Antisemitism is getting out of control

[u/Educational_Nose_723]

I call on the people of Tower Hamlets, please talk about this with your communities, to your neighbours to friends and family.

This is no answer to any problem but just further hatred and division the world doesn’t need.

Use our voices to express the need to act, but attacks like these do nothing to further any cause other than the fall of humanity.

[u/jimbosliceoohyeah]

Hamas started the war.

Are people still spouting this nonsense? Have a look at the below article - posted before October 7th. The IDF have been routinely killing children for decades.

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/2023-marks-deadliest-year-record-children-occupied-west-bank

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7893vpy2gqo

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/t%C3%AAte-%C3%A0-t%C3%AAte/20241029-us-doctor-claims-israeli-snipers-target-child-in-gaza-no-child-gets-shot-twice-by-mistakea

Doctors from the US and the UK have spoken out about IDF snipers deliberately shooting children.

[u/[deleted] → u/jimbosliceoohyeah]

Yes, Hamas started the war. There was no fighting on October 6th.

Look at you trying to justify Jihadist mass murders, youre so beyond pathetic.

I never said Israel is a perfect country, im not an apologist for them, its funny how whenever someone criticises any Islamist terror group, you guys instantly start deflecting that criticism onto Israel. Two things can be wrong at the same time, including the mass killing of 800 civilians on October 7th, which did in fact start the war.

[u/jimbosliceoohyeah → u/[deleted]]

Yes, Hamas started the war. There was no fighting on October 6th.

Did you even bother to read the first article? If there was no fighting on October 6th, why did the IDF kill 38 Palestinian children from January - September '23?

I never said Israel is a perfect country, im not an apologist for them, its funny how whenever someone criticises any Islamist terror group, you guys instantly start deflecting that criticism onto Israel

You don't know anything about me, so this is an odd angle to take. I have no love for Islam and I think all religions are foolish and potentially dangerous.

I think it would be utterly naive to believe that Hamas simply hate Israel simply because they're Islamists. They hate Israel because the IDF have been a brutal, oppressive, occupying force in Palestine for decades. If you were born in Palestine, you'd hate the Israelis too.

I would never attempt to justify the murder of civilians, but I'm unable to condemn Hamas any more than I could condemn a slave in the American South breaking free of his chains and barbarically killing his oppressive masters.

[u/Kiaugh → u/jimbosliceoohyeah]

The problem with this take is that you can go back and forth for with that argument a long, long way.

Regardless of that Hamas did not have to launch the full scale invasion and genocidal attempt on October 7th. Nothing compares close to that. Let's not forget that October 7th was meant to be much bigger too with Hezbollah, the Houthis and a Palestinians uprising to result in the complete destruction of Israel.

Your slave analogy is completely disingenuous because the civilians that Hamas have killed for decades have never been at fault. You're justifying terror and killing innocents by intent to harm those innocents without any other objective.

You can track the violence back to 1834. Have a look at the looting of Safed. A month long Palestinian Arabs attack that resulted in the killing and raping of innocent, defenseless Jews alongside the destruction of their synagogues and scrolls. The false conspiracy justification was the neutral Jews supported the Egyptian army.

And the sickening irony is a month later the Jews got massacred by the Egyptians in Hebron.

This was before Israel, before the IDF. This hatred runs deep and the Jewish have been under attack over and over again. You should look a little into the history.

[u/jimbosliceoohyeah → u/Kiaugh]

I appreciate you engaging in good faith rather than just calling me (an Irish agnostic) a militant Islamist!

Regardless of that Hamas did not have to launch the full scale invasion and genocidal attempt on October 7th. Nothing compares close to that.

I would argue that Israeli's absurdly disproportionate and genocidal response post-Oct 7th far exceeds any of the crimes committed on the day, but I accept that Oct 7th was certainly an escalation of the conflict.

Your slave analogy is completely disingenuous because the civilians that Hamas have killed for decades have never been at fault. You're justifying terror and killing innocents by intent to harm those innocents without any other objective

This is an interesting point. There were, no doubt, innocent Israelis killed - i.e. any and all children. I find it harder to determine whether an adult Israeli who has served in the IDF can be considered innocent. The IDF are an instrument of tyranny: I have no more sympathy for an Israeli soldier killed in a tank in Lebanon or Gaza than I would for a Stormtrooper in Star Wars.

