genocide really is, it's used as a means to attack Israel that is defending itself against a terrorist org. that is dedicated to the eradication of the Israeli state and all things Jewish, much like Nazi Germany in WWII.

And the belief that every single civilian death as a result of an IDF strike is a war crime.

He is recognized as a war criminal and has to be careful about what countries he travels to in fear of being arrested and taken to the Hague for trial.

Once this war is over, there will be determinations as to what were war crimes.

People here will continue to debate it.

civilians. Israel is not. Putin attacked Ukraine. Israel is the one who was attacked and is defending itself. Putin is kidnapping Ukrainians. Israel is not kidnapping anyone.

Putin is doing, I don't care if Hamas operations may be suspected there? I don't. It's pretty obvious to most people thinking clearly and being even-handed to both sides in the matter, that civilians are being killed in those bombings, and shelling in Israel.

Another way has to be found. After this is over, determinations will be made by international bodies whether war crimes have been committed...by both sides. And it doesn't look good for either side.

Last edited Mon Oct 30, 2023, 10:44 AM - Edit history (1)

Because it should be freaking obvious that combatants operating from civilian structures are seeking to do two things:

1) Avoid getting attacked.

or, barring that

2) That a lot of civilians are killed when they are attacked.

Hamas is deliberately putting these civilians in danger for their own protection and propaganda.

To be clear the law of war is subjective here. It is not a war crimr to target a civilian structure that is being used by enemy combatants if all reasonable precautions are taken to avoid unnecessary collateral damage.... ya know, things like using precision munitions. Providing wanring to civilians, things like that.

It's not a war crime just because it makes YOU mad.

OTOH, kidnapping and murdering civilian hostages is definitely a war crime...

And the same can be said of the rockets into Israel.

War sucks, especially for civilians.

But lay this at the feet of the people who actuall STARTED this war: HAMAS.

Not that I expect any post-war tribunal to fairly evaluate Israel. One thing is clear the last few weeks.... there is some DEEP levels of Antisemitism worldwide.

Israel has a right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorist attacks. It's difficult to choose which words, but how far can the IDF go with bombing civilian-occupied buildings...even if Hamas operations are suspected? It's as I said, a difficult subject to talked about, but with the civilian death toll rising, how far do you go?

In my opinion another way to root out Hamas must be found, and the rocket fire into Israel has to stop also. It's a complex and confounding issue that hasn't been solved for 75 years. What to do? A two-state solution still seems to be the solution but so far it's still an unattainable mirage. I hope it happens this time. Pres. Biden says he wants to pursue it after this war is over.

And Israel isn't targeting civilians, so it's a moot point.

Last edited Tue Nov 28, 2023, 03:00 PM - Edit history (1)

See for yourself.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/drones-show-how-israeli-bombs-turned-gaza-into-moonscape-2023-11-27/

No it doesn't. It doesn't look good for either side.

Link to tweet

If Israel wanted to kill every Gazan resident, they could do so tomorrow. They are targeting Hamas, who hide behind civilians, that blame lies solely with Hamas.

You should stop gaslighting. They admitted no such thing.

For that reason, Bush and Cheney don’t travel outside the US.

From a post by Prole at https://democraticunderground.com/100218409570#post2

For reference: The UN definition of genocide.

Definition

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

You believe Israel is intent on wiping all Gazans off the face of the Earth?
Because they're doing a pretty piss poor job of it, what with only killing 8000 people according to Hamas over three weeks, and giving them warnings where they would be attacking.
I mean, Hamas killed a sixth of that number in a few hours. Heck, they even managed to kill 500 of those 8000 themselves when they made that pothole in the hospital parking lot.

Israel has the ability to truly wipe out all of Gaza, if that’s what they wanted to do.

I never said Israel is intent on wiping all Gazans off the face of the Earth.

What I believe is that Israel is not carrying their responsibility to avoid hitting non-military civilians.

Their responsibility is to not target civilians.

...of all the dead palistinians today, what percentage was a Hamas combatant... (8000 and counting) Don't get me wrong, Hamas needs to be eradicated to the last swine. But what is happening now is no collateral damage!

I'm sorry, but it is.

Not only is it demonstrably and factually untrue in every sense of the word, it is specifically designed to press on a traumatic event suffered by the Jewish people. It is a racially-motivated manipulation.

