(6.5-minute read)
Things change. Things stay the same. I wrote about Israel and Hamas back in 2014. The link to what I wrote is here. (We were living in a different state then.)
No win situation
What is taking place in Israel is horrific. Horrific was the plan. Horrific was the only plan. The expressed goals of Hamas were to kill as many Jews as they could, take hostages to hide behind when the Israeli military came after them, and provoke a war in the Middle East. Hamas hides amongst the civilian population. From there they fire missiles into Israel indiscriminately. They use the underground tunnel network for their military as well as storage for their war materiel.
They knew full well that Palestinian civilians would be collateral damage to the inevitable Israeli counteroffensive. Dead Palestinians were and are a part of their plan. Hamas believes that if they can get enough innocents killed then other Arab nations will rise up and attack Israel. Hamas had no plans to “win.” Only to provoke a reprisal.
Hamas succeeded in their first objective of killing as many innocents as they could before retreating. What has happened is what Hamas wanted to happen.
Dead innocents.
Innocents die.
It is sad that so many innocents have died on all sides of the current conflicts going on in the world. It is sad whenever there is so much loss of human life.
It’s especially sad that that was Hamas’ plan and that innocents will continue dying. Has there ever been a war where innocents didn’t die? Does that make it okay? No, it’s never okay.
During WWII allied forces firebombed the German city of Dresden. They started in the center and then bombed the outskirts so that the fire would be drawn into the center. They timed the bombing runs to target the firefighters responding to fight the fire in the center. (Most of the war material facilities manufacturing was outside the area bombed.) American forces firebombed Tokyo.[1] The strike was called when there was a dry wind blowing to better fan the flames. Because of all the wooden structures there was a massive fire. There were more civilians killed in the fire than were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the majority of deaths were also civilian.
Worldwide 75 to 80 million people died.[2]
Sentiments.
Axis powers, the nations that started the war, caused the deaths of innocents. The Germans attacked innocents. The Japanese attacked innocents. The Italians attacked innocents.
Were the civilian populations of the Axis powers innocents? The argument can be made that all civilians are not innocents especially when considering civilians are necessary to support any war effort. But in all of the lists of dead civilians there are countless children mixed in with the statistics. Holocaust victims are mixed in with the numbers of dead of the country they were living in at the time.
The civilian populations of non-Axis nations were not all that upset at the intentional or collateral deaths of so many civilians. Their grief was for the loss of their own and the others fighting against the tyranny that started the war.
I dare say that there aren’t many Ukrainians grieving over the loss of Russian civilians since Russia’s unprovoked attack of Ukraine. Are Palestinians living in Gaza grieving over the losses of Israeli civilians? Hardly. They blame the Israelis.
Grief for all of humanity can come later.
Negotiating death.
Hamas has one goal. The death of all Jews. How exactly does a negotiation progress under those terms? The reason that Hamas grabbed hostages was so that they could be used as shields once they ran back to the “civilian” population they were hiding amongst. What will Hamas negotiate for? Time. So, they can do it again. And again. And again, until they spark a war and all the Jews are dead.
Not happening.
Cease Fire!
What would that accomplish for Israel? Allow Hamas to regroup so that they can get back to killing all Jews? The world talks about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and getting aid to the civilian population. This would be the population that the Hamas terrorists walked among freely as they prepared to go and kill anyone that they encountered in Israel. It wasn’t just Israeli Jews that Hamas killed.
It seems obvious at this point that Hamas had the support of Palestinians living in Gaza.
A lot of support.
Support who?!
The MAGA Republican Putinista wing is trying to figure out a coherent response for supporting Israel but not Ukraine or Ukraine but not Israel or neither one.
Their toddler Orange Jesus (OJ) spoke out against Netanyahu at the start of the conflict and praised Hezbollah terrorists for being “very smart.”[3] OJ got his panties all knotted up when “Bibi” congratulated President Biden for winning the 2020 election.[4] After all, OJ had saved Israel from being destroyed when he was President. You may have missed that historical event that never happened. MAGA land has lots of these kinds of events.
MAGA Republicans are holding up aid to Israel because they just can’t pass up an opportunity for doing some blackmail while other MAGA Republicans oppose any aid at all for Israel.[5] That sums up their opposition for aid to Ukraine as well. Now there are some MAGA Christo fascists that want to support Israel because they’re pushing for the end times where all Jews either convert to Christianity or die.
MAGA wants to save money to pay for Trump invading Mexico when he’s President again. According to MAGA there’s an invasion taking place on our southern border and they’re a chompin’ at the bit to kill them some Mexicans! After all,
That’s what you do to invaders.
Who wins?
Nobody wins. Israel will NEVER give up. If all Muslim countries in the Mid East were to unite and attack Israel large portions of the Mideast would literally disappear. Does anyone seriously think that Israel won’t use nuclear weapons if they’re backed into a corner? It wouldn’t surprise me if they haven’t already got them in place.
I don’t see a 2-state solution as changing anything and has the potential to make things even worse. Gaza would remain an armed hostile neighbor committed to the destruction of Israel and killing all Jews. One of the many things that would help after the Hamas terrorists are dealt with is to make the living conditions in Gaza better than they were before Hamas invaded Israel.
The best solution is for all the sides is to recognize humanity and live in peaceful coexistence.
Peace is the enemy of war.
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[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-wwii-tokyo-firebombing-was-the-deadliest-air-raid-in-history-with-a-death-toll-exceeding-those-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/ar-AA1lf1Yk?cvid=65afe1f2023d482cb13963b60f7eb6a5&ei=54
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/politics/trump-criticizes-netanyahu-hamas-attack/index.html
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59571713
[5] https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-republicans-opposed-israel-aid-packages-1839395