So the situation in Israel...

@Jag85 said:

@dabear:

Pics or it didn't happen.

The creation of Hamas was funded by Israel. Deal with it.

Learn some history. The country was literally called Palestine up until 1947.

Yeah, keep supporting those Zionist terrorists.

Your position based on historical territorial occupancy is completely untenable.

Moreover, your comment (Learn some history) is ironic and quite amusing.

If we accept your argument on historical occupancy, then soveriegnty of the entirety of North, South, and Central America should be returned to the appropriate First Nations. But why stop there? Australia. Anglo-Saxons originated elsewhere. Vikings. Greeks. Pretty much everywhere if you go back in time.

Moreover, I see your map and raise you 3,000 yrs. Maybe you forgot this part of history. I see quite a bit of the Kingdom of Israel. I also see Gaza as part of Philistia, which is named for Philistines, which are Agean in origin aka Greek. I don't see Palestine or Palestinians.

Maybe if you channel your righteous indignation to the Israeli side you might understand why a religious minority that has been persecuted for thousands of years and faced mass extermination in WW2 might want to carve out a safe place in their historical homeland. Which doesn't excuse their many mistakes and bad acts, but it does make them understandable.

I am empathetic to the average Palestinian, but your argument is silly. I also think that when you elect a terrorist organization to be your official leadership you become complicit in their actions.

idgas

Beautiful Art

Thanks for sharing

That was excellent. Thanks, as I hadn't seen that before.

My department was on alert today due to some ambiguous threats linked to a global jihad threat. Sigh.

But man, hearing the reports of the brutality, sexual assaults, and gruesome murders... Especially of infants, toddlers, children, women and elderly is difficult to fathom.

Good to see President Biden speaking with 100% support of Israel. I was shocked his statement was that forthcoming and didn't have any hiccups like his usual lost in thought.

Half of the people in Gaza weren't even born when Hamas was elected. Hamas being elected was a failure of the west. Not Israel because that's exaclty what Israel wanted. Israel has been building for this decades. They finally get to kill every Palestinian and rest of the world will cheer.

Well, that's a load of shit, but stick to your imaginary land if that makes you feel better.

As for the Hamas election. Who cares that half the current population was not even born when they got into power? Hamas make up less than 2% of the Gaza population. Take away the kids, and you end up with 4-5% vs. 95% of the adults. Now, are you saying that the ratio being 1:20, the Palestinians, who, according to you, do not support Hamas, can't deal with the fuckers themselves? Sound to me, that they don't want to which is as best passive support of the terrorists.

You're talking about events that happened several centuries ago. No one from back then is alive today. I'm talking about events that happened 75 years ago. Many people from back then are still alive today. By your logic, no one should be talking about World War II and the Holocaust, but we should all just forget about it.

If you have to bring up ancient history from 3,000 years ago to justify your claim to the land, then you have no claim to the land. Yet even if we go by that same Zionist logic... The Kingdom of Israel only ruled the "Holy Land" for 200 years, whereas Muslims and Christians ruled the land for the last 2,000 years. So the Zionist claim to the land is based on a 3,000 year-old kingdom that only ruled the land for 200 years. That's a very silly argument.

There is no single "historical homeland" for Jews, but different Jewish groups have different homelands. For pale skin Ashkenazi, it's Eastern Europe. For olive skin Sephardi, it's the Mediterranean. For brown skin Mizrahi, it's the Middle East. For black skin Beta Israel, it's Ethiopia. And so on. Those are their real homelands, where their ancestors were living for millennia.

I also think that when you elect a terrorist organization to be your official leadership you become complicit in their actions.

Do you realize how irrational and unhinged your argument sounds?

That's the same logic used by Hamas. Israelis elected Netanyahu, making them complicit in his war crimes, therefore making all Israeli civilians legitimate targets.

That was also the same logic behind 9/11. Americans elected governments responsible for war crimes in the Middle East, making them complicit in these war crimes, therefore making all American civilians legitimate targets.

If we punished every population for electing war criminals, then many millions of civilians across the world would become legitimate targets if we followed your absurd logic.

The fact is Hamas led a vicious assault on innocent people. There are hostages out there being held by terrorists. They need to be rescued or released.

I didn't play the Counter-Strike iterations all those years for nothing.

I found this informative:

With what weapons? And the moment Palestinians start running around with guns, Israel would level entire Gaza, which they're now doing.

Even following Israel's orders isn't enough to stop the genocide:

Gazan convoy that was evacuating Gazans from north to south as per Israel's orders, was hit by Israel, 70 dead.