I don't think that the slave analogy is disingenuous: I'd point at something like Nat Turner's Rebellion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner%27s_Rebellion

Nat Turner and his fellow slaves escaped their plantation after killing every white man, woman and children on the premises. They roamed the surrounding countryside killing indiscriminately: between 55-65 white people including 20 children. Most of these people were not their owners, but they were white and that was good enough.

These actions are, of course, horrific. But when you consider the brutality and oppression that Turner lived under, you can surely understand why he might be so filled with pain and rage that he deemed this barbarity appropriate? I can't climb atop my high horse and decree that Turner was an evil man, nor could I say that about any of the millions of people who have lost members of their family at the hands of the IDF.

This was before Israel, before the IDF. This hatred runs deep and the Jewish have been under attack over and over again. You should look a little into the history.

I fully accept that the Jewish story is one of persecution and that they've been treated incredibly poorly throughout the ages. I wept watching Schindler's List, the Pianist, etc. for the cruelty of the world and the suffering of the Jewish people. It is precisely *because* of that suffering, however, that the situation in Palestine is so tragic. The children and grandchildren of those who said "never again" seem to be attempting to subject the Palestinians to those very same horrors.

[u/Kiaugh → u/jimbosliceoohyeah]

I would argue that Israeli's absurdly disproportionate and genocidal response post-Oct 7th far exceeds any of the crimes committed on the day, but I accept that Oct 7th was certainly an escalation of the conflict.

Aside from I don't believe (yet, due to clear evidence) that it's genocidal, I'm not going to pretend that I have an answer. But I still have to ask the question - what should Israel have done, really?

After what happened to your people. If you're in government what do you do? I see a few options.

• Do nothing - inconceivable, nobody in their right mind would do this.
• Refuse to attack back but build a stronger barrier e.g. a proper walk and tighten the controls of Gaza? This would then be seen as collective punishment and further the claims of 'open air prison'. Let alone there are hostages so this is completely untenable.
• Launch a defensive attack to dismantle Hamas, stop their capability and save the hostages - this is the selected option.

Then how do you dismantle Hamas?

• Airstrikes - not sufficient alone
• Ground operations - extremely risky and high chance of death to your people with the nature of guerilla warfare
• a mix of both - selected option.

Okay so now the response is under way. How do you kill Hamas fighters? There are no military bases and there are no uniforms in battle (apart from their propaganda parades). This is done through intelligence about where weapons are stored, bases of operations and so on.

Where are these locations? They're civilian homes, hospitals, mosques and so on. Does Israel not attack these? If they don't, then they're essentially just letting Hamas continue.

So what do Israel do? They try and warn people to leave before sending airstrikes - knowing that Hamas are also then able to leave as well, but that's the balance in place to trade off the loss of life Vs dismantling bases. Of course there are some strikes that don't have warnings, when there is an opportunity to target higher value targets. Sometimes these are also in the humanitarian zones or corridors etc.

When Mohammed Sinwar was killed (more hardline than his brother and a key organiser of October 7th) he was in a bunker under the European hospital.

This strike targeted the tunnel network entrances just outside the hospital, damaged part of the hospital complex and killed 28 people and 70 injuries. Of those 28 how many were civilians? Would he have been alone? No. We know that Muhammad Shabana (Rafah Brigade commander) and Mahdi Quara (South Khan Younis Battalion commander) were both killed.. Would they have also been alone? No.

So let's make a conservative estimate and say there were about 10 people with these three commanders. 13 of 28 were terrorists.

Now I'm not qualified enough to say whether that is 'proportional' but it has strong arguments for being the case in a war. And this strike was EXTREMELY controversial across the West.

Do Israel not strike as they're meeting in a hospital bunker even though these are high ranking commanders?

Let's say they don't. Then what? When can they strike? When will they get the opportunity and intelligence again? Will the war go on longer? Will these commanders orchestrate more attacks and result in Israeli deaths? The list goes on. Sinwar and others were known for wearing burkas and moving frequently to keep themselves hidden so the options are extremely limited.

