Are Hamas as thick as they are evil?!

[Newbutoldfather]

After seeing masked, uniformed well-fed Hamas soldiers humiliating emaciated hostages, does anyone even feel a shred of sympathy for them?

Can’t they even understand how bad this looks and what the consequences will be both for themselves and, more importantly, for the rest of the Palestinians?

It would be hard for them to be as thick as they are evil, because they are extremely evil, but I think they might have achieved it…

Did you somehow miss the fact that I said ALL terrorists? And I SPECIFICALLY, in the context, said Hamas AND Israel. It's not that hard to read something before posting a reply. There were only two short paragraphs and all in English.

GouacheEnthusiast

"A rapist was celebrated on Israeli national television. There was an appetite for it."

Really? You're obviously fighting for your cause. But please remember, as another poster pointed out, to check the legal position in the UK on supporting a prescribed terrorist organisation, which is what Hamas is.

How many of those would be alive or non-injured if October 7th had not happened?

I suggest you watch the Ask project you tube videos. Out of Israelis and Palestinians, its quickly clear who is more tolerant of who, which civilians want peace, and which want to obliterate the other out of the Middle East.

Oh dear...

I am sorry, but this is completely false equivalence. Israeli society and government is not like that in Gaza. Israel is a democracy with a free press where its civilians are free to criticise the government and freely protest against them, and indeed public demonstrations have been taking place against the government.

Gaza is ruled by a dictatorship (by which I mean an organisation rather than an individual) which has not allowed any elections in two decades, and does not permit criticism or dissent.

Citizens are not indoctrinated in a multi-cultural democratic country with a free press and full human rights for its citizens. Citizens are indoctrinated in a dictatorship where the indoctrination of children through school and tv shows is well documented and where criticism of the regime is punished.

You are correct. Not "thought of" - Nelson Mandela was a terrorist, and admitted to it. But was it the terrorism that brought down apartheid in the end? No. If you look at the history of the freedom movement in South Africa, the ANC was also more than willing to sacrifice / discipline their own people quite horribly, in the quest for "freedom". But it was the likes of Tutu and peaceful resistance that turned the tide. That doesn't always work. But lets not pretend that in armed resistance there is one side that is better than the other. I am from an Irish Republican family - some of my forebears fought for Irelands freedom in the early 1900's. I know better than most that neither side was without fault.

How is illegally forcing Palestinians off their land and building settlements on it in any way tolerant? This has to be a joke!

GouacheEnthusiast.

You were asked upthread if you are a Hamas supporter but declined to say. Why would that be?

Hamas will never give up because their livelihoods, especially those of the fat cats at the top, depend on continued insurgency. They have no interest in a peaceful solution because they would lose power and income.

Mandela was involved in sabotage of infrastructure not attacking innocent civilians on a large scale, like the IRA or Hamas. To equate Hamas with the ANC is pretty disgusting.

Basically what he said. Don't address the argument, attack the person.

They're trying to save face and get the Palestinian crowds on side. It's all bravado I think. In reality, I think it's game over for Hamas because what they represent is a threat to all the West which means all the West will retaliate, Trump gets on board and everything escalates. The October attack has backfired and marked the end of them.

What, then, is your explanation for Israeli citizens cheering about dead Palestinian children, or turning a blind eye to hundreds of Palestinians being held in Israeli jails without charge or conviction? Just intrinsic evil? No. Of course indoctrination can happen even in supposedly free societies - 70 million people voted for Trump, after all. When a population is under constant threat, it's almost inevitable.

The two societies are very different, but both are being misled, and the fact that one has the trappings of democracy doesn't absolve it from this.

It's beacause Jews value human life above all else. Hamas don't.

Well said.

I haven't seen that survey or its wording, and no link has been provided for anyone to evaluate its accuracy.

However, I would say that, even if that were the case, ascribing that survey result to 'indoctrination' by the government, rather than a response to an immediate neighbour who brutalised and murdered the most left wing and peace-loving, and Gazan supporting of your citizens and is openly dedicated to committing such atrocity again and again until all of you are murdered, rather suggests that the person ascribing the alleged views in the poll to government indoctrination rather than the brutality of a terrorist neighbour has indoctrinated themselves against the Israeli citizens.

Amongst the murdered people of the Kibbutz are those who used to advocate for the Gazans and ferry Gazan children to hospitals. The Gazans who were employed by people on the Kibbutz were feeding information back to Hamas to help them prepare for the attack. You can see why more Israelis may no longer feel a two state solution will not result in their safety, in a very real sense.

The Palestinians have been brutalised by nearly 80 years of Israeli behaviour. Look at what Israel has done over the last year and a half. They are the oppressors and every neutral observer knows it.

Funny how it’s aways Nelson Mandela that’s wheeled out as an example of a good terrorist.

Never Carlos the Jackal, the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Black September group, Anders Breivik or any other sordid mass murderers and kidnappers. They seem much better comparisons with Hamas.