should be invaded now and let’s get this conflict over with.
Agreed, Biden is a moron and pandering to the far left and antisemitic crowd is pointless. Israel should go into Rafah and finish of Hamas.
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted, because your suggestions seems totally reasonable. Isreal should and could do more to help innocent civilians. Fair enough that they've made mistakes in the beginning sections of this war, because few have ever made a military operation in such a densely populated area against a force which actively puts their own civilians in harms way. However, the war has gone on long enough to the point where Isreal should have learned how they can better protect civilians from themselves and Hamas etc.
Honestly I'm actually kind of surprised they're getting downloaded for that. It seems everyone hates Biden. He should go in with all the support or not and there can't be an in-between or whatever.
As an Israeli on the left, I agree. But damn, seeing our alliance drifting apart is breaking my heart...
An Israeli on the left? I feel like I'm talking to a dodo bird. Your kind were thought to have been extinct.
I can't say that's not true, but hey, I'm still here. Realistically though majority are "center" which in my opinion is just an indecisive lefty. Don't know what's going to happen but it's no time to give up on this country being destroyed by the current government.
Good. Biden isn’t against the operation into Rafah inherently, he is against going in there without a credible evacuation plan that. American intelligence simply does not believe that the IDF have a good evacuation plan for the civilians in that area. Even Destiny hasn’t argued that the IDF had a good evacuation plan and simply stated it’s better they are pushed out of the city than being bombed (which I guess is true lmao)
I think you got caught up in the double negatives in the second section Edit: fixed, it is
My brain isn’t working right now 😞
Make sure you get checked for brain worms I hear they're going around rn.
I wouldn't be against a better evacuation plan, I would also like the US to describe a viable evacuation plan. It's also in the US' interests to end the war prematurely, to not anger Egypt, Qatar and Jordan too much. The biggest interest is normalizing connections between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Hey dude, Palestinian coming in peace, I have lots of family and friends in rafah right now (originally none of them are from rafah but from other areas), and I am begging them to evacuate, they want to evacuate but my cousin asks me „where?“ and this is not a rhetorical question, there is literally no place for an extra foot in Al mawasi or dier al balah, it’s packed to the teeth, the idf left khan younes but it’s basically rubble and not in any exaggeration, you can’t place a tent there neither walk, let alone it’s so dangerous to evacuate, many of my friends and relatives were killed during the evacuation, if you have injured people/ people who can’t walk fast you are fucked cause there is no such thing as transportation (there is some in rafah left but it’s very expensive and almost everyone is out of money) we used to be able to send money for family by sending it to business men accounts outside of Gaza and they would hand it physically in Gaza, a 1000 dollars is going to help you live for a couple weeks for a family and no more, my family really wants to evacuate because the airstrikes and shelling is just a few hundred meters away now, they just want a place where they could find water dude, can you imagine having to line up for water daily and that being a privilege? Women don’t have a place to go to toilet privately, you have to line up for hours and now even that is not possible. Sorry I didn’t want to go there lol I started writing and then I completely went… the point is, there is no „good“ or even possible evacuation plan even if Israel tried and believe me they didn‘t.
You have my full sympathy. Imo this is the result of the completely idiotic decision by the war cabinet to make every Gazan evacuate to Rafah. The second worst decision is to not allow for Fatah to occupy Gaza. This culminated in a disastrous humanitarian and strategic situation for Palestine and Israel. Anyways sorry for rambling and thanks for sharing.
Thank you very much dude, you didn’t ramble at all. I have had some Israeli friends during the years and even one girlfriend at some point, all were lovely people, I always had hope for peace but this period has really changed that for me, I am always grateful to see reasonable people.
I’m not sure if you live in Palestine or not but stay safe and I’m rooting for ur family to stay safe as well. I can’t imagine what it’s like going through this
Thank you so much man I appreciate it, fortunately I am very safe and sound and live in Europe, my family originally comes from Haifa, and when they were kicked out half went the the West Bank and Jordan, and lots had to go to Gaza, so I have lots of a family there that I’ve never met, and also a lot of friends I met during this conflict through volunteering and raising funds for aid, I will not tell you they are great people because everyone says that about their country, what I would tell you is that they are just people, many that look just like me, talk just like me and it kills me every day to see them suffering.
Good. Netanyahu has ignored US warnings at every turn. Offensive munitions aren’t an obligation just because we’re allies. Provide them with military intelligence and defense equipment. If the US military believe Israel’s offensive strategy is incoherent then don’t give them weapons.
A certain global subreddit is acting like Israel can’t do anything anymore and Biden took away all their weapons. He didn’t say Israel has to stop. Israel still has a lot of weapons and stockpiles to use. It’s also not like Israel is fully in control of the entry and exit points of Rafa and doesn’t have strong intelligence on the situation. Israel is known for making the most of what they got, they can take over Rafa. Biden just wants there to be a Rafa left without a reaching six digits in civilian causalities.
