Dr. Gonzo

lol the idiots thought an Islamist group as a counterweight to the PLO would benefit them? Yeah who could have thought fomenting religious extremist militants might come back to bite them in the arse... morons

TOPICAL

There's an allegation that Israel is behind every bad thing that has happened to Jewish people in the Middle East since the creation of Israel. I think these allegations are more from Arabs trying to shake the shitty reputations that groups like Hamas give them than anything credible behind them.

Yeah, I think it's the best show I've ever seen tbh.

A reminder that collective punishment is a war crime. It's incredibly difficult to stand up to a regime like Hamas. People have tried, they end up killed and their family members often get killed too. The people of Gaza are ruled by a terror group that does not give a fuck about them, they're basically held hostage by Hamas. The Palestinians of the West Bank don't have it great, but their situation is infinitely better than the people of Gaza under Hamas. It is not exactly easy to form meaningful resistance that leads to change against a regime like Hamas that has a total grip on power (and ability to exert meaningful violence) in Gaza. The world isn't a comic book, unfortunately... some things are just much easier said than done in the face of incredible oppression. That it has come to this point I think reflects a massive policy failure of Israel with regards to how they've handled Gaza. Striking Hamas like it is a conventional military has not worked - Hamas uses schools and hospitals as strategic areas to hide military targets. Israel hasn't really cared if it's airstrikes cause collateral damage and have kind of taken the same position you have: "if you don't like getting killed, stand up against these people who'll kill you and your family if you stand up against them" - it's only led to an unbreakable cycle of violence. Now it seems inevitable they are going to send boots on the ground and try to eradicate Hamas. But modern urban warfare is chaotic and brutal - it is going to be a rough time for everyone involved. Getting rid of Hamas is just the first step though. There needs to be serious work to de-radicalise the population of Gaza that was successfully radicalised from a lifetime of Hamas propaganda consumed, to rebuild Gaza. Otherwise I think this is just going to keep the cycle going, just kicking the can a bit further down the road to worry about at a future date. And then it's not truly a step for a lasting meaningful peace. French journalists have confirmed reports that Hamas decapitated babies in their attack. Thank god I didn't see any footage of that, because what I did see was bad enough.

I agree with this take actually. And I don’t think Palestine leadership, Hamas or the PA, nor the Israeli government since Rabin, has really had any interest in lasting meaningful peace.

There's a livestream of the bombing campaign in Gaza City, the camera pictures aren't all that clear because it's pitch black in a city being blown apart. The audio, though, is horrifying. The sound of bombs, ambulances, and screaming. And then the eerie silence once the screaming stops. For those of you who've taken a "side" in this - just know that the vast majority of people in Gaza City didn't elect Hamas and if any of them were alive during the elections - there's a good chance they were just toddlers, they can get killed for any public expression against Hamas, and most ordinary people living in Gaza had no say in Hamas conducting this attack. They have nowhere to run to avoid the carnage. They have no choice but to be human shields for Hamas. And here's El Salvador's half-Palestinian president saying the same things I've said about Hamas: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/el-salvador-president-who-has-palestinian-ancestry-calls-hamas-criminals/ or as @Devil-Dick Willie would call it, here's El Salvador's half-Palestinian president advocating for genocide of his own people.

