“I killed 10 Jews with my own hands. I’m using the dead Jewish woman’s phone to call you now.”

[mushti]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/23/israel-shows-footage-of-hamas-killings-to-counter-denial-of-atrocities

I feel sick.

I never said that or that she should be grateful. Of course its horrific being held hostage. I was just saying what the lady said and said what a contrast between the two.

These people have family and friends still held hostage. What do you think they're going to say? Many are also from the kibbutzes, with a similar worldview to those attending a psychedelic dance peace festival within kilometers of a security fence. I've read several accounts from kibbutz-dwellers, who lived behind security gates, with armed patrols, a few miles from a border fence with Gaza, and with safe rooms in their houses, who describe how safe they always felt. People will often hold on to their belief systems in the face of any reality and any consequences.

I’d assume the people caring for the hostages back in Gaza are not the same people who committed the actual atrocities on Israeli soil even if they are part of the same terror organisations. Presumably the Hamas soldiers handed over the hostages to either a different section of Hamas or perhaps even to Gazan civilian doctors who are either recruited or forced to work for Hamas. Hopefully the same men who committed the atrocities in Hamas were not then tasked with caring for the hostages, I can’t imagine how traumatising that would be. I’d also assume considering the current ‘war’ the Hamas soldiers would be more likely to be engaged in military action and it would be another branch of Hamas caring for the civilians. Although it is considered a terrorist organisation Hamas is also the governing body in Gaza so it is possible that some of the people working under it for the government are not terrorists, or at least still have enough humanity to treat the held Israeli civilians with kindness and empathy. I will say I’m just assuming all of this because it seems logical to me, I don’t actually have any inside knowledge regarding how Hamas is run, I just know it is a much wider and larger organisation than the 3000 terrorists who entered Israel so the likelihood of the same men who entered Israel being the men who then tend the hostages seems unlikely.

Do you think some Nazis were kind empathetic people too?

Hi @MolkosTeenageAngst

I’ve been reading your posts and a few things aren’t adding up for me. Specifically I’d like to ask you re your assertion that Israel as an apartheid state. Can you explain to me how Israel is practising apartheid against Palestinians, with real-life examples? I ask because Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria, along with the Gaza Strip, are not citizens of Israel. They are citizens of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas governments, respectively. Therefore the Israeli government do not have any jurisdiction over their lives day to day. These citizens are in a different territory that they do not control. Any grievances about the civil rights of Palestinians should be directed towards those governments, not Israel.

Instead, if you interrogate what apartheid actually was, ie a system of de jure discrimination and segregation of South Africa society (from 1948-1994), you cannot claim that a similar dynamic is at play in territories beyond Israel’s borders. During apartheid, a white minority ruled and oppressed a majority black population with restrictions on housing, employment and freedom of movement. I am very wary of the apartheid accusation because I am fully up to speed with what the word means and the experiences of black South Africans during the apartheid era. It really doesn’t fit in this context and when you make this comparison it really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The Afrikaans word for Apartheid means “apartness” - and in practice, every detail of life was subject to discrimination by law. Black South Africans did not have the vote. Skin colour determined where you were born and lived, your job, your school, which bus, train, taxi and ambulance you used, which park bench, toilet and beach you used, whom you could marry, and in which cemetery you were buried. So are you really telling me that Israel controls Palestinians’ lives to this extent in both Gaza and the West Bank? Honestly?

I’m sorry, but someone has been lying to you. Including, probably, Amnesty International, so don’t try and share with me their report. I’ve read it and I didn’t buy any of their claims, I’m not that credulous. I’m also aware of their troubling history of anti-Israel bias and existing issues with institutional antisemitism.

I have seen plenty of instances where some people refer to an “apartheid wall”. This is a cynical misrepresentation of the security barrier between Israel and parts of Judea and Samaria. This barrier (which is mostly a fence in reality), was put up to stop Palestinian terrorism after hundreds of Israelis were killed or wounded in suicide bombings, stabbings and shootings (do you remember the first and second intifadas?). It does not separate people based on race or any other criteria. However, it is fair to say that some Israelis have opportunistically twisted the barrier’s purpose to grab land from Palestinians. That is exploitative and damaging (and I utterly condemn this). But calling it the “apartheid wall”, as critics do, is untrue propaganda.

I also just want to point out that Israel issue Gazans and Palestinians from the West Bank with employment permits so they cross the border legally each day for work. The permits allow Palestinians to work mostly menial jobs that pay far higher wages than those available inside Gaza or the West Bank. So again, this undermines your apartheid argument.

