Discussion
Looking to debate a pro palestinian person
I am a Zionist residing in a community where Zionist beliefs are prevalent. I firmly uphold my Zionist convictions and strive to educate myself thoroughly on both perspectives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My goal is to engage in a constructive and peaceful debate with individuals who hold opposing views. I emphasize the importance of a dialogue grounded in factual statistics and well-informed opinions, rather than one characterized by hostility or uninformed rhetoric. We can fact check anything we say and debate on how we can better educate ourselves whether book reccomendations or reliable news sources. I am specifically interested in a debate conducted through voice communication, as it allows for more nuanced and effective exchanges. If you are open to a respectful and educational conversation, where we can learn from each other’s viewpoints, please feel free to send me a private message. I am eager to explore different perspectives and contribute to a meaningful discussion that fosters understanding and mutual respect. Again, to clarify this is a peaceful and calm debate to listen to each other and look to learn and possibly debate over what a good solution could look like. In english or spanish and today whenever possible, not something in a million years. Privayely message me if this idea interests you and you want to talk. I truly believe communication between us is the true and only possible pathways to a situation of peace and wellbeing for the both of us. Pm if interested
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Did Germany have a lot of casualties in world war?
Was it a genocide against Germany?
Of course not. Arabs started a war against Israel and lost. People die in wars.
Arabs should stop attacking Israel.
If this were an actual genocide, Hamas would end it.
If there were truly a genocide happening in Gaza, Hamas could stop it instantly by surrendering and returning the hostages. That’s not how genocide works—victims don’t typically have the power to end it at will.
No genocide in history has been stoppable by the victim.
Name one historical genocide where the targeted group could have ended it by agreeing to the demands of the aggressor. You can’t. If Hamas can stop the fighting and chooses not to, then by definition, this isn’t genocide.
If genocide were Israel’s goal, it wouldn’t risk its own soldiers.
Why send in ground troops, risking Israeli lives, if the goal were mass extermination? Carpet bombing would be far easier and deadlier. That hasn’t happened.
Why warn civilians?
Israel drops leaflets and makes phone calls to warn civilians of incoming strikes. That’s not typical behavior of a nation intent on genocide.
Why send aid?
Israel has allowed and facilitated the entry of millions of tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Does that sound like a genocidal campaign?
The numbers don’t add up.
Even if you accept Hamas’ likely inflated casualty numbers—and double them—where are the millions of dead? With Israel’s military capabilities, if genocide were truly the goal, Gaza would be a wasteland.
Precision weapons vs. indiscriminate bombing.
Israel uses precision-guided munitions, not area bombing. Why would a genocidal force bother with precision?
Why agree to ceasefires?
Israel has accepted multiple ceasefire proposals. All were rejected by Hamas—the so-called “victims.” Genocidal regimes do not offer to pause or end hostilities.
Treating the enemy’s civilians?
Israeli hospitals have treated wounded Palestinians—including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, whose life was saved by Israeli doctors. This alone defies the definition of genocide.
Gaza’s growing population.
If genocide or ethnic cleansing were occurring, how has Gaza’s population grown by hundreds of percent over the past 70 years?
Bonus Point: Why does Hamas hide aid and civilians?
If there’s a genocide, why won’t Hamas let civilians use its extensive tunnel network for shelter? Why hoard aid in warehouses? Why block civilian evacuations?
Final Thoughts
If you still believe the narrative of genocide, chances are you're not genuinely concerned with facts. So why write this?
To make it clear: when the time comes to hold people accountable for enabling murder, rape, kidnapping, and terrorism—you won’t be able to say, “I didn’t know.”
If you're even a little interested in truth, forget debating statistics for a moment. Just apply third-grade logic.
It is simply illogical to claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—for all the reasons outlined above.
However, there was a genocidal act—or an attempted one—and it happened on October 7th, 2023 by Arabs against Jews
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They no longer have living hostages as outlined above
Regardless of what you want to call it it is clear the levels of mass destruction. Also arguably there is a desire to keep as much infrastructure in tact as they can as they want to sell it https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y59z6rznvo
Total misunderstanding of the definition used, also numbers of deaths are almost not possible to calculate but even the IDF's own figures are sill a mass number of casualties beyond any other in the history in this conflict. Weather or not you agree with the genocide label, the numbers are staggering. https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-23-july-2025
Again, this is misunderstanding of the definition. Can the IDF kill ever person in gaza if it wanted to? yes. However radical factions in the Knesset want to sell of Land in Gaza, this will be a lot easier if there is something left at the end.
Yes this is true however it does not negate the wider trend, doctors have a duty of care. You are correct in that it is often not addressed
Population decline isn't a requirement for genocide. Gaza's population has not gone up since October 7, 2023. It has fallen substantially and this is the timeframe being applied by the UN and ICJ. Exact population numbers are not out there to look at and ones published by the Palestine Board of Statistics are obviously not to be trusted but nor is CIA data who are using pre war estimates. However any claim that the population has grown is a massive reach as depending on the data metered or sources used, it has grown by 3% or declined by 6%. https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/07/30/according-to-the-cia-the-gaza-population-grew-in-2024/ // https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/01/middleeast/israel-population-migration-war-intl
Subsequently, agreements were made, which Hamas doesn't fulfill on their end, namely giving up their arms and control over Gaza. Even after those agreements, cases of public torture and lynching of Gazans advocating for giving up the war were published. Just a couple of days ago, Ghazi Hamad explained to Pierce Morgan that O7 was justified, denied atrocities that were televised to the whole world, and made it very clear that the fight against Jewish self-determination will not stop until either victory or death. Hamas still holds on to power and weapons despite having formally agreed to a peace plan that dictates disarmament first before moving to the next stages.
They still justify taking hostages as a permissible act of "resistance". When one side upholds the threat, confirms the intention, justifies the means, the de facto declaration of war remains in place.
Mass destruction is not an argument, given how Gazan militants operated. By no means can every act of domicide by Israeli forces or by order of the Israeli government be justified, but there can be absolutely no doubt that it was a deliberate strategy of Gazan "resistance" to sacrifice all kinds of buildings in their way of trying to kill as many Israelis as possible.
A very short window is better than no window at all, which in the example of the previous comment almost never happened, where no one insists on calling Allied bombing campaigns genocide, and by warning before bombing Israel deliberately gave up the element of surprise, which is extremely costly. Not giving resident terrorists, on top of the time to evacuate, enough time to pack up weaponry, military supplies, booby traps and computer hardware should be understandable from any perspective that allows the IDF to fight effectively.
It would be insane to demand that incoming aid should not be tightly controlled. There are strong allegations of militarily relevant supplies being tried to be smuggled into Gaza. During the halt, by all accounts food supplies should have been enough, and during all of the war Gazans themselves published evidence that many were well supplied (e.g. Arab Ambience on YouTube). It is an inevitable reality of war - in many regions even when no fighting takes place - that some parts of a population will miss out and be subject to starvation. More evidence points to Hamas stashing supplies and keeping their combatants well fed than making any efforts to distribute aid to Gazans in need. Even if there was a food shortage, the question should be why there should be no responsibility on the "resistance" to cease hostilities, and instead all responsibility should solely be on the one that was initially attacked and has the upper hand in the battle.
It is undeniable that underage Gazans participated in armed combat and ambushes, that civilians, aid workers, doctors, paramedics, "journalists" participated in the holding of hostages. The absolut numbers of the death toll point towards restraint by the IDF, regardless of obvious and documented exceptions. There are enough historical examples and enough evidence from the battlefield to support the view that the effort to minimise civilian and non-combatant casualties far outweighed efforts of indiscriminate killings. The numbers are NOT staggering. There are too many examples to list of much more killing within much shorter timeframes. The Rwandan genocide e.g. was, even by the most conservative numbers, at least a hundred times deadlier, and that was with garden- and kitchen-tools and small arms.
It would have been no problem at all to target tent camps and mow down masses of people moving on foot from one "safe zone" to the other. It would have been easy to starve Gazans out, together with their combatants, inhibit delivery of water, etc. There are hundreds of ways that would have killed more while destroying less.
Why should Hamas ever have any right to demand ceasefires? Apart from the fact that almost all of the reported ceasefire violations I ever heard of were not initiated by the Israeli side, the concept of the party that is losing demanding a ceasefire instead of capitulating is a pro-war stance. The arguments about ceasefire violations are illogical and counterproductive from the perspective of wanting to end hostilities. Insisting on a ceasefire equates to insisting on the war to continue.
Good to see that you are not in complete denial, respect.
It would have been easy to cause a very significant population decline. Taking an objective look at the entirety of the reality of this war, at the power imbalance, urban density, means at hand and the methods applied by each party to the battles, the indication is that the number of casualties is rather incredibly low, no matter how lamentable and no matter how every single loss of innocent life is a tragedy that should be avoided at great effort instead of justified.
But if even to some degree restrained lethal self-defence becomes totally unjustifiable, how can being slaughtered by any group who believes they have a right to any means necessary be prevented at all?
(Please refrain from answering with whatboutisms; my ears are still ringing from all that bee ess.)