Some people think accusing Jews of committing genocide somehow robs the Holocaust of some of its emotional power.

This tactic was designed carefully and is employed intentionally.

It's designed to muddy the historical truth about the Holocaust whole simultaneously blaming the victims.

The other thing I see a lot on twitter is linking Joe Biden to the supposed genocide, with the hashtag #genocideJoe, which really pisses me off

"We will not find liberation through the elimination of another people."

Eli Valley

was unambiguous in intent/instruction. He referenced the Holy Bible and the Amaleks, a passage he has included in his comments many times we over the years. It reads as thus (translation vary, this is the NIV):
1 Samuel 15:1-3
"15 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

Here we have the head of the government of Israel invoking a passage of holy scripture where the instruction from the Lord Himself is to respond to an attack upon Israel by killing every man, woman, child/infant and destroying all of their belongings -- and he did so with the admonishment: "remember what the Amaleks have done to you."

and Jewish people world wide for that outrageously horrid statement.

Hamas attacked Israel just when Netanyahu was being challenged and prosecuted in Israel for his illegal acts. The 10/7 attack saved Bibi's ass for the moment. Netanyahu is not popular with the non Orthodox.

How many Palestinians recite the"River to Sea" chant calling for the eradication of Israel?

A couple of posters here say that the chant isn’t calling for the destruction of Israel, it’s just a call for a two state solution.

Last edited Sun Oct 29, 2023, 07:16 PM - Edit history (1)

But according to them it’s quite common for people on the left to wave swastikas.

Also, let's not reduce the Swastika down to just anti-semitism. It was a lot more than that- domination of Europe, getting rid of "lesser people" (not just Jews but others seen as inferior), rebuilding a new "Holy Roman Empire," etc.

But there was a widely shared picture from a "pro-Palestine" rally. And one poster here made the point that it wasn't really anti-semitic because the protester was just saying Israel were acting like Nazis.

I know about the rally. How do you know all of those people were on the left?

I meant that the person who was defending waving swastikas said it was common for people on the left to wave swastikas.
Why would I assume they weren't on the left? They were at a protest sponsored by DSA.
If the left doesn't want to look like jackasses at protests, then maybe they should keep dipshit Nazis away from cameras.

I don't know much about the DSA. It was definitely a bad look for them.

apartment buildings is a war crime? Putin has to be careful where he travels to because he's recognized as a war criminal for the shelling and bombing of Ukrainian apartment buildings.

It's supposed to be different if it's done in Ukraine but not Gaza?

in the apartment buildings, whereas Hamas does.

That’s the difference.

It's frankly astounding how so many people can't seem to grasp that. Full-throated condemnation of the IDF for striking military targets even if they're behind human shields, but not even a whisper of condemnation for the Hamas cowards using them as shields to begin with.

My eyes have really been opened over the past three weeks.

Or in reality they're bombing and don't know which building is sheltering Hamas, whether some obliterated buildings were innocent civilian housing and that's all. What do you think, maybe ten, twenty, thirty percent had Hamas operations, along with civilian residences...you see the problem?

Bombing civilian residences is still a violation of the rules of war. And btw, so is Hamas' shelling of Israeli residences.

Other ways have to be found. There will be accountability accessments acter the war is over. Neither side is looking good right now.

Putin is afraid to go to certain countries in fear of being arrested as a war criminal and taken to the Hague. Similar fates may be waiting for some in this war afterwards...on both sides.

Don't you see that this war only serves to keep him and other extremists in power?

I've seen no "rally around our leader" movement since October 7.

I mean "from the the river to the sea" BS? Genocide to Israeli Jews it sure sounds like!

Otoh the illegal settlements of the West Bank! Netanyahu's corruption.

I wish there was a way to do less harm to the Palestinians in Gaza. And it's not so darn easy to "just" evacuate southward.

Truthfully I get fed up w both sides sometimes, and I believe Israel has a right to exist . The Palestinians need to be treated better, as well.
I still believe in the Two States as difficult as it to achieve.
Sigh.

I doubt you will get much support for Netanyahu here (or anywhere else), but be careful to characterize his rhetoric accurately.

Hamas has not returned Israeli hostages. Israel is going to war, just as the United States has gone to war, over and over, and killed civilians. I see so little concern about that here.