@Icarian: "According to the Palestinian Health Ministry"..

I'd like to know the whole story here. Was it an accident? Was there intelligence that Israel had that the media didn't?

I'd bet my next paycheck that the Hamas are using those evacuation routes as well. They are pathetic cowards after all.

On Friday Israel stroke against journalists in Lebanon. 1 dead, 6 wounded including an American.

It would be foolish for Palestinians to trust anything from that fascist psychopath Netanyahu. As I've already posted before (and I'll keep posting it for as long as Zionists keep defending him), Netanyahu bragged about mass-murder and ethnic cleansing, breaking peace deals and sabotaging the Oslo Accords, manipulating the media and public opinion, and his utter racist contempt for Palestinians...

...No sane logical person would ever trust anything this lying psycho fascist says! And he's proven it time and time again. So much so that even most Israelis now hate him, let alone Palestinians. The reasons he ordered Palestinians to flee North Gaza to the south are because it's much easier to slaughter them when they're concentrated in South Gaza and much easier to annex North Gaza if it's empty. When you're up against a lying genocidal fascist like Netanyahu, don't listen to what he says, but do the opposite of what he says.

Jag, do you support Hamas' actions when they infiltrated Israel on 10/7/23?

I bet most of the Palestinians weren't alive 75 years ago as well. So you just killed your own argument. Congrats.

Interesting, no?

"Israel was warned by Egypt of potential violence three days before Hamas' deadly cross-border raid, a US congressional panel chairman has said.

House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee head Michael McCaul told reporters of the alleged warning.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described the reports as "absolutely false"

An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press news agency this week that Cairo had repeatedly warned the Israelis "something big" was being planned from Gaza.

We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67082047

@Stevo_the_gamer:

Nope. Hamas are bogeymen propped up by Israel to "divide and rule" the Palestinians. "Divide and rule" is a tactic previously used by British imperialists to conquer and control native populations in their colonies.

@LJS9502_basic:

Most Palestinians there were born in Palestine, had parents born there, grandparents born there, great grandparents born there, etc. That's what you call a native population.

Most Israeli Jews there either migrated/settled into Palestine/Israel, or had parents or grandparents who migrated/settled there from elsewhere. That's what you call a migrant/settler population.

@kathaariancode: Along with Egyptian intel saying he knew, a former CIA officer also believes he knew about the attack.

It shouldn't be surprising, as Netanyahu is a warmongering fascist and compulsive liar who will do anything to wipe out Palestinians and conquer Gaza, even if it means sacrificing Israelis in the process.

@Jag85: I don't think Israel was expecting something so bold but undoubtedly it's part of Netanyahu's strategy to use every opportunity to move a step closer of erasing Palestine from the face of the earth.

One thing that I can't get over is that Israel has informants in Gaza, and Gaza is a dystopian city-prison with state of the art security tech. The amount of stuff that had to go wrong in order for Israel to know nothing about the attack is highly improbable. If what egipt and the US says is true then it's apparent that they just let it happen.

But I really don't believe that Israel knew it was going to be so bad.

Still weren't there 75 years ago.

That's kind of vague.

Hamas are just "bogeymen" to you?

*crickets*

Israel just bombed and killed 70 civilians, women, children, evacuating northern Gaza. There's no justification for that; the human shield excuse doesn't hold when fleeing civilians have clearly been targetted. The US can't keep giving a green-light to these war crimes.

@aliens1234: What would you do if your country was attacked? Remain passive? Curious because this happened due to the actions of HAMAS, a political parties of Palestinians.

Just noticed this reply now (got side-tracked earlier)....

Trump has always been very pro-Israel. Saying Hamas and Hezbollah are "smart" doesn't necessarily mean Trump supports them. An analogy would be how many historians frequently praise Genghis Khan as the "greatest" military general and conqueror who ever lived, yet he was also a genocidal mass-murderer who massacred millions across Eurasia and raped thousands of women (to the point of having millions of descendants across Eurasia). That doesn't mean these historians suddenly condone genocide, rape, or mass-murder, but they're simply praising Khan's military skills.

On the right wing, there's currently a civil war waging between two factions, with older neocons spouting genocidal rhetoric about wiping Gaza off the map (*cough* Ben Shapiro *cough*) versus younger conservatives telling these psychopathic nutcases to calm the f*** down. We're seeing both the left and right wings being divided by this conflict. The common denominator here is not party politics, but a generational divide. Older generations lean more pro-Israel and/or pro-war, whereas younger generations lean more pro-Palestine and/or anti-war.

