• TWeaK
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    8 months ago

    Don’t forget a strong dose of propaganda and radicalisation towards violence, along with training in Iran. This wasn’t exactly an emotional outburst from people pushed to the brink, it was a heavily coordinated strike planned months in advance.

    This actually makes it all the more horrible, because it’s quite clear from the outside that the strike would not achieve any of their objectives for the Palestinian people. It begs the question: who wanted this to happen, who encouraged them?

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      You say the strike would not achieve any of their objectives, but I challenge you to name a single alternative that would.

      • TWeaK
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        8 months ago

        Lmfao you’re challenging me to resolve the Israeli/Palestine dispute, one which has gone on for 140 years? That’s an incredibly disengenous way to argue, you’re setting me up to lose unless I’m better than almost every human being that’s tried before.

        In any case, I’ll shoot.

        Israel is bigger than Palestine in terms of military might - even when you include full support of other Arab nations. Thus, the only way to really overcome them is to garner support from outside. To do this, Palestine needs to show that, as a people, they have more moral integrity than Israel. This is completely undermined by indescriminate strikes into foreign territory or strikes that explicitly target civilians.

        Similarly, support for Israel is undermined by their strikes into Palestinian territory. However, they’ve been far more effective at controlling the narrative to prevent losing so much support.

        Vietnam was largely undone because people in the US turned against the war - there was no support behind it. The same could probably be argued with other wars. As it stands, many of the actions by Hamas and Palestinian military groups provide plenty of plausible justification for those supporting Israel.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          I’m challenging you to give Hamas an alternative. That’s it.

          To do this, Palestine needs to show that, as a people, they have more moral integrity than Israel.

          Did you forget when Palestinians held peaceful marches and Israeli snipers blew their knees out? It didn’t matter. It never does.

          You sound like Ghandi telling the Jews that they should have resisted the Nazis with nonviolence and peaceful demonstration. Grow up.

          And do you actually honestly think that support from America or various European countries has anything at all to do with moral integrity? Vietnam was undone because they killed and brutalized the invading US soldiers until the American appetite for war turned sour. Afghanistan. Iraq. Did American appetites for conquest and war end because Al Qaeda held peaceful marches and hunger strikes?

          Should Ukrainians hold peaceful demonstrations and let themselves be sitting targets for Russian bombs?

          What Hamas did was show the Israeli public that they aren’t safe, and they did so at the same time that the Netanyahu regime was facing unprecedented public opposition from within Israeli society. They did so at a time when the US government had no House Speaker or can easily solve it. They did so at a time when the West was occupied with an endless war in Ukraine and brinkmanship with China over Taiwan.

          Hamas has actually seriously damaged the occupation with this attack. Will you acknowledge this?

          • TWeaK
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            8 months ago

            Fair points, you’ve got my upvote.

            Vietnam was undone because they killed and brutalized the invading US soldiers until the American appetite for war turned sour. Afghanistan. Iraq.

            They killed and brutalized US soldiers. The vast majority of victims on 7 October were civilians.

            What Hamas did was show the Israeli public that they aren’t safe, and they did so at the same time that the Netanyahu regime was facing unprecedented public opposition from within Israeli society.

            This was poignant timing, yes.

            They did so at a time when the US government had no House Speaker or can easily solve it.

            This was mostly luck, although there some remote possibility of a wider conspiracy.

            They did so at a time when the West was occupied with an endless war in Ukraine and brinkmanship with China over Taiwan.

            I give 50/50 odds on whether this was coincidence or not. Suffice it to say, the main reason for the timing is almost certainly to do with Netanyahu - who has previously promoted support of Hamas.


            Hamas has actually seriously damaged the occupation with this attack. Will you acknowledge this?