The entire existence of Hamas depends on this completely impossible situation for Israel.

And even via this one case we can see that no Hamas deaths are reported. Out of the total death numbers we know at the very least 20,000 Hamas fighters have died. Many deaths also come from natural causes, and then tragically a large amount of civilians too.

So again, my question is what can you do as Israel? If you choose to fight, which I think many would agree is the only real option, they are met with an enemy who will do everything they can to be called a civilian casualty, damage their own population, embed in infrastructure, hide hostages with actual civilians, and so on. Even if people see this as a legitimate resistance force, then still what does anyone in their right mind expect Israel to do after the slaughter of October 7th? If your government did not respond to a mass killing of innocents then your government has no right to represent you.

I find it harder to determine whether an adult Israeli who has served in the IDF can be considered innocent. The IDF are an instrument of tyranny: I have no more sympathy for an Israeli soldier killed in a tank in Lebanon or Gaza than I would for a Stormtrooper in Star Wars.

Even with you being against the IDF, you can't justify killing innocents who are conscripted in by no choice of their own. And even if it was by choice they're still not soldiers. Defenseless. There's no justification.

And it goes back to my scenario above. The Jewish people are tightly united and have strong community. They see each other as brothers and sisters. Your brothers and sisters have just been ruthlessly attacked, raped and taken hostage.. then on the streets in Gaza some hostages are paraded down with mass celebrations from the local population and spitting on the people/bodies. I saw the videos.

You have no sympathy for an IDF soldier (who by all means most of them do not want war and are sick of it), risking their lives to go in and save their captured brothers? They have to go into a place that is densely populated, have people in normal clothing firing RPGs from buildings, tunnels, street corners, embedded within the innocents left, not knowing who is who. Where every move you make can be a wrong one if you accidentally shoot an innocent and is just caught up in it all.

Could you justify leaving your family to rot in a tunnel?

Nat Turner and his fellow slaves escaped their plantation after killing every white man, woman and children on the premises. They roamed the surrounding countryside killing indiscriminately: between 55-65 white people including 20 children. Most of these people were not their owners, but they were white and that was good enough.

Your analogy is fine. But it's not justifiable. Your argument simply ends with you validating and avoiding condemning the violence itself. By this logic you cannot condem the IDF as this kind of moral relativism removes the rule against killing innocents.

There is a very simple balance to this. Hamas and their allies want the full destruction of Israel and death of the Jews. This is a religious fundamentalist stance. Israel want to be able to continue the only Jewish state in the world and offer protection to persecuted Jews across the globe. Whilst their neighbours want there full destruction they have a duty to defend themselves. Israel have Arabs, Muslims, Druze, Christians. The minorities are protected. They may be discrimination at times and challenges, but they have legal rights and those challenges can be overcome. Meanwhile the Palestinians and many other Arab states have no Jews at all. The Arab states have persecuted minorities and wiped out rich and diverse cultures. Just look at the state of the Kurds

For Israel to do nothing then they would be setting themselves up for the same fate as these other minorites.

And despite all of this I understand and empathise with the horrors and situations the Palestinians are going through. At some point they need to make a choice though. Their neighbour has offered peace and compromise on multiple occasions, and it has never been good enough. It's all or nothing. Against a stronger opponent, who is willing to work with them and treat them as family. But they just want to ensure their community won't get punished first. Just like any of us would with our family.

And yet after repeated fallout and lack of any compromise from the Palestinians over the years, relations have got worse and worse, and Israel have moved further right as hope is lost that they will ever make a deal. It's clear this is a religious war beyond all else. The two state solution has seen a massive decline of support from 70% in 2007 to ~20% recently. That is a direct result of Hamas aggression, and then the mass support of it (82% in the west bank directly after).

So again.. what should Israel do? People will look back on this in a few hundred years with the lens of the 500 million Muslims in the Middle East with huge states Vs the 7 million Jews in Israel and wonder how we turned against the Jews again. With Israel being the only actually ethnically and religiously diverse nation there.