Russia is bombing and shelling Ukrainian apartment buildings. It is recognized that he is a war criminal.

Putin attacked Ukraine. Israel is the one that was attacked and is defending itself. Putin intentionally targets civilians. Israel does not. Putin kidnaps Ukrainians and takes them to Russia. Israel is not kidnapping anyone, but Hamas has kidnapped Isrselis and taken them to Gaza.

The poster we're responding to doesn't see that Putin's actions are like those of Hamas.

civilian-occupied building, on the chance that Hamas operations might be in those buildings.

What about the buildings that have been obliterated that are just civilian occupried?

You've seen the photos of huge swathes of buidling just reduced to dust.

A better way has to be found because after this is over international bodies with investigate and determine if war crimes were committed. And it doesn't look good for either side.

Impartiality is apparently foreign to many here.

in Gaza is ok but not in Ukraine? You can't be serious. Try being a bit impartial. Israel was attacked and has the right to defend itself, but obliterating huge swathes of civilian housing and killing thousands, I don't care if Hamas operations are suspected in some, that is not ok.

"In some" being the operative phrase. A better way of getting rid of Hamas has to be found for fairness to both sides.

And btw, the same goes for Hamas shelling into Israel. People have to get a grip and be impartial, even-handed.

I must have missed that. Because it didn't happen.

In fact, your example proves my point. Putin is recognized as a war criminal because he unilaterally attacked Ukraine.

But what would be scrutinized is the actual military efforts, and what efforts were made unnecessary civilian casualties.

of an ethnic group, this isn't that, but it is a war crime. Israel is risking the world turning against them.

The country certainly has the right to retaliate against the Hamas terrorist attack, but obliterating whole swathes of occupied buildings...come on.

More than 8,000 have died in the bombings, many of them women and children.

Demonstrations and even injuries and killings are, unfortunately, happening in many nations around the world. A flight from Tel Aviv to a Russian airport was met by a mob determined to get Israeli passengers.

This has become a worldwide and tragic crisis.

as hundreds of civilians were killed.

I think war is horrible. I was (and remain) appalled by the United States' response to 9/11. I was NOT waving the American flag. I was in very thin company.

Seems like a whole lot more people are condemning Israel for doing far less than we did when our country was attacked. Nobody accused us of genocide, even when we destroyed a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Targeting civilians to kill them is.

Israel is not targeting civilians. The only war crime here is Hamas hiding behind civilians.

occupied civillian housing?

Then those buildings are valid targets.

Nor are you going to change yours.

Anyplace that Hamas is hiding is a valid target, and I support Israel foing after them wherever they are.

resulting in what is up to 8000+ deaths now, I don't care if Hamas operations are suspected, is IMO a war crime as warring parties are both responsible for taking all precautions to avoid innocent civilian deaths.

Israel obvious has to find another way to get rid of Hamas than wholesale bombing of civilian-occupied housing.

You have to know this.

when bombs obliterate their housing? Let's stop playing with wording. Both Hamas and Israel have to take responsibility to avoid killing of innocents.

The terrible Hamas attack on Israel seems to justify any and all types of military action against Hamas, even if that means killing 100,000 non-combatants.

I am not saying that Israel has killed or will kill 100,000 non-combatants.

free reign of terror and cannot be stopped because civilians will be harmed? Several thousand Germans died when the Allies bombed Germany and followed that with a ground war, right up to the invasion of Berlin because Germany would not stop or admit defeat. Should the Allies have not invaded Germany in order to protect civilians?

Patronizing statements like "You should know this" are ridiculous. I know that nobody is pressuring Hamas to stop putting Gaza civilians at risk . Why is that?

Do you feel outrage over what Hamas is doing to the Gaza civilians? I do. Hamas has stockpiles of food, medicine, and fuel that it is hoarding in tunnels so that it can hold out against the IDF. Hamas has stolen humanitarian supplies from a UN agency that were meant for the Gaza civilians. Why do they get a free pass on what they are doing to their own civilians? There should be world wide protests against Hamas treatment of its own people and demands that Hamas aid the people and remove its weapons stockpiles from public and private civilian locations.