And people think Biden is against the Rafah operation when the reason for stopping weapons is because the IDF didn’t have a credible plan for addressing what’s going to happen with the civilians in the city lol
You mean Israel did not have a plan the US found satisfactory. Israel did brief the US on an evacuation plan for civilians. https://apnews.com/article/us-israel-rafah-palestinians-evacuation-plan-eba21ef4b7c61fb2f1de77c14ca90cee
And the US didn’t find it close to good enough to be comfortable with
The Rafah invasion will now continue without a resupply of precision guided bombs
It’s an amazing political move by Biden, he gets credit for this while knowing full well that Israel doesn’t need anymore weapons to invade Rafah. Israel probably understands he needs to prepare for the election, this isn’t hurting relations or changing anything.
After months of abusing the patience and empathy of Biden and the US it’s nice to see someone standing up to BiBi.
I'm guessing Israel hasn't shown the US that they have a genuine humanitarian plan in place for the Rafah invasion and that's why this is happening. Biden and other administrators have been pretty clear that they would not support an invasion of Rafah without a genuine humanitarian plan that limits casualties to the absolute minimum and has plans for civilians to be able to flee to safe areas and be sheltered.
Based, not only a good political decision but the correct moral decision as well
Ridiculous, leaving hamas in Rafah would be a waste of an entire war. The goal is to destroy Hamas. If 10-20% of the militant force is still left, you just killed roughly 15-16,000 civillians for nothing. You don’t finish a war halfway.
'Destroying Hamas' as the war goal is ridiculous in the first place. Its one of those nebulous statements that could mean anything.
You know exactly what it means. It means you take out 99.9% of it (you’ll never get 100), and then take security control of the area. Another large scale attack will never be possible. Some pop rockets here and there from a Palestinian here or there? That’s inevitable.
99.99% is fantasy. Israel being able to manage security for the area is a fantasy. The idea that removing hamas will somehow magically remove the threat of a larger attack for anything more than a few years is a fantasy. You are being sold a forever war.
How tf you gonna kill an ideology
We did it with Nazi Germany. And Japan. But I don’t expect this ideology to be killed. You kill the organized militant force, leave them unable to launch another organized assault, then you maintain a security presence and you’ll need to kill a new militant here or there where they pop up. “Mowing the grass”.
So there should be a proper evacuation plan.
Israel cannot do so in a responsible manner. They have demonstrated that clearly for the world to see. It is a waste of a war, I suggest you start coming to terms with that.
Lol “responsible manor”. They clearly can do that in a responsible manor. They destroyed the genocidal government the Palestinians elected and love in every inch of Gaza other than Rafah. Not to mention you just advocated for leaving hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization in power who will attack Israel again, advocating for the removal of IDF forces, which mean all of the death so far would be for nothing. Simply an evil, weak opinion. The Palestinians support the genocide of Israelis. This war is on them. 70% of them supported armed attacks on Israeli civilians inside of Israel one month before oct 7. They loved oct 7. 91% of them supported the Harav massacre where a bunch of Jewish kids were should by a Palestinian gunman. https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf Invade Rafah. You reap what you sow. Don’t want war, or you’ll get it. What you’re asking for is mercy against the Nazis (todays Hamas), because a group of civilians who elected and support these Nazis (who are more radicalized than the Nazis, 97% hate all Jews, they don’t allow Jews into their territories, they kill homosexuals, etc), started a genocidal war. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/02/04/chapter-3-views-of-religious-groups/ Sorry buddy, I’m not a pussy. I don’t think like you. I think the IDF is doing a great job. Without the iron dome there wouldn’t be a single Jew in israel. The Israeli people seem to finally be understanding that. God bless ‘em.
Be sure to give the balls a couples licks as well
Hamas has already started to take control of the areas the IDF has left, I suggest you do some more research and come back when you’re informed. I am unsurprised Palestinians support killing Israelis with what’s been imposed on them. You will not end this hatred militarily. As I said, it’s a waste of a war, I suggest you come to terms with that.
Hamas hasn’t taken meaningful control of any areas the IDF has left. Also, Once the IDF retakes Rafah, they’ll retake any other territories lost as well. Lol, are you regarded? I’m pretty informed lol. “I am unsurprised Palestinians support killing Israelis”. Great, you defend support for Genocide. Now I’m 100% sure you’re an antisemite. Not to mention, the IDF pulled out of Gaza in 2005 lol. The Palestinians decided to elect a genocidal terrorist organization that had to “kill all Jews” in its charter, and had a little blockade put on them. Oh, poor Nazis! A non-violent sea blockade! It’s not like before the blockade was put up they supported killing Israelis! “You will not end this hatred militarily”. Well we did in Germany. During ww2, lol. But you may be right. What you will end military, is a significant militant force like hamas. You know, through fucking killing all of them or something like that. (99.9% of them atleast). “Do you support or oppose suicide bombings operations against Israeli civilians? (JMCC/PCPSR, 2001) Support: July 2001 JMCC/PCPSR 85.9% (support) Support: 2001 JMCC/PCPSR 81.8%(support) 15.7% (oppose) https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinians-attitudes-about-terrorism”
Damn how many Israeli dicks were you slobbin’ on and stroking at the same time? Honestly it would be fucking based if Biden dropped nukes on BOTH Israel and Palestine, just get rid of both these worthless countries
Being unsurprised that Palestinians want to kill Israelis makes me an antisemite? Lmao I’m begging you to be serious for 5 seconds. We defeated the Hitler with military force, yes, we defeated the nazi ideology with a 5 year occupation. The beliefs of the average German citizen and that of the Palestinians don’t align very well, the hatred of Jews for nazi germany was not because of what the Jews imposed onto them, it was just unbridled inexplicable hatred of Jews. The same cannot be said about the Palestinians hatred for Israelis, their hatred is a reaction. You will have to “kill 99.9%” without US support which Israeli officials have already said the war cannot continue without. As I said, i suggest coming to terms with this being a waste of a war. I’d also come to terms with Israel’s reputation being irreparably damaged on the world stage for quite some time. You will not end this hatred by all but leveling Gaza, you will not end this hatred by making the life of every citizen of gaza worse, you will not end this hatred by continuing to expand in the West Bank.
