To understand the escalation in Lebanon, we must confront what Israelis are thinking

Ok, just to take one example from this post 'share tea and cake'. Many of the people tortured and murdered on 7 October were involved in the peace movement.

This fatuous nonsense is just a prescription for the people of Israel to roll over & be destroyed and it beggars belief that anyone has the fucking nerve to type it out. You are welcome to go out there and offer to make love to terrorists but let the people of Israel do what they have to do to defend themselves.

Many terrorists but mostly innocent civilians. That's the whole difficulty with all this.

How to defend yourself?

Make Love not war

Share tea and cake

Discover your common humanity as the backdrop to resolve your differences

Back out of Palestine and any other land illegally occupied

All they are doing is increasing the number of people who hate them and would like to see them destroyed- meaning this long running problem will carry on running

The aggressive framing of the question makes it hard to answer. Where do you see the denial of a Palestinian state and the ongoing occupation in all this?

Well all of that is a given. The question is, how do you defend yourselves against ongoing aggression from two organisations, coming at you from two different directions, both of whom seek to wipe your nation state and your entire ethnicity off the face of the earth, while making sure all of those things are adhered to?

I was hoping for rather more specific, creative and practical solutions to that particular conundrum, rather than the most obvious, generic cut and paste type answers. We all know what should be happening in theory. It's how to achieve it in practise that I'm more interested in. If you have the answers then please enlighten us. Or do you prefer that Israel should cease to defend itself altogether than risk the death of a single innocent person?

Agreeing to a Palestinian state would go a long way. But Israel will never do that.

None of that is a strategy to neutralise Hamas or Hezbollah.

Who do they think they're likely to kill when they bomb refugee camps housing thousands of people in tents?

It's not the innocent civilians they're aiming to kill though, is it? It's terrorists.

@ToBeDetermined

www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full

"Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity."

"Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus."

"There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity"

"Hamas stresses that transgression against the Palestinian people, usurping their land and banishing them from their homeland cannot be called peace. Any settlements reached on this basis will not lead to peace. Resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine will remain a legitimate right, a duty and an honour for all the sons and daughters of our people and our Ummah."

Etc etc etc

It doesn't sound like they're recognising Israel though, does it? Even their newest charter says Israel is Palestine 🤦🏻‍♀️ They reserve the right for "resistance and jihad". Let's not pretend it's a peaceful two state solution they're after.

In May 2017 Palestinian political and military organization Hamas unveiled A Document of General Principles and Policies (وثيقة المبادئ والسياسات العامة لحركة حماس), also referred to as the new or revised Hamas charter. It accepted the idea of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, i.e. comprising the West Bank and Gaza strip only,[3] on the condition that also the Palestinian refugees were allowed to return to their homes,[4] if it is clear this is the consensus of the Palestinians[5] ("a formula of national consensus"[6]); but at the same time this document strove for the "complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea",[2][6] and did not explicitly recognize Israel.[3] The new charter holds that armed resistance against an occupying power is justified under international law.[1][7]

The 'complete liberation of Palestine' equals the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.
What else do you think 'From the River (Jordan) to the (Mediterranean) Sea' chant means? (Rhetorical question)

Very strange way to defend your populace by killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians that your enemy doesn’t care about.

“While initially seeking a state in all of Mandatory Palestine that would replace Israel, Hamas began acquiescing to 1967 borders in the agreements it signed with Fatah in 2005, 2006 and 2007.[73][74][75]“

That they are defending all Israelis which is what all countries do for their citizens. Note that terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah couldn't give a fxxk about ordinary citizens in Gaza or Lebanon.

I wonder why you stopped listening to them in 1988.

Yea, more attacks until there is a Palestinian state with 1967 borders is what they said.

And what do the actions of Israel say then?

Their actions belie your statement. That have stated also that they will continue with more October 7ths.

It is a dispute over land. Their problem is with the lands that have been and are being stolen. Embedding means more than military using civilian infrastructure- a crime both sides are guilty of btw, as the poster meant it in the larger context of “embedded deeply in the civilian communities” which would include the fact that all civilians have military training and service and the fact that the Israeli government has armed violent civilian settler groups and uses the IDF to protect and assist them in terrorising civilian Palestinians in their homes.

Their actions say different.

Wow.
This is why I can't read these Israel propaganda threads.
Less than ten posts in we have the deliberate targeting of Palestinian schools, hospitals and the total flattening of streets waved away as "collateral damage"
The ignorance is off the scale.

Thousands of Palestinians being purposefully starved to death by blocking food is not "collateral damage" nor is blocking anesthetics in Palestinian hospitals.

Please don’t prejudge a Palestinian state.

I wonder iyou have listened to anything Hamas have said over the years? This is not just a dispute over land. Their problem is with Jewish people who they intend to destroy. Perhaps you might watch the documentary on the 7 October atrocity?
Embedding means physically putting military installations in civilian infrastructure which is against the rules of war. It does not relate to conscripting civilians for military service which is a normal response when a state faces an existential threat .

You will be no doubt thrilled to be informed that they abandoned this goal twenty years ago.

In my opinion, if a Palestinian state were created, within a week it'd be firing Iranian supplied missiles into Israel.

Okay, then Israel could set about wiping out that new state with a clear conscience but there would be a lot of collateral damage.

The people who need containing are the Islamists of Iran.