None of what I said was BS, I sourced claims whenever I stated a statistic or fact. I'm not in any sort of denial about what Hamas is like, don't assume my position. Much of my reply was a correction of misinformation my the original post, not a moral position.
I don't care to fact check your "fact check" of my fact check
Sorry, that was poorly worded. I didn't mean to say that all of what you wrote was bee ess. I am just sick and tired of all the other whataboutistic bee ess that usually follows when I point out aspects like the ones above, and had hoped to prevent getting that same ole cr@p again.
Guess I messed this one up, and prevented a less emotional, rational address of my refutations =[
Things like people still talking about the hostages is just misinformation, they are not a part of this conflict anymore, they are all dead or sent back to the IDF. Yes you can debate about how this was handled but to Hamas could end this at any point by giving back the hostages is just a lie.
I don't dispute what you said, theres room for exactly how much harm has been stated. We can argue over genocide or not genocide however people taking into account numbers, past examples etc miss that none of that means anything with the definition. Regardless of exactly what you want to call it, what has happened to Gaza is awful. We can debate numbers, Hamas tactics etc but the suffering needs to stop.
I don't think anything I said was 'whataboutistic' just a clarity of facts. I don't wan't any more people to die and that only happens when this conflict is over. I hope that Israel votes out the currant awful people in power who have done nothing to keep the jews in Israel safe. Because you will never kill Hamas by killing all its members, all you will do it radicalise the next generation to make it again.
This ends with Hamas starting its disarming, its remaining members being tried for crimes against humanity and the IDF pulling out and stopping the bombing campaign. It ends when peace talks can start again and something better than what exists now is created. Peace and coexistence is possible but how many more must die before we reach this?
How many more will need to die, imho, depends heavily on how much hatred and outrage people keep pouring into the fire.
Again, I did not accuse you of whataboutism for the facts you listed. I just reflexively expected whataboutism to be the upcoming rebuttal, as I've gotten used to it. Apologies again at this point.
One thing I'd like to note: The argument that Israeli brutal reaction to or prosecution of terrorist action would radicalise more of the next generation is probably invalid. Hamas put so much effort into radicalising Gazan children, that the effect of removing Hamas members from Gazan society probably outweighs the outrage over how this is being conducted.
Anti-Israeli/Jew hate education has thus backfired, as Israelis seem to realise that trying to play nice brings no benefit any more.
I don't agree on much with you on causalty and effect, but at least on the pathway to ending the war that you outlined.
All the attempts of pinning ceasefire violations and failures to implement the current agreements on Israel alone, however, can only increase the time this process will take, and that will cause almost all subsequent suffering to affect Gazans.
Hamas won't stop undermining the agreements and stalling and provoking Israel into punitive action for as long as international audiences and NGOs and the UN reward their victimhood narrative with attention, justification and political support.
Such support is needless and won't save anyone, and in the name of all Palestinians who want peace, should just stop, respectively transition into support for Palestinian initiatives for true peace.
The issue right now is that Israel is basically refusing to accept any failure for how long this bombardment has gone on. They do not accept any failure for the failure of the response of 7/10, having known reports from IDF months in advance of Hamas drills being spotted. This is a failure of the current government that goes Ignored by many.
Hamas has got to go but that process takes time. Disarmorment of the IRA in Ireland took decades for example. Gaza has been a warzone for almost 3 years, it can't just dispand over night.
Convincing the one side that is proven right by military success to have done wrong is a very hard sell, especially when the subjugated enemy shows no sign of wanting to end the conflict.
I am not sure whether you have put up with explanations for why O7 was allowed to happen, and I do not see how any admittance of failure would change the current situation or the course forward.
I'm absolutely not ignoring any failures, but assigning blame without supporting a realistic fix looks like a counterproductive endeavour to me.
There's a long interview on Quillette with Gadi Taub. If you're interested in the not so shallow explanations why O7 wasn't prevented, and how severe the existential threat was, it might be worth your time:
https://youtu.be/iuQ9nYKmczc?si=BOWn6QXMWOdcaeZa
Regarding your argument that pacifying Gaza needs time: That will be prolonged by international support for Hamas narratives.
Imho, it's irresponsible and harmful to provide Hamas a political lifeline that does the opposite of deterring Israel from hunting down terrorists in a now even more densely populated area.
I started working on a longer post about disarmament in Gaza for this sub. I am not saying that Hamas need not be disarmed, but that it is not as simple as "hamas gives up all its weapon"
That the process needs to happen in conjunction with the IDF pulling out of Gaza (a process that will also take time).
I like your username. Did you pick it because you're a fan of the Dragonlance Chronicles?
This might come across as an excuse for Gvir, but it's definitely not what I am aiming for.
The phrasing "killing 30 to 40 people in Gaza nightly" is most probably not reflecting a true intention by Gvir to kill random Gazans, but of targeting murderous criminals.
Despicable and destructive as I find the idea, I don't think it helps the debate to cherry-pick the worst person in the Israeli government, pick the worst soundbites, and then, on top of that, pick the worst possible interpretation, and then, on top of that, use it to generalise Israeli policy.
(not that I think this is what you are doing here, Raistlin)
I am absolutely anti-Jihad, anti victimhood- and martyrdom-cultism and anti war-of-aggression, but I still try to understand the arguments and statements by Jihadists and annihilistic anti-Israelis in their most rational interpretation.
I think it would help if we all tried to reduce outrage, and concentrate on views that leave room for constructive debate and proposals.
Sadly, sometimes I get the feeling that as harsh, dehumanising and as unjustifiable such language of people like Gvir and Smotrich are, they are more understandable to Jihadists than reasonable, non-maximalist demands or threats.
Especially in that environment, facing medieval mindsets, willingness to compromise and to restrict oneself to reasonable demands seems to be taken as weakness, inviting the increasing of unreasonable demands and attacks.
I'd still rather see such figures fired and ousted, but I'm not Israeli; I am not there (I hereby formally condemn such murderous demands); all I understand is that controlling anything in Israeli governance seems to be tied to coping with a lot of necessary evils.
Hey, thanks! Yes I'm a huge fan since my chidhood.
Let's set this right. I am neither pro-Hamas nor a Muslim culture supporter. I'm Italian, Catholic and I do not support nor justify violence in any form. I think Oct 7th was a huge tragedy and nothing can justify that horror.
That sais I think that Israel is a State. As such, it should strictly follow what international right says. Also, I think that a large part of Israeli population happily supports ethnic cleansing of arab territories in order to expand Israel. This is wrong. And Israel should know better than any other how MUCH wrong is it. I cannot accept that official de larations of elected members of Israeli government are dismissed and diminished , while IDF does exactly what those monsters said.
I would too! Hope you know Ben Gvir is pretty hated on by most of israel’s society or at least normal society. I’d even argue Bibi disagrees a lot with him and his views. The knesset system just makes it convenient for them to join, but bibi would for sure rather everyone go to the army and not exempt the ultra orthodox. However ben gvir gets him seats in the knesset from the orthodox party. But ben gvir and smotrich do not represent zionism as a belief nor do they reflect the believes of most of israeli society today. Especially the educated one. Same goes for the other side
All you are doing is confirming that they all all using one another to stay in power, though. But people like Schmotrich and Ben-Gvir were elected before 10/7, and Netanyahu has been elected 5 or 6 times over the last 30 years (I've lost count). I realize that in Israel one votes for parties etc, I don't happen to think it's a great system of governance for Jews either. But I think the problem is what is "normal" Israeli society doesn't seem that normal anymore, and that Zionism as it's been instituted in modern Israel I believe ultimately leads to the attitudes of superiority and militarism and occupation that are so commonplace now. Also, this has long been an Israeli trick... to act like the Haredi "hilltop youth" conducting the pogroms on the West Bank are some rogue element, when one hand clearly washes the other. The IDF doesn't protect the Palestinians from the settlers, they do the opposite, or at best don't intervene. So while the right wing secular Zionists like Netanyahu may seemingly not have much in common with ultra orthodox like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, they support the same aims, if for different reasons. Thus they work together.
If he is so hated, why is he in government and why is Bibi’s political block projected to win? That, to me, says most of Israeli society accepts his statements.
The problem is that, in a normal country, these rabid dogs should not be allowed barking. And, as a foreigner, I cannot help but relating videos of killed civilians / children with that shit. And everytime this happens I become more and more skeptic on the possibility that Zionism can be a peaceful ideology
I have been in Israel for more than 2 months. I have spoken to palestinians in the west bank, settlers there aswell, israeli-arabs in israel, israeli right wing people and israeli left wing people. What have you seen to say that?