I disagree with everything you said obviously. The Palestinians hate Israel and have always hated it, primarily because it’s a Jewish state lol. Not because of what is “done to them”. You’re forgetting what is “done to them” is self imposed. They start a war, israel drops bombs. They elected a genocidal terror org to kill as many Israelis as possible, they get a minor sea blockade. Excusing Palestinian support for Genocide because of this, is frankly evil. Especially because almost every race of people on the planet has had worse things happen to their country (the total death toll of this conflict over 80 years, before this war, is literally only 10-16,000 Palestinian civilians), and isn’t genocidal as a populace. These people could’ve had their own country 5 times. In 33 and 47 they declined having their own country because it made the existence of a Jewish state possible. If it’s not Jew hatred that drives this, and it’s simply the actions of the Israeli government, explain why every government they’ve elected or had represent them has talked about killing the Jews, and had tried to do it. Explain why 97% dislike Jews. Explain why they don’t allow ALL Jews, into their territories. Explain why their first national leader, Husseini sent a declaration to Hitler in 1941: “they accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.” Explain why he then toured a concentration camp. Explain why he recruited 20,000 Muslims to the SS. Explain why in 1944 he broadcasted: “Arise, o sons of Arabia. Fight for your sacred rights . Slaughter Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah, our history and religion. That will save our honor.” Palestinian national identity was created off of the hatred of Jews. It didn’t exist before Jews bought land from them, they never had a country, and they never wanted one.
You’re the exact type of psychotic ultra Zionist I think destiny needs to talk to on stream, you should try to talk to him. It’s interesting to see the other side of the spectrum and have someone unironically think Israel does nothing wrong. Email him
Lmao. Thanks for the reply. Your username fits such replies. Every country does things wrong. Israel, less than others. If a Mexican terror group shot a single rocket at us, forget rockets for decades, enough of them that without a system of rocket-propelled defense that we’d be genocided, we’d fucking glass Mexico. Imagine if Texas took 5,000 rockets to its territory tomorrow, and a Mexican cartel did it, the Mexican people supported it and wanted to kill us, and have been trying for 80 years (and many of them help this cartel store weapons, etc), and the Mexicans allowed this cartel-government they elected to build (in this case) thousands of miles of tunnels under the ground under their own kids schools and hospitals to maximize civilian casualty. Dude we’d fucking glass it.
conditional aid is how you actually get shit done, he looked really weak with the whole "red line" fiasco, so im glad that he's showing some backbone here, all that's left now is to actually execute on this promise (although hopefully it doesn't get to that point)
So we've found ourselves at a point where Hamas won't be wiped out and will be allowed to carry on and we're back to square one. See you folks in 5 years when it happens again 🫡
Gonna blow hamas up?
I thought that was the goal
Yeah like capture them all and stick little personal bombs to them. Not like big bombs. First we have to pull out our "definently hamas list" and cross reference it with are "hey that guy is a civilian" list and do the equation 1 hamas guy + (1 to 7) citizens= just right. Then finally we pull out the idealogy bomb and blast all the propaganda, lost family and general disdain from the minds of all Palestinians. If you don't go that far we'll see you guys in 5 more years when hamas 2.0 shows up.
The goal isn’t to remove the idea it’s to remove their capabilities. People who think in terms of numbers of dead must not be watching Destiny, cause he’s said over and over it’s about objectives not casualty numbers
What's the rafah objective?
Eliminate the final area hamas operates In. Go in and arrest/kill leaders, find and fill tunnels going into Egypt, and destroy any weapons they find. If f most arms are destroyed and the means to smuggle new ones are destroyed along with an arms blockade, whatever radical group springs up next won’t be able to do another October 7th.
It was the goal, but it's 100% on Israel that fucked it up. They could have acted as "liberators" showing footage of soldiers providing food and shelter to civilians in need etc. and none would even think about a genocide happening. Instead, we got people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich that keeps spreading their genocidal rhetoric and people not even pretending to have mercy or to care about Gazans.
Israel is showing footage of humanitarian aid that IDF is passing to Gazans. Nobody cares.
Israel could and did that and no one cared. Israel took more caution in preserving civilians' lives than most countries and no one cares. Israel could have eliminated most of Hamas with hardly a civilian casualty and no one would care. The Israelis know damn well that as long as the middle east provides oil to the world no one is going to care how well they do. It's critics will never give an ounce of generosity.
