How many more will Israel kill?

When people say 'I'm afraid of the islamic fundamentalists' when in fact they refer to violent resistance when peaceful negotiations have not yielded results, that tells me those people have been misled about the religion. In that case a basic text analysis is an ok start.

I absolutely agree that any extremism in any religion is dangerous.
But … “someone asked ChatGPT to analyse religious books of main religions. You wouldn't guess which religion has a more violent text”
This is a bizarre point.
Violence is sometimes referred to in religious texts as a historical description of a terrible event ( eg the crucifixion) It doesn’t mean the violence referred to is a guide of how one should live!
Eg The book of Apocalypse is full of terrifying violent imagery - it’s a prophetic work describing the possible end of the world. It’s not a guide of how one should behave… quite the reverse .

No it won’t. Israel has been killing and brutalising Palestinians for decades. It only stops when netenyahu want it to stop. I don’t see them stopping, ever.

edited to remove reference to Israel. I know plenty of Israelis who are absolutely sickened by this slaughter.

It's a whole lot better than some of the justifications Israel and their apologists use for the continued massacre in Gaza.

err... AI is a long way off from accurate analysis or critical thinking.

But also, the statement "there will be many Palestinians left" make it sound as if they are replaceable.

Any radical religion is inhumane. Absolutely any extreme belief is indeed extreme. Be it religious, nationalist, or some ideology.

I remember someone asked ChatGPT to analyse religious books of main religions. You wouldn't guess which religion has a more violent text. (Spoiler alert: not Islam).

No worries! The majority of reasonable people (including Muslims and including people concerned about the suffering of people in Palestine, Lebanon and Israel) find those groups abhorrent. They are oppressive extremists and terrorists who promote ideologies very far from the actual core principles of Islam. Many Muslims want them to be prevented from harming others and for them to be brought to justice. Sadly, many people see them as being what Islam is, rather than seeing Islam in the fellow mums and dads on the school run, the kids playing in parks, the ordinary people who live their lives with varying degrees of practice (just like in Christianity and other faiths) and diversity of opinion and culture. The media often use Islamic when it would be more accurate to say Islamist/Islamism (which is an expansionist, aggressive politicisation of Islam and is not mainstream). A lot of the grassroots work being done to challenge the oppression of the Taliban and others now is actually being done by Muslim-led groups, Muslim and inter-faith organisations and Muslim individuals, often at significant personal cost.

Nobody likes the radical Islamist extremists apart from other extremists and people who don't know enough about them to realise that they're deeply, deeply awful.

Radical Islamism.
Your reply concerned me that I had used an incorrect term so I looked it up and it seems Fundamentalism refers to believing in the literal truth of a religious text. Apologies if I got that wrong, more than happy to be corrected.

Against Hamas, Isis, the Taliban, Boko Haram etc That radical, outspoken, violent far fringes of Islam. That's what I find abhorrent.

@dairydebris , do you mean anti Islamism?

Thankyou for your considered response.

When I have hope, which isn't every day, I hope that the October 26 election will bring in more moderate voices. I don't know a single person who supports Netanyahu.

I don't believe there is any chance of moderation from Hamas. Obviously, they don't hold elections. Quieter voices are necessary for any solution for the longer term.

I believe the average Israeli and the average Palestinian both want peace.

I'm aware I come across stridently Pro Israeli here. But the truth is I'm actually just really, really anti Islamic Fundamentalism.

@dairydebris

I don't care if it's pro Israeli if it's true. Do you?

You could do with spending some time trying to recognise propaganda.

@dairydebris

I hope we'll see soon. This war won't continue for ever. And there will still be many, many Palestinians alive. Some in Isreal. Some in Jordan, some in the West Bank. Because it's not genocide. It's war. It's awful. I hope it ends soon.

Do you not think there will be Palestinians left in Gaza then?

If the hostages were released it would not be over. Netanyahu was clear at the start that one of the aims was "to crush Hamas" . An ill defined goal that will allow the war to continue indefinitely.

You know Israel don't have to kill every single last Palestinian for it to be considered a genocide. They've destroyed the hospitals, schools, homes. They've specifically targeted bakeries and food production. Most of the population are now internally displaced. And now they've cut off the aid. More deaths will come from illness and starvation than bombs in the end.