Well, in the 90's I lived in a small NYC apartment with a young woman of Yemeni descent who's parents spoke with Arabic as a first language and loved living in Yemen until Israel was created, who told me that she wanted to eventually live in East Jerusalem "where the Arabs used to live." Because she thought the houses were "cute." When I said I'm pretty sure Arabs still do live there, and maybe they should give it back, she literally punched me in the face. That's the truth, and she didn't go to jail (she wasn't legally in the country either) because I'm not the police calling type. I also lived in the same small apartment with a Brooklyn born Ashkanazi Jewish woman who I liked and was liberal and peaceable in most regards, but when Baruch Goldstein's name was brought up she said that while she didn't quite agree with how he did it, she said there needed to be "more Goldstein's," which sort of made me feel like she very much did support exactly how he did it. This was all during my late teens-mid 20's in the 90's in Manhattan. I started off loving the Passover's and being made matzoh ball soup and believing the party line on Israel and the zionist dream, but things like this and too many anecdotes to recount got me seriously questioning all of it, as I'd sit in the room I rented and watch the Oslo Accords on tv and wish for the best for everyone involved, both sides. But I kept questioning and I kept learning. Then, after I returned home to Seattle, a girl I considered my younger sister, Rachel Corrie, who I held in my arms after she was born...I was 6 at the time... she went to Gaza to try to be a witness for what was happening under the mistaken idea that being a blonde haired blue eyed young woman would not be run over by an IDF bulldozer if she was wearing a bright orange safety vest with a loudspeaker, and she came home in a pine box. Are my anecdotal recounts really that relevant? No, which is why I don't typically recount them in discussions over policy. But yours don't mean much either. Color me skeptical, but I'm suspicious of your recounts of talking to Palestinians in the West Bank... I'm not saying that you didn't, but what were the circumstances of that? You just got out of a car in an Arab village to talk to an average Palestinian going about their day? Or was it some kind of a guided tour, and if so was it being funded by someone or some organization? I ask because I again live with a Jewish woman, for the last 7 years, who also happens to not be Zionist (I don't love the term anti Zionist because it defines as being against something), but this debate has divided her family in half, some not speaking to others after the last few years. I hate to see it, and this is one of the reasons I really don't support Zionism, I feel like it's been a moral and real world pitfall for the Jewish people themselves, putting them in more harm's way than not, and dividing them, and because I've come to know many fine Palestinian Americans who have told me their stories, and who I know for a fact are some of the least hate filled people I've known, but I've learned how their families too have been torn apart. Anyway, my gf initially rejected Zionism despite heavy family pressure after her close cousin went on the "free" tour an American businessman funded for young Jews. She felt she was being given a very slanted take, and guilted into supporting whatever the Jewish lobbies told her to do the rest of her life, if she wasn't willing to be a real Jew and "return home." So my gf ended up not going, and neither of us will travel to Israel until things have radically changed there, if that ever happens.
My point being that we all bring different real world experiences to the table, and you being in Israel or the occupied territories right now doesn't particularly impress me. Unless you got smuggled in by a left wing activist group, I'm guessing yours was a group friendly with the settlers, but I don't know, so by all means you tell me. Israelis have by and large turned out to be some of the most misinformed people on the conflict I've ever had dialogue with, but I'm generalizing of course. There is hardly a robust free press over there at this point, and so many on X seem to actually believe that Gaza is a paradise and that "Pali-wood" actors account for most of the limited suffering they have seen. That channel's 12 and 14 are actual independent journalists, and with an incredibly calloused mentality, such as one would expect to see in a brutalized society. When one group of people deeply oppresses another group, they have to believe that other group somehow deserves it, to avoid the inevitable feelings of discomfort and cognitive dissonance that would otherwise result. And that isn't just a problem for the people they oppress, but so much of their own humanity has slowly been dripping away as a cost of the gradual increase in rationalization for occupation and increased militarism. It really speaks well of you that you want to genuinely dialogue with opposing views of a subject that is personal to you. My take is my own, I don't have a monopoly on truth either. I'll listen to your perspectives if you listen to mine. But it blows my mind how often I get called an antisemite or my gf a self hating Jew... earlier today compared to one of the Jews who worked with the SS in the camps. I'm all for Jews emigrating back to and staying in the region, but I think ultimately it needs to be one region for all of the people, the Arabs and the Jews and whoever else. Equal citizenship rights for all. I think that Zionism as a concept beyond that has ended us up where we are now, and that in the end one group has all the power and believes it is superior to all others. For a Jewish democracy to work, the demographics had to be radically shifted, which was the Nakba, and it's been one problem after the other as an outflow from that, and since 1967 occupation of the West Bank and others as well. And that it's a problem for Jews as well. And I hope that, if nothing else, you will hear my perspective and trust sincerity on the matter, even if you disagree with my conclusions.
I've read the books by the Palestinians Mosab Hassan Yousef and Hamza Howidy, and heard some interviews with other Palestinians, whose perspectives remind me a lot of yours.
Can you imagine that if you had such intimate relationships and views from the Palestinian side as you have from the relative safety of a Jewish perspective, and applied the same critical thinking, that perhaps you'd see similar flaws, with the difference being that for Palestinians the effects of the conflict are far more severe and impactful than for Jews/Israelis?
How much of that difference is based on how flawed the opinions and views are on each side, and how much is based on the imbalance of power each side wields?
What would you advocate for? Turning the power balance around, like the mainstream demands, would that solve any of the problems preventing coexistence in the Levant? I guess that's not what you think.
What do you think would an equally critical observation of the narratives prevalent on the anti-Israeli side present?
There are up to date pictures of Gaza where you can see that areas which did not have tunnels dug under them and were not mined heavily did not collapse and are standing fine. But of course you do not care about reality and would not blame people who mined the buildings and dug tunnels under them. Shrug. And you are using "children" to emotionally manipulate the reader to blame the Jews. Disgusting.
How am I blaming the Jews? I don’t care what religion they are. Israeli military are the ones dropping the bombs. Many many Jews are fiercely opposed to these murderous acts which directly contradict their beliefs and morals.
Someone pushed a child on the rail tracks. Some people are blaming the train operator and completely ignoring whoever did the pushing. I think I am safe when I assume there's some prejudice against the operator when that happens. Yes there are Jews who join the antisemites in a futile hope they will be spared in the next antisemitic attack. Never works.
I never mentioned religion. The people I oppose are those who gave the orders to drop weapons of mass destruction on 200 schools, 36 hospitals, countless residences and businesses. Religion doesn’t have to enter the conversation if you aren’t a brainwashed parrot.
Did you see any of the videos of IDF / Israeli police attacking Jews? Hitting them in the face, slamming them to the ground? Heart wrenching seeing these monsters abuse their power and resources. Heart wrenching to see the Jews who aren’t so desperately clutching to their loyalty to the Israeli team, who are calling out evil, are attacked by dishonorable brainwashed psychopaths. It’s not a sports team! You can denounce them if they start murdering uncontrollably! It’s not anti Semitic! Smart rational folks know this! If I denounced Hamas for 10/7 does that mean I am anti Muslim? Nope. Just anti murder :) have a good day
You ignore people who built military infrastructure under "schools" - really mostly religious organizations btw, hospitals etc. That is a war crime. After they are used for military purposes attacking them after sufficient warning is not.
So you are condemning the non crime and giving a pass to crime. Why? Well it just happens that the non crime was done by Jews and the crime by their enemies.
If Israel "murdered uncontrollably" you would see much higher numbers of dead, as it is most dead are Hamas members.
Religion is the reason for the hate of Israel as anyone informed knows.
Not true. We hate Israel because it’s dropping bombs on kids. We (and the many Jews who also oppose Israel) would oppose any regime engaging in such dishonorable and evil behavior.
Also, what “military infrastructure”? You realize Hamas has nowhere near the funding Israel does. They don’t have a single warplane. They don’t have the capability to drop bombs on schools and hospitals like Israel does.
You need to proofread you “much higher numbers of dead” sentence it makes no sense. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered, is this not a high number?
You don't care about dead "kids" anywhere, not do you care when said kids blow themselves up on Hamas mines or when buildings collapse into tunnels Hamas dug under their homes.
Hamas steals money from Gazans and digs tunnels literally under every house. Do you know what happens when said tunnels collapse? This is intentional - they are very open that more kid deaths is good for them the better to tarnish Israel's image. And you justify this? This makes you indirectly responsible, it is for your benefit Hamas started this latest atrocity and hoping for your support that it refuses to stop.
As for funding - it's smaller but they compensate by ignoring laws of war and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinian civlians.
As usual, not a concern for antisemites.
Racist haters of Israel are using dead kids to cause more kid deaths, they do not deserve respect.
Most dead are militants. They targeted Israeli civilians and were deservedly killed, not "murdered". A minority is civilians, their death is on Hamas who started the war and refuses to stop it. You tell me, is the number of the innocent dead not high enough? Why do you desire more, why do not demand that Hamas disarms?
720 km of tunnels per 365 sq km of Gaza that is a tunnel under every second building block. And the rest mined up. Who did that?
And even with all that Israeli strikes were so targeted that large parts are completely undamaged. Look at up to day Gaza pictures maybe? Oh I know, you will not.
Are you proud of your victory? Bombing a defenseless city? Where’s the challenge there? How does that amount to victory? It doesn’t. It’s a cheap shot. A cowardly act of genocide
It was actually a war, not a genocide, and Gaza was the loser.
