You’re just being disingenuous now.

How is anybody to take care of the Palestinian people when they essentially live in an apartheid state. They have been oppressed by the Israeli government you’re defending for decades now.

Go have a look at maps over the decades of how much land has been stolen. Regular bombing etc.

You could read some Finkelstein on the subject, you know the Jewish expert who has researched it most of his life.

Edit: Notice how I said both sides were terrorists and you only want to focus on one side. That’s called bias my friend.

If you were one of the parents/relatives of the kidnapped israelis, would you still think it was not worth it?

The war started in 1947, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, any hand waving about some other starting point, is intentional revisionism by the Zionists to cover the scope and scale of their crimes. Which has now grown to a scale rivaling any genocidal you wish to name.

There was a ceasefire on October 6? Then how come more than 200 Palestinians have been murdered by the Israeli occupation in 2023 before October 6?

No one’s justifying Hamas here what the fuck are you smoking??

I see, so the civilians who have had their friends and families killed, been violently forcibly kidnapped, had their taken from their family friends and homes abused, starved and raped don’t deserve their freedom?

Not with that attitude.

It’s possible that they are not flagrantly killing civilians in that manner but are just looking the other way more than they might normally do because they are Palestinians and care less about collateral damage due to race.

I repeat: that violence did not serve the purpose and it was never meant to. It’s useless to justify their actions based on their sufferings alone. It’s obvious hamas never seeked anything except violence.

You understand. It happened apropos, not in order to solve problems.

They don’t have any leverage, because the people calling the shots in Israel (and to be clear, that is the likes of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who want effectively no Arabs river to sea, and hence Netanyahu, who I think would do just about any atrocity no matter how abhorrent just to stay in power and out of jail) value the pretext to invade far more than they value the lives of the hostages.

So the hostages do not actually give Hamas any leverage over Israel - hence why Israel is not willing to agree to anything. Hamas should not have taken civilians hostage or targeted civilians in the first place, and they should release them. That is still an ongoing war crime, even if it is overshadowed by bigger ones being perpetrated by the Israeli side.

Hamas never had a chance of winning on military might.

The best chance for a good outcome for the Palestinian people is through raising awareness of the plight of the Palestinians, resulting in international pressure. The pressure against Israel arising now is because of the severity of Israel’s war crimes, while Hamas’ war crimes are one of the key talking points used to justify not taking action. Hamas could help Palestine win the information space war by taking the high road; winning a military war is futile for them.

While it is not fair to punish Palestinian civilians for the war crimes of Hamas just because the interests of Palestinian civilians are aligned to Hamas’ goals, there are many people who don’t see it that way. Palestinian statehood (or a non-apartheid one-state solution) would now get far more international support if the Palestinian militants shifted to peaceful resistance.

What leverage? You’re saying hostages are needed to save hamas members? Well that seems to be working pretty well huh? Remind me again why they were taken in the first place?

You should become a negotiator.

What negotiations? It was a perfect opportunity to show that your cause is a good one, and not to Israel. Instead they kept the hostages… For what purpose? To have “leverage”? Well let’s see how that will help them with anything. Maybe there will be more news about released hostages that you could again associate with Israel trying to release its civilians, not with hamas doing right things.

Yes.

If I looked into those organizations, I would bet they were probably at the point of talking reasonable concessions, and probably resembled a proper government, albeit radical or militant.

Hamas is not at that point.

I’d take this with a grain of salt because it’s just the tale of one man. But if it’s true, it’s sad becuase it would represent the wheel of hatred turning.

I can’t see how the UN and UNICEF can get to an accurate number for the number of casualities, as most bodies are in a zone of war. And just because a building was blown up doesn’t mean there were civilians inside. Most civilians are in tents in refugee camps. I’m not trying to say there’s no casualities in a war, but that it’s impossible to count all bodies right now because of the warfighting, and there’s probably bodies under rubble as well. Only when the war is over it’ll be possible to get an exact number.

You don’t believe me? Those who are immersed in islamist ideology think quite differently from people of christian heritage (even if they’re not christian themselves, but they inherit a set of values). For the islamists, self-sacrifice if a good thing if done for a holy cause. That’s what motivated the plane terrorists from 9/11: their religion made them believe that what they were doing was just. And as a reward, they’d have the company of multiple virgins in paradise.

In the western countries, due to the inherited christain values, people value life and reject self-sacrifice. Suicide is considered a sin, because the person is throwing away the body given by God, which is a holy thing. That’s why the USA and other west-aligned countries pressure Israel to preserve the life of innocent Gazans: that’s what best aligns with their moral values. If a bank is being robbed with the use of hostages, the police will do its best to preserve the life of the innocent, even negotiate with the robbers if necessary.

That’s a way of thinking that’s the polar opposite of the muslims. For them, if the cause is holy, self-sacrifice is allowed and encouraged. They’re indoctrinated in these values since they’re children. What the Hamas is doing is exploiting the western values for their benefit. That’s why they took hostages, because they knew it would be a huge leverage against Israel. And that’s why they’re always flaunting the number of casualities (which are obviously inflated, because it helps their goals), in an attempt to reach the western countries’ moral values and turn it into pressure for Isreal accept an indefinite ceasefire agreement, even a bad one.

Consider this: if the roles were reversed: Gaza had immense millitary strenght and Israel was the poor country, the Gazans would invade Isreal in a heartbeat and would care much less about Isrealli innocent civilians: for them the cause is holy, so it is justified to kill indiscriminately.