• paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Hamas might not exist, but unless you can travel back in time, that doesn’t answer the question what to do about Hamas today.

    Hamas is a terror organization, they’ve been in power in the Gaza strip for the last 17 years, they terrorize the Palestinian population in Gaza, and they desperately need the conflict to stay alive so they don’t lose relevance.

    As things are today, treating the Palestinians well, giving them aid, food, water and the promise of a brighter future is a direct threat to Hamas. That’s absolutely not to say that those things shouldn’t be done - it’s just to say that these things pose a direct threat to Hamas’s position of power in Gaza. That’s why Hamas reroutes international help and keeps it from reaching the Palestinian population, why they stage terrorist attacks against Israel, why they torture and murder “collaborators,” why they place their infrastructure in schools and mosques and hospitals, why they use Palestinians as human shields.

    So lacking the option of traveling back in time and preventing the creation of Hamas, what should be done in a world where Hamas exists, has been in power for many years, and has no intention of ever ceasing its terrorism?

    • RedAggroBest@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Hamas today could be a thing of the past, or as close to irrelevant as possible, if Israel would put in the effort to help Palestinians. Maybe help Palestinians realize that they could have a better chance with Israel than Hamas and that peace is possible.

      This would take Israel being the “bigger man” to use a turn of phrase, but every chance they’re presented with just like right now, they instead choose Zionism and indiscriminately murder civilians.

      • orrk@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        to be fair, Hamas would have been a thing of the Past is Netanyahu wasn’t supporting them through direct money and a bit of targeting non-radical secular groups that stood for an alternative to Hamas.

        Yes, Hamas was aided by the guy using them as an excuse to kill civilians

      • paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        if Israel would put in the effort to help Palestinians

        That’s sounds good.

        What would that look like?

        As a reference: from 2014 to 2020, the UN spent $4.5 billion in Gaza. NGOs have poured in hundreds of millions, have opened schools, have financed hospitals, have distributed aid. USAID has spent billions of dollars, the European Union spent hundreds of millions of Euros just to put in reliable water infrastructure. Just recently, Israel agreed to open the borders to Gaza so a number of Palestinians could work in Israel and live in Gaza.

        But Hamas has been intercepting foreign aid, has seized donated supplies, has interfered with aid workers, has used schools and hospitals financed by the UN and NGOs as terrorist headquarters, as weapons caches, as launching sites for missiles, as prisons and torture sites to hold, torture and murder opponents.

        So what, specifically, would you suggest?

        • havokdj@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It seems that the only solution to the problem is to kill innocent men, women, and children!

          Gotta violently kill a family of twenty so we can take out one or two hidden Hamas fighters!

          I want to make this very clear, the hatred that Israel is exhibiting to the Palestinians, is exactly the same as the hatred that Hitler exhibited towards their people during WWII. Difference is, everybody is cheering on the Nazis this time.

          • paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            So you’re assuming that asking for a qualified answer about what should be done to “help the Palestinians” is the equivalent of “cheering on the Nazis?”

            • havokdj@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              You asked a rhetorical question. I also did not say you cheered on the Nazi’s or anything of the sort.

              • paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                See, that’s the problem, though: you’re already presuming that people who don’t simply go along cheering facile, generic solutions like “why don’t the Israelis just help the Palestinians” - as if things were that easy and as if that thought just had never occurred to a single person in the past 70 years of murderous conflict - must be insincere.

                So for the record: no, I’m being sincere. Bombing innocent civilians in Gaza is very obviously objectionable, and indiscriminate bombing is a war crime.

                At the same time, I can acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization which just committed the largest terrorist attack in the history of Israel, committing unspeakable atrocities and murdering hundreds and hundreds of civilians in Israel.

                So with that premise established: what would be some realistic ways for Israel to help Palestinians in a way that would make Hamas go away and end that particular threat for Israel. Because that’s the proposition: that the terrorist threat from Hamas could be ended if Israel only helped the Palestinians instead of bombing them, correct?

                • havokdj@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  Go on reddit or facebook and you’ll see exactly what I am talking about.

