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Oct 19, 2023Liked by Jamie Paul

To address the radioactive elephant in the room, it's widely known that Israel "doesn't have nuclear weapons" but yeah...you know...almost certainly has nuclear weapons. Of course, it would be insane to nuke Gaza. Beside being a humanitarian and diplomatic disaster, the winds generally blow eastward out of the Mediterranean. So you're basically nuking your own country.

If the situation were reversed, does anyone really think that Hamas would be studying weather patterns and calculating cones of (literal) fallout?

Hamas doesn't give a shit about anybody. The only end game I see for them is to entice a regional war. They're poking the bear and hoping the bear will be violent so the park ranger will shoot it (RIP Harambe). If you have a problem with your neighbor down the hall, you don't set his apartment on fire if you care about your own apartment. I mean...I get it in a historical sense. They're taking pages from things like the early Russian revolution. Chaos favors the bold. But they're not Lenin, favored as he was by lots and lots of historical accidents.

The people of Israel are victims of Hamas, but so are the Palestinians, because Hamas doesn't. give. a shit. about. anybody.

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"Why doesn’t Israel embed their military installations within schools and hospitals? Why don’t Israeli soldiers hide among civilians? "

How stupid are you?? ISRAEL IS FUNDED BY THE BIGGEST OF ECONOMIES (USA, UK, EU etc) HAS THE MOST ADVANCED AND POWERFUL TECH AND MILITARY IN THE WORLD. They can sit tight in their comfortable homes and bomb gaza. Why on earth would they resort to what hamas has??? THEYRE NOT SURVEILLED BY LAND AIR WATER. They are not put on a siege. Palestinian people have NOTHING. only hamas. funded and helped by iran that's it. What would u propose sir they just sit and wait for israel to bomb the shit out of them???

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The immorality and atrocities now actively pursued by IDF and Israeli settler militias decried by many of must stop not because of a comparative moral judgement vz Hamas but because these are intrinsically evil and bring shame upon us.

Your attempt to compare Hamas to Israel fails just as an attempt to compare Palestinians to Shin Beit would fail: you select an evil-doing subset and compare it to the competing entire social collective.

Your narrative fails as you neglect to mention the inexorable advance of settler colonialism into lands that have been home to others for centuries. Humans deserve rights regardless of how long a “state” has asserted violent control.

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There is likewise no moral equivalence between a mad tiger & the poor soul holding his tail. We know Hamas has every intention to reject any resolution because it would mean the end of their organization. We know this for certain now as we have for some time. The lukewarm polling indicates that the question of right is sadly moot in many minds. What people want is an end - and if Israel is supported by a near-majority, and 'Palestine' by a very small minority, what would be the great consequence of annexation? Of victory? Would very many condemn it? Would any state meaningfully oppose it? If peace is impossible, as it seems to be, why haven't they done it?

The question, to me, is this: Does Israel want to win? Does Israel want to annex these exclaves which it regards as rebellious provinces? There is no victory while a political separation remains, that should be clear. They could all be in chains and Hamas would remain as a terrorist prison gang. So is Israel capable of governing the people now called Palestinians, or is the enmity too deep? Annexation will make terrorism domestic rather than foreign. Security will become infinitely more difficult. Likely there will be far greater massacres. It's the only step left, but Israel seems to hesitate. Why?

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