To think that the blame lies with Hamas and Israel deserves our support

[measuringmylifeincoffeespoons]

Of course, the deaths of the aid workers recently is a terrible tragedy and it is entirely right that Israel is investigating why it happened and holding members of the IDF responsible.

However, the criticism of Israel seems to miss a fundamentally important point which is that Israel is engaged in military operations in Gaza for one reason only: the barbaric terrorist attacks that were committed by Hamas on 7 October and their continued imprisonment of Israel citizens as hostages.

Of course, the deaths of the aid workers is a tragedy. Every civilian death that occurs in a war is a tragedy. But the reality is that that is what happens in a war, and Hamas is responsible for the fact that there is a war.

The war can be ended, and billions of dollars of aid can be released into Gaza, very simply. Hamas simply needs to lay down its arms and release the Israeli citizens that it has taken hostage and continues to keep imprisoned.

Unless and until Hamas do that, the state of Israel deserves our continuing support in its battle against a brutal terrorist organisation that has kidnapped the innocent civilians of a democratic state.

How does it amount to genocide?

The reality is that Israel has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens from further attacks.

What would you have Israel do? What should it have done in the wake of the 7 October attacks?

There cannot be peace in the Middle East while Hamas remains next door. Israel cannot live next door to a state run by Hamas that wants to destroy it.

More broadly, Hamas is a also a danger to every country in the world, not just to the Jews because they fundamentally oppose democracy.

If you genuinely love and support Israel then you should be petitioning the government for a ceasefire and supporting the anti war movements.
Wiping out generations of families, including babies and children, is politicising more and more young Palestinians and encouraging them to fight. What else do they have now?

Bloody Sunday, when British paratroopers murdered civil rights protestors, is widely acknowledged to be the biggest recruitment drive the IRA ever had.

In principle I agree OP but there is obviously wrong on both sides both before and after the terrorist attack of October 7th.

problem is then they would use other means at a guess based on history

Hamas are terrorists. Israel have the right to defend themselves. The question is does defence equate to slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians in the trigger happy manner thats being reported?

Hamas are a terrorist organisation.
Israel is a democratic country whose government and military are guilty of war crimes.

Israel always kills at least 10 times the number of Palestinians relative to Israeli citizens killed in any attack, but they've really outdone themselves this time. They need to be held accountable. And Hamas need to be wiped out.

OP why do you write as if the 7th October happened in a vacuum? Why do you seem to have the opinion that Israel are allowed and entitled to defend themselves whereas the citizens of Palestine are not?

Terrorism is defined by the people in charge. The resistance in ww2 were technically terrorists but do you think they should have stopped because they were using terrorism to fight against a much bigger enemy?
Israel has consistently stolen land using terror tactics of driving Palestinians away by killing livestock, destroying crops and threatening the people (putting it mildly as some have been murdered). The international community is not supporting their rights and mildly say to Israel to stop but don't enforce it.
If hamas were based in tel aviv then the number of civilians deaths would have been much lower because Israel would ensure that they weren't killed. They don't care about the Palestinians- they see them as un human and give zero fucks that 30000 plus deaths are mainly women and children. Compared to Ukraine where the death rate is significantly higher but only 10000 civilians have been killed.
Wiping out gaza is not a proportional response for an attack that was carried out by a few people. Its like London being wiped out in response to atrocities carried out by our army. Is it a fair response for that to happen? No of course not! Killing whole families, killing aid workers when they played by the rules of Israel is not proportional. Israel is consistently undermining aid efforts because they have no empathy for the Palestinians despite having had a similar attempt to wipe out their ancestors in recent memory. It's disgusting and they don't deserve our support. I will never support the murder of so many innocent civilians. These people didn't vote in hamas - they are too young. Please try reading up from both sides because I think you're getting your support from reading a one sided argument. I first heard about the conflict from an Israeli friend and was horrified when I read up from the other perspective.

I wholeheartedly do not support anything isreal do.

I am sickened by anyone who is stupid enough to ignore the atrocities being committed by the Israeli Government.

Believing what is happening is wrong does not mean you support the actions of terrorists.

What is currently being destroyed will never be replaced. It's not just the loss of human life.

Well said! This again and again.