@LJS9502_basic: Remain passive? No, but I'd not target and kill civilians, that's a basic value, not to mention a war crime.

Israel, in control, targetted an airstrike on a convoy of fleeing civilians they told had safe passage, 70 dead, children's bodies everywhere. Do you support the targetted killing of civilians by Israel?

@aliens1234: Zionists will never condemn Israel. They'll be like, "condemn Hamas, condemn Hamas!" Then when you condemn Hamas and tell them to condemn Israel for crimes against humanity, they'll be like "but, but, Hamas made me do it!" These NPC bots are like children who refuse to take accountability for their actions and then cry victim when you call them out on their irrational bullshit.

That's what HAMAS says, but they aren't credible. They did, however, target civilians. Do you support the targeted killing of civilians by HAMAS?

@aliens1234: Do you honestly think IDF is intentionally targeting civilians? You don't think civilian casualties are accidental? You do know the Hamas hide amongst the civilian population because they're cowards, right?

@Jag85: "NPC bots"...

I see that term thrown around in alt-right social media like Stormfront and GAB and it usually refers to someone who isn't "red-pilled" or someone who is "asleep". Lol.

As an aside, HAMAS has blocked exits, leaving the Palestinians in place.

I've already said as a basic value I hold, targetted killing civilians is abhorrent, and the scenes of the attack by Hammas were truly harrowing. As someone with humanity, hearing a father be happy their daughter was killed rather than kept alive and taken was deeply upsetting to hear.

That says more about your expectations and values, to think I might feel differently. Not everyone is unmoved when an Israeli strike kills women and children as they try to escape, fingers in ears saying it didn't happen. Hamas must have planes... or they faked a strike, whatever is needed to avoid an answer to a direct question, because the answer is ugly.

Here we go again...

The targeting of civilians is deliberate and intentional, not "accidental" or "collateral damage"... Netanyahu made this very clear decades ago. More recently, Israel's president made this even more clear:

The "human shield" excuse has been debunked time and time again. The only ones using "human shields" at this point is Israel, using "Hamas" bogeymen as "human shields" to protect themselves from being called out as war criminals.

@Jag85: TRT World? Really? You should be ashamed of yourself.

"The "human shield" excuse has been debunked time and time again. The only ones using "human shields" at this point is Israel, using "Hamas" bogeymen as "human shields" to protect themselves from being called out as war criminals."

It is not debunked. It is a fact that Hamas conduct operations inside of hospitals, hotels and other civilian buildings. They hide themselves amongst the civilian populace. This is done on purpose because their enemies are more reluctant to strike civilian infrastructure.

You are so full of bullshit, it must be hard to breathe.

@statisticalpc:

Here we go again...

Here we have a video confession from the man himself, Netanyahu, confessing to the very obvious fact that Israel specifically targets civilians. Not Hamas, civilians. This video is from long before Hamas ever had any power. Attacking civilians has always been Zionist terrorist policy, since the King David Hotel bombing in 1946 through to the present day.

Who do you think you're trying to fool? You might be able to fool laymen who aren't familiar with the conflict. But anyone familiar with the history of the conflict knows Zionists are full of shit.

@statisticalpc: The killing of civilians by Israel is absolutely not accidental. They know they are killing civilians and they don't care, unless they think that the children they routinely kill are also responsible for housing terrorists. What about their use of white phosphorus? Is that the type of ammo used for precise targeting?

Dude, the hardline religious nutjobs that rule Israel are ruled by old testament logic, they don't give a ****. They're fundamentalists. Rich, influential and powerful but they're nothing more than that.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/

As sad as it is to say it, I hope the pressure the Saudis, Iranians and Russians are making over Israel helps them reconsider their approach to this.

Hamas is literally telling people to stay in targeted areas; if that's not using civilians as human shields, I don't know what is.

Hamas strategy is to goad Israel into attacking civilians. It's what they pray for. They're short on ammo, short of food, short on a lot of things...but they have a lot of uneducated, poor, desperate, and young people who are indoctrinated and willing to die for Hamas, and those that aren't willing, well, they will be "volunteered" anyway.

Both "governments" in this conflict are absolute shit and should both be heavily criticized, but I don't view Hamas as a victim, just an underdog. Unfortunately, progressives tend to favor underdogs in spite of common sense saying "They might be the underdog, but they're absolute pieces of shit".