Final question on this issue. If Israel are running the same brutal system of apartheid as the South African government did all those years ago, how come the country’s black citizens didn’t rise up and rape, torture, murder and kidnap its white citizens “in the name of equality and ending apartheid”? Could it be because Hamas’ unspeakable attacks have got nothing to do with the human rights of Palestinians and improving their lives, but everything to do with wanting to kill Jews and destroying Israel?

Moving on from this discussion, I too went to the vigil on Sunday afternoon at Trafalgar Square with my parents, my partner and our baby. We are Irish catholics, my partner is Jewish (secular), though we were long-time supporters of Campaign Against Antisemitism before I met my partner (my dad is a history teacher who taught the holocaust year in year out and it never stopped having a profound impact on him). What the families of the hostages are going through is unbelievably cruel, it’s a living nightmare. If I were in their position, it would break me. Bring them home now.

I think it’s a complex issue. Obviously none of the top Nazi officials and those pushing Nazi ideology were kind and empathetic. But the Nazis had normal everyday German citizens vote for them and carry out their awful atrocities. Do I think that the majority of the German population at that time happened to all be born unkind and unempathetic? No. I believe people were indoctrinated and brainwashed into believing an awful point of view and into believing the unthinkable was thinkable. I think that scare tactics were used so that even people who didn’t think what the nazis were doing was right were forced to be complicit in the atrocities for fear of their own families being killed in revenge. I think it becomes more complex than the individual when you are acting under a wider power, especially when that power threatens your own family if you don’t conform and forces you to carry out acts in its name. I don’t believe every single Nazi was there by choice and do believe some were probably kind and empathetic, indeed there were some Nazi officials who hid Jews or helped them escape or avoid concentration camps etc, perhaps they were kind and empathetic. This man for example: https://www.timesofisrael.com/nazi-official-who-risked-life-to-save-hundreds-of-jews-posthumously-recognized/

I don’t believe Hamas are a kind or empathetic organisation. Equally I don’t believe that their terror is directed only towards Israel and that it wouldn’t be directed towards the Gazan civilians. I do believe some kind and empathetic people might be forced to work for Hamas for fear that if they don’t their own families would be killed. I do believe that a Gazan doctor might be forced to work for Hamas, but maybe still treat others kindly and empathetically. I don’t believe that just because an organisation is evil at its core that every person who works for them is evil, especially when people are likely forced to work for them. I think it is possible that within Hamas some of the people working for them might be kind or empathetic and even that some people working within them don’t believe with their core beliefs but are forced to follow them for fear of their own lives and that those people might be kind or empathetic.

I would like to praise @MolkosTeenageAngst for responding in such a level headed manner.

The Hamas atrocities speak for themselves. There is no justification.

I do want to say that apparently over 5000 Palestinians have now died, of a population of 2.5m. I make that 2 in every thousand and counting. That is the equivalent of 67000 brits being killed. I’m scared that this is being justified by the world, regardless of who is responsible.

Im frankly also really worried that it is apparently ok to refer to people as “animals” and “inhuman” as I have heard numerous times on the news in recent weeks. The “othering” of an enemy only leads to further atrocities.

Hamas are trolling the west. They have managed to create more division and unrest in the west than many terrorists before. It's psychological terror and gas lighting on a grand scale. They are twisted 💩

I'm not sure you can give Hamas all the credit for that. The ignorance of most westerners about the situation is largely the result of western governments' need for oil and gas, the strategic importance of the Middle East, the extraordinary wealth of Gulf states, and the west's need for alliances in the area and among states sympathetic to the Palestinians. Then there's the effect of decades of mass immigration into western countries which is shifting attitudes especially among younger generations. Then there's decades of leftist anti-imperialist propaganda and, frankly, obsession with Israel-Palestine over any other conflict, which has developed into the current woke psychosis about white settler colonialism.

Hamas don't need to do much, manipulating the average 21st century westerner, especially left-leaning ones, is child's play.

So, you have found 3 Muslim X accounts who are critical of Hamas?

Some British Islamic clerics did finally make a statement saying they disagreed with the massacre, a couple of days ago. It only took them 2 weeks.....

Yes she did say all that. Maybe it was to protect the others left behind. Maybe it was true. Maybe Hamas only released the two hostages they treated well as part of their propoganda war.