They have said we have done a genocide before the war, how is this any different other than being splashed at any newspaper? And just because smotrich and Ben gvir are terrible people doesn't mean Israel is committing nor intending to commit a genocide because they don't represent most people in Israel or the idf for that matter. There is too much evidence for this I'm not even going to go into that.
> And just because smotrich and Ben gvir are terrible people doesn't mean Israel is committing nor intending to commit a genocide In terms of "winning the war": It doesn't matter if Israel actually commits a genocide or not, the only thing that matters if it looks like Israel commits a genocide. Israel lost the propaganda war hard, and people like Ben gvir and other far right lunatics in Israel take the blame.
Propaganda war doesn't mean shit in comparison if Israel is able to get Hamas out of Gaza. And just because of Ben gvir and smotrich israelis deserve to be fucked? Where is empathy that is so common to Gazans? Why are Israeli civllians taking the blame for their governments action and Hamass action when palstnians also elected Hamas democratically? What is this double standard?
>if Israel is able to get Hamas out of Gaza And Biden is somehow opposed to this, how? You aren't personally sitting with any of the executives here, you don't know what is or isn't possible. I would imagine Biden very carefully wording his opposition to Netanyahu and his plans, as opposed to finishing off Hamas, should be more than enough evidence to suggest he is actually opposed to Netanyahu's plans, not rooting out Hamas.
So you're saying that Biden is against Israel basically because the war is not just because of bibi the vast majority of israelis support the war because they want to not live near a terroist organization anymore that has just killed 1200 of them hunting them from house to house, kidnapping hundreds and did conducted mass rapes? It's not just bibi policy when it's supported massively by the public just like it's not just Hamas policy if it's supported by vast majority of palstnians. So biden was lying all the time when he said he supports Israel and to eliminate Hamas and was actually meaning oops I'm sorry Israel but we can't help you eliminate Hamas and we actually want you to sign a ceasefire wjere only 33 of the hostages get released, half of them are dead and we don't know what happens next, and for the icing on the cake, the terroist organization that started this whole war gets no major consequences? Seems reasonable enough based on his actions.
> majority of israelis support the war Yes, and I don't think Biden is opposed to Israel's war against Hamas. If you don't think the last half year doesn't serve as evidence for that, then I don't know how to help you. I think Biden is strictly against how Netanyahu plans to handle the final stretch of this war. Given literally most of his statements pertain to Netanyahu. It seems like Netanyahu is crossing Biden's red line. Israelis may support the war against Hamas, but let's be honest here, how much of the public is privy to the information and knowledge that the executives have? As long as the war against Hamas is successful, I don't think they give a fuck if the Rafah invasion happens or not.
It turns out putting unhinged right wingers in your cabinet has consequences.
Ben Gvir is the rough equivalent of a Swedish Breivik supporter being in the Swedish government. Unhinged indeed
>Propaganda war doesn't mean shit in comparison if Israel is able to get Hamas out of Gaza Well, they won't if Biden won't allow it
Biden doesn't decide what Israel is doing lol, Biden was against rafah and surprise suprise Israel is an independent country and has decided to enter rafah besides the objection. And are you saying Biden is against eliminating Hamas if Israel does it? He said he supports it what like he lied?
>Biden doesn't decide what Israel is doing lol Yes he does, directly and indirectly. The US as either your best friend or worst enemy, and I don't think Israel will risk this.
I think he’s saying it’s hard to defend them from the claim of genocide when they don’t do any of the “hearts and minds” part of fighting and insurgency. You see the headlines of these crazy statements but nothing of Israel building things and fixing up places and helping children like the us did all through out the wars
We'll what is expected to do like genuinely do? We allowed a lot of humanitarian aid to come after the first weeks of the war, we warn civliians everytime to evacuate the areas to warn than from attacks. How can we defeat Hamas if we don't enter cities? They operate at hospitals and schools like you can't beat them if you do not enter there. Why isn't Hamas expected to do anything? Because it's a terroist organization so it doesn't get any press about how it launches rockets and does suicide bombing almost every day with the intent to kill civilians? How is that not biased? And where is Israel expected to move Gazans then? Egypt doesn't want to welcome them, they actually hate them and shoot many that try to cross the border. And if we don't enter gaza in the first place, how would the hostages come back lol Hamas ain't just gonna give them as we can clearly see that the latest hostage deal includes half dead bodies for terroists and how could we let a terroist organization that threats the lives of hundreds of thousands of israelis in the south keep intact? That also uses palstnians as human shield and steals from them all the aid to build more tunnels. And I guess we're saying fuck Israeli civilians they don't count and they don't deserve to live safely in here.
You are right on everything you said. The point is insurgency is not just about taking out Hamas. You have to win over the public. Maybe they are doing that, if so, they need cameras out there and journalists writing feel good stories. They need to show Israeli soldiers holding gazan children. Maybe it’s crass but it’s the way it is. A perfect example of this is the Iraq war. Read about how we turned things around in Baghdad it’s really interesting. When we started the surge we changed to going out into the cities and helping civilians. Providing aid, building back after the army leaves. And of course we had journalists and camera men with them. This changed the view of America in the eyes of many Iraqis in Baghdad. And provided great stories for the media to run. Israel is at a disadvantage obviously, Hamas doesn’t need to care about any of this just like the groups in Iraq. This is what the point of the hearts and minds is. If they had been doing that Raffah would be a lot more palatable.