With that said, Israel shouldn't let themselves be goaded. I'm really worried a lot of innocents will die as a result of this, I can totally see Israel going scorched earth and saying "Well, we said get out of town and they didn't get out, so really, it's their fault!"

@mrbojangles25: Yeah. What's worrisome is I think they could under the right circumstances, and I'm hoping cooler heads prevail in the end.

Israel has no obligation to care for the welfare of its attackers. Anyone expecting that is living in fantasy land.

@tjandmia: I agree with you to an extent. Israel shouldn't be targeting civilians.However, when fighting an enemy like the Hamas who operates within the civilian populace, there will be civilian casualties. The Hamas does this to hide, to play on the reluctance of its enemies to strike civilians and to generate sympathy when there are civilian casualties.

@tjandmia: Israel absolutely has an obligation to minimize deaths directly by them among the civilian populace.

Israel isn't trying to kill civilians like hamas is. Hamas wants to kill civilians.

Then they hide like cowards in hospitals and schools.

Israel and Hamas aren't playing by the same rules. So what do you do?

Let hamas come in kill your woman and children, don't fight back because they hide within a population? We know they are in the heavily dense populated area.. but since they are near civilians we can't attack them? Even though they don't play by those rules when attacking Israel?

I dont consider myself "pro" either country.

But I can definitely understand Israel's anger and response of saying" **** it. If hamas is in that building, bomb the building, casualties be damned.

@sargentd: Right. Israel will never be able to defend itself if it has to worry about the welfare of everyone. It’s not possible. Hamas is going to hide with civilians. Not only does Israel have to destroy hamas, it also must demonstrate the folly of supporting and voting for groups like Hamas in the future.

There is something quite unique happening around this Israel/Gaza situation. I see members of the left and right factions banding together to either support Israel or hate Israel; not only here on Gamespot, but within the various US governments and around the world.

Just saying its worth pointing out.

@sargentd: I never said they were. I was responding to a very specific post.

@mrbojangles25: I really don't think the situation here is about people in Gaza being brainwashed into diying for Hamas.

Dude, lose 10 minutes of your day reading this.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/

Palestinians live in the absolute worst conditions. It's not about having sympathy for the underdog. There's no sympathy for Hamas, but Hamas is what will inevitably come from living in such conditions. When someone takes your land, desecrates your holy places, kills your children and forces you to live as a prisoner it's very easy to get radicalised. I would for sure and perhaps killing settlers who are living in luxury complexes in a land that used to be from my grandparents while I now live in some of the worst conditions on earth would sound so absurd. People don't get radicalised just because.

Please start with getting some correct perspective.

If it is as simple as who ruled where for how long, instead of say first, or before, then why did you sidestep my examples of First Nations in North America? They were there before Europeans arrived and much longer than after Europeans arrived, and they are still here. The answer is exactly what I started with: your logic is completely untenable.

The average lifespan of a Palestinian is 74 yrs. There are virtually no Palestinians alive today that were adults 75 yrs ago. Moreover the median age of the their population is 20 yrs old meaning they and their parents should know better, since their parents elected Hamas in the first place, and those two population strata are a large majority of the overall Gaza population.

Second, you seem to think I like or support Netanyahu, which I don't. Also, I think Israel's aparthied policies are an affront and Israelis are most definitely complicit in this cycle of violence, neither of which justifies Hamas' actions.

Moreover, I am likely far more aware of the reality than you are since I lived through much of this history. I was in the military when Israel invaded southern Lebanon. When their Christian allies massacred thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps. When Ariel Sharon committed war crimes by indiscriminate use of heavy artillery against the suburbs of Beirut. When the marine barracks bombing occurred in retaliation. So keep your righteous indignation to yourself because you have no real understanding of war, terrorism, apartheid, or the like.

Third, the point of my map is to mock your map. Throughout history land has changed many times and YOU are the one that suggested a map from 75 yrs ago should have something or anything to do with today. My point is that map from 1948 might as well be 3,000 yrs old because neither of them have any damn relevance today. That should have been obvious to you, but apparently not.

The naivety you display is amazing. As I have posted many times over many decades about this conflict: it takes two to Tango, but one of them is the lead. Terrorism is never acceptable. Period. Full stop. When that leads, it just sets off another cycle. When you literally elect terrorists as your leadership and enable them to remain as your leaders for close to two decades you are doing something wrong. When you combine that with a median population age of 20, the whatabout 1948 argument rings truly hollow.