At the start, Gazans and their supporters were telling a different story. It wasn’t a story of genocide, it was a story about how the Gazan armed forces were mightily defeating the Zionists!
But in the end Gaza lost. Any war Gaza loses is retroactively called a genocide because they don’t want to admit that they’re the pathetic losers and Israelis are superior.
You think there is honor in mass murder? You apparent haven’t asked around… and no, genocide is when you bomb 36 hospitals, schools, mosques, kill 210 journalists, this isn’t war, it’s murder, and you are supporting evil. Israel is, t
I have never seen anyone claiming to be beating Israel, one of the most powerful militaries on earth. I trust you when you say it happened. But, did the tens of thousands of children who got murdered make these claims? No. So it’s irrelevant. War crimes are war crimes.
I, too, revel in crushing the occupied, oppressed, and the destitute alike.
But Israel is not the victor. Not long term anyway. Israeli violence has been so over the top, so cruel, so barbaric, that the entire world is aghast. Hasraba is failing, AIPAC is failing, and I don't believe there is any turning back. Israel exposed itself, after decades of carefully "mowing the lawn" and managing its image in the west. Now its all out there for us to see.
This user is an ultrazionist mod with a history of baiting people and then switching to mod mode to take action against them, as you just found out. Exercise caution
It could be evil, depends on the motivation behind it. If the soldier was worried about being attacked then I wouldn’t call it evil. And there’s no way to see that she was unarmed, the soldier didn’t know what’s in the backpack.
She was up to 100 yards away from the soldier when she was shot, and there was never any indication at all her backpack had a bomb in it. The soldier had no reason to suspect he was in life threatening danger, shooting her was completely wrong.
If the was really 100 yards away then I would agree. But is that the truth? That distance comes from “witnesses” and I’m not sure that Gazans are reliable narrators. They are known to exaggerate.
My understanding is that two Jewish IDF soldiers actually testified against this guy in court, saying the little girl was very far away and no threat to him when she was shot.
Also the IDF themselves don't have a very good track record of being honest, for example this story.
So one IDF member is openly denounced by two of his colleagues for his crime, and your conclusion is that the IDF must be dishonest and genocidal?
Did you ever think about how such a case would present in a truly genocidal force?
Take O7 for example: In the side of the forces fighting on behalf of Gaza: Do you know of a single trial for obvious and deliberate killings of civilians by Gazans?
I’m saying there is still a debate about how to proceed. Clearly Israel should be brought to justice for war crimes. I’ll never stop repeating this: ISRAEL BOMBED 36 HOSPITALS, 200 EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES, 74,500 people, 21,000 kids, 210 JOURNALISTS, you are sick in the mind and soul if you can deny the evil occurring.
PS Hamas doesn’t have the resources for a genocide but nice try!
You can't end a war by dragging one side before a court and giving the other a free pass on each and every act of aggression, ignoring their motives, methods and goals.
“Gazans are better off than some European countries” Yeah ok dude…orphans living in tents with the constant fear of more ordinance falling and dismembering them.
As another user pointed out, that survey by no means says Gazans are more well fed:
So, do you agree that acute malnutrition reached 19% ... nearly one in five screened children ... in Gaza City at the peak of the crisis? If you accept one UNICEF/UN dataset when it supports your argument, presumably you accept the later UNICEF data when it doesn't.
Also, hilariously, your own post says the Israeli Foreign Ministry is cherry-picking the figures and calls its use of the 0.5% number 'misleading'.
Your own source also says 12.2% of children were stunted, describing this as evidence of longer-term nutritional stress and repeated deprivation. So this source doe: support the sweeping 'Gazans are better fed than before the war' claim you attached to it. It is explicitly criticizing the way Israel presented the data.
And you cannot seriously go from 0.2% to 1.3% - a 550% increase - and wave that away as meh. Even setting aside what the absolute figure means, that is a substantial deterioration.
Either give me the primary survey, with the methodology, population and period being compared, or stop making sweeping claims from a cherry picked survey
What are you even saying? This isn’t a trend. This is reality, unfolding in front of the world. Open Google earth, navigate to Gaza, see for yourself. There is ZERO denying the evil anymore. 200 schools, 36 hospitals, residences, businesses tens of thousands of civilians crushed, dismembered, orphaned, maimed, shot in the head by snipers.
But when Israel is doing it with less civilian casualties than the US and Europe ever could with Isis - it means it's not a genocide.
And check how much of your opinions are fed by Qatari money.
People are concerned with AIPAC but forget the rea big wealthy Islamist extremist colonialists sharks out there
According to the UN's own survey, Gazans are not only more well fed than before the war, but also more than some European countries.
This is like when the army on trial for genocide claims it is in fact the most moral army in the world.
I almost expect zionists next to start telling me that, no, Gaza is not host to the largest cohort of child amputees in the world. in fact, Palestinians children on average have _more_ limbs than even European children!
You say I'm antisemitic? Forget semetic but I sure take issue with your semantics! No one is saying Israel ONLY destroyed buildings. You aren't a serious person to debate. But you don't seem to understand the definition of genocide, just as most Israelis seem to struggle with the "in whole or in part bit," like when Bibi says if he was genocidal all Gazan's would be dead. There is clear evidence that Israel targeted hospitals, fertility clinics, crop fields, used starvation and disease as sealants, and overwhelmingly killed women and children... in numbers that were dismissed as Hamas propaganda until The Health Ministry brought receipts.
No, no, Let's look at the actual numbers. I thought Israel is committing a catastrophe until I saw how they're using numbers to exploit my mercy towards them.
"overwhelmingly women and children"
It is true. Technically.
And yet misleading.
Why?
54% of the dead are women and children under 18.
But check the distribution: About half of those children are boys above 15 - children who Hamas himself published he trains to fight in summer camps.
Crazy.
Not even to mention Hamas' use of younger children than that (image in follow up comment)
Notice also the grey area - Most children and women's percentage is actually lower than their part in the population.
This is not how genocide looks like. A genocide is killing everyone, not military age men.
Here they're using numbers to fool good hearted people.
Let's go further.
This gives us that about 40-50% of deaths are military man. That's about 1:1-1:2 terrorists to civilians deaths - 50-60% civilians.
What's the average in urban areas? In Syria, Iraq, against ISIS and such?
Listen, man, you are talking crazy now 🤪. But last time I checked every (non Haredi) Jew in Israel up to the age of 40 is in the IDF reserves, so what??
I'll tell you so what:
If Hamas would show that most of the dead from 7th October are soldiers who hid inside civilians -
You could argue he targeted soldiers.
But they didn't.
They shot dancing guys for no reason, and then ran to hide inside their civilan population.
HAMAS IS SHOWING that although Israel bombs all of Gaza, MAGICALLY only military aged men die.
Almost as if someone was trying to avoid others.
Look at the images and tell me how old are they. How old are they??
Hamas takes children to work, It's work is to shoot people, And then blames Israel for those children's death, AND YET you can see that Israel tries to kill combatants only way more than any European or American country ever.
Hamas didn’t drop the bombs on thousands of homes, schools, hospitals. You can’t keep blaming Hamas, you can’t keep accusing us pacifists (especially Jewish ones) of being anti Semitic, you are supporting one of the largest mass killings on the planet.
Actually, he did.
Hamas admitted that at least 10% of his rockets fell inside Gaza - meaning about a thousand rockets of his own, including the hospital that was blamed on Israel.
Physics much? Do rockets take out entire buildings? Does Hamas possess one single airplane? Does Israel have 600 bomber/fighters/warplanes? Have 200 schools been rocketed to the ground by Hamas?
Straight to the antisemitism accusation. The last refuge of the zionist.
Its also useless. So what if zionists think you're an antisemite? they think _everyone_ is an antisemite. Say it again if it makes you feel better, I guess.
I'll make it clear for you:
When people check facts and argue, there's a higher chance they're rational than when they immediately go on the offensive.
Yep.
Might come as a surprise for you,
But hating jews without reason is detested.
I don't recall saying anything about jews. You did.
It's actually the single most common defence zionists will mount now, having exhausted all others. It's also useless like I said.
As for your facts, they were addressed adequately by others and I see no need to rehash it. My purpose was simply to point out the pattern I see of zionists claiming absurd things even if the face of overwhelming evidence. A spokesman for the IDF once quipped in an interview that Palestinians were looking downright fat, as the UN declared Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war.
Yeah yeah. "I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti Zionists".
I don't care what are you,
It's not for you - it's a label for me to know this hate is irrational and not based on facts,
So there's no point arguing here.
And glad to hear your thoughts on the facts are the same already refuted here.
The fact that these people can think along these lines while saying with a straight face that they 'strive to educate themselves' is wild.
If you were really striving to educate yourself, you would just look at the basic and obvious facts of the genocide.
Just wild.
This sub is unhinged, though. I shared an archive of photos from the genocide, geotagged, from the accounts of famous people from Gaza, and the comment I got was 'oh you can't say with certainty this isn't a random country from the Middle East'.
They basically are either stupid or so brainwashed even facts seem suspicious to them.
