Hamas’s Qassam Brigades has threatened to execute Israeli captives if Israel continues to bombard and kill civilians in Gaza.
“Any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully by executing one of the captives in our custody, and we will be forced to broadcast this execution,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.
“We regret this decision but we hold the Zionist enemy and their leadership the responsibility for this,” he said.
I dunno, the internet has told me that Israel is just as bad. I definitely remember when the IDF took a bunch of civilian women and children as hostages and then announced that it was going to livestream their murder.
Oh wait.
There are no good guys in that conflict.
Only bad guys and victims.
Hamas being terrorists doesn’t make it OK for Israel to be committed to genocide any more than Israel’s existence as an ethnofascist apartheid state makes in OK for Hamas to be bombing proms.
Both organizations are making it impossible for Palestinians to live peacefully.
If Israel were committed to genocide there would be no Palestine. It is their historical sensitivity to genocide and limitations placed on them by international law and foreign pressures that imposes on them very different standards of behavior in this war. If they operated by the same set of rules that Hamas does, this conflict would have been over long ago.
Israel does not perform atrocities like this. This wasn’t collateral damage, this wasn’t an attack on a valid military target, it was intentionally kidnapping, raping, and murdering civilians. This sort of behavior makes it very hard for me to swallow the, “both sides are equally bad,” narrative. I had a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian situation before, it is quickly evaporating.
I’m not denying that some of this is factual reporting, but that particular source can be very biased with respect to Israel.
Source
Israel has turned Gaza into an open air prison. Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide, but I’ll save that criticism until it actually plays out. In general, Israel is an apartied state. Hamas is a bunch of murderous terrorists committing war crimes, doing far more harm to their supposed cause than good. This attack will result in far more of their people suffering. But they count on that, hate within the Palestine community in Gaza is what gives them political power, so the civilians Isreal is currently killing will just continue to fuel the cycle of violence.
Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn’t make Israel “good”. If you compare Nazi Germany to apartied South Africa, the former is going to win the evil country contest everytime. But that doesn’t make apartied South Africa good. If it wasn’t for the Book of Revelations, America (it’s government and it’s people) would care as much about this conflict as it does about various civil wars and genocides happening all over the world, which is to say not at all (unless oil or other natural resources are imperilled).
My understanding is the border crossing with Egypt is still open, so Palestine can still have access to all of that.
You make a good point about no one having clean hands in this conflict, but one party here seems willing to commit atrocities that the other is not. One party is historically willing to compromise and negotiate for a viable solution and the other has not, and in fact has it in their charter that they will not negotiate or compromise.
What we need to end this amicably is a solution that neither party is happy with, one they are equally dissatisfied with, because that is a hallmark of compromise. If one or both parties are unwilling to compromise, the erosion of Palestinian lands and power will continue as it has, and such atrocious acts may serve to hasten it.
The border crossing to Egypt is usually only for people when it’s open. As I understand it, all goods have to use a different crossing passing into Israel first and then Gaza.
why all the innocent palestinians arent rushing for the border to get out is beyond me. you know what’s coming. being dead and saying ‘i told you the bastards would kill me’ sounds great up until the point you are dead.
Hoping Israel doesnt unleash possibly the most intense campaign of this generation is a fools dream really and unless you are a combatant, you’d get the hell out ASAP. Hamas is going to be blown to limbs and those that survive the bombings and full scale assaults are going to wind up Munich’d after all this is over. They cant do what they did and not expect utter retribution
Probably because Egypt isn’t going to let them in either.
well instead of acting like a little bitch about it, maybe work on that solution
Hate to point out the irony, especially in this context… but at the rate things are going, in another 5 years there probably won’t be a Palestine.
Snark aside, I do completely agree, and there’s a lot that I would criticize Israel for. That list does not, however, include mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of random civilians.
It does include apartheid, genocide, belief in racial superiority and murdering journalists though. We can’t equate what one side has done with the other as one side has generally held all the power while one side has been persistently oppressed. Also, it’s pretty hard to say whether mass murder, rape and kidnapping civilians is as bad as, worse than, or better than genocide.
The Israeli government regularly commits atrocities and crimes against humanity. Hamas regularly commits atrocities and crimes against humanity. There are no good guys here, just bad guys in charge being funded and goaded by other bad guys and innocent civilians being needlessly murdered.
Rape and kidnapping maybe not but did you just say that Israel hasn’t been murdering Palestinians? Or are you saying they’ve never murdered more than 200 at once
You know as well as I do that the IDF does not go around Palestinian villages slaughtering everyone they see.
Israel’s hands are not remotely perfectly clean, and there have absolutely been actions that are reprehensible, but the operations of the IDF and Hamas are not remotely equivalent, as you’re perfectly aware.
Yes I’m aware it’s different but I’m wondering why you phrased it like there hasn’t been violence against (non-hamas) Palestinian citizens by Israel.
Because the scale and level of intention to harm civilians are completely incomparable. Israel is generally not trying to murder every Palestinian citizen it finds. Meanwhile, that is Hamas’ explicit reason for existing, as literally stated in their founding charter.
Israel has done a lot of shit, and I don’t deny that. But it hasn’t acted the way Hamas does.
Why would you want to rephrase “mass murder of civilians” (as in go shoot up a couple hundred teenagers at a music festival, with some rape mixed in) to “violence against citizens” ?
Because that’s their only talking point
Remember when terrorists attacked the USA, UK, France and Spain?
And then we decided to commit war crimes and deprive civilians of water, electricity and food, while destroying their houses?
Oh wait, we didn’t.