For Israel to be engaged in "genocide" it must be intentionally seeking to harm or destroy the Palestinian people as a group, a proposition for which there is no actual evidence. Rather, as I have detailed above, Israel is engaged in destroying a terrorist group that does not accept that the state of Israel has the right to exist and that has kidnapped hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians. Against that background, Israel has a moral and legal duty to protect its citizens and prevent further attack.
Indeed, if anyone could be said to be engaged in genocide it is Hamas as a result of the fact that Hamas is using Palestinian civilians as human shields in myriad ways.

I think these conflicts have too much history and ingrained, generational hatred for anyone to solve. You have to let it play out and at some point it will be another historical conflict that we don’t learn from.

"geno·cide
[ˈdʒɛnəsʌɪd]
noun

1. the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group:

I mean.. just me, but i'd say the destruction of the Gaza strip and the murders of 32K+ Palestinians qualifies.

‘What would you have Israel do? What should it have done in the wake of the 7 October attacks?’

Not collectively punish an entire population, Not murder 10s of thousands of civilians, not murder 10k + children, not murder aid workers, not starve a population to death, not destroy the only working hospitals in a region, not cut off power and water to a territory that it controls, not refuse to let aid in, not bring the region to the brink of a ME war.
In short- not behave like terrorists.

This is as if the U.K. government decided to bomb and destroy all of Northern Ireland in retaliation for IRA attacks - except of course the NI population is more spread out, less dense and not reliant on the U.K. government for every drop of water, morsel of food and everything else.

I would have had the Israel government behave like a government and use their famous military and intelligence to react proportionally, to acknowledge that their continuing mistreatment of Palestinians has in part created this situation, and to try to find a long term solution.
But, they were embarrassed. So, instead they use all their military might for revenge.

85 children killed a day, every day for six months straight. That's more than both of my childrens classes at school completely wiped out every day for six months. Their whole school of children gone in 3.5 days. That's their entire school wiped out over 50 times in 6 months. I could never support that.

This!

I understood the initial retaliation, Hamas members didn’t just murder they raped and tortured Israelis. Hamas are basically disgusting religious nutcases, I generally despise those kinds of people regardless of the religion they subscribe to.

But there has to be a point where human suffering outweighs all else. The Israeli government should stop. They can still continue to hunt Hamas, indeed I would encourage them to do so. BUT large scale military action in such a small place is horrific for the civilians trapped there and compassion must overtake anger. One thing though, I never see how many Hamas fighters have been killed and I don’t trust numbers coming out of Hamas for death numbers. I absolutely believe they are very high but they are a propaganda machine and the numbers will be difficult to verify.

I dont agree, Israels actions suggest to many people that Genocide is their ultimate goal. The Palestinians they cant kill directly they are trying to starve to death or make sure they cant access basic healthcare.
The "Human Shield" argument is an attempt at justification of their actions in my opinion. They seem to be operating on Stalins model - kill 1000 to get 1 Hamas fighter, which is not justifiable. Especially when the 1000 is mostly women and children.

@measuringmylifeincoffeespoons

The reality is that Israel has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens from further attacks.

Please explain, in simple terms, how killing and starving women and children advances the aim of self-defence?

Whatever has happened to get to this point, I think it would be incredibly difficult to find anyone outside of Israel who supports what’s happening right now.

The U.K. government was already finding it hard to justify its continued support of Israel and now Israel has deliberately targeted and killed U.K. former (special) servicemen working with aid organisations. They’ve successfully alienated the people who did believe that their actions were defensible from a military viewpoint. If the servicemen had been American, the US would’ve threatened to pull its support.

Israel’s ‘defense’ is that parts of their heavily armed military operating in civilian areas is incompetent and targeting at will. That gives credibility to all the previous allegations of civilians, ambulances and aid workers being deliberately targeted. They’re admitting that they can’t control their own people.

What more evidence do you need? 85 children killed a day for 6 months. Those children were not members of Hamas.

If a UK based terrorist group killed a load of French people would you think it was ok if the French government murdered all of your family and friends in 'defence'.

YABU.

I certainly agree that the government of Israel hasn't got everything right.

😳 Did the penny just drop for you then, OP?

I genuinely believe that anyone who has witnessed the genocide occur in Palestine over the last 6 months, and who has listened to any of the Israeli ambassadors and governors defend their actions, is suffering from some sort of mental condition or extreme cognitive dissonance. "Of course indiscriminately killing innocent people is bad..but, but, but.."

Or perhaps the OP, like many people is just completely ignorant to history. This didn't start in October 2023.

I have learnt not to enter into 'debates' with people like the OP.