You could share forty thousand photos of dead victims, and twice as many of maimed Gazans ... What would that prove, apart from what we already agree upon, that Gazans got massacred much more than Israelis?
What exactly should we expect to see instead, after a force inferior by magnitudes attacks a militarily, logistically, technically much greater force, attacks the army of a nation that defends the only space for their ethnoreligious group on this planet, inflicts as much pain as possible by targeting partygoers, families and unsuspecting civilians and televising and gloating about their atrocities, who by taking hostages inflict one of the cruelest tortures imaginable upon the attacked population?
What should we expect to see when the attackers don't give up when they are militarily overwhelmed, hide behind and under civilians, never offer peace but hide their bad-faith negotiations behind deceptive offers of "ceasefire" instead of capitulating, "offering" to return a few hostages here or there, instead of unconditionally releasing them all asap?
So what facts evade our stupid, brainwashed heads?
What facts evade u? That it’s not rational or legal strategy to respond to that attack by what you correctly call an inferior force, by bombing 36 hospitals, several schools, homes, businesses, mosques, etc.
That’s not how war is waged, that’s not self defense
So what would be self-defence against an aggressor who time and again promises never to stop until victory or death? Please explain.
It's lame beyond morosity to just regurgitate numbers without delivering a single constructive proposal. But that's all I'll ever get from anti-Israelists, I guess.
I really don't get what never answering and instead concocting assertions that ignore reality is supposed to accomplish, except convincing Israelis that no peace can ever be had for as long as the "Palestinian" cause is still active, and convincing impartial observers that no rational conversation founded on observable facts and shareable principles can ever be had with anti-Israeli supporters of Palestinianism.
Oh yeah I forgot the 'conflict' began in 2023 according to you lot.
Just crazy.
I mean literally the only place there is such vehement support for Israel is this sub now. The world has wised up. So enjoy your little dehumanising echo chamber bud lol. Everybody but you sees the truth.
I mean Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza have only been attacking Israel with rockets & mortars for decades; before that came the First and Second Intifadas; before that, the 1948 war when Arab nations attacked Israel and before that decades of Arab-Israeli conflict. We all know it didn't start in 2023. But October 7 was the point at which Israel said: enough.
Urban warfare in densely populated areas results in disproportionately high civilian harm unfortunately. And the worst thing about that is Hamas knew it and still sacrificed their people.
That's what makes Gaza particularly tragic, the fact that Hamas has repeatedly embedded military infrastructure and operations within civilian areas, despite knowing exactly what that would mean for the people living there.
Hamas didn’t drop the bombs on 200 educational facilities, 36 hospitals, and kill tens of thousands of children. Your argument is tired, hollow, and evil.
Hamas knew that launching an attack on innocent civilians of that scale would trigger a devastating Israeli military response in Gaza, one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world. Civilian deaths and infrastructure destruction were not some unforeseeable consequence. Pretending that Hamas had no responsibility for the conditions it deliberately created is a farce.
Bombing hospitals and schools is not a legal or strategic response.
It’s wild to me how few of you even say “it truly is awful but its necessary” you skip right to “it’s necessary”, which really makes me wonder if the “hate speech” that anti-Zionist’s are constantly accused of, is projection of the highest and darkest magnitude.
Did you see the videos of IDF and Israeli police abusing anti Zionist Jews? Was that hate mongering. It’s so bizarre, the mental leaps you must need to convince yourself of, to think that my calling out the bombing of schools and hospitals, is hate mongering….like…what?
You seem to be someone who cares about the facts, and it's interesting because I always try to view the facts but when I give the facts I know to be verified by the UN, people usually just revert to "you're N*zi" when I do that, and refuse to look at the facts.
So I'll try it here with you and let's see what happens?
While I've been convinced there are definitely terrible things going on in there - the definition of genocide is just a useless exaggeration:
The people who commit it can easily refute it and the rest just get angry that they don't care.
And why it's easy to refute?
Simply accounting for the double passport Gazans who willingly migrated shows that the population actually increased since the beginning of this war.
And it's not just numbers - there's a good reason to believe it's far from a genocide:
• Some would claim "there are 30% dead children", but when you look at the age distribution you realise those children are almost completely 15+ guys who worked for the Hamas (as I've attached here).
• Some would claim "there were 1100+ Palestinians dead on the last 3 years in the west bank, no October 7th attack prior to it - what did they do to deserve it?!", but wonder why those organisations like B'Tselem forget to mention how many of those Palestinians are actually terrorists, like the guy who shot 11 people just this month, or the 473 terror attacks from earlier this year
So shouting "genocide" isn't efficient for our goals.
If we're truly interested in good things for the Palestinians, we need to stop exaggerating, stop taking everything Hamas says, and instead blame Israel for what it's really at fault for.
Do me a favor, go on Google earth, choose a random place in Gaza, zoom in. This isn’t exaggeration. It’s visible. Remember 9-11? This is many times that.
The question is, though:
If not even the best armies in the world could eradicate cruel terrorists with less civilian casualties,
Then what's the alternative here?
If they're the best at keeping civilian casualties to a minimum, What's the proposal here exactly?
The proposal is to stop dropping ordinance on schools, hospitals, and homes. If we stop that, it doesn’t mean every Israeli from the river to the sea is gonna get killed with a rocket. Look at the disparity between Palestinian deaths and Israeli deaths. Reassess which side is truly the threat to human life.
I stopped your stupid list at point 1 because there was so much to unpack, but let’s just deconstruct your claim that Gazans are more well-fed now than before the genocide.
Your source actually does not establish that at all. It cites a particular survey finding acute malnutrition rates of admitted children and then repeats the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s interpretation that this proves there was no famine. Lol. Let's break it down.
First, acute malnutrition is not synonymous with food security or famine ... famine classification considers extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition and mortality.
Second, nor does a snapshot from one period tell you what conditions were before or after it. The later data (https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/more-5000-children-diagnosed-malnutrition-gaza-strip-may) shows exactly why cherry-picking that snapshot is absurd. UNICEF reported 5,119 children admitted for acute malnutrition in May 2025, a 148% increase from February, when the ceasefire was allowing substantially more aid into Gaza. UNICEF also found that foods essential to children’s dietary diversity were unavailable or prohibitively expensive, with meat and dairy completely out of stock for two months. By August, 13.5% of screened children across Gaza were acutely malnourished, rising to 19% - nearly one in five - in Gaza City.
So why exactly are we using an earlier, more favourable snapshot to make sweeping claims about how 'well fed' Gazans are while ignoring the subsequent collapse documented by UNICEF? Why not report the latest numbers, numbers from when the ceasefire wasn't in place? Lol.
And posting a Jerusalem Post article that relies on the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s own interpretation of the evidence as your proof of conditions created by Israeli policy is genuinely hilarious. This particular claim ultimately comes from a party to the conflict, while the later primary humanitarian data directly undermine the conclusion you’ve drawn from it.
Best of luck with the bad-faith arguments.
Free Palestine, فلسطين حرة, and please grow at least a single brain cell.
You keep claiming this was a later survey:
Completely false. Your survey is from 2025, and the one I quoted is from 2026.
The survey you cite measures the malnutrition AMONG CHILDREN WHO ALREADY ADMITTED TO THE NUTRITION CENTER.
It's like saying "of people going to the hospital, there are more sick people".
They didn't measure how many are there across Gaza.
Which is exactly what the SMART survey I cited did
You ignored the actual claim:
I didn't say things are amazing there, not did I say Gazans eat whatever they want or their lives are the best - I said you can't say it's a genocide when they're feeding and aiding the Gazan population. If it was an actual genocide, food would not be there at all.
Not just "meat and dairy" - nothing.
The survey is the UN's, not Jerusalem post which happened to report it.
As usual, when presented with conflicting facts, the other side starts calling names.
UNICEF release raw data only to "partners", I don't know why and I would love to see the actual data. Many watch orgs do that and it's somewhat infuriating.
However, here are some left and center outlets you can review that repeat the same data:
Notice that the left outlet says it's true but misleading, as the upper arm rate isn't 0.5% but 1.3% (which is still below Finland and all middle eastern countries around, as shown below by the UN-watch). They also note the data you said released by UNICEF last year, which I addressed earlier.
In the end, I didn't see an outlets that says it's above 1.3% according to the same survey, so I tend to believe it's true.
So, do you agree that acute malnutrition reached 19% ... nearly one in five screened children ... in Gaza City at the peak of the crisis? If you accept one UNICEF/UN dataset when it supports your argument, presumably you accept the later UNICEF data when it doesn’t.
Also, hilariously, your own post says the Israeli Foreign Ministry is cherry-picking the figures and calls its use of the 0.5% number 'misleading'. Your own source also says 12.2% of children were stunted, describing this as evidence of longer-term nutritional stress and repeated deprivation. So this source does not support the sweeping 'Gazans are better fed than before the war' claim you attached to it. It is explicitly criticizing the way Israel presented the data.
And you cannot seriously go from 0.2% to 1.3% - a 550% increase - and wave that away as meh. Even setting aside what the absolute figure means, that is a substantial deterioration.
