The reality (sadly) is that because of all the violence a majority of Israelis has given up on a two-state solution. Settlement of the West-Bank has lost internal opposition.

That’s a reality that’s hard to swallow for normal people, but it’s a reality that politicians have to aknowlegde. Outside pressure can slow it down or accelerate it (eg. Trump), but those 500k settlers are never going to move out, not even when the US stops all weapon shipments today. Now, when you’ve accepted that reality the question goes back to do you think the world is better with Israel existing or with Iran winning (and very likely putting a genocide on Israel’s population)?

Saying Israel can’t strike back at Hezbollah like this because “you can’t accept the horrors” is just going make the world worse, as you don’t have a solution for the other side “doing whatever they please” (as in attacking Israel in perpetuity)

They asked why the West was letting Israel get away with so much. Then listed various examples of things that are causing widespread harm to civilians.

They didn’t really list anything but some superficial simplifications. ‘The West’ let Israel get away with ‘Palestine’. They let them get away with ‘terrorist tactics’ and ‘Lebanon’. Are these vague accusations ‘causing widespread harm to civilians’? I think they deserve more discussion than to just say they did ‘a Lebanon’ and call it an open and shut case Johnson…

So the West is not letting Hezbollah get away with it.

Meanwhile the West continues to provide weapons to Israel, who is using those weapons to cause significant harm to civilian populations.

Hezbollah (and Hamas) are being armed and supported by Iran. Now everyone knows that the zionists will not see the paradise they crave in the afterlife, but if you’re working towards a better world you can’t ignore the fact that Iran and the conservative extremist movement they are part of are even worse. ‘The West’ can ignore that and let the people of Israel get genocided by even worse people, or they can hope for a stalemate (which means they have to support Israel) or a win for Israel (which means they have to support Israel). In any case, not supporting Israel will result in the faction vying for things like legalised child rape (amongst other horrific shit) will win. That will result in a worse world by any measure.

That’s the question. Why is the West letting Israel attack civilians without repercussion? There’s no reason in good faith to ask someone who asks this question about how they feel about Hezbollah attacking civilians. Because, ostensibly, they are opposed to violence against civilians. As, clearly, is the West when it’s not Israel (or, indeed, the West) perpetrating the violence.

When fighting extremists that blend into a civilian population, it’s impossible to be effective without causing civilian deaths. In cases like Mosul or Raqqa, you reach a point where you have to turn the dial past the marker because you just can’t destroy them without hurting any civilians. When ‘the West’ fought the nazi’s, they broadly went over that line because not doing so would have just resulted in more suffering for more people.

That’s some great language. How do you propose we stop those horrors of ‘the other group’?

Do you think more Hezbros would have worn their pagers during the day or when they were asleep?

A funnier fact! The poster I replied to wasn’t ‘criticizing Israel’s tactics’ - they were questioning why ‘the West’ allowed Israel to attack Hezbollah.

Take your ‘both sides are bad in this conflict’ to heart and read their comment again

Do you think it’s a bad thing the West is letting Hezbollah get away with attacking civilians in Israel? Or is it a good thing?

How do you feel putting a small explosive into the pocket of a Hezbollah operative compares to firing a rocket into a children’s playground?

Analysis schmanalysis

Removed by mod

If it doesn’t bag enough money maybe they can sell Alex Jones for parts

God

These religious buffoons are all going to hell

Still sounds suspicious

If we’re still honest here, didn’t these men just shield them from the burdens of fame and criticism?

So they could focus on their families

I’m making myself sound like the victim?

It’s weird that you want to sound concerned about the cycle of violence continuing and then want to argue that last October doesn’t really matter

Yeah, if you convince yourself that it was Israel that restarted it on oct 8th, I’m sure you can get some solid sleep

(while people actually living there don’t have that privilege)

I think Hezbollah was fantasizing about doing some ethnic cleansing from the moment they were formed

Always here means since the 90s or so. I should’ve probably clarified that.

Yeah ok, if you let history start where it’s convenient for you I can imagine you coming to those conclusions

That aside, you seem to have issues with Palestinians’ opposition to the creation of an Apartheid state where they’re meant to be second class citizens (because let’s face it, Israel is not and was never going to be a proper democracy).