            I acknowledge that the strike was incredibly effective, moreso than even the people doing it thought it would be. But I feel like the strike was ultimately more in pursuit of indirect political objectives rather than military objectives. In that sense, it has arguably served Israel more than it has served Palestine - Palestine is under seige, likely to lose land, Netanyahu is still in power and while the polls put Netanyahu down they aren’t driving meaningful change. It could still swing either way though, we won’t know until much later.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              They killed and brutalized US soldiers. The vast majority of victims on 7 October were civilians.

              Well a lot of them were “civilian” IDF reservists and veterans, but yes, civilian casualties definitely soured liberal support for Palestinian resistance (and gave the IDF ammo for fake atrocity propaganda, like the nonsense about beheading 40 babies and mass rape and shit like that). I don’t think it’s entirely alienated them from all support, though. I still see a lot of support for Palestine and resistance to Israel’s response, especially in the Global South. This feels different than the psychotic response America had to 9/11, y’know?

              It could still swing either way though, we won’t know until much later.

              It comes down to how things escalate with the imminent ground invasion. What will Hezbollah do? What will Iran do? What will Jordan do? Egypt? The Taliban government? Hell, what will the big dogs like Saudi Arabia do? We don’t know, but Hamas is politically savvy.

              • TWeaK
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                8 months ago

                I would hesitate to give Hamas credit for being politically savvy, more than to say that they have backers that instruct them on how to be politically savvy.

                The ground invasion is such bullshit though. I really hate how Israel keep making out that they’re “defending themselves”, when they’re clearly not in a defensive posture. The time for defense was 7 October, when it was conspicuously absent. They’re performing a counter-attack, into foreign territory, with only a vague attempt at focusing on military targets.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  8 months ago

                  I wouldn’t give Hamas credit for being politically savvy more than to say that they have backers that instruct them on how to be politically savvy.

                  Reexamine your prejudices. You might not mean it this way, but this is textbook colonial paternalism - an assumption that the colonized can’t possibly be clever or disciplined or intelligent, that they must have puppet masters that helped them win against the superior occupying Israeli forces. Guerilla fighters in every colonial resistance throughout history have been characterized the exact same way. Angola. Nicaragua. It’s always the same, it’s always some outside puppet master that’s behind every success of the resistance because the guerillas are too uncivilized and backwards to ever possibly achieve any kind of wins on their own or to strategize on the bigger picture.

                  • Limitless_screaming@kbin.social
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                    8 months ago

                    If they can steal resources and dig up water pipes to make rockets out of them, then they can organize an attack against some dumb pieces of shit, who moved troops from the border to terrorize people elsewhere.

                    People should remember that the side which can withstand bombardment, blockades and live off of minimal resources probably has decent leaders, and an angry population.

                  • TWeaK
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                    8 months ago

                    Sure, there could be someone in Hamas who is politically savvy in such a manner. That’s pretty unlikely though, less likely than outside influence in this case. I’ve edited my comment a little bit to better reflect that.

                    If Hamas were truly politcally savvy I think they would be far better at garnering widespread international support.

      • Zorque@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        There is no single option that would fix this issue. Its a massive mess of politics, religion, and emotional conflict. You can’t just slap a bandaid on it to fix it.

    • zerfuffle@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Hasn’t the strike literally achieved their objectives? Everyone’s talking about them (instead of Ukraine), the Arab world is uniting behind them, and the West is progressively alienating their friends in the Global South.

      If Israel had just let things lie, the status quo would have continued and Israel could have kept encroaching on the West Bank and slowly suffocating the Gaza Strip with their blockade. Instead, people are literally turning their backs on the US at the UN, there are massive protests around the world, and the Palestinian struggle is now front and center.

      The only way Israel can pull a victory out of this complete and categorical defeat is by annexing the Gaza Strip.

      • TWeaK
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        8 months ago

        Instead, people are literally turning their backs on the US at the UN, there are massive protests around the world, and the Palestinian struggle is now front and center.

        This is all just noise, not meaningful change.

        I’m not sure that victory is really the goal here. Frankly, I think the goal is merely to make war, and in turn make money by facilitating it. Always has been.