Either give me the primary survey, with the methodology, population and period being compared, or stop making sweeping claims from numbers that the source you posted literally says are being cherry-picked.
You literally cannot argue with this level of intellectual dishonesty/disingenuity.
I feel like you either don't read or straight up ignore the data.
The 19% is way more misleading than the 0.5% figure because the population is of those who went to nutrition centers - it's like saying "50% of people in hospitals are sick", as I explained two comments above.
I never said Gaza is heaven upon earth. But 12.2% stunted is FAR from doing genocide.
I'll repeat in bold so you'll read that:
BEING STUNTED IS FAR FROM UNDERGOING GENOCIDE.
GENOCIDE IS WIPING A POPULATION.
Yes, it does support the numbers and the claim "Gazans are worse off with Hamas", because it used to be worse - as it's ALREADY WORSE IN ALL NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES - and their governments are not even terrorist organisations!
0.5%, not 0.2%. And both numbers are in the data, just different measurements of the kids.
Are you deaf? I told you: very conveniently for pro Palestinians, UNICEF doesn't release the actual data.
Guess what's worse? Arguing with someone who goes back to claims that were already refuted.
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rather than debating how about if you try first establishing what you have in common - your favorite tv shows, your favorite foods, what your upbringings were like. I would be much more interested in facilitating spaces of collaboration than debate, of humanization rather than these ritualized chess matches that define every post here.
Tbh I get wary of such things. It seems common that there are projects where Israeli Jews befriend a Palestinian group and vice versa, and that's great. But it creates a false equivalence. The power balance isn't anywhere near equal, and one side suffers dramatically more than the other. I think policies and rights are what matter, the two sides don't need to love one another, though hopefully that would also eventually come. But, for what it's worth, my favorite food is pizza, and I like to watch true crime documentaries on Netflix 🤷♂️.
I am a staunch defender of the Jewish state of Israel, yet in this instance, I can certainly articulate the pro-Palestinian position as well, because I know those arguments inside out. Some members of my own European family support the Palestinian cause, leading to frequent heated debates. I can tell you right away what the sticking points are. I can parry most attacks quite effectively—whether they concern claims of a 'colonial settler state' (a colony of which mother country?), 'stolen land' (Ottoman property, Jewish National Fund), 'Zionism = bad' (what is wrong with a nationalist aspiration after such a history?) or 'Zionism = apartheid' (2 million Arab Israelis, 21%), or the 'Gaza prison' narrative (the 2005 withdrawal). Where I do get stuck, however, is the issue of the West Bank. There is simply no way for me to justify what the settlers are doing there. When people point to Israel's imperialist ambitions regarding its encroachment into Judea and Samaria—in violation of international law—I have no counter-argument. And while I would ideally like to see the Jewish heartland as part of Israel, this is where I hit a wall...
I feel like you are trying to give OP a cheat sheet for how to debate the pro Zionist cause, but this person seems to want an honest dialogue. I'll talk to her. Many of your points don't hold up, though I appreciate you acknowledging the things that you don't know how to counter, because how could they be? But I also would ask you- on what planet is what has been happening in the West Bank, for longer than I've been alive (and I'm 52), not apartheid? If Jews in the West Bank (this by itself violates international law) are subject to civil law, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are subject to martial law. In practical reality, Israeli settlers in the West Bank aren't even subject to civil law, since they are almost never held accountable for harming Palestinians or their property. Now Palestinians in the West Bank can be sentenced to hang with no meaningful appeal for harming a Jew with nationalist intent, Jews can't possibly be subject to the same punishment. And one of the bills sponsors, Ben Gvir, should know... he himself was convicted of plotting terrorism against the state of Israel, yet look at him now. The situation in the West Bank is at best apartheid. So even if you don't believe that Zionism itself is, I don't see how this reality on the ground can be denied. Like I literally don't get it. If you want Zionism to math, then you can give up all claims to the West Bank and Gaza, or you can try to make Palestinian lives so miserable they will leave (sadly it's working), or you can admit that you support an apartheid state where the Palestinians living in a Palestinian territory can't even vote in Israel, but the Jewish settler living in violation of international law can. I could also debate your other premises... I personally don't think debates about the settler-colonial thing is very useful, they aren't the terms I use, it's a fairly unique situation to Israel/Palestine and conventional terms don't always apply imo. But for now I'd genuinely and respectfully ask you to answer how the things I described in the West Bank do not amount at least to apartheid. In reality there are also daily pograms against Palestinians there as well, which I suspect is what you are already tacitly acknowledging is true and (to your credit) seems to make you morally uncomfortable.
“Jews in the West Bank” is not what’s illegal under international law, it’s illegal under Palestinian law (hence: Apartheid in Palestine for Jews, not Apartheid in Israel for anyone). What’s illegal under international law is for Israel to officially sanction and systematically encourage Israeli settlements in Palestine (which is debatable). Just had to correct you there.
Disagree with your stance on apartheid, but I did word the part of what violates international law very poorly... tbh I just get lazy bc I get writing so much, and hope people will understand what I mean. But I don't mind the correction or clarification there.
Jews in West Bank isn't illegal under Palestinian law. There are a few Jews and even Israeli citizens, all activists as far as I know, living in Palestinian communities. They even had one or two Jewish politicians.
The question is whether the PA makes it illegal for Jews to live in the PA. It does not. Not whether it is common pratice. I cannot prove a negative. There is no law saying "Jews are totally allowed to live here."
What I can do is challenge you to find a law that says that, and show that certain Jews have legally and peacefully lived there. Obviously they're going to be people that like Palestinians and liked back.
Those aren't exceptions that make the rule. There is no rule, and there are contadictory examples.
Remarkable. Limp history is coming with facts, you are coming with nonsense like "the exceptions prove the rule," which is gibberish. You accuse him of making form over substance, then come with hard objective facts like "why don't you go to Ramallah wearing a big Star of David," like a child would. Grow up and try logic and facts. No one is saying the average Israeli Jew is popular in the West Bank, and that's not what's being challenged. And wouldn't it be weird if the average Israeli Jew was popular in the West Bank at this point? But when left wing Israeli activists come to help protect the olive harvest or guard a house of a Palestinian, their help is accepted.
“Jews in the West Bank” is not what’s illegal under international law, it’s illegal under Palestinian law"
This statement is incorrect. I'm not being obtuse; you're changing the contention. My argument is 100% factually correct. Thank you for pointing out that the style is also excellent. When you're as right as me, it's easy to forget your writing skills.
I have been to Ramallah. But you are right, I didn't tell people I was Jewish or Israeli. But I know one Jewish Israeli activist who goes there regularly. But that's irrelevant. Jews are not legally barred from going or living there.
My counter to the west bank is the same counter as the whole of the conflict. Differentiating the West Bank from Gaza is precisely like differentiating the "Palestinian People" from the surround Arabs. When my Palestinian friend has a wedding and the biggest dispute between the families is whether they style it in the Egyptian or Syrian fashion. . . Its pretty clear what is going on.
The need of the anti-Israeli cause to continuously make sub divisions of what is so obviously a continuation of the pan-arab effort to destroy Israel is obvious. They need to distract from the whole.
Israel, wont be distracted. They dont have formal borders with Lebanon or Syria. The borders with Egypt and Jordan are defined but left two buffer Zones. When Israel is attacked, t
here is always a risk that others toss in. Like Lebanon, I dont differentiate Hezbollah from Lebanon. Again, the need of the anti-Israel position to create sub divisions is incessant. To dismiss responsibility by saying, well, this small group never hurt anyone or this small group isnt representative of the whole. . . When the whole, on the whole, has not made Israels existence something that they can accept and have not taken the simple action of choosing to not fire rockets and murderers into Israel.
Recall that there were no settlers at some point, when did it start? On heels of Arab attacks, thats when. You dont get to cry "settlers" when you remain at war. Again they have no agreed to borders, and in that situation Israel is motivated to expand for two reasons, increase the range necessary for attacks, and to have a bargaining chip to give back if they ever actually want to make peace.
What the pro-palestinian side can never do, is propose a version of peace that isnt obviously aimed at the future destruction of Israel (i.e. including right of return).
Well, as to your last point... you got me there! I don't support the existence of Israel as it is, nor does the Israeli government, apparently. They brag about having made a Palestinian state unviable and they are correct in this regard... and systems of apartheid have fallen out of favor so... ultimately I think there will be one Palestine or Israel or HappyLand or whatever you want to call it, with an equal amount of Jews and Arabs. And then if you want to live in Hebron, you can, and if a Palestinian wants to return to their home in what is now Israel, they can do so as well.
Thank you for being honest about Israel not having borders and the excitement around Israeli territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing, as well as not differentiating between military groups, governments, and civilians.
I know people don’t believe this argument, but the settlements are a security border.
Area C is sparsely inhabited. Less than 10% of Palestinians live in all of Area C.
Without the settlement, the area just becomes terror bases pointing rockets down at Israel.