LMAO stop licking windows pal. I've said: Israel's commit Apartheid, Israel government is a big reason why the peace process has been such a dismal failure, but also Hamas have done fuck all for Palestinians. And for that, I support genocide? If you go back far enough in this thread you'll even see me saying what Israel's done since it's creation absolutely fits the UN definition of genocide (despite the Palestinian population growing). Meanwhile you've said: in response to Hamas's attacks with the videos THEY RELEASED showing they were targeting civilians, after I said they'd done this attack all to target civilians. Then you said: You "hate me so much" because you've taken a side in this conflict that goes beyond the creation of Israel (which again... maybe blame the UK and Europe for thinking the Middle East must pay for Europe's centuries of inhumanity against Jews...) - which maybe you can say "oh I was being facetious" but it's still a ridiculously stupid statement. I've already asked for western intervention in Iran and what's happened instead? The EU falls to its knees when presented with the opportunity to call the IRGC the terrorists that they are because they need sweet precious oil and gas & the US gives the IR $6b. You think I believe the west gives a single solitary fuck about human rights? Especially human rights of middle eastern people? Where's the nearest comedy club? Get up on stage and tell them your jokes next. Then there's the "Jewish dickriding" comment, to conflate all Jews around the world with the government of Israel. While simultaneously telling me that I should have sympathy for Hamas of all people... because I'm Iranian? You might want to look into how most people in Iran actually feel about Hamas and Hezbollah - and you might want to take a look at how Palestinians (and honestly Arabs generally) feel about Persians. And despite that, I do have immense sympathy for Palestinians. Particularly those in Gaza, who are getting fucked in 2 ways. They've got leaders that don't give a fuck about them. They've got Israel who doesn't give a fuck about them. They're not welcome in Egypt. They've got 0 political freedom and no way to get out of the hell they were born in. Would I have been in support of the creation of Israel if I was alive back then? No. It was a stupid plan that was put together mostly by people who wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of their actions. But it does exist now - so what's the way for the world to move forward without a genocide for either the Jews or Palestinians living there? Taking a side in this conflict is being in support of genocide. If you support Palestinians, what do you think that means for the Jews living there? If you support Israelis, what do you think that means for the Arabs living there. I don't take a side in this. Out of the current "sides" there are to take, nobody should be taking any sides. There's no "good" side. Israel's governments are cunts. Hamas are cunts. Hezbollah are cunts. The Palestinian Authority are cunts. Iran's government are cunts. Egypt's government are cunts. Lebanon doesn't really have a functional government, but when they did... they were... cunts. Take the side of lamenting innocent people dying. Not shrugging your shoulders when people you've decided you don't like (because of whatever reason) get killed while they're just trying to live your lives because you're "supporting the good guys." Why take a side in this conflict between two bad actors that have bad goals? The UN should have sent peacekeeping forces there in 1967 to try to force change and prevent this from being an endless conflict.

Yeah but your statement was absolutely fucking stupid. The shoe is on the other foot, Hamas are backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran - the same people oppressing Iranians. Hamas's leaders knew what Israel's reaction would be because... why the fuck wouldn't they? This isn't their first rodeo. And if Israeli responses weren't proportionate before... it's only going to be worse for people in Gaza now that Hamas has made their worst attack on Israel in history. It's the same flavour of oppression the people of Gaza face, they just get to eat a lot more of it because they're oppressed by Hamas AND the Israeli government. These are mostly 15-18 year olds, who've never even been given the chance to determine what kind of government rules over Gaza. They've got less freedom than your average Iranian (which is to say they've got less freedom than people with barely any freedom), they're fed loads of propaganda, and their leaders and "allies" view them as pawns to get slaughtered when it's convenient politically for them. So Hamas leaders stay safe in Qatar, while Gaza's condemned to probably the worst brutality it's ever seen. How do Palestinians in Gaza benefit from Hamas's "rebellion"? Their suffering is only going to end if they get killed in Israel's response. Otherwise it's just more death and destruction for Gaza. All for the sake of subverting normal diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. If you want to be proud of their latest "uprising," you do you. But don't pretend like Hamas didn't know this would result in a heavy handed response from Israel and that they weren't counting on that sort of response.

RFK Jr. to stop pretending to be a democrat and run as an independent. This is good news, may splinter the far right.

Nah, they're both bad guys. When Palestine was still under British mandate, many of the people who'd become leaders of the state of Israel were just terrorists the same way we'd view Hamas now. And Hamas are scum, the videos they've released themselves over the weekend prove it. If you want to blame anyone as the creator of this situation... look at the UK and Europe, who decided that the best way to provide justice for the crimes against Jews Europe's inflicted (for centuries, not just the holocaust) would be to make the Middle East pay for it. I agree that Israel (and the average Israeli citizen) has got a lot more power to determine how the future looks than Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, or any average Palestinian does. They live in a democracy. They have western support. They have an actual military. Breaking the cycle that feeds into extremism will only happen when they break the cycle. The Nakba was a horrific crime against humanity. But surprise, surprise... so were the Jewish pogroms of the Arab world that went from the 1800s-1960s. This didn't just start in 1947. There's a long history of atrocity here. It's nowhere near as black and white as any slave rebellion.