Hamas is playing a "win the narrative" game with public images. They WANT civilian deaths in order to cast Israel as the bully. When people demand that Israel stop fighting instead of demanding that Hamas stop committing war crimes against its own people, they are playing right into Hamas' hands

Hamas has declared its mission to be the annihilation of Jews. Israel will destroy Hamas before it will let another Holocaust happen. Israel will not let the Hamas tactic of setting up civilians to be killed stop them from pursuing Hamas.

So many here don't seem to realize that even-handedness and impartiality is only fair. Bombing civilian occupied housing in Gaza AND shelling into Israel are the parties' responsibility to avoid.

It's not that complicated. Seems any post calling for the bombing, AND SHELLING, to stop is considered anti-Israel by so many here. Hamas has to be ferreted out and eliminated. How it's done should not include obliterating civilian housing even if Hamas operation may be suspected as every building in Gaza may just be civilian housing.

Another way has to be found, and yes, you should know this. And again, shelling into Israel has stop. Call it patronizing if you want, but it should, IMO, be common sense that another way has to be found.
Efforts to save Israeli and Palestinian civilians should both be pursued.

Impartiality and even-handedness please.

Then if I may ask, why are you only condemning Israel here? Why are you not criticizing Hamas for putting those civilians in harm's way by using them as shields?

Hamas is forcing the Israelis into an impossible choice. Either they bomb an apartment building Hamas is using as a launching point for unguided rockets, or they do nothing and allow Hamas to launch rockets into Israel with impunity, hoping and trusting that the Iron Dome can stop them all. Israel is making the hard call to take action to protect their own civilians, which is precisely what they should do.

I would also note that the rockets Hamas fires are completely unguided; they launch towards Israel and hope it kills people. Is that not a war crime? If not, why not?

to the same responsibilities. Even-handedness and impartiality is the goal to get this thing over with.

how does the IDF determine which buildings Hamas has operations in, and are they then justified in bombing the buildings, which also house civilians?

It's a complex and extremely vexing situation. I don't envy commanders having to make a decision whether to bomb buildings housing civilians who have no control over if armed terrorist set up in their building.

I still contend that another way has to be found to root out Hamas from Gaza.

Between the IDF, Shin Bet, and Mossad, I can only hope and assume that they do their due diligence when determining whether, say, an apartment building is being used to as an ammo dump or an empty lot beside a school is being used as a rocket launch site.

Ultimately, though, you're asking me a question I can't possibly answer. I have no knowledge of sources and means for the intelligence the Israelis are using to choose which targets to strike and which to avoid.

I will say that if the IDF just stopped giving a damn and bombed whatever moved, that casualty count on the Palestinian side would be a lot higher. Last I saw, Israel had launched 6000 strikes and the casualty count in Gaza was below 10,000. That was as of a couple days ago, but still.

I don't envy commanders having to make a decision whether to bomb buildings housing civilians who have no control over if armed terrorist set up in their building.

And yes, I suppose it must gnaw at them to know that when they approve this, that, or the other airstrike, odds are very good that innocent Palestinians are being killed in that action.

As I said, though, the IDF's first duty is to the security of Israeli citizens. Whether the IDF commanders are accepting a psychological burden with a heavy heart to defend their fellow Israelis or whether they're bloodyhanded butchers without a shred of conscience largely comes down to personal opinion, I suppose.

to argue that successfully. "We weren't intentionally targeting civilians, they just happened to be right in the impact zone of our bombs."

If you know that the bad guys are hiding among non-combatants, you are generally required to find another means to get the bad guys that will result in fewer non-combatant casualties.

For the record, I believe this is a just war for Israel. But even just wars must be waged in a just manner.

I'm no lawyer and don't even play one on TV, but I don't think that's true insofar as the "laws of war" are concerned. Hospitals, for instance, are a good example. As per the "laws of war", hospitals are civilian infrastructure and not to be targeted.

However, if I'm not mistaken, if one side uses that hospital for a military purpose, it then becomes a legitimate target. By doing so, they themselves forfeit the protection their civilians are supposed to receive.

I could be wrong, though.

I am saying that there is more than one way to skin a cat. The military should have a range of options to deal with a hospital that is used as a enemy command and control center or some purpose. The options they rule out should be those that inflict disproporately high damage to the non-combatants and neighboring instracture that is not used by the enemy combatants.