I really, really hope it was true.

Hamas is a death cult.

They have deliberately decided to sacrifice people in Gaza in order to fulfil their political objectives. Here is one of their leaders being pushed on this point by an Arab journalist.

x.com/arash_tehran/status/1715354932595847322?s=20

Why aren't people similarly appalled by the attack on Gaza as they are about Hamas' attack? Why aren't people questioning the behaviour of the Israeli government more? Even the hostages are appalled by the failure of the Israeli government to protect them. Finally, how is carpet bombing Gaza helping anyone to achieve justice?

They are. Read the forum.

Previous hostages have said the same so hopefully it is true.

They are similarly appalled. I certainly don’t speak for everyone, but I can’t imagine anyone actually believes that what is happening to the civilians of Gaza is in anyway okay. I’ve had to stop watching the videos, because I can’t get the images of the children out of my head.

I’m not prepared to gloss over the barbarity of what was inflicted upon the women and children of Israel on 7 October, though. I’m actively calling out the posters who are minimising, justifying or otherwise trying to gaslight others into accepting that it was nothing more than an isolated terrorist attack. Which happens everywhere, apparently.

That doesn’t mean that I am not horrified at what is transpiring in Gaza. And deeply affected by it. I can barely hug my children without tears filling my eyes.

Finally, how is carpet bombing Gaza helping anyone to achieve justice?

I have said it elsewhere, but there is no justice to be had for anyone in this conflict. A peace needs to be enforced, urgently, so that no more people have to die. Too much blood has been spilled in this region. The International community need to come up with a plan to enforce peace. There is no other way.

For Hamas their children are canon fodder

This is a kindergarten "graduation" ceremony. Calling the people who teach children to do this 'animals' is insulting to animals. They are psychopaths. x.com/charliekirk11/status/1716540576877936692?s=61&t=C-qRmhqAOOUFsIi8sm-WWw

@Pollyputhekettleon Dead right I am ignorant. I only just learnt for example that Israel's National Security Minister was rejected by the Israel army because of his extreme activism. He also has a criminal record including supporting a terrorist organisation. I guess a lot of Israelis agree with him
You tell us to go and read - well I am doing that and I think its making me even more of an "useful idiot" to coin a phrase

“A violent criminal who was convicted of supporting terrorism and didn’t serve a single day in the army, isn’t going to send our children into battle,” opposition leader Yair Lapid said at an anti-government rally in December, referring to the Israeli army’s rejection of Ben Gvir from mandatory service. His extremist activism made the future security minister a security risk, the army decided.

Itamar Ben Gvir: How an extremist settler became a powerful Israeli minister - The Washington Post

Do you think all Germans were Nazis?

T

You put into words what I was thinking.
Whatever you say there are those who say "whatabout".
"Whatabout" is essentially a way of defending Hamas and denying the horror of their actions.

In fairness, this happens with both 'sides'.

Ben-Gvir is indeed horrendous and should never be in government or in my opinion, in any public role with any responsibility. But somehow he got in and. Netanyahu cut deals with the most extreme factions - including Ben-Gvir- to put together a coalition government and stay in power, so he can avoid having to face his corruption charges.

Unfortunately, in the absence of another perceived strong leader, enough Israelis voted for Netanyahu to allow this to happen, because Israelis need a strong leader who has a reputation for being good at defending Israel from the surrounding countries.

Israelis have been protesting at this government all year, it was almost heading to civil war at one point. Most normal Israelis do NOT support the current government or Ben-Gvir.

Fortunately, as far as I am aware, he was left out of the current War government that has been formed.

Is your last paragraph worry specifically for Hamas terrorists?

Have you read what they carried out on October 7th? @SomeCatFromJapan outlines it below

She is protecting her husband and the others who remain hostages. Also hostages are worth a lot more to Hamas alive than dead so there's every chance that they might look after some relatively well. Just remember the same people tortured & murdered others. Its also worth remembering an aspect of this tragedy that is rarely remarked on. Many of the Israelis murdered & captured were peace activists. Many worked with & employed Palestinians frim Gaza (yes people come & go from the so-called prison) so she may have a genuine desire also to try & find some positive aspect The psychology of being a hostage is quite complicated I think.

You are worried about the ‘othering’ of Hamas?

This is the issue; the western world is tying itself in knots worrying about nuances of psycho-babble, while the people in Middle East are suffering attacks of pure barbarism from individuals who do not value anything but their cause.