Hamas and Gaza celebrates

[LetThereBeLove]

Hillel Nueur, International human rights lawyer, writer, Executive Director of United Nations Watch writes: 'Never before in history has a side claimed that they suffered a genocide and at the same time that they won the war they had started.'

If you read only a handful of messages on social media today and watch the news, people in Gaza are celebrating and Hamas state they will continue (their barbarity) until Israel is eradicated. I won't repost these as anyone can find them easily.

I don't understand how you have such a poor grasp of what's happening. True to their cruel tactics, Hamas has refused to disclose which hostages are alive or dead.

Israel has demanded only living hostages be returned first in exchange for prisoners who are alive. Too much you think?

Personally I would have demanded the release of all hostages. Enough is enough!

I don't want to see 33 Israelis or other foreign nationals returning in body bags. So, if this was the guarantee the Israel government wanted why would you question it.

Can you for once, drop the anti Israel campaign and imagine your child's name was on that list, and the absolute devastation you'd feel being handed back a corpse.

If my child’s name was on the list I’d have campaigned for months for a ceasefire that would get my child alive. Like many of the relatives have done. Every day, every hour matters so I’d be demanding the politicians to met and agreed to a ceasefire ASAP.

It's very easy for you to be an armchair warrior while families wait for news of their loved ones kidnapped in barbaric circumstances by Hamas terrorists.
Neither you nor I, nor anyone on this thread, know how we would react in their circumstances so please don't presume. We are lucky we don't walk in their shoes.

The uncertainty of not knowing if someone you love is alive or dead, of not knowing if they are being hurt or neglected by people who took them, of not knowing where they are... It's torture in itself.

It's also frightening to have the prospect of an end to it, to have the potential to have an answer, one way or the other. Because in the pain of that uncertainty, there is still a flicker of hope, and that could be extinguished. When hope is all you have left, it's hard when you risk losing it too.

Of course it’s easy for me to talk about it from my comfy sofa. However, many of the hostage families have criticised the government and campaigned for a ceasefire in the last 15 months. Not all, but many of them have

i don’t think asking politicians , and this doesn’t only apply to Israel but to any government whose citizens have been kidnapped, to come up with a plan that would make sure my relatives would be back home alive ASAP.

added as the last comment was cut short and can’t extend it

i don’t think asking politicians to come with an plan is a crazy idea.

You accused Israel of stalling the negotiations this weekend, making no reference to the reasons why. Now you're misdirecting the conversation, talking about missed ceasefire opportunities from the past 15 months.

Shall we get back on track. What you can't seem to comprehend is they want the hostages returned alive this weekend. Not given false hope of a reunion and to be handed over a corpse.

For once stop with the Israel rhetoric and look at this objectively.

The “root cause” of Hamas, Hezbollah etc attacking is antisemitism. There is no version on a Jewish state that they will ever accept. There have been generations of attempts. What do you imagine the Israelis could do about that? All commit suicide to appease the jihadis?

The “root cause” of Hamas, Hezbollah etc attacking is antisemitism.

It's wrong to think that antisemitism is the root cause. I'm not denying that antisemitism is used to play a part and if you ask me where would you find antisemitism at it's most virulent, I would direct you towards the Palestinians. But that's not the cause of the problem, it's just a symptom.

It's the fact that what the Palestinians see as oppressing them is a Jewish state, full of Jews. That's why they hate Jews.

Had that land been overtaken over the past 150 years by evangelical christians who then treated the inhabitants in an identical way, then today the Palestinians would not be antisemites, but antievangelites.

Their antisemitism predates the existence of the modern Israeli state. Arabs opposed Jews living there under Ottoman and British rule, but were historically somewhat more tolerant of Jews they could oppress and treat as second class citizens. When it became apparent that there would be a Jewish state, they allied with the Nazis. There was genocidal intent long before there was an Israeli state.

This is so true. It is a fact that is conveniently ignored by the 'from the Rivers to the Sea' brigade, but it is the stone cold truth and the reason I would never go on any kind of pro-Palestine march. Not because I hate people who live in Palestine, but because I am all too aware of this unsavoury element, even though people try to be ahistorical and pretend none of that happened.

Do you not agree then that Israels treatment of Palestinians plays a part? Would you like the country who kept you living under apartheid or who protected the people kicking you out of your home or who prevented you from studying or from receiving cancer treatment or visiting a dying relative or travelling with your seriously ill child? And that's before we get into the killings and the bombings. It's a bit simplistic to say it's antisemitism, the end, don't you think?

