At this point the default assumption of any thinking person should be that all claims made by Israel are lies until proven otherwise by mountains of rock-solid evidence.
caitlinjohnstone.com.au
I am not behind Israel's military strategy if there is any, and Netanyahu and his government are criminals and/or religious fanatics and right wing extremists.
But it really baffles me when people completely forget to even mention the responsibility of Hamas for their own doings.
This is from another article of the same author: "... the damage Hamas inflicted on October 7 was completely avoidable, and was only able to occur due to the negligence and/or malfeasance of Israeli intelligence and military forces. If measures were taken to simply ensure that such colossal errors never again occur, then the abusive status quo of defending Israelis with the Iron Dome and border enforcement would work as fine post-October 7 as it did pre-. "
Apparently the massacre was something like a natural disaster, and only Israel is responsible for not stopping it. And ... "The abusive status quo of defending Israelis with the Iron Dome" ... yeah, sure, it's very abusive to shield your nation from constant rocket fire.
And I find it scary and deeply unsettling how cold-hearted those people are when it comes to the victims of this really well-documented (not just by allegedly "unreliable" Jewish sources, but also by the murderers themselves), cruel, misogynist and antisemitic pogrom. Where, by the way, in case anyone forgot, babies were killed, too. I even feel a spark of sadness for the killers: A lost generation of young men was brainwashed into believing that becoming a matyr is a wonderful thing, and that killing Jews in the most brutal ways is somehow making it even more glorious. Soldiers will stop killing when you order them to stop. These men, having gone through the indoctrination of an Islamist death cult, most likely will only stop when they managed to kill themselves - or if you stop them by lethal force.
Yes, every dead child is one dead child too many. The war (that was provoked and expected by Hamas) follows the logic we know from that region - kill those who want to kill you; kill them first, no matter the costs. And under the current regime it was to be expected that civilian victims - and to a certain extent even the hostages - would be sacrificed for the goal to prove that Israel is not defenseless, which is not just embarassing for government and military, but which is objectively a severe risk for the entire nation. The reason why Israel is still on the world map, surrounded by hostile neighbors, is not that their excellent diplomacy skills or economical dependencies, but because the impressive reputation of their army, their weaponry and their secret services.
It also baffles and shocks me, when people apparently think that Hamas is a liberation front for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian opposition might disagree - those who are still alive and haven't been thrown from roofs or otherwise have been killed by Hamas . Ask Palestinian queers who'd rather flee to Israel (when they still could) than stay in Gaza. Ask Gazan feminists. And - Hamas is not shy about their goals, it is clearly written and said, they are very open about wanting Israel destroyed, wanting to kill Jews worldwide, wanting to install an Islamist regime. They also openly say that they don't care about the number of dead Palestinians, and that they won't offer them shelter because - caring for refugees is the UN's responsibility.
Oct 7 was not like the first and not even like the second Intifada, where Palestinians indeed were fighting (with surely questionable methods, too) for political freedom and justice. It was a brutal, Islamist attack, meant to interrupt any possible peace progress (I am sure this is the reason why they mainly attacked moderate pro-Palestinian Israelis) , meant to provoke a brutal Israelian response that would polarize the world and discredit Israel completely in the opinion of other Arabic states. And lastly push global antisemitism. Tragically it really worked so far. Israel still has allies, but they already start to shy away. Worldwide, Jews fear for their safety and their lives - and in Israel they do, too. Radicalising Muslims will also cause a worldwide backlash - antiislamic and racist movements willl polarize Western societies even further.
One sided shallow opinion pieces like the one quoted play into this development. This conflict is so multi-layered and complex, there is not one aggressor and one victim. There are so many international players that rarely get mentioned, either. Anyone remembering Iran? There is a reason why some Iranian women-rights activists have expressed solidarity with Israel... Any possible peace process has been sabotaged since the very beginning - from the inside and even more from the outside. I have no idea how these two deeply traumatized nations will ever come to peace (not that anyone would listen if I had an idea). It's heartbreaking and terrifying.
I really didn't want to post about this topic on the internet, it's hard enough to debate in real life. But yeah, here it is. The deafening silence when this really unprecedented massacre happened (even here on this forum, where the first thread was this one, about Israel's reaction) has hit me hard. I have questioned friendships and alliances over this, and still do. I will continue to refuse "taking sides", or at least any other side than the one of the victims regardless of their religion or ethnicity.