A pro-Palestinian rally Sunday in Times Square endorsed by the city chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America ensnared prominent party members amid widespread condemnation of the event.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and other leading Democrats blasted the rally as “abhorrent and morally repugnant” and drew a dividing line with far-left members of the party — including New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, who denounced the attacks and called for a ceasefire but didn’t take a stand on the rally.
“I condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. “No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region. An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives.”
I'm an AOC fan but calling on Israel to deescalate is just insane right now.
That would be like some county asking the US to deescalate the day after the 9/11 attacks.
What? No. Hamas needs to be stamped out.
Yeah and our escalation really improved things, didn't it?
What Israel is going to do is mount a full scale invasion of Gaza and they're going to be even more heavy handed than usual. Tens of thousands of innocent people are going to die, that don't have to die.
Hamas should have considered that before massacring hundreds of citizens, but it's never once cared about actually achieving peace.
Its founding document literally calls for the complete eradication of all Jews from the land.
And its leaders don't care about the Palestinian people. They live safely (and very comfortably) in other countries. If Palestinians get killed by Israelis, Hamas leaders will just see it as a way to advocate for more violence against Jews.
And vice versa
I admit to not having read the Israeli founding documents but I’d bet it doesn’t call for eradicating Palestinians.
Without a doubt, Israeli policy hasn't been conducive to piece either. The leadership of both sides are absolutely terrible, which has apparently become a very hot take.
What Israel has not done is gone around murdering every Palestinian it can find (which would be over very quickly, if they actually wanted to).
Hamas is an ugly outgrowth of Israeli oppression and was supported initially by Israel. The problem is that the side with all the power, Israel, doesn't want justice. Only when that changes will peace come
Hamas is an ugly outgrowth of Iranian Anti Semitism. Israel has responded, quite ferociously, but they're not responsible for the hatred that pre dates the British mandate.
Israel literally just published a map with no Palestine, and said "Palestinians don't exist".
Difference being, Israel is the occupier saying this shit, and Palestinians have been occupied for decades.
If you're the kind of person who thinks that rape and murder could ever be justifiable actions so long as you say that you're resisting oppression, suffice it to say what we will not be seeing eye to eye on anything.
That map is stupid though and obviously unhelpful. I'm not claiming that Israel hasn't committed any atrocities either.
What Israel is doing is ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians, not just hamas. Do you feel like a hero for saying ethnic cleansing is justifiable because some Palestinians raped and murdered some people that were stealing their land?
Of course it's gray, of course there are bad actors on both sides. But the entirety of Israel is modern colonialism, and excusing their actions of ethnic cleansing is supporting white supremacy
If Israel is trying to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, it's doing an astonishingly bad job at it given their overwhelming dominance in fire power
Not that you care, but for anyone who does care about facts, most Israelis are from the Middle East, not Europe. A huge amount of the come from Jewish populations that were expelled from Arab countries. There used to be Jewish people all throughout the Middle East, for thousands of years. In the last hundred years, they've essentially all been forcibly expelled. You might even call it ethnic cleansing.
Literally, just imagine what it would look like if Israel was expelling Palestinians the way Iraq expelled Jews.
Why does Iraq expelling Jewish people give Israelis the right to steal Palestinian land? Are you suggesting all Arab ethnicities are the same?
Funnily enough, I didn't actually claim that, if you look. I haven't actually claimed that any Israeli expansion is justifiable, and particularly in the case of West Bank settlements, I would unequivocally state that they're blatantly illegal and counterproductive towards any eventual peace.
That still doesn't justify taking a bunch of civilian hostages and threatening to murder them on a livestream.
The solution here is to destroy all of Hamas and the IDF.
If only Hamas was the only threat, Hezbollah kicked into action when this started up.
The solution here is for the Palestinian people to rise up and get rid of the government that's using them as human shields. Israel has attempted to work towards peace before, only to be rejected by terrorists. Get a democratic government in place, and there's hope.
That hope is also dependant on the Right wing government of Israel being replaced but based on history Bibi won't last 6 months after this defensive failure.
Just destroying all of Hamas should do it. Unless of course Iran et al keep waging a cold war against Israel.
That wouldn't prevent the IDF from committing human rights abuses against Palestinians, which they have continued to do regardless of Hamas activities, especially in West Bank.
I mean Hamas had some really good PR going but they really, really fucked up this time.
Many countries now withdrawing aid, most are reluctantly supporting Israel because most countries despite being just as guilty as Israel, know that Israel is the West's proxy in the middle east.
The blood of both Palestinian civilians and Israeli civilians, and the imminent occupation of the region is going to be on their hands.
I don't know what they're smoking.
You're assuming they ever had a deeper plan than "Kill as many Jews as possible".
Any progress towards actual peace must begin and end with ending all violence and ensuring Israel's security. Once it feels that it's safe, Israel could end the blockade, support economic and social development, and begin normalization of relations.
Violence makes that completely impossible and does nothing but make Israel guarantee that attacks like this never happen again, and many Palestinians are going to die in the process. Hamas knew this, but didn't care because they've never been trying to actually help Palestinians. Their sole aim, as enshrined in their founding charter, is just to kill Jews.
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75% of Israelis today were born there, so where exactly should they go?
Israel is 80 years old, 100% of Palestinians in Israel were born in Palestine, and have ancestors for thousands of years.
How many Israelis moved from Brooklyn to steal that land?
Essentially yes. "Making an example" out of Afghanistan and Iraq made the militaries of the Middle East crack down on official support of terrorist cells in their countries.
Israel supported Hamas to displace the PLO and their continued existence is very useful foe the Israeli far right.
You don't just stamp out a terrorist organization like Hamas. Not without wiping out an entire people.
Not saying Bibi isn't planning to do just that… but that doesn't make it justified.
