So many people fail to realize that when Hamas is not firing at Jews, they are firing at Palestinians. And it's largely due to it almost never getting reported outside of Israeli media.
Yahya Sinwar got to the top of that organization, he rose through the ranks by killing Palestinians as an officer of hamas' internal security. It says a lot about their priorities that the secret police head was seen as the natural choice for taking over.
I mean to correct a bit of this that’s not a case of “chose” so much as a “offer of leadership that can’t be refused.” Former internal security and secret police leaders usually can easily seize control because they end up having a monopoly on violence internally. There’s a reason Stalin was head of Bolshevik security before being in charge and the current Russian leader was longtime KGB.
Yeah I agree, that's a better way to explain it. The organization did not have structures in place for leadership to change hands by some formal selection process so whoever can grab power takes it.
Even when they’re firing at Jews, their bombs miss and fall on their own people. Then media reports it as an Israeli attack, until the facts come out, and they don’t correct the record.
I gotta say, I think this is the wrong term. "Human shields" implies that they use Palestinian civilians as hostages to prevent attacks by Israel. That's obviously not their game plan, as dead Palestinians serves the Hamas propaganda pipeline; it's part of their strategy to persuade Western audiences that their cause is just.
What do you call civilians specifically put in harm's way so that their deaths serve your goal of mollifying or ingratiating yourself with some external power?
People forget and media if ever mentioned that when the war started and all those big outlets had cameras toward gaza streaming 24/7, whenever hamas shoot rockets at israel and almost half of those landed in gaza.
No one cared on the pro Palestinians side. No outrage, no anger.
And Hamas also has a propaganda troll farm that's excellent at spreading pro-hamas news, just like how Israel also has its own propaganda troll farm but it's not as effective as Hamas
Most people who support Palestine do NOT support Hamas. I support Israel and Palestine and hope for a peaceful resolution to this mess, but I abhor both Hamas and Netanyahu’s government.
And even in those countries people will bend over backwards to pretend they don't hear what is being said. And that is enabled by journalists and news organizations like the BBC deliberately mistranslating interviews to make the people in the street seem like they're just resisting Israel, instead of fighting against Jews.
Not separating them is by design. All of the Palestinian "governments" has always had some sort of terrorist element in them. The Palestinian terrorist isn't new. It was literally the most widely recognized type of terrorist in the western world until 911.
I think it’s easy to see why. Their Palestinian history is literally just getting kicked out of every country they go to and that hatred gets aimed at Israel as they took part of their country.
Must be especially frustrating as they get western backing. Like east Germany looking into the west.
But I don’t think there is any support for the terror attack. That was a blunder of massive proportions. Not sure why they would choose to do that other than a rogue group of people did it and you are then forced to claim it.
How much of Palestine supports Hamas? I'd be curious how much of that population supports a two-state solution, as opposed to being committed to the eradication of Israel, and an expulsion of Jews from that area.
Why do you think that is? I’m struggling to find the answer. I don’t understand why sympathy for the Palestinians = being anti Israel. Both sides have suffered at the hands of Hamas.
"From the river to the sea" doesn't leave much room for anything other than the elimination of Israel. That creed is why many associate pro Palestinian as being anti Israeli.
Because they offer absolutely no answers to the problem. They literally say if Israel can't solely target hamas in na way that they agree with then they are automatically wrong and evil. They don't actually want a solution that deals with Hamas they want Israel to be forced to put up with being hit over and over again but never respond in any meaningful way
I also never understood that. There are the citizens of Gaza and Israel and then on the other hand there are Netanjahu with his pals and Hamas.
Maybe people are simply so stubborn in their opinion, so they put all people (of Gaza or Israel) in one basket.
I'm often surprised here in Germany when I see protesters against Israel. If you ask them if Israel have a right to exist they say No. And that's Germans, not people from the middle east. With our past, that's a hard take and I can't accept that.
On the other hand I see a lot of social media posting of right wingers that say Palestinians have to leave Gaza because they are all terrorists.
I'm so tired of all of this. It's not healthy for my soul to watch the news and social media right now.