Comparing the Zionist colonization of Palestine to the European colonization of America only makes the Zionists look worse. The European settlers were the aggressors responsible for colonialism and genocide. The First Nations were fighting back the aggressors for their land. Occasionally, the First Nations resorted to violent atrocities against the European settlers. But the fault for that lies with the European settlers who stole their land and perpetrated genocide, not the First Nations for fighting back to reclaim their land. Similarly, Zionist colonizers from Europe and America have been stealing Palestinian land and ethnically cleansing Palestinians while subjugating them to violence and apartheid, so they are fighting back against oppression, leading to a cycle of violence. The fault lies with the Zionist colonizers responsible for colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Zionist colonizers are also unironically using the same rhetoric as the European colonizers of America, referring to the natives as "savages" to dehumanize them in order to justify colonialism and ethnic cleansing.

There are virtually no Palestinians alive today that were adults 75 yrs ago.

So you admit many elderly Palestinians alive today were children when the Nakba happened in 1948.

Moreover the median age of the their population is 20 yrs old meaning they and their parents should know better, since their parents elected Hamas in the first place, and those two population strata are a large majority of the overall Gaza population.

Your maths is completely wrong. You have to be 18 to vote, genius. The last Gaza election was 18 years ago. In other words, no one under the age of 36 ever voted for Hamas. Only a small fraction of the Gazan population are over the age of 36. So you're punishing the vast majority of Gazans under 36 for an election that only a fraction of those over 36 ever participated in.

But sure, let's go along with your logic and apply it back to America and Israel. America elected George Bush, a war criminal, twice in a row. By your logic, every American is responsible for the war crimes of the Bush administration and therefore deserves to die. Israel elected Netanyahu, a war criminal, multiple times. By your logic, every Israeli is responsible for the war crimes of the Netanyahu administration and therefore deserves to die... In other words, your logic is completely irrational, unhinged, and psychopathic.

Second, you seem to think I like or support Netanyahu, which I don't. Also, I think Israel's aparthied policies are an affront and Israelis are most definitely complicit in this cycle of violence, neither of which justifies Hamas' actions.

At least that's something we can agree on. Both Israel and Hamas are responsible for this cycle of violence.

So keep your righteous indignation to yourself

The only ones I see shedding crocodile tears are Zionists.

Throughout history land has changed many times

Palestinian Christians and Muslims continuously lived on the land for nearly 2,000 years up until Israel was created in 1948, when Zionist terrorists ethnically cleansed the Palestinian Christian and Muslim populations (the Nakba) and replaced them with Jewish settlers from Europe and America.

My point is that map from 1948 might as well be 3,000 yrs old because neither of them have any damn relevance today.

This argument started because a Zionist user calling for genocide denied Palestine ever even existed. I corrected him and posted a 1945 map of Palestine, then you decided to jump in and shift the goal post.

As I have posted many times over many decades about this conflict: it takes two to Tango, but one of them is the lead.

The lead is Israel. They have colonized, persecuted and ethnically cleansed Palestinians for 75 years. If you inflict violence upon a people for generations, then don't do a surprised Pikachu face when that violence eventually comes to your doorstep.

Terrorism is never acceptable. Period. Full stop.

That includes Zionist terrorism and state terrorism.

When you literally elect terrorists as your leadership and enable them to remain as your leaders for close to two decades you are doing something wrong.

Tell that to Americans and Israelis who elected state terrorists and war criminals as their leadership.

Finally something we can agree on. I was saying earlier that the common denominator here is not party politics, but a generational divide. The older you get, the more likely you are to be pro-Israel or anti-Palestine. The younger you get, the more likely you are to be pro-Palestine or anti-Israel. If I had to make generalizations:

• Boomers and Gen X: Lean more pro-Israel
• Millennials: Somewhat evenly divided
• Gen Z: Lean more pro-Palestine

That's not a good look for the Millennials and Gen Z then. While you might not like the blockade, Israel is NOT the only country that has it. Palestinians aren't wanted by any other country in the ME and Egypt has a blockade as well. So let's set that argument aside and concentrate on the violence.

As demonstrated, HAMAS is a terrorist organization with the sole goal of eradicating Israel and their entire population. They frequently sent rockets into Israel for the response. They hide within their citizens so the counter kills some. This is a fact. It's what they do and what they did this time. They have also blockaded roads out so the Palestinians are stuck in a war zone.

How anyone can support HAMAS and their actions is beyond me but I think you might want to have a more nuanced approach to this subject than Israel bad. HAMAS good.