But there isn't really any hope that the war will end soon. Not sure where you are getting your hope from.

As many as it possibly can.

It's important that the international community condemns the actions of the Israeli authorities because it should matter when the rules of war are broken, it should matter when human rights are not protected. If the US and to a lesser extent the UK held Israel to account it would ultimately keep us all safer. Now we are in a situation where it's fine for some countries to break international law.

Netanyahu doesn't care about the hostages. Look at this forum of hostage families. Like the Palestinians, they are victims of both Hamas and the Israeli authorities.

I think they will continue doing exactly as they like but if anyone knows what would lead to US/UK withdrawing their support of Israel I would be interested to know.

I don’t think there is anything. The war on terror supposedly killed 1m civilians when you add in indirect deaths.

Hear hear 👏

All them poor children slaughtered by Israel , bombed and crushed to death. What was their crime 😢

I'm not so sure the US needs Israel as much any more. US power itself is not what it used to be.

It's honestly so heartbreaking. These poor children who have suffered endlessly all their lives. I can't imagine what they are going through.

The US/UK have done this for centuries, we are experts in colonising. This is a US war to take land in the middle East and it always has been. The US need an Israel in the middle East for their own benefit. Most of the funding of this genocide comes from them as do most of the wars in the world.

I wish the UK was closer to European nations that America.

Quite.

I don't think Israel have anymore of a plan for the short-term than Hamas did over a year ago. It is little more than retribution now, but clearly there are significant elements in Israel who will take of advantage of any opportunity to expand ever further.

There is of course sympathy for the remaining hostages of 7/10 and their families but for the nation of Israel it seems the well has run dry. The slaughter of Palestinians is just too horrific, so massively disproportional, completely incongruous. This appalling chapter in the history of the region has brought home to many people across the world the injustices Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians.

Arguably, Israel only exists because of the Holocaust, perhaps as an apology by the west. If Israel continues on it's present course, just as sympathy for recent atrocities has waned, so might the guilt that western nations have felt for the Holocaust. If Israel loses that very deep rooted support it could find itself increasingly isolated.

Israel is treading a very fine line.

Yes, I think the campaign would continue regardless of what Hamas might hypothetically offer, unless such an offer is part of an agreed ceasefire with external oversight.

Politicians in key positions and more generally, people in relevant positions within key agencies and the IDF, and 'settlers' have all clearly expressed their intentions and support for "Nakba 2024", "total victory", etc. The main political figures involved have plenty to gain from continuing. We're talking here about individuals who have track records of exploiting and manipulating situations to suit their own agendas rather than the interests of ordinary people, who have been open about their intentions to prevent any realisation of a two-state solution or recognition of a Palestinian state with rights of self-determination. These are the same people who have overseen rapid expansion of the efforts to not just occupy but annex land in the West Bank, and who are openly advocating for the vision of a 'Greater Israel' in which Palestine and other countries no longer exist. These are not people likely to stop of their own volition when they can see how well (in their eyes) their efforts are going.

The current Israeli government and IDF have an aggressive, expansionist mentality, fuelled by racial and religious factors, as well as individuals being deployed in combat who are experiencing understandable trauma, fear and anger. I do not believe that they will choose to stop until "the job is done", and what that looks like will likely evolve to meet the needs or desires of the men in power.

Hamas should release hostages unconditionally because it's the closest to the right thing that they could do (the right thing would have been to not carry out terrorist atrocities and take hostages in the first place). But they won't. They're terrorists and the hostages are pretty much the last bargaining chip (in their eyes) that they have. They will want something, and that something could be negotiated to lead to a ceasefire and peace process. But they will be very aware that Israeli forces are very unlikely to stop without some form of external pressure or process.

Without some external intervention, I and many others remain concerned that this campaign will continue until there is no Palestine, through a combination of deaths, displacement and forced assimilation. A campaign of genocide does not require a population to be entirely destroyed, and the percentages of populations killed in Palestine are now considered by many to be in the range identified in other conflicts in which geocides were recognised - that, in the context of openly pro-genocide comments from Israeli figures, means many people consider this to be a genocide.

And we in the UK feel completely let down by the present and past governments who refuse to hold Israel to account.