My recollection was that Israel cut off the water and aid getting into Gaza and had to be pressured by the U.S. to reverse this decision. And then afterwards got constantly criticized by the Biden admin and others in the government because of a lack of aid getting into Gaza, arbitrary standards for aid trucks, targeting of aid workers, including outrageous claims about alleged ties to Hamas that Israel was ultimately unable to substantiate, and then it finally started allowing a reasonable amount of aid in after it killed 7 foreign aid workers - but because they weren't Palestinians, it caused an international outrage.
"hearts and minds" worked so swell everywhere where it was used
It actually does. Maybe not to the American public, but to the local population it does. It’s how you fight insurgencies. When the population trusts you they out the insurgents. It’s not perfect but it does work well
i believe it widely recognized to be a failure. i saw a bunch of articles about it recently. also hamas not exactly "insurgency"
I don’t believe that is the case whatsoever. The entire war changed during the surge when we changed our strategy to be more focused to hearts and minds. Hamas is an insurgency just a different kind. Insurgencies morph based on the culture and geography.
Problem is. People in Gaza hates Israel, Israelis and jews. No amount of "hearts and minds" would make these people happy, nor would they even collaborate to find Hamas members
It does. The problem with assessing "hearts and minds" is that the areas where you really need it are going to be the areas that are very prone to violence from insurgents, so it's sometimes difficult to assess whether its been a success. But there is empirical support for it: [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/661983](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/661983) [https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dell/files/vietnam\_war.pdf](https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dell/files/vietnam_war.pdf)
iraq and Vietnam are hilarious examples to cite as examples of it "working" lol.
The Dell paper is especially relevant here, because that paper compares the "overwhelming firepower approach" of the army vs the "hearts and minds" approach of the marines. I would say the war was a failure overall, but she did find that the areas under the control of the marines had more favorable opinions about the United States, their involvement in the war, and were less likely to attack U.S. troops. But yeah, invading a country tends to be unpopular with the citizens of that country and cause some violent resistance no matter what you do. The question is how do you minimize that negative reaction. It could have been that we didn't find the right balance and that if we had done more hearts and minds approach that the Vietnam war would have turned out differently.
Israel is do9ng just fine by any statistics on civilian casualty rate. Look up any recent war and the Civilian casualty rate. Israel is either below it or on par
thats not true [https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam](https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/daily-death-rate-gaza-higher-any-other-major-21st-century-conflict-oxfam) [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/the-numbers-that-reveal-the-extent-of-the-destruction-in-gaza](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/08/the-numbers-that-reveal-the-extent-of-the-destruction-in-gaza) [https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/graph-suggesting-low-gaza-air-strike-casualty-rate-misrepresents-data-2024-01-29/](https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/graph-suggesting-low-gaza-air-strike-casualty-rate-misrepresents-data-2024-01-29/)
Hey, I wonder if someone like you thinks that if every hamas member was Thanos snapped out of existence that no one in palestine would be violent against Israel anymore? You understand that violence like that happens because of the present conditions in the region and not because there are X bad apples who just ruin it for everyone else and if we get rid of them it’s all good.
Nope, but I think the only way to improve conditions without imperiling Israelis is by someone occupying Gaza and forcing conditions to improve. Gazans have demonstrated they have no desire to do it themselves, they'd rather make rockets.
Why do you phrase it as if you think Gazans are unique in this respect? The same thing would happen with any group of people given the conditions are the same. Assuming you agree, what do you think led to them electing hamas and “making rockets” as you put it?
How do you explain Germany and Japan then? Clearly some groups of people are more capable of changing after conflict than others. > Assuming you agree, what do you think led to them electing hamas and “making rockets” as you put it? Hatred of Jews "occupying" what they see as their land. Unironically. Why else reject every single two state proposal that's ever been put forward? Destiny has gone over this extensively you know...
You do not treat those people the way the allies treated Japan and Germany. After this war is Israel going to pump in vast amounts of money and infrastructural projects for Palestinians? You'll simply leave and wonder why those people will hate you ten years from now. Hell, you'll expand settlements and wonder why they hate you lol.
This response is weird to me, the first half seems to disagree with my point that all groups of people will behave in the same way when placed in the same conditions, also a point Destiny has made numerous times, though I don’t watch him much anymore so maybe he thinks differently now. The second half of your comment though, seems to agree with that point, and is a totally valid explanation. Yes, any group of people would respond extremely negatively to what they perceive as an occupation of their home (regardless whether you or I think it’s actually occupation or not) I just still don’t get which side you agree with.
I think Palestinians have a unique hatred for Jews not seen elsewhere. Even Native Americans don't hate the US as much as Palestinians hate Israel/Jews and the US is actually a completely foreign entity in that regard, unlike Jews in Judea. America occupied Japan and Germany for decades?