Yeah, it's going to get pretty ugly, I think. Hamas threatening to execute hostages on camera - while Israel's called up 300,000 reservists to mobilise to go on the offensive. Just to put things into perspective, when Russia mobilised against Ukraine they went in with 200,000. So this is going to be a very heavy handed response from Israel by the looks of things. And that's without taking into account the airstrikes on Gaza that have already happened. And if it's going to get pretty ugly... when it's already been pretty grotesque... it's hard to predict anything good coming of this.

Yeah some of the social media footage is absolutely horrific. To see people celebrate that or even just refuse to condemn it... it's pretty disgusting. When these are people who claim to stand for human rights but don't see the problem with acts like that... it really throws into question how much they actually care for human rights. One video of horrific violence against children is bad enough. I think I saw 3 by the time I decided "yeah, I'm not going to watch these videos anymore." And the last part that I've bolded. It's a "no, but yes" sort of answer - there's a lot of nuance in this conflict. It's not black and white, there's no good vs. evil. Both sides have acted as oppressors and as the oppressed. The last Israeli leader that seemed serious about peace (Rabin) was assassinated by an Israeli far right lunatic (after Netanyahu put out a bunch of stochastic terrorism political slogans, banners, that encouraged extremist actions from extremist followers - it's a great shame for Israel that he became such a long lasting and prominent figure in Israeli politics, because he's done nothing to move either side any closer to peace. And Israel, as the more powerful of the sides, is the one who can make the first meaningful steps towards peace. And as a democracy, a lot of Israelis do bear a lot of responsibility for the apartheid state and their general lack of safety caused by this lack of peace. And in Gaza, Hamas enjoys wide support. But they're also a dictatorship that took power before most of the people living there were ever born, feeding people gross propaganda and fueling extremism. And that extremism only comes back to bite Gaza in the arse when Hamas's terrorism draws the disproportionate response from Israel. The status quo is a system that just feeds into the extremism on both sides, leading to an endless cycle of terror and oppression. I think a big part of the problem is Israel has made the mistake of fighting Hamas the way a conventional army is fought after attacks - airstrikes on Hamas targets. The problem with that is it's Gaza - Gaza city is the world's most densely populated place. Collateral damage is inevitable. Hamas knows this and plans for it and strategically puts it's military resources in places that will cause the most damage to innocents if (and when) Israel hits back. It's a riskier fight for Israel to send troops into Gaza and hunt for Hamas fighters the way US and UK special forces hunted down Al Qaeda. It would also reduce civilian casualties - which means less kids lose their parents after a Hamas attack, which means fewer kids don't grow up swearing to avenge their families and get revenge on Israeli families. It's not as quick, it's a lot more dangerous for their troops - it also sends a signal to Gazans that they aren't being collectively punished for being born as Palestinian Arabs and that their life isn't viewed as worthless by the IDF. But at the same time there's Palestinians and Israelis that just want to live normal lives without security risks and fear of oppression. There's a lot of innocent people who's only crime is really being born in the wrong place at the wrong time - these people didn't choose their parents. They're not guilty of the crimes of previous generations. They're just people born in bad circumstances. I don't know if that makes them "good guys" but I don't think it makes them "bad guys" for being born where they were. The world isn't a fairy tale, I think the notion of "good guys" vs "bad guys" is sort of misguided. It's comforting to remove nuance from things and have nice black & white sides to sit on... but even in world war 2, the Nazis were obviously evil. Does that make Stalin or Churchill automatically good guys for being opposed to them? Stalin's arguably worse than Hitler. Churchill's less evil than the both of them, but he also wasn't the greatest guy in history. In a conflict with ethnic, racial, and religious tensions... where both sides are guilty of pretty significant atrocities... and over time the situation's just festered - you can pretty easily say that there's no good guys in the political machinery that led to today. But there's a lot of normal people on both sides who probably would all be a lot better off and happier if there was some lasting peace rather than being caught in the middle of being led astray by the bad guys running the show.

Also I think it’s pretty clear the timing of this is in relation to the noise of normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran and Hamas do not want a change to the status quo of geopolitical relations in the region. MBS may love Israel, but his subjects don’t. So Hamas and Iran have sacrificed the people of Gaza to push for this massive escalation. Everyone in the world knows Israel will respond massively disproportionately. And in terms of how the Saudi population will react, now normalisation of ties is basically a nonstarter. And that’s reflected in the Saudi foreign minister statement in response to the attacks. The average age of people in Gaza is 15-18, their last election was 20 years ago - Hamas won’t hold any anymore. So these people live under a dictatorship where the leaders sit comfy in Qatar, are used as political pawns, and have leadership that’s constantly acted to ensure Israel’s treatment of them is as harsh as possible. It’s easy to be sympathetic to them. They live in awful conditions and are oppressed by Israel and Hamas, neither of whom really view them as human. It is an awful situation for them. But don’t think you’re doing them any favours by twerking for Hamas.