                  Explain to me exactly how bombing and killing innocent civilians is going to stop a terrorist group? You kill a shit ton of innocent people to take out a few of the bad guys. You’re not understanding that the point isn’t about helping the Palestinians, it’s about not fucking recklessly killing them to stop terrorists.

                  It honestly sounds to me like IDS are terrorists themselves, is that not what terrorists do? To be a terrorist is to strike terror into a civilian populous, and that is exactly what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Blowing up fucking schools, hospitals, and homes is not how you stop a terrorist group, it’s how you become one.

                  I find it absolutely absurd that western countries could do this today and would be heavily criticized, but Israel gets a pass because “it’s god’s land”. Christianity (the religion that many americans falsely claim to follow) does not give two shits about Israel or Jerusalem, that is the JEWS land, not Christian’s land.

                  This is what happens when you let religion off of a leash, needless bloodshed and suffering. Christians did the same to Jews and Muslims during the crusades, this is a situation that is no different today, that’s exactly what a Jihad is, a " holy war".

                  • paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    You wrote a lot of things, but I still don’t see an answer to the question there.

                    Is that because you don’t have an answer?

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          What would that look like?

          Not blockade the Gaza strip, for one. Israel killed Gaza’s economy in 2006, keeps limiting the imports of basic goods and what we’re seeing is the result. Hamas stopped rocket attacks for over a year (late 2012 to early 2014) when promised the lifting of the blockade as part of a ceasefire.

          Gaza people are, by Israel’s own admission, allowed fewer calories than they need to not starve to death.

          • paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Not blockade the Gaza strip, for one.

            How would that make Hamas go away?

            Egypt and Israel are blockading the Gaza strip because it’s under the control of a terrorist organization.

            If the question is “how could Israel help the Palestinians in a way that would make the threat if Hamas disappear,” how are you envisioning that this would happen if Israel ended the blockade?

            • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Well, the cause of the current state of rocket attacks is the blockade so there’s that. Like I said before, Hamas stopped rocket attacks, and tried to police other groups doing the same, for over a year in compliance with the 2012 ceasefire. They stopped because Israel only slightly loosened the blockade, and didn’t lift it as they’d originally promised. So that’s how this would happen if Israel ended the blockade; Israel needs to sign another ceasefire and actually follow it.

              • paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                And the cause for the blockade before 2012 was that Hamas seized power in the Gaza strip, murdered its political opponents, and instituted a reign of terror where elections were suspended indefinitely, dissent was impossible, and Palestinian “collaborators” were abducted, tortured, and murdered.

                And the reason for the end of the ceasefire in 2014 was that Hamas abducted the teenagers, followed by Israel imprisoning 350 Palestinian militants, followed by Hamas launching rocket attacks against Israeli civilians from Gaza.

                That’s the problem, isn’t it - whatever any side does in this conflict, it’s easy to find justification for it if you only go back fast enough in history. There are more than 2000 years of history there, full of conflict between the various ethnic groups. If anyone wants to find justification for current atrocities, it’s always easy to point to atrocities previously committed by the other side.

                That said: do you really believe that Hamas wild simply cease its terrorism, its atrocities, its rocket attacks, kidnappings, torture, murder and simply decide to live in peace with Israel if the blockade were to be lifted tomorrow?

                • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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                  11 months ago

                  And the cause for the blockade before 2012 was that Hamas seized power in the Gaza strip, murdered its political opponents, and instituted a reign of terror where elections were suspended indefinitely, dissent was impossible, and Palestinian “collaborators” were abducted, tortured, and murdered.

                  The blockade started in 2005. These events happened in 2006/2007.

                  And the reason for the end of the ceasefire in 2014 was that Hamas abducted the teenagers, followed by Israel imprisoning 350 Palestinian militants, followed by Hamas launching rocket attacks against Israeli civilians from Gaza.

                  The ceasefire ended without the blockade getting lifted. That’s the crux of the issue. The 2008 and 2012 ceasefires were basically “you stop terrorism and we’ll lift the blockade” What do you expect to happen when after that the blockade isn’t lifted?

                  That said: do you really believe that Hamas wild simply cease its terrorism, its atrocities, its rocket attacks, kidnappings, torture, murder and simply decide to live in peace with Israel if the blockade were to be lifted tomorrow?

                  So like I said twice now, it happened before.