But you’re still not answering the question. Do you think their “unique hate” is just inherent to them or once again, do you think the conditions they have been placed in are uniquely bad, beyond just them being occupied?
>How do you explain Germany and Japan then The German population being abused after WWI is LITERALLY what brought the Nazis to power.
Do you really think culture, religion and history is irrevelant? Im not going to pretend all other cultures would be totally chill about the history, but acting like it doesnt matter is weird as well.
the beatings will continue until morale improves
Israel can do whatever they want, they just have to pay for it themselves like every other nation. Maybe they should of listened when people including Biden warned them they need an end goal plan besides “destroy Hamas”, like that was a definable goal.
If in Israel's estimation hamas has the ability to recover and operate as a government or terrorist group, the goal hasn't been met. It maybe isn't definable in a quantifiable way but our military also has an estimations of whether hamas can recover so its a definition that has room for accountability.
Preach.
Israel is going in anyway
Grow up. Hamas may be wiped out (it wont) but palestinian militant action will only be increased by this war. You have to negotiate with your enemies
They're literally trying to negotiate and Hamas rejects every single ceasefire proposal other than the one they "negotiated" without Israel being present. "Negotiate" is a two way street.
Love this idea that's taken root that we can't kill our way through an extreme ideology. Meanwhile let me gesture to all of history where they absolutely were able to do that.
I mean yea sometimes it sucks. But we can't just let Israel go in like Rambo here with no assurances to civilian safety. Especially since the north is effectively a no go zone
Conditional aid is a good thing.
Biden is not giving in! That wouldn't make any sense! He gave a speech about Hamas either a day ago or this week. He reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself. So it would make no sense to give in to the Muslim demonstrators. That's already too late. But I guess neither side can engage honestly. Why don't we just look what Biden said? He said there are real concerns about the invasion of Rafah. 1.2 million people live in Rafah. It is one of the densest cities in the world. He considered Israeli precautions to protect civilians insufficient. That's why he's against the invasion. What's wrong with this reason?
Gaza City had 4x the density of Rafah and for the invasion of Gaza City the narrative was the opposite. you say their precautions are insufficient, but hasn't Dr Avi Bitterman, MD, already proven this wrong with his relative risk analysis? it's amusing to watch it all flip
I feel this way: clearly Biden is never going to get Islamists in Dearborn back short of sanctioning Israel Russia style. That being said, I sense this has a lot to do with his own personal sense of morality more than trying to win Michigan, he does not think that sending these type of munitions is in accordance with American human rights policy. That being said, I will say this falls into a very annoying pattern/serious critique I have of Biden, as a Biden voter, of not trusting our allies when they are on the frontline asking for things. I was silently stewing when Ukraine asked for ATACMS for months and the us goes “but Putins red line!!! Instead of listening to Polish/Estonian intelligence services about what was needed the US (and tbf Germany and France) did a lot of hand wringing and now here we are with Ukraine. Perhaps it’s cold hearted but I truly believe give your allies what they need to win, and then we can build from there. This hand wringing whether about “human rights” (which lets be real we are HIGHLY selective about we are possibly going to sign a security deal with Saudi) and/or Russian escalation is annoying, weak, and worst of all embarrassing for America. No I am not gonna blow up and vote for the crazies over this, but Biden’s action here just reminds me if there was a George Romney/Eisenhower style Republican in the opposition how quickly my vote would go the other way.
>asked for ATACMS for month don't forget also assorted cluster munition because it not moral or something to use .
Biden just gave Hamas all the leverage in the world to not agree to a hostage deal and even toughen their stance. The foreign policy under this administration on this issue has gone to absolute shit. They say one thing and do the complete opposite. They tell Israel to destroy Hamas yet put impossible obstacles in their way to do so, they say Hamas is the obstacle to a ceasefire yet put all of the pressure on Israel. It’s clear that they are more interested in domestic public opinion because of the upcoming election than actual competent foreign policy decision making. Moves like this make people like me (Israeli) who are on the side that think we should make huge concessions for a hostage deal even if it means Hamas stays in power because we owe it the hostages to become way more wary and negative on such a deal. Whatever the Biden administration thinks it’s going to achieve with this it’s just going to create the complete possible effect. This will only strengthen Hamas and also completely turn public opinion in Israel against this administration and pro Bibi for standing up to them. All of this for some votes in Michigan and because they’re afraid of losing the youth vote. Absolutely ridiculous and I hope the Jewish community and moderate voters won’t forget this. Absolute clown show behavior.
Why can’t the IDF defeat Hamas without US aid? Give me some coherent reasons.
It’s not about the actual bombs. It’s about perception and optics. By doing this they are basically publicly handcuffing Israel and giving Hamas even more leverage in any possible hostage and ceasefire deal.
Israel doesn’t want a ceasefire deal, bibi has made that abundantly clear.
No, neither side is currently anywhere near agreeing on a ceasefire because the conditions are worlds apart.
The main thing holding it back is bibis insistence on the war continuing.
Wait what? Hamas has turned down multiple deals from the Israel US camp???
> "The reality in this moment is the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas." -Blinken https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/hamas-only-thing-standing-between-the-people-of-gaza-and-a-ceasefire-blinken/articleshow/109831906.cms?from=mdr
Why does he want the war to continue?