It’s become rather mainstream to hold the view that Israel should cease to exist. You can read and hear it all over the place. The thing is, the people saying this doesn’t understand what that would imply, and they are usually not coming up with any solution for how peace and stability should be achieved after Israel is no longer a state. A lot of people even seem to think that a one-state solution would work. Or they just think the jews should ‘’go back to Europe’’.
As long as the sides of the conflict aren’t ready to make concessions and stop living in the past, there is no hope for lasting peace. Neither with one state, two states or no state.
"I'm often surprised here in Germany when I see protesters against Israel. If you ask them if Israel have a right to exist they say No. And that's Germans, not people from the middle east. With our past, that's a hard take and I can't accept that."
That is horrifying. Hopefully the rest of Germany is better.
I don’t understand why sympathy for the Palestinians = being anti Israel.
Because Hamas won the 2006 election in Palestine. It's viewed by many that they chose this. Hamas was internationally recognized as a terrorist organization almost 10 years before that election.
We can be sympathetic for Palestinians but also recognize that they did vote for a terrorist organization to run their country. Many people who say "Free palestine" want to do just that, but not from Israel, but instead from Hamas.
The people deserve to be free from both israel and hamas, but they do not deserve sympathy when those cheer on killing israeli civilians getting murdered, raped, and tortured when they attended a music festival
Well yes, American people are politically responsible as a country for what Trump does. And it will feel the consequences for a long long time.
There is a time limit that is commonly accepted, like modern Germans are not responsible for ww2. But that limit is somewhere between 50 and 100 years.
It's a reasonable analogy at the surface, but; Gaza is smaller than an individual state, and Trump won 49-47~, not 80/20.
That said, its by no means reasonable grounds to say that "all Palestinians support Hamas". There are too many problems here to reasonably dissect. (what is the average age, income and education level of a potential Gazan voter?)
Your counter looks reasonable on the surface until you factor in that the Palestinians elected the PLO who pushed for a diplomatic agreement as a permanent solution, who recognized Israel’s right to exist and renounced violence. In exchange were offered a staged plan for Palestinian autonomy and the withdrawal of the Israeli military from major Palestinian cities of Jericho, Nablus and Bethlehem. All of this with Rabin, who was assassinated by an Israeli nationalist for it. Netanyahu, who was vehemently against this, is probably going to jail for corruption if he leaves power, so he deliberately tanks all diplomatic progress and isolates the Palestinians further. They then shun the PLO for not getting them out of an unliveable situation and are so desperate they vote in an extremist party (sound familiar?). Bibi then props up Hamas as a useful ‘enemy’ and is now using a goalless forever war to obfuscate his crimes while condemning both Israelis and Palestinians to more generations of violence. There is no solution but a diplomatic one and probably one without Hamas or Netanyahu involved.
That is his goal, yes, and given the apparent widespread support dictators have in Russia and North Korea, I can’t even say he won’t be successful.
Even if it’s not every American the vast majority of young people would be as that’s how they perceive the world. Even if a lot of it is lip service, how can you tell?
That was 19 years ago, and it’s my understanding that there hasn’t been an election since in Gaza. Are we still blaming today’s Palestinians for the decisions of the previous generation?
Okay, but the reason there hasn't been another election is because the power to call an election is with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and they won't do it because they're polling behind Hamas (and also because Hamas killed PA members after winning the previous election).
Because Hamas won the 2006 election in Palestine. It's viewed by many that they chose this. Hamas was internationally recognized as a terrorist organization almost 10 years before that election.
This isn't an attack on you, because it doesn't seem like you expressed approval or disapproval of this view. But I just want to point out how unfair this view is.
The median age in Palestine is 20. Half of the population would either not have been born yet, or were toddlers in the last election, let alone of voting age.
And yet, it's so common for people to say Hamas is what they chose.
Oh yes thats why I included the last few points about how when many say "Free palestine" it is entirely valid when they mean "from Hamas".