If you think the Arab nationalists wanted a proper secular democracy, that’s delusional. They wanted a continuation of what they knew and what happened in the rest of the region: an Arab state where muslims would remain the first class citizens. (And it’s a bit of a cliché, but which of its surrounding Arab neighbours became ‘a proper democracy’?)

Why are you treating Israel’s convenience as being more important than Palestinian lives? This attitude is why the conflict is still going.

If you call not being conquered and genocided ‘a convenience’ I don’t know how to answer this…

If Israel can’t exist without committing slow burn genocide (or just regular genocide since October 7), then why should it?

They can exist with occupying the WB and GH. The ethnic cleansing that you want to call genocide is something the ultrazionists always craved, and they gained democratic approval partly because of the promise of neverending violence by the other side. There are plenty of countries that exist or expanded on the premise of ethnic cleansing or settlement - just look at recent events in Nagorno-Kharabach or, very comparable to Palestine, the annexation of the Western Sahara territories. Is it good? No. But it’s part of political and human reality and it’s always a question of what’s going to cause the least suffering.

Uh… That is a massive misinterpretation of history. Israel withdrew and, at the same time, started what would go on to become the Gaza blockade.

Uh… No that’s exactly what happened and the ‘blockade’ was not a blockade but a filter to prevent weapons going in that would be used to attack Israel. October 7 even proved that ‘the Gaza blockade’ was too lenient. Hamas couldn’t help themselves smuggling in weapons, using building materials to build a tunnel network, and attacking Israel to take hostages when they found themselves armed enough… I know you don’t want to think about the before times but before the 1990’s, people could mostly travel freely between Gaza City and Tel Aviv.

Man, just face reality. Have you seen how Gaza looks like now? It’s been orders of magnitude worse since October 7, but everything-the starvation, the poor sanitation, the blatantly disregard of civilian lives, if not outright murderous intent. This has been daily life in Gaza for 20 years. Like hell they left them to themselves.

No it hasn’t. You can find plenty of video accounts of life in Gaza pre-Oct 7. Really, I implore you to look it up because you sound like you’ve only really started caring about the situation for a year or so. Gaza looks like it does now because a) Hamas used their freedom Gaza to build up to conduct a major terrorist attack and b) because it’s clear to Israel that this will just happen again and again, and sooner again, if they keep their gloves on.

Israel as an entity is opposed to peace as a concept, as are all settler colonies. If you can’t accept the fact that Israel is a settler colony not unlike 19th century America and pre-independence Ireland, then this conversation is over

Yeah sure man. I love how you’re reducing the US to ‘19th century America’, because it’s a great example. I’m betting 5 shots on you living in the US, sitting right on the graves of the genocided natives, trying to find reasons why one religious cult should rule over the other in Palestine because that will shift the guilt

The Palestinian side has always been open to that idea

That has no basis in reality. They tried to prevent the creation of a non-muslim state and failing that, they gathered troops to destroy it from day 1.

That has always been what ceasefires mean in this conflict, for both sides. You certainly don’t see Israel not building settlements or not bombing Gaza or any of the other examples of their colonialist aggression during ceasefires. This is irrespective of how faithfully the Palestinian side adheres to the ceasefire (see: 2008 and 2013 ceasefires).

Well regarding the West Bank, that of course is something where Israel is blocking a ‘fair’ solution as well. They’re not much better than their opposition in that regard. But even if you look at it from a pacifist Israeli pov, there’s a case to be made for wanting to control that territory, together with the Golan Heights: these are strategically important to keep Israel defensible. In the war of '67 they were lucky to learn of the plans of the coming invasion early enough to defend against them. But if they hadn’t, Israel could have been overrun ‘from within’ from the West-Bank rather easily. Which is why the wish of the zionists converged with that of the military to keep it.

With Gaza it’s quite the opposite: Israel decided in 2005 to just withdraw from it and leave them to themselves. They didn’t just go bomb them ‘for fun’. Continuing small terrorist attacks made them build a wall around them with tedious checkpoints. Hamas starts shooting rockets over it so they place interceptor missiles and, yes, try to bomb the launch sites and weapon deposits. Hamas overruns their defenses, kills or kidnaps everyone they can. So that’s where we are now. It’s not like Hamas was just peacefully sipping tea and going about their business, totally not launching near daily attacks on Israel, for 20 years

I don’t think you need capitalism for humans to construct large buildings. Let’s be happy even capitalists value aesthetics

Also, it apparently surpassed this building as the highest one in Sweden