For example, imagine a hostage crisis in the U.S. where the bad guys are holding hostages in a bank. The police could blow the bank to pieces (if it had the materials to do so). Instead, they will choose other means that will be less lethal to the hostages but will likely put police in more danger. I know that analogy is strained a bit because war is different, but there are rules, and we ignore those rules at our peril.

Following the analogy for the sake of argument, though, the two responses law enforcement would normally use would be to attempt to negotiate the release of the hostages. If that failed, SWAT might then breach and attempt to take the hostage takers down.

I think it's pretty clear that negotiations (which have been ongoing behind the scenes for international hostages) are likely not going to be fruitful in the case of Israeli hostages, though some few have been released. Furthermore, negotiating with terrorists and giving them things in exchange for the release of hostages only encourages them to take more hostages.

So if negotiations are unlikely to succeed or have failed, that leaves us with a SWAT incursion, or in this case Mossad. SWAT doesn't have to fight their way through potentially miles of hostile urban setting to reach the bank, though. Mossad would have to do exactly that, and that action would more than likely result in civilian deaths, as well as put the Mossad team at huge risk of being KIA and failing to rescue the hostages, anyway.

The takeaway here is that Hamas has tried to put Israel into an impossible choice: either strike the military target and kill the civilians Hamas is using as shields, or refuse to strike the target and allow Hamas to continue launching rockets from that site or using it as a command and control facility.

Israel is choosing the former under the rationale that the destruction of Hamas is of supreme importance to Israeli security. If the IDF could strike and destroy a rocket launch site but does not for fear of hurting civilians, that rocket launch site can now proceed to kill Israeli civilians. IDF's duty is clearly to their own civilians first.

Dropping bombs and demolishing a few blocks is one way. Using special-ops forces in a targeted strike is another. As we have seen in our own nation's experience, air power has serious limitations in waging urban warfare unless you have no concern for the non-combatants or the civil infrastructure.

I agree that they IDF has a strong duty to protect Israeli people but that does not alleviate them from their duty to minimize non-combatant casualties when possible and when doing so does not disproportionately harm the people in the IDF.

If this is not so, what restraints would prevent one country from completely bombing another back into the stone age?

We're talking a hostile urban area with house-to-house fighting, wherein any special forces team would almost certainly be vastly outnumbered with hostiles on all sides. Why send in a special forces team to take out a building full of Hamas fighters or a rocket launcher when an airstrike will yield the same result and not put valuable special forces personnel in danger?

Special forces troops are a resource any military commander will spend carefully, and only for maximum return on investment, to use a very distasteful term. If an IDF commander can drop a bomb and remove the Hamas personnel/equipment or put a Mossad team at enormous risk to achieve the same end, he's going to drop the bomb. You can buy more bombs. You can't buy more Mossad operators.

And I'd hardly agree that Israel is bombing Gaza back to the Stone Age. If they wanted to, they absolutely could turn the Gaza Strip into a gigantic parking lot. They're not doing that, though. Casualties in Gaza are what, around 10,000? And IDF has dropped fewer than 10,000 munitions. If they were just indiscriminately killing civilians, the casualty figures would be much higher. As horrifying as it is, this is what restraint looks like.

It's the ruthless calculus of war, unfortunately.

and other combat arms. I didn't say that the actual operators would go in alone without the security provided by other ground forces or tactical air power. Army Special Forces troops were used to good effect in the first Gulf War to take out the scud missiles.

I didn't argue that Israel is bombing Gaza back into the stone age. I said "a country might."

I don't know how many tons of bombs Israel has dropped and I don't know how many non-combatants or combatants they have killed or wounded. I don't know whether Israel has shown proper restraint or not. I suspect that they have been fairly careful in choosing their targets and that they want to minimize non-combat casualties but I don't know this. I don't know how good their intelligence is in Gaza, particularly because they didn't anticipate the Oct. 7 attack coming from Gaza. I do know that bombing is seen as the cheaper alternative to putting boots on the ground, but it has not proven effective in urban warfare scenarios when it is the primary way of attacking the enemy.

It's still house-to-house urban warfare in the middle of a large (and largely hostile) civilian population against an enemy that doesn't wear uniforms and cheerfully uses human shields.