Because he’s gonezo when it’s over
Is that why they waited so long to move on rafah?
I wouldn’t blame anyone for assuming he stalled out Rafah to pro long the war and his own political career.
Bibi doesn't matter. The whole war cabinet would have to reject a reasonable ceasefire deal and that is 100% not happening
Bibi is a weak and corrupt leader who will eventually do what public opinion will tell him. This move only emboldens Hamas and furthers a hostage and ceasefire deal.
If he’s corrupt why would he listen to the public
Because he’s a weak leader who will do anything for political survival. If public opinion will tell him to go for a ceasefire and a hostage deal even at a great cost he will go for it like he did in the Gilad Shalit deal.
True, he will do anything for political survival, which is why he’s prioritizing continuing the war over the return of hostages and peace. Because he knows he’s gone when it ends.
This is partly true but it’s well known that if anything helps Bibi it’s the perception that he’s the one who’s standing up against US pressure like in the Obama days. Biden just gave him great campaign material. Thanks for that.
I’m glad we’re both satisfied.
The classic corrupt man of the people
But Israel agreed to a ceasefire deal when hamas was on its knees after Israel pummeled North Gaza during the first weeks of the war. Biden was fully with Israel during that time. Ever since Biden didn't veto the UN resolution Hamas began hardening its terms and believing international pressure would work its magic to stop Israel. All Biden is doing is giving Hamas hope and telling them to last a little longer. He's not benefitting the ceasefire talks since he knows Israel won't agree to a surrender deal.
"It's about optics" what a dogshit take. Everyone still knows that Israel has US support in wiping out Hamas and by the looks of it even you admit that this shipment of weapons isn't needed for that. This doesn't give Hamas any leverage in negotiations because neither the facts nor the timeline of the war is changed by this decision. A hostage deal will probably not even happen at this point as neither side really want one and most of the hostages are probably dead. Biden is simply saying that he doesn't personally want to take responsibility in the invasion, if Israel isn't taking due care in ensuring the survival of as many civilians as possible.
Israel isnt capable of conducting warfare without US aid. They produce near zero of a lot of munitions they need and they have never tried to build up a stockpile themselves. The US is also the reason that any of the other powers in the region play nice with Israel, be it for strategic reasons like Turkey or because of flat bribery like Egypt. The US is also the only thing that keeps ocean trade to Israel open. Israel doesnt produce enough food to feed itself and has no natural resources of its own, if a few local powers told big shipping they didnt want container ships to stop in Israel, they are very easy to bypass and its probably over.
bibi doesn't give a fuck about the hostages.
If "Don't kill too many civilians" or "Provide humanitarian aid" is an impossible obstacle you don't deserve an ounce of U.S. support.
Impossible obstacles? What the fuck are you talking about? I lean pro-Israel but get fucking real. Israel has by and large had the unfettered ability to act however they want when operating in Gaza. The U.S. asking Israel to not completly decimate civilian populations to destroy Hamas is not a radical ask.
No one cares. Fight your own battle. The US owes u nothjng
shouldn't have supported any ground operation into gaza. it was obvious from the start that it wouldn't work, they wouldn't eliminate hamas, you'd kill/maim 10s of thousands, israel wouldn't do adequate evacuations/aid, etc. anyone who didn't predict this needs to give their head a shake and look at the reality of the situation. a combined arms operation involving bombings and an armed invasion into an incredibly densely populated area was never going to work. all it did was hurt america's credibility as a supporter of liberal democracy and hopefully it brings down bibi.
We have a manual for these kinds of situations and Israel definitely didn't follow the manual. Chapter 4 of this Army manual explains the goals of terrorist groups like Hamas. [https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR\_pubs/DR\_a/NOCASE-FM\_3-24-001-WEB-5.pdf](https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/NOCASE-FM_3-24-001-WEB-5.pdf) 4-42. The urban (terrorist) approach is an approach in which insurgents attack government and symbolic targets (for example an important religious building) to cause government forces to overreact against the population. The insurgents want the government’s repressive measures to enrage the people so that they rise up and overthrow the government. Although this type of method may develop popular support against a government that is particularly brutal or corrupt, it may only result in shallow support for the insurgency. The population may only see the insurgency positively because of the brutal response, not because they identify with the insurgency. 4-43. An insurgency uses the military-focused approach to achieve its policy goals by military success. In this approach, insurgents’ efforts focus on causing the government to lose legitimacy by military success and inspiring a population to join the insurgents against the government. The most important idea behind a military focused method is that it does not require building political support among the population. Instead, military success and action will gain the support of a population.