Yeah, literally all of them did that, and were correct to do so. That it made little difference doesn't matter, just as it won't matter in this case.
It hasn't worked the last 999 times it was tried but surely this time will be different
And, per capita, the death toll in Israel would be equivalent to an attack on the US causing 25,000 deaths. Imagine if someone attacked the United States and 25,000 people died. Would we be showing restraint?
Yes, Hamas are the bad guys here
https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank/
So the good guys kill civilians, including the elderly and children, and that's justified because Israel did things that were wrong?
Hamas aren't the good guys here. If they targeted military areas, I'd agree that this was a legitimate reply to Israeli violence. However, targeting innocent citizens - especially in the brutal way that they did - removes any semblance of high ground that they might have.
Now, this isn't to say that the Israeli government are the good guys either. They've done many things that obviously shouldn't have been done. Some were in reply to attacks. Some provoked attacks.
There's plenty of blame to go around for the general situation and the solution to this isn't going to be easy. But saying "well, the Israeli government did X so killing Israeli civilians was justified" is totally wrong.
Nope, I never said that. I simply said that Hamas is not the bad guys. What I’m saying is that this idea that there is a binary of “good guys” and “bad guys” is a bullshit narrative believed by naive people that only read propaganda like this story.
For what it’s worth, Israel specifically targets land with civilians on it that they want to settle, blow it up, then claim boogie man “Hamas” did it. They’ve been doing it for DECADES. We’re talking occupied apartment buildings, hospitals, schools…and somehow it never gets covered by the western media. Go look at death and injury statistics for the area. Even western sources will tell you that the Israeli forces are way more brutal than Hamas could ever hope to be.
This isn’t a big surprise to anybody who has observed this conflict for more than a single news cycle.
Indeed. Israel is also in the position of power here. They can choose to start towards a lasting peace but they want all the land instead. Hamas is a symptom of this
Israel tried for a lasting peace a few decades ago. They were rebuffed at the last minute by the PLO. Since then, the PLO has been replaced by Hamas. Hamas' goal, which they've outright stated, is to drive all the Jews into the sea. How do you negotiate with people who want to murder you?
I'm an American Jew and have seen Nazis marching with the swastika flag flying. I've had a person tell me (to my face, knowing that I'm Jewish) that "the only thing Hitler did wrong was not finishing the job." How would you have me negotiate with someone like that?
I'm not claiming that Israel is blameless. Far from it. However, trying to justify attacks like this with "but Israel did X" is minimizing the horror of what was done. Had Hamas attacked military or governmental targets, I'd agree that it was a valid reply to actions Israel has taken. Killing random civilians (many, but not all of whom were Israeli), though, is nowhere near justified by "but Israel did X."
I also won't claim to know the solution to this situation. If I did, I'd be a Nobel Prize winning diplomat and not a small time web developer. I can only describe the situation as I see it. Palestinian groups attack due to (partly) the treatment they're receiving. In return, Israelis, in fear for their safety, elect firebrand politicians who clamp down hard on the Palestinians to prevent future attacks. Mix in some Palestinians who want to kill all Jews and some Israelis (like the settlers) who think all Palestinian land should just be seized for Israel (and who do so) and the pressure/temperature ramps up more and more. Repeat over and over again.
In the short term, Israel is going to retaliate and I can't say that I blame them. I hope they restrict their retaliation to Hamas targets and not civilian ones. Any high ground Israel has from this attack would be instantly lost if they responded exactly in kind. In the long term, we need some diplomats of serious skill to unwind this mess, turn the temperature down, and get both sides talking instead of attacking.
Israel replaced the PLO by supporting hamas
The Palestinians voted in Hamas. You can't blame Israel for the votes of the Palestinians.
It should be noted, though, that Hamas has since cancelled elections. So I'd no longer consider them the rightful rulers of the Palestinian people. Not until free and fair elections are held.
Of course, conflict with Israel is what Hamas wants. Their goal is to push Israel into the sea. If Israel strikes back hard against Hamas' actions, Hamas will spin it with their people as "support us against those evil Israelis." Meanwhile, the right wing elements in Israel don't want peace because they get political power when the people fear they'd be under attack.
I should also point out one more factor in this mess: evangelical Christians in the US. They believe that Jesus will come back when 1) Jews control Israel and 2) Israel is hit with a huge attack. The first part is there. The second part depends on peace not being achieved. If Biden sent a diplomat that was able to magically untangle this mess and forge a lasting peace, the "Jesus returns due to an attack on Israel" possibility would drop to zero. (Well, technically, the chance of an attack would drop. No comment on the "attack on Israel causes Jesus to return" part.)
The evangelicals are huge contributors to the settlers (who take over Palestinian land and then demand that Israel protect them since they are Israeli citizens). The settlers inflame tensions, making attacks more likely. The evangelicals don't care about the Israeli citizens who would suffer from any attack. They think that any Christians in Israel would be pulled to heaven by Jesus and the Jews/Muslims would be tossed into hell. They are mucking in international politics and pushing for violence based solely on trying to get Jesus to return.
Exactly.
Palestinians have rejected peace deal after peace deal for the better part of a century, and have never ONCE offered a solution to this situation that didn't spell the death of Israel.
The idea that Israel had the power to end this is just demonstrably false.
Reducing it to a binary is the incorrect analogy.
The needle of responsibility in this conflict definitely leans toward Hamas.
Every Palestinian civilian death, every displacement, every house bombed, every western country, like Austria, who withdrew support, the imminent reoccupation of the region, it's all on Hamas.
They really really hung themselves on the world stage with this one, they had some excellent PR going too.
regarding your previous statements about the terror group hamas, you do not, under any circumstances "gotta hand it to them"
What the actual bell are you talking about?