demagogue on 8/6/2025 at 18:25
You're not reading my posts. One of the first posts I made in this thread was feeling like I'm the only one actually seriously concerned about how to (
https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/disarmament-demobilization-and-reintegration) DDR Hamas. Anyway I'll say it here & now. There's a large literature on best practices on how to do that, and people that actually care about getting rid of Hamas would want to know what those are.
They have to be given something to surrender to, and ethnic cleansing won't do it, and openly planning ethnic cleansing is the kind of thing you do when you want Hamas to grow. The Likud admin clearly have no concern about Hamas or the hostages. Remember they're the one that broke the ceasefire as Hamas was handing back hostages, for starters.
Big picture, if they were able to demobilize and turn the IRA into a normal non-violent political movement in North Ireland, then they can do that with Hamas, and it shows the way. You need a bona fide political settlement.
Edit: Also there are mass protests against Hamas in Gaza. So the groundwork is there for political renormalization if the war could actually end and there's a political settlement.
SD on 8/6/2025 at 19:24
Regardless of anything else, Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood, not the IRA. The IRA's aims stopped at the borders of Ireland. The Muslim Brotherhood desires a caliphate; ideally a global one, but at bare minimum encompassing any lands that have ever been Islamic, which includes the entirety of Judea. It is fanciful in the extreme to believe that they can be reasoned with. It was that kind of thinking that led Israel to promote them over Fatah in the first place.
Starker on 24/6/2025 at 09:32
Meanwhile, Israel's troops continue firing into crowds of hungry people:
Quote:
(
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-06-24-2025-dbbdba6c1986376e6e09900650814412)
Israeli forces and drones opened fire toward hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid in separate incidents in southern and central Gaza early Tuesday, killing at least 44, witnesses and hospitals said
[...]
Palestinian witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds seeking desperately needed food, killing hundreds of people in recent weeks. The military says it has fired warning shots at people it said approached its forces in a suspicious manner.
[...]
SD on 25/6/2025 at 13:59
It's pretty scary what people will believe if it aligns with their preconceptions.
Starker on 28/6/2025 at 04:57
Indeed.
Quote:
(
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/27/israeli-soldiers-ordered-fire-civilians-aid-war-crimes-idf/)
Israeli soldiers have been deliberately firing at unarmed Palestinians near aid distribution sites in Gaza, army whistleblowers have said.
First-hand accounts reported in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, allege that commanders had in recent weeks ordered troops to shoot at crowds “to drive them away or disperse them, even though it was clear they posed no threat”.
Soldiers used “heavy machine guns, grenade launchers [and] mortars” to suppress hungry Gazans queuing for food at new distribution points set up by a controversial private firm, it is claimed.
It is also alleged that some soldiers took orders from a brigadier general who had previously stated that there were “no innocents in Gaza”.
[...]
It is the first time such detailed testimony from serving soldiers has been published in Israel. Their claims were approved for publication by the official Israel censor, as required by Israeli law.
The witness accounts relate to the alleged killing of scores of hungry Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in at least 19 separate incidents over the past month.
[...]
One soldier told Haaretz: “It's a killing field. Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day.
“They're treated like a hostile force - no crowd-control measures, no tear gas - just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the centre opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.”
The soldier added: “We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there's no danger to the forces.”
“I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons,” they said.
[...]
An IDF officer told Haaretz that the military's security perimeters around distribution points included tanks, snipers and mortars, and they were designed to protect those present and ensure aid distribution could take place.
“At night, we open fire to signal to the population that this is a combat zone and they mustn't come near,” the officer said.
“Once, the mortars stopped firing, and we saw people starting to approach. So we resumed fire to make it clear they weren't allowed to. In the end, one of the shells landed on a group of people.”
In other cases, he said: “We fired machine guns from tanks and threw grenades. There was one incident where a group of civilians was hit while advancing under the cover of fog. It wasn't intentional, but these things happen.”
[...]
Starker on 4/7/2025 at 00:19
So it goes...
Quote:
(
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-gaza-food-c08079f831c44442a19ffd21fcea8de4)
CAIRO (AP) — Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza on Monday with airstrikes that left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire that left 23 dead as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said.
One airstrike hit Al-Baqa Cafe in Gaza City when it was crowded with women and children, said Ali Abu Ateila, who was inside.
[...]
The cafe, one of the few businesses to continue operating during the 20-month war, was a gathering spot for residents seeking internet access and a place to charge their phones. Videos circulating on social media showed bloodied and disfigured bodies on the ground and the wounded being carried away in blankets.
[...]
Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas.
[...]
SD on 4/7/2025 at 01:54
Beachfront cafes after almost two years of genocide, and in the middle of a famine. Seems legit. Hamas-supplied casualty figures for a bomb targeting Hamas members. Seems legit.
I feel like I've gone insane. Do people just swallow the first thing they're told these days, no matter how self-evidently ridiculous it is?
Starker on 4/7/2025 at 02:39
A city having a cafe (and whether it's located next to a sea or not has no bearing to this, since most of the Gaza strip is next to a sea) might seem like the height of luxury to you, but it's hardly anything outrageously remarkable. Even small towns often have a cafe, several even, let alone a city of 2 million people.
Meanwhile, you are asserting that all international organisations and all of the international press, in addition to humanitarian organisations in Israel and Israel's journalists are somehow lying to you about the conditions in Gaza and are cooperating and conspiring together to tell a remarkably similar and consistent story.
Subjective Effect on 12/7/2025 at 08:07
You don't think it's odd to have lovely multistory seaside cafes and dessert joints open at the same time as there's a supposed famine?
Tocky on 12/7/2025 at 22:03
Well, I mean it isn't as nice as the places Trump wants to put in after the genocide is complete but one does what one can. I'm not sure what your point is. There are rich assholes still left in Gaza? Okay. What do you suggest we do about them? Tell them to look out the window and run? Maybe they want to maintain some sense of normalcy? Maybe with all their money they can get stuff smuggled in past Israel's sentries with hands out? What is the point I'm missing?