Again, the ruthless calculus of war. IDF can either use air power to destroy Hamas targets, knowing that civilians may be nearby given Hamas' habit of cheerfully using human shields, or they can send in ground troops, putting them at severe risk while being less likely to achieve the objective.

From where I'm standing, IDF has chosen the smart option by keeping their troops out of harm's way until Hamas has taken a beating from airstrikes, then starting the ground invasion to chase them down and mop up.

And the use of combined arms. I never said that air power shouldn't be used, I just said that it won't be sufficient. I fully expect the IDF to continue air strikes to prepare for the ground assaults. I don't know how effective the bombing will be given the extensive nature of the Hamas tunnel systems and the lack of intelligence about Hamas sites, etc.

The calculus is interesting. It is clearly more straightforward when you don't take into account non-combatant casualties. While I would like to see Hamas wiped from the face of the earth I don't want to see the destruction of Gaza or the death or wounding of a large number of non-combatant Palestinians.

I do think Israel is showing restraint and taking due care, as much as they can given the uncertainties of warfare, to avoid civilian casualties. With all the rhetoric about genocide and ethnic cleansing and carpet bombing of Gaza, people don't seem to realize it could be so, so much worse than it is. In my view, that kind of rhetoric is backwards and, frankly, moronic.

I also think that Hamas is perhaps getting more than they bargained for. Of course they expected an Israeli response, but I don't think they expected this Israeli response. This is far and away a more robust response than what's been done after past aggression by Hamas or its fellow travelers.

But they wanted the dance, so the time has come to pay the piper.

given the brazen and brutal nature of their attack on Oct. 7.

I don't know enough about what is actually going on to judge whether Israel's response is appropriately restrained or not. Time will tell. I do have a sense that the Israeli intelligence on Hamas is not that great and that precision targeting of legitimate Hamas targets will be difficult. Plus the "fog of war" adds to the uncertainty and risk inherent in any military operation, even those that try to reduce non-combatant casualties.

I don't think that people find much comfort with the notion that Israel's response could be more destructive than it is.

I bet the % is more Hamas fighters have died then civilians but Hamas claims them all as civilians for the PR which seems to be working on many.

that wasn't a genocide?

and someone is making a profit on each one dropped.
And somewhere another mother, father, son, or daughter, loses a mother, father, son or daughter.
Imagine no more countries------no religions too

I only know of one side in this that has vowed to wipe the other out.
From River to Sea is a call for genocide.

That’s not what it means - it’s just a feel good rah-rah for Palestinian freedom.

Hamas apologists

Or Anti-Semites!
They just care about the poor innocent children of Gaza who hate Hamas but don't actually do anything to condemn them. Oh, and they have to throw "All Lives Matter!" in whenever the atrocities against Israel are mentioned...

While I reserve the right to criticize the actions made by the Israeli leaders, I certainly would not blame them for the horrific attack by Hamas nor blame the Israeli people for their leaders' actions.

This reminds me of the time after 9-11 when any criticism of Bush's handling of the war on terror was met with cries of "terrorist sympathizer." It was a cheap way to get people to shut up. You might remember how it was then.

But I see too much posting of Israeli genocide, that is not criticism.

I think we ought to not throw the term around so frivolously.

It is reprehensible to declare that you want to wipe out a whole people. This by itself doesn't give justification for unrestrained violence against another people. To be clear, I am not arguing that Israel is doing this, I am simply arguing that I am seeing quite a few justifications for killing non-combatants here. I am no apologist for Hamas or the Palestinian people. I believe in Israel's right to defend its people and lands.

but from those crying genocide, I see no suggestions or even an idea of how to deal with Hamas, or their hundresd of hostages.

This is a difficult problem and I don't know if anyone has a great solution for it. My sense is that Israel is going to need to establish better human intelligence capabilities in Gaza and will need to rely on more targeted special operations to secure the hostages and root out Hamas fighters.

by Netenyahu and his government.

company

But a careless and bloodthirsty use of power to teach the Palestinians a lesson? And to knock out their infrastructure and set them back 30 years???

YES, certainly.

Hamas turned it into a giant terrorist base. Gonna have to start over. The question is not if, but how.

And it’s offensive to even suggest it’s genocide when the world has seen actual genocide.

And using social media to play both sides for chumps. Hamas is the real bad guy in this equation and they're getting away with it.