They don’t care about the Palestinians actually there who have to live (and likely die) with the consequences of Hamas’s actions. They just hate Jews and Israelis. It should be pretty easy, even if you support Palestinians, to condemn shit like rape as a weapon and murdering children.

“I love human rights but I also support genocide” Just FYI this attack was probably ordered by the same people that oppress Iranians on a daily basis. If Iran gets bombed, Khamenei and co brought it on themselves. I also doubt the government and military that struggled with a few hundred malnourished terrorists in trainers can wipe out a country. But you do you, gleefully cheer on the videos of that child being ripped from her mothers arm and having her throat slit & all the other shit I saw this weekend. I’m not going to pretend this is a flight between good and evil or oppressor vs oppressed. Hamas and the Israeli government are both bad guys. And a lot of innocent Israelis and Palestinians will die because they’ve got ethnic and racial hatred because of their sad little fairy tales.

The creation of the state of Israel was obviously a contentious issue. But there’s a reason that Mizrahi Jews, the ones that called pretty much every country in the Middle East home, no longer live in every Middle Eastern country… but only in Israel and Iran, and in Iran… they’re an extreme minority. They may have an MP in the majlis (Iran’s parliament) - but Arabs have 7 seats in Israel’s parliament… and yet Israel’s largely considered an apartheid state. Israel’s an apartheid state. They’re also one of the only places Mizrahi Jews can live anywhere near their indigenous lands after centuries of genocide. In an ideal world, they’d be allowed to live in their homelands in peace. We don’t live in an ideal world. Is it fair Israeli’s took a bunch of land from people living there and now treats them as a lower class of humans? Obviously not. Is it fair Mizrahi Jews were forced from their lands and can only now call 2 places in the Middle East home now after centuries of persecution? Also obviously not. Israel’s there now - getting rid of them means doing worse than what Israel’s done to Palestinians. This isn’t the black and white issue so many people make it out to be, tbh. Israel and Palestine are never going to experience peace if they all continue their human rights abuses. But Hamas has basically doomed Gaza with this action, which I assume was done to throw a wrench in the works of Israel-Saudi relations being normalised. What will happen now is a massive response from Israel, that will kill a ton of innocence and lead to a new generation of radical Palestinians. Nobody should be cheering on Hamas after what they did yesterday. They just killed a lot of people and will get a lot more killed in response.

Hamas control Gaza but not the West Bank. Gaza’s fucked now though.

I sympathise with the oppression of Palestinians. Hamas is doing nothing for them. But go look at the footage today. A lot of civilians gunned down by people. Civilians paraded down the streets after being murdered. Lot of video evidence of rape being used as a weapon. That shit is all pretty easy to condemn. Hamas has basically doomed Gaza to even more misery than normal. They aren’t friends of Palestinians, they’re the same kind of shitbags running Iran. Human rights violations don’t excuse further human rights abuses.

According to this thing I just read in my policy I’ve got limited mental health coverage. So I guess I’ll have to see how limited it is

Horrific scenes in Israel. Massive attack from Hamas, drones, advanced rockets, paraglided shock troops… all to target a lot of civilians. And what’s it going to result in other than carnage for Gaza? I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel occupies Gaza for the considerable future after this.

Yeah

I’m not in the UK anymore unfortunately

Yeah cheers mate I think you & @Whiskeyhave convinced me it’s better to get help with it than just sit around with that shit just floating around in my head. Also @Whiskey I appreciate you sharing that with me because I was feeling… idk how to describe it, weird and alone I guess. I felt better after having read what you typed up though somehow - so thanks for that pal

Having family in Iran makes it all the more frustrating. There’s a lot of problems in Iran that need addressing. They don’t address any of those problems. They think its more important to brutalise their people & have stupid proxy wars (that they can’t win because the West is against them, so it’s literally just a pointless waste) with Israel & the Saudis. Awful government. If there’s any justice in the world the youth of Iran will rise up and start hanging mullahs in the streets.