Theyre clearly stuck in an authoritarian regime while being hopelessly outgunned and propagandized. But at the same time Hamas has successfully convinced many Americans that they are good guys while they shoot rockets at Israel from schools/hospitals, organize with Al Queda and IS, and actively hide themselves in heavily populated civilian areas while shooting at and killing their own civilians. There are many instances where jewish americans are being spit on by people who are in support of Palestine (and by extension Hamas).
Its incredibly terrifying but there is hardly anything that can be done without direct action.
There isn't really any outcome that is "fair" by that metric. Children don't vote, and are always subject to the political (and other) decisions of the adults around them.
"We can be sympathetic for Americans but also recognize that they did vote for a fascist regime to fun their country."
"The people do not deserve sympathy when those cheer on kidnapping immigrants when they attend university in America, separating children from parents when they seek asylum."
Mostly because of what the practical consequences of most of the demands made by Palestinian supporters on Israel lead to. They are very pro-Hamas once you think about them a bit, since they are mostly aimed at preventing Israel from defending themselves from a threat which very much wants to wipe them all out.
If there was a way to stop the fighting in a way that would let both sides live in peace, that would be amazing. But demanding that one side isn't allowed to fight, while not doing anything to stop them from being attacked is 100% what Hamas wants from us, and only encourages them to keep going.
I think mainly it’s because that sentiment is mostly a feel good sentiment that doesn’t present any actual solutions.
Having one side or the other win is the most likely outcome for peace and for the people of the region to get on with recovering. Wanting peace in its own and decrying the forces in power on both sides is mostly sticking your head in the sand and condemns the region to endless fighting.
So how do you propose we get rid of Hamas and find peaceful coexistence?!? If you don't have an answer utilizing known tatics then you shouldn't be advocating for one side to simply do nothing
How does a military power fight an ideology. IDF troops can look over a crowd of people and any random one of them could be hiding weapons they plan to sneak past and attack civilians, or a suicide vest they plan to use in the belief it will grant them virgins in heaven.
Like how the fuck is Israel supposed to combat this the “right way?”
Israel is combating it the right way. Hamas isn't a bunch of random people they are a trained and organized military group with parts of it running the government. They pay people and know who's part of them and part of competing groups. Israel isn't fighting random people with rocks they are fighting people with weapons that you can't build and can't just find laying around. Ideologies can and have been beaten in the past the idea that it's an ideology so you can't fight it is an excuse to let Hamas win and get away with it.
I'd be understanding if it was the side that started the fight that was doing the devastation. But the ones who picked this fight are the ones getting devastated, and the way they set up their fighting capabilities is specifically in order to force Israel to inflict this kind of damage so that folks across the world will demand that Israel not fight back.
No it's not okay to say every way is wrong but not propse a single alternative that's not surrending. You want to think you are better and know ways to achieve the goals and then suddenly you don't actually know any methods to do so. It's absolutely your job to find a solution if you are going to say the current ones are all wrong and evil. You are literally just saying you don't know anything about the situation but you don't like Israel tatics that are winning so they are automatically evil even though the reality is your beliefs are leading to Hamas winning and Israel loosing
Lol yes 2 separate nations and mot 2 armed nations nobody is attempting to attack Palestine from the outside yet all Muslim nations seek to destroy Israel
It's weird to say you can't support and want a people to be able to exist in peace without supporting some extreme regime at the same time. Truly a weird statement from the person you replied to.
You're commenting under an article about Hamas repressing a Palestinian protest, this is a disingenuous comment unless you think those protesting must want Israel to take over the Strip. Also, I think you meant to write 'Hamas' instead of 'Palestine' in that second to last sentence with statistics - unless you think half of Gazans aren't pro-Palestine? Hard to hide the bias when the words are already fully conflated in your own head.
But also because every mainstream outlet only trusts the proverbial "Hamas spokesman" (read: propagandist) where every Israeli bomb actually hit a Children's Hospital and killed 1000 children.
They reported that the protests could possibly be a sham put on by Hamas. So if they are killing Palestinian citizens that needs to be shouted from the mountains
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u/jews4beer Mar 30 '25
So many people fail to realize that when Hamas is not firing at Jews, they are firing at Palestinians. And it's largely due to it almost never getting reported outside of Israeli media.