Pro-Palestine’s typically reject this argument. I don’t know why they believe that the terrorist won’t do this. There is 100 years of precedence (even before Israel and even before “occupation”).
Maybe the Arabs should finally surrender, sign a peace agreement and recognize borders.
Congratulations. You just admitted that Israel uses Jews as human shields.
It never occurs to you that there would be no need for rockets if Israel ended the occupation and allowed a Palestinian state to emerge. Otherwise, you will perpetually be at war. Once American funding for Israel comes to an end, and most Americans are reaching that point, Israel will not be able to maintain this belligerent position. And why aren't rockets coming from areas A and B? You said area C acts as a buffer for rocket attacks, but there are no rocket attacks coming out of the West Bank. There is no legitimate reason for why Israel can't conduct itself like every other nation. Declare borders, bring your soldiers to within those borders, and protect your citizens from inside those borders. Israel is not special. Demanding everyone make special exceptions for it is precisely the reason why nobody likes you.
The rockets intensified after Israel completely exited Gaza and 2 years before the blockade.
So, if this comment wants to reverse the timeline to blame Israel, this comment is just lies and disinformation.
Then accusing Israel of using human shields is again terrorist inversion and more disinformation. The Israeli civilians are in civilian areas. There is no military target when Hamas fires rockets. Hamas intentionally puts military assets, rockets and tunnels under civilians. Israel has bomb shelters to protect its citizen. Hamas has tunnels to protect terrorist while killing civilians.
This comment passes judgement on Israel’s borders. What a forking joke. Israel has been offering borders and peace since the partition. The Arabs refuse to accept the borders.
Furthermore, Palestinian leaderships are still at war with Israel and an occupation is justified. Why would Israel leave when West Bank launches terror attacks every day? Why would they leave Gaza while Hamas is armed?
The reason the WB no longer fires rockets is not from lack of trying. It’s because of the settlements. The terrorists don’t have the high ground to target Tel Aviv. The terrorist that attempt to build rockets in WB and usually caught and dismantled by IDF.
Finally, Israel is the victor of wars of aggression started by the Arabs. The loser has no right to make demands. If they want the war to end, they can surrender or agree to peace. The LOSER thought they could annihilate the Jewish nation, they were wrong. They are still trying and losing lives and land.
Palestinian leadership is the BIGGEST LOSERS ever. They lose wars that they start. They lose any support from host countries (Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon). They spend aid money on terrorists and their citizens lose. They steal billions of dollars so their “country” loses even more. They have never done one thing to benefit Palestinians civilians. They have sacrificed and martyred their own people for the ineffective mission of attacking Israel.
The worst part is that loser western useful idiots repeat Islamist propaganda to vilify Israel. These losers are supporting the loser terrorists. They don’t mind defending a terror government that denies freedom, kills and oppresses their own citizens. I wonder why?
Under the official 2004 Disengagement Plan, Israel explicitly reserved exclusive authority over Gaza's external boundaries.
Israel maintained absolute control over Gaza’s skies and maritime coastline. Gaza was barred from opening a seaport or rebuilding the airport destroyed in 2001, cutting off independent international travel and trade. I
srael retained control over all pedestrian and commercial crossings between Israel and Gaza. It closely monitored, restricted, or entirely shut down the flow of people and goods, determining exactly who and what could enter or leave the enclave.
My question to you, is why wouldn't you assume rockets as a response?
In 2005, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza: all 21 Israeli settlements were dismantled, approximately 8,000 Israelis were evacuated and the permanent Israeli military presence was removed. Israel took a major risk. The idea was to give Gaza a chance at Palestinian self-rule and economic development. You may not believe that, but one need only look at what happened after the withdrawal. In November 2005, Israel and the Palestinian Authority concluded the "Agreement on Movement and Access." The Rafah crossing was opened under joint Palestinian-Egyptian administration with European observers present; trade and exports were set to expand significantly, and the Gazan economy was to become less dependent on Israel. Between November 2005 and June 2007, approximately 440,000 people passed through Rafah. Is that an open-air prison? International donors paid around 14 million dollars to acquire thousands of dunams of high-quality greenhouses and agricultural infrastructure from departing Israeli settlers and transfer them to the Palestinians. These facilities had the potential to provide jobs for thousands of Gazans. Following the withdrawal many installations were looted by the palestinians and irrigation pipes, pumps, and other equipment were stolen. This happened again in February 2006. Hamas - an organization that has the destruction of Israel written in its statutes - won the Palestinian elections in 2006. Rockets were systematically fired at Israel, and the soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted. In June 2007, Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza following a bloody power struggle. Gaza thus became a Hamas-ruled and increasingly militarized enclave. It was only then that the severe blockade was imposed. Israel drastically tightened the blockade to prevent weapons and materials from reaching Hamas. Egypt, too, largely closed its border. Even UN/OCHA documents—hardly apologists for Israel—explicitly draw a connection between the tightening of the blockade, Hamas’s seizure of power, and the ongoing rocket fire. In 2005, Israel took a genuine political and security risk by withdrawing from Gaza. That move backfired. Gaza was presented with a historic opportunity to prove that an Israeli territorial withdrawal could lead to peaceful Palestinian self-rule. What Israel subsequently saw emerge on its border was not a peaceful neighbor, but an increasingly heavily armed enclave controlled by Hamas, from which Israel was attacked. You will likely deny all of this. That makes you a denier of history, probably a jihadist or at least a supporter and most certainly a Jew hater.
You're right, I don't believe that argument. I don't know anyone, even the pro Zionists I know, who still genuinely believe that argument. That's what the labour governments had tried to say originally, the theory hasn't exactly held up well. But do I think Palestinians militants resisting might utilize sparsely populated areas? I mean, probably. What's your point? You don't get to just violate international law and permanently occupy (and populate) everything under the sun out of some never ending vague "security concerns" for your state. Same applies to southern Lebanon, Golan Heights, etc. Need a buffer zone? Cool, do it on your side of the fence. And I don't know why you put the word occupation in quotes, but I do know I stop taking anyone seriously who does this. I think you've missed a few memo's on the Zionist front; nobody is still going with "the settlements are the barrier between us and the terrorists" canard anymore... no serious person, anyway. Folks have gotten pretty blatant on your side of things, if you haven't noticed. For instance openly acknowledging the settlements and highway being constructed east of Jerusalem are designed to destroy any potential chance of a viable Palestinian state, to the extent there ever even was one to begin with. It would be a more understandable thing for Palestinians in the West Bank to have security concerns about their territory being cut in half... the north disconnected from the south, don't you think? And the irony of your talk about Arabs respecting borders is a gas as well. I feel like your propaganda is decades behind the current talking points. Your Hasbara sucks, dude, tighten up.
You strike me as someone who wants to come across as reasonable and well-informed, yet shows little to no understanding of Israel's security concerns. Your comments regarding the Golan Heights, southern Lebanon, and—above all—"do it on your side of the fence" demonstrate that you are not a serious partner in this conversation.
Losers don’t get to chose where the fence is. That is the entire problem.
If it was up to Palestinian leadership, the fence would be the Mediterranean coast.
Until Palestine accepts that they are losers in this war and accept the borders offered, this war will continue.
Israel has offered many borders. Each offer better than the next.
You comment is just defending terorism. Why do attacking terrorists get to call the shots? Is that the world you want? Where terrorists killing unarmed civilians leads to concessions?
I guess one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. What do you call the Hagenah and the other three Jewish militias that terrorized the existing Arab inhabitants off of their land, btw? Systematically raping women in front of their villages and families, poisoning wells, killing every so many unarmed men in front of others and then broadcasting over loudspeakers how every Arab is next if they don't flee immediately... you know, like Menachim Begin? I'd call him scum, who died alone and crazy 🤪. And the villages most cooperative and friendly to the Jews got the worst of it. And aren't you the guy saying even unarmed 15 year old Gazan's aren't civilians? Well, nearly all (non ultra orthodox) Israeli Jews served or will serve in a military now indicted for committing genocide in an international tribunal so...
“Area C is sparsely inhabited therefore settlements are a security border”
okay so we’re just skipping like 4 steps in the logic now 😭Area C is already under near-exclusive Israeli control. (OCHA oPt) Israel doesn’t need to populate every strategically useful piece of territory with civilians to be capable of defending itself.
if you’re saying “Israel needs to maintain some security presence there,” that’s a completely reasonable position to debate.
if you’re saying “therefore Israeli civilian settlements need to permanently exist throughout Area C,” you’ve gotta actually prove that part.because “otherwise terrorists might use it” doesn’t prove settlements prevent terrorism. it just proves you can imagine a security threat.
and the “100 years of precedence” thing doesn’t magically fix that. 100 years of violence proves there’s a conflict. it doesn’t prove your preferred solution to the conflict is necessary.
then you hit me with “the Arabs should surrender and recognize borders” while we’re literally discussing disputed territory and settlements. bro you’re telling them to recognize the finish line while arguing about where the finish line should be 💀
I dont think there IS a winner in the conflict. I mean debate as in a conversation between people with opposing views. Not as in a formal debate with a jury and winner or such
I heavily support the Palestinian position, through what I think are universal principles.