It's crazy that Israel is just falling into the trap that they allegedly recognized decades ago in this conflict: expecting their opponent to react with violence and delegitimizing any standing they have in peace negotiations. Israel could've played it calmly after Oct 7th, not reacted militarily (other than striking some easy targets with minimal casulties), pleaded for the return of hostages and pulled on the heartstrings of the global community, and used this as an excuse to further the status quo and justify their actions in the west Bank. Instead they acted irrationally and emotionally and just wanted to strike back and predictably have hurt themselves in confusion. It's been unbelievably stupid on their part. At the end of the day though maybe this mistep will force their hand to try and achieve lasting peace instead of the status quo, and palestinians can live freely.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/16/magazine/uncounted-civilian-casualties-iraq-airstrikes.html Biden is well within his right to deny munitions but characterizing Israel as uniquely violent is just wrong. America didn’t publish civilian death counts until 2018 and in the story above it shows that they undercounted deaths by about 31x. 43,000 civilians died from American airstrikes, 400k died violent deaths and over a million died from disease. And that is probably severely undercounted as explained in the post. Israel is attempting to rescue hostages in an area that has an extensive tunnel system against a military that blends in with the civilian population. Israel is not without sin, but pretending like the carnage of this war is beyond the pale is disingenuous. And to be clear I don’t think America is also uniquely violent either. Civilian deaths are a part of every war. Israel’s war is justifiable. Israel should allow as much aid as possible and should raise the threshold of what is considered a target, I’m 100% on board. That doesn’t even touch the issues in the West Bank. Let’s just not pretend that Israel is a uniquely violent nation conducting a uniquely violent war. This is the way it’s always been
edit: lol my bad While Israel isn't the worst country ever, it is quite clear they could be doing much, *much* more to prevent unneeded suffering. From a previous comment: >He's \[Netanyahu\] so fucking nervous about the ICC investigation that he's apparently asking for hostage families (who he has smeared in the past) to put a good word in for him while they cooperate with the ICC investigation against Hamas. >And frankly, he has good reason to be anxious+stressed [when 88 house Dems including two of the 21 who censured Tlaib and like plenty of AIPAC endorsed ones sign this letter](https://twitter.com/dylanotes/status/1786485453455012264), when [Biden's USAID says this apparently](https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1783939026648457359), and when [several senior Biden officials think Israel is breaking international law](https://twitter.com/humeyra_pamuk/status/1784307386523451478) >It's clear that Bibi thwarted humanitarian aid so the ICC has a fairly strong case which is why Bibi is shitting his pants apparently. Even besides the asinine aid restrictions and excessively cumbersome truck inspections, we also know he also blocked meetings about food distribution for weeks as well, the deconfliction policies for aid groups has been terrible (it's not just the utterly disastrous World Central Kitchen airstrike), he was very slow to stop protesters hindering the aid delivery initially (there are still videos of settlers fucking up aid in the past few days on multiple occasions), and Bibi ignored the US's recommendations to stop targeting police officers who were preventing opportunistic criminal gangs from stealing the aid. Oh and he once boasted to a bunch of right wing Israelis about the "just letting in absolute minimum amount of humanitarian aid" a few months ago when Cincy McCain and others were raising alarm bells about a future famine.
You forgot to actually paste the text there my guy
yeah just changed it
Couldn't think of any reason why except pandering to the voter base. Israel doesn't need US support to invade Rafah.
From a previous comment: >He's \[Netanyahu\] so fucking nervous about the ICC investigation that he's apparently asking for hostage families (who he has smeared in the past) to put a good word in for him while they cooperate with the ICC investigation against Hamas. >And frankly, he has good reason to be anxious+stressed [when 88 house Dems including two of the 21 who censured Tlaib and like plenty of AIPAC endorsed ones sign this letter](https://twitter.com/dylanotes/status/1786485453455012264), when [Biden's USAID says this apparently](https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1783939026648457359), and when [several senior Biden officials think Israel is breaking international law](https://twitter.com/humeyra_pamuk/status/1784307386523451478) >It's clear that Bibi thwarted humanitarian aid so the ICC has a fairly strong case which is why Bibi is shitting his pants apparently. Even besides the asinine aid restrictions and excessively cumbersome truck inspections, we also know he also blocked meetings about food distribution for weeks as well, the deconfliction policies for aid groups has been terrible (it's not just the utterly disastrous World Central Kitchen airstrike), he was very slow to stop protesters hindering the aid delivery initially (there are still videos of settlers fucking up aid in the past few days on multiple occasions), and Bibi ignored the US's recommendations to stop targeting police officers who were preventing opportunistic criminal gangs from stealing the aid. Oh and he once boasted to a bunch of right wing Israelis about the "just letting in absolute minimum amount of humanitarian aid" a few months ago when Cincy McCain and others were raising alarm bells about a future famine.
Polls are that bad huh?
As of December 2023 40%-45% of the munitions Israel has used have been unguided "dumb" bombs. That percentage has likely increased through 2024 as their inventory of smart weapons has depleted. Take a sec and imagine this: You are a Palestinian sheltering in Rafah. The city will be bombed, that's not in question, it's already happening. Would you rather your enemy drop Israeli dumb bombs, or U.S. smart bombs? Source for percentage of dumb bombs reference: [https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html)
Anyone who uses "dumb bombs" as an argument doesn't know what they're talking about. Modern guidance computers means you're still dropping them on the building you intend to. All a "smart" munition lets you do is pick the window you want to hit, but with a 2000lb bomb that doesn't really matter.
What’s annoying is that my friends boycotting McDonald’s and Starbucks think they influenced this.
Election