I think the reason Israel has been defensive from the word go is because they have been surrounded by countries determined to destroy them since before their formation. On the day the British withdrew, the surrounding Arab states allied to try to wipe Israel off the map. Their stated aim was to destroy the Jewish state and kill all the Jews. Luckily they failed!
There could have been peace as the British empire collapsed if the Arab states hadn’t been so overwhelmed by racism and hatred that they stated a war. There could have been peace since then if they accepted they lost the war and moved on. Instead they’re still trying for a second go at a war they lost decades ago and Israel is left with no options. You can’t make peace with someone who will keep fighting until you’re dead.

You wrote a lot but didn't answer the question. Do you think apartheid is 'defensive'?

There is no apartheid. Israeli citizens have the same rights irrespective of race, religion, gender, sexuality etc. Non-citizens have fewer rights, just like in every other country in the world.

Sorry, I mean the apartheid Israel enact in the OPT, I thought that was obvious especially since the recent court case but clearly not.

The same question stands. Do you think apartheid is 'defensive'? Do you think living under apartheid plays a role in Palestinians feeling towards Israel?

There is no apartheid. Non citizens do not have the same rights as citizens. That is normal. In the West Bank, they are (mostly) not citizens of Israel so they do not have rights in Israel.
There is heavy policing by Israel because it is necessary. The Palestinians have shown time and time again that they will continue attacking Israel at every opportunity. They started before Israel was formed and they have never stopped. What do you think could happen instead? Withdraw unilaterally like the Israelis did from Gaza? That worked really well, right! There will need to be supervision of the West Bank until they want to be safe neighbours to a Jewish state. How long that will take, no one knows.

It is apartheid, there is no debating, it was found by the ICJ to be so. I'll withdraw from this conversation because it's pointless if you believe Israel are above International law or that Palestinians aren't worthy of the same human rights protections the rest of us enjoy.

@mistmirror I am once again asking for evidence and you’re resorting to name calling.

You have no addressed my point. What solution do you imagine could work? You cannot have peace with people committed to murdering you. And as we’ve already established, the Arabs have been committed to murdering the Jews before there was an Israel or a Palestine. The Israelis are always going to have to do whatever they can to prevent the Palestinians succeeding in destroying the Jewish state, and they’re going to have to defend themselves if they fail. Appeasing terrorists doesn’t work.

Giving Palestinians basic human rights.

Like I said in a previous post would you like the country that forces you to live under apartheid? https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/experts-hail-icj-declaration-illegality-israels-presence-occupied

Or stops you receiving medical treatment https://www.btselem.org/gazastrip/20230404in2022tooisraelpreventedthousandsofpalestiniansinneedofmedicalcarefromleavinggazafortreatment

Or protects the people who burn down your villages and steal your homes
https://www.btselem.org/publications/202309thepogromsareworkingthetransferisalreadyhappening

Or locks up your children indefinitely and physically and sexually abuses them?
https://www.thejournal.ie/children-abused-in-israeli-prison-6443831-Jul2024/

None of this is acceptable. You can't treat people that way and expect them to like you. If Israel start treating Palestinians like humans and the current level of hatred is still there then Israel will have cause to build a big wall and not let any Palestinians in but if what you say is true and Israelis are always going to have to do whatever they can to prevent the Palestinians succeeding in destroying the Jewish state where does the sexual and physical abuse of children fit into that? How does that help? How does burning down people's villages help? How has any of that made Israel safer?

Palestinians united with the surrounding Arab nations to destroy Israel and kill all of the Jews the day Israel and Palestine were formed. The antisemitism has nothing to do with anything Israel does or doesn’t do because they were already committed to genocide before Israel even existed. Obviously that does not justify the allegations of sexual abuse. But it is simply absurd to pretend that there is anything Israel could have done / can do to convince the Palestinians to not be antisemitic anymore. That denies the Palestinians their agency, insulted them from the consequences of their actions, blames the victims and totally misses the point. There is no peace possible when the fundamental demand of one side is the total destruction of the other.

Neither you nor I, nor anyone on this thread, know how we would react in their circumstances so please don't presume. We are lucky we don't walk in their shoes.

I absolutely agree with this statement but do you not see that you did just that to the people in Gaza, who have been enduring unimaginable trauma and pain, by starting this thread and judging them for their celebration of a ceasefire?

You've missed the point.

Why shouldn't they be judged.

The 7th October was not the evil deeds of a few bad individuals, it took a collective endeavour by thousands of ordinary people... in the hatred of Jews.

You've judged the actions of Israel government and Israelis for the past 15 months.

This thread is perfectly legitimate.