We actually tried to win hearts and minds while targeting just the terrorists.
Didn’t work out, but we didn’t become vicious war criminals against poor innocent civilians who just happened to be ethnically related to the terrorists.
Israel is not deserving of support by the civilized world.
People have forgotten that denying people basic necessities in the hopes that they die out is also genocide.
lmao what hearts and minds do you expect to win out of a population who has religious beef with you? A population who would gladly wipe you out if they could?
Nah, Israel needs to be able to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the name of peace, so that Palestinians can find their peace elsewhere.
Okay I get what you’re trying to say but Americans absolutely caused massive amounts of wanton destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Um, Iraq and Afghanistan? We absolutely DESTROYED ALL of Iraq’s infrastructure in like a week and then GW flew out to an aircraft carrier with a banner that said “Mission Accomplished”.
Then we spend the next 20 years kicking in doors and killing civilians cause reasons.
Then we bail and leave all the dudes that helped us out behind so they can pay the price for helping the enemy…good times…
Totally agree but just like the drug commercial in the '80s…“I learned it from watching you!”
Lol the US and Canada murdered 95% of the natives, including 100% of those who resisted plus their families, took their land and put the rest into remote reservations
Israel’s shit but not as shit
Wait what? Didn’t Obama drone like a wedding and the doctors without borders?
You serious? If you’re from the US: Have you by any chance heard of Guantanamo Bay? Abu Ghraib?
The equivalency discussions are all BS.
Terrorist attacks targeting civilians are bad.
Also, indiscriminate bombing killing civilians is bad.
A civilized world really shouldn’t condone either. And one doesn’t justify the other.
Flying planes into civilian buildings killing thousands wasn’t an appropriate response to their government supporting tyrants who tortured and killed dissidents. (Also, probably not a good idea to support tyrants.)
The hundreds of thousands of civilians who died in the middle east in response to those attacks shouldn’t have had to pay the price on such an attack even if their country had had anything to do with it in the first place.
The only appropriate “both sides” in these kinds of situations is the capacity to have empathy and regret over the suffering that occurs to normal people trying to live their lives on both sides of the conflicts.
Unfortunately a lot of what I’m seeing online these days is the logical equivalent of “Bin Laden was justified in 9/11 because the US’s foreign policy caused the suffering of many in the middle east.” Logic I happen to think is pretty disgusting personally, just as I’ve also always found dismissal of civilian suffering in broader military responses reprehensible.
Not a lot of countries have clean hands to be pointing fingers with, but the only way we move towards a world with less blood on our collective hands is by unequivocally pointing to human rights abuses where they occur and saying “this is not okay.”
Not “this is okay because so and so bombed a city block first and wasn’t touching black while saying I’m rubber and you’re glue.”
No - targeting or indiscriminately killing civilians is not okay - full stop.
And if one’s attitude about the civilian deaths of one group of people is anything less than that, they might just be a bit racist towards that group of people, and may want to reexamine how they look at fellow humans and the degree to which minor differences in skin color or religion or ancestral identity outweighs the commonality of the human experience of pain, suffering, and loss.
TL;DR: It’s perfectly appropriate to recognize that the Palestinian people have suffered injustice and mistreatment while also recognizing that a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians is repugnant. The mental gymnastics to recognize the former and not the latter is pretty gross though, and honestly every time I see it (and frequently these days) I can’t help but think it probably really does boil down to racist assholes using false equivalency to justify their bigotry.
Removed by mod
Rest assured, I understand the mess fairly well. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Middle East and know several Palestinians and Israelis.
There’s quite a lot that I’d strongly criticize Israel for, but intentional murder and rape of civilians is something that can never be justified, no matter how much critical theory you read.
Removed by mod
1 are you arguing that young Israeli soldiers would be raping away in the same manner?
2 maybe argue against livestreaming killing hostages?
Removed by mod
You don’t think cutting off food, water, and power to millions isn’t an are we the baddies moment too?
Both sides are acting like petulant children while their people suffer
They don’t take them hostage, usually they just kill them right there.
You know as well as I do that the IDF has never done anything like what happened on Saturday. Kidnapping children? Shooting random people waiting at a bus stop? Slaughtering 200 people at a festival? Taking a hundred hostages and then threatening to murder them while live streaming it?
Israel has done a lot of shit, and deserves criticism for all of it, but it has not done anything comparable to this.
They have regularly and repeatedly carried out air strikes targeting civilian infrastructure with no evidence of military targets.
There are multiple reports from multiple years of IDF soldiers killing children, including the recent video of soldiers killing a young boy in front of a cheering crowd.
What about all the videos of the things IDF has done to people in the West Bank? Countless reports of women being raped before being thrown from their homes, and their family members being shot for resisting having their land stolen from them.
Yes, what happened the other day was terrible. But it’s not unilateral, Israel has committed war crimes against Palestinians for decades. Just because they have been spread out instead of all happening on one day does not make them better.
Do you have any sources of, for example, countless women being raped by the IDF/Israelis?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safsaf_massacre
Ok not to say this isn’t awful but you if you have to go back 75 years to find 4 rapes, don’t you think the wording ‘countless’ and the implication this is a regular practice in the West Bank is a bit of a lie?
Just your typical 80 yr occupation with no real options to even become a state, I mean how bad could that be right?
Except that Oslo accord that they walked out on, and that fact that this is happening in the Gaza strip, a section of Palestinian controlled land with the 1967 borders, a foreign and maritime border and had all Jewish residents (including those that predated the 1948 beginning of hostilities) evicted, often an gunpoint and has had autonomy for nearly two decades now right? Besides that option.