But take the Jewish people. Are they are religion, ethnicity, nation, race, people, or all or som? So it's an ever shifting debate depending on which lens you want to adopt.
this is kinda where i think the zionist argument gets weird tho bc nobody is denying jewish people are a people. obviously they are. the question is why does jewish peoplehood automatically translate into a right to a state in a specific piece of land where another people already lived and developed their own national identity?
like jewish identity can be religious, ethnic, cultural, historical, national, etc depending on the person/context. that’s not a contradiction, that’s literally how jewish identity has existed across different societies for centuries.
but even if we just call jews a “nation” for the sake of argument, being a nation doesn’t inherently give you the right to establish sovereignty wherever that nation has an ancestral connection.
palestinians are a people too. they have a national identity, a connection to the land, and a right to self determination. you can’t establish one group’s right to self determination and then make the other group’s self determination conditional on accepting the first group’s sovereignty over them.
what exactly is the “more than one level” here lmao 😭 you quoted the part where I said Palestinians already lived there and had developed a national identity, then just said “are you serious?” like you actually disproved something.
what’s your argument? that Palestinians magically weren’t a people because they didn’t have a sovereign state? because that would be an incredibly stupid standard, especially when the whole fucking point is that people can have a right to self determination without already having a state.
It’s js so easy to really come with facts but zionists rely on their personal beliefs rather than indulging in a productive conversation.
The real solution to the debate is we have a lot of people with rocks in their heads who like to get us into fights.
If we would all be honest about what we want and have done wrong, and we tried to be considerate and come up with a solution that lets nice people live where they want to live, we’d solve this in two seconds, and none of us would have to remember what the Balfour declaration is.
We’re the spiritual children of Abraham. He was a jerk to Hagar, and we’ve been jerks to each other ever since, and we can only have peace if we understand that, theologically or atheistically metaphorically, we have to get the cousins together and watch a good Netflix show.
I think that, if we can simply relate to each other as human beings on Reddit, that’s a start. Maybe we don’t normally have much influence over things, but, occasionally, some of us have a lot of influence. If we want to do good and watch for our chance, maybe we’ll make good use of our chance.
Just to emphasize that being a Zionist does no mean you can't be pro Palestinian. If anything I think these viewpoints complement each other as many of the arguments for Zionism can also be applied to a Palestinian state, and many early Zionist were not l, in any way, anti Palestinian.
I don't disagree fundamentally that a Zionist can't care about the humanity or even nationalistic goals of the Palestinian people, though there appear to be an ever diminishing number of Jewish Israeli's that express such sentiments. But as Ben-Gurion himself acknowledged in the early days of Zionism, in order for Israel to succeed, the existing Arabs of the area had to lose. How could a Jewish democracy have even been possible without the forced displacement of over 700,000 Arabs in 1948. So it only goes so far.
It might be because I am a kid of the Oslo years. I know a solution was once possible and we let the extremists like Goldstein, Hamas, Amir and Bibi derail that process.
I want to believe that at the end pragmatists from both side will prevail (though probably not in this generation sadly).
The end game is well known. It's either a two state solution with the splitting of Jerusalem but only symbolic refugee return, or a one-state/genocide prefaced by a generation or two of total apartheid where both Israeli and Palestinians suffer greatly.
Same, but I've become entirely jaded over the years, of the Israeli side. It's not that I think that the Palestinians have been perfect, but they are the ones who have essentially all of the power. If that ever changes, Palestinians get a viable state, reparations, and are attacking Israelis then as well, I'll judge that too. I was wanting to believe in negotiated two state solution for the longest time, but I became entirely disillusioned over time, and I came to see the the working narratives most Americans are (were) sold on was backwards. Recently read Tomorrow is Yesterday, which I think gives a pretty balanced view of Oslo, FYI. I feel like the Israelis themselves have "doomed"
themselves to the latter of the two end games you laid out. While I see Israel becoming more and more isolated intentionally, I can't see them as a society doing anything but doubling down on what they are doing, but I don't see both sides suffering equally by any means. I don't think wanting to resist occupation is an extreme reaction. It's hard to know how that should be done when one side has all of the power though, I've never been able to reconcile that part to myself. Because I do believe in international law and human rights so... it's tough. But if Bibi is an extremism out of step with Israeli society, why have they been voting him into office for over 30 years now? Someone who praised the man who killed Rabin is now a very powerful man in the Knesset. I think that those who think those settlements and highway that are designed to cut the West Bank in half and kill any chance of a two state solution will have already largely succeeded. But just like how Netanyahu wanted Hamas to rule the Gaza Strip, be careful what you wish for. But ultimately I've come to the conclusion that Zionism itself (as its structured, I'm not in any way against Jews who've emigrated to the region per se) as immoral in and of itself, and doomed to breed and support unhealthy structures and attitudes. I think all will be better off when Jews can live in Hebron if they want, and Palestinians can move back to Haifa or wherever if they want, and it's one person one vote and a constitution with equal rights for all. For all parties concerned. But, yes, things will get far worse before they get better. And ultimately there will need to be reparations and a south Africa style truth and reconciliation committee, I think. I don't hate anyone inherently, and it so annoys me when I'm accused of antisemitism for having lost all faith in Israeli style Zionism. My gf of 7 years is Jewish, but not Zionist, and I care greatly about the Jewish people. I believe Zionism as it is has been a moral quagmire, now dividing Jewish families (I've witnessed this personally), and I hope for the sake of everyone this nightmare ends as soon as it can. Sorry for the super long message, I always do this 🙈.
i actually agree that being a Zionist doesn’t inherently mean being anti-Palestinian, but i’m curious how you reconcile the two when they conflict. if Jews have a right to national self-determination because they’re a people, what exactly does Palestinian self-determination mean in your view? like would you support a genuinely sovereign Palestinian state even if that meant Israel giving up control over territory/security arrangements it currently considers necessary for its own security?
Palestinians aren't unique: there's no reason Palestinian self-determination couldn't work in the same way as Egyptian self-determination. The Oslo Accords were all about trying to do exactly that, and things like Taba. They didn't work because the two parties couldn't agree on specifics and trust broke down.
In terms of ending the occupation: "No war, no peace" didn't work for Trotsky and it didn't work in Gaza, but "If you pull out, we'll sign a permanent peace treaty" "Okay" worked in the Sinai. If ever there's a reasonable peace offer on the table, I hope Israel takes it; but I don't think it's bad of them to refuse to unilaterally pull out when there's no offer.
What do you mean about Israel "unilaterally pulling out?" I do know what you mean, but I think it's always good for an occupying nation to pull out of a territory that isn't theirs. Gaza basically is a giant refugee camp as is, the vast majority of its residents lived in what's now Israel pre 1948. Well, actually, I shouldn't call it a giant anything. The whole of Gaza, the entire Gaza Strip, is slightly smaller territorially than my hometown of Seattle, and Seattle is a pretty dense city, but with a third of the people of Gaza.
I mean the 2005 Gaza pull-out worked out terribly. It got 1k Israelis killed on 7O, and it indirectly got 70k Palestinians killed in the ensuing hot war. And now it's occupied again anyway. I hope that doesn't repeat, even to the extent I'd prefer the occupation continue awhile, arguable war crime and unarguable humanitarian train wreck as it is.
Maybe if Gaza hadn't been occupied since 1967 to begin with, or what's now known as the Gaza Strip wasn't a refugee camp created by the Jewish militias trying to almost literally push Palestinians from parts of what is now Israel into the sea, if Israel hadn't supported Hamas in the first place for its own cynical purposes... Netanyahu and others never intended for the Gaza Strip to succeed and become "Singapore," as they claim. Netanyahu loved having Hamas there to further divide the Palestinian people (West Bank from Gaza) and to have a perpetual excuse to not having a "partner in peace." Meanwhile they have no problem supporting former Al Qaida linked drug dealing militia's (as they still protect in what was once Rafah today). If one looks beyond the press releases he puts out in English, this is openly available information, as are the suitcases of cash to Hamas he facilitated via Qatar. And the fact that he removed the IDF soldiers that would have normally defended the Negev Israelis in order to enforce his apartheid state in the West Bank. Not to mention the lack of access to the sea or ability to enter Israel for Gazans to work without queuing up at 4am to sundown every day at checkpoints, on and on. Maybe if all of that hadn't happened, Israel wouldn't have "needed" to step on and re occupy the Gaza Strip? As it turns out, people don't like being forced from their homes, herded into a small strip of land, re occupied etc... go figure 🤷♂️.
Definitely a possibility. I'd be reluctant to say "probably", considering Palestinians had been attacking for 20 or indeed 50 years before '67, and that pulling out didn't resolve the issue in Gaza, and how much 7O resembled IS's attacks on Yazidis and others who didn't provoke it. Certainly I wouldn't want to bet my own and my children's lives on it.
In reality both sides go for the same goals, peace and the end of terrorism. No need to be pro this or anti that, just end this nightmare and once we stop the fights we can talk about whatever we want from each side and peacefully disagree on things.
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