This is a religious war not a land war.

[NotABottie]

Why were Palestinians chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ when committing the atrocities of Oct 7th and celebrating it afterwards, when the dead bodies of victims were paraded in the streets, if this is not a religious war?

Why is this being ignored and pro-Palestinians insist it’s only about land?

I really don’t agree that Hamas can “stop” anything.
If Hamas completely disbanded a lot of this wouldn’t stop, Israel would make more moves into Palestine and Palestinian citizens would not just be allowed to live a quiet peaceful life.

Well they could stop hiding and meeting in their tunnels under where lots of Palestinian civilians are, like under hospitals, that would help?

Like the latest top Hamas chief Mohammed Sinwar (and the second in command and their aides) - meeting in a tunnel under the European hospital which meant the IDF had to bomb the hospital to kill them.

They could agree to the current ceasefire proposal which would pause the war for 60 days to allow humanitarian aid to flow freely into the region and for diplomatic negotiations to replace the daily bloodshed.

Clearly a ceasefire is meaningless to Israel, it’s been broken before only in March and would be broken again.

From Wikipedia: On 1 March, the day the first phase of the ceasefire was scheduled to end, Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal to extend it to release more hostages. Hamas said the second phase should proceed as originally planned.

Netanyahu's office said that Israel endorsed a US plan to extend the Gaza truce for the Ramadan and Passover periods. Under this plan, half of the living and dead hostages would be released on the first day of the extended truce and the remaining hostages would be released at the end of the period if a permanent truce was reached.

His office said that the initial deal allowed Israel to resume war at any moment after 1 March if negotiations were deemed ineffective.

Following Hamas's refusal to accept the US ceasefire extension proposal, Israel ceased the entry of aid to Gaza the next day, 2 March.

So it's a bit more nuanced than just "Israel broke the ceasefire."
Israel resumed the air strikes at a time when the first phase of the ceasefire had expired and the second not yet begun. Had Hamas accepted the Israeli proposal to extend the first phase to release more hostages, Israel would not have ceased the entry of humanitarian aid or launched the airstrikes on March 18th. So both sides argue that it was the other side's fault.

Hamas now have another opportunity to pause the war under similar conditions to the one proposed back in March. Will Hamas agree this time I wonder or do they prefer to carry on with the war?

What Hamas could have done is not start the current war in the first place.
What they could do now is release the remaining hostages and surrender.
Surely worth a try, at least if they actually want the war to stop?

But Isreal have rejected that. They’ve said the won’t agree to the release of hostages with the terms of stopping the war.

But Isreal have rejected that. They’ve said the won’t agree to the release of hostages with the terms of stopping the war.

That doesn’t back up your statement. The initial ceasefire was a 3 phased approach, this was agreed by both sides. At the end of the first phase Israel refused to move on to the latter stages of the agreement.

The proposal post 1 March was different to what was in the original agreement.

Wow, a 90% decrease in Christians in Palestinian areas. Is that not religious cleansing

Apparently it's nothing to do with religion. Get rid of Christians as well as eradication of Jewish people. Stop pretending, it's the inconvenient truth.

I agree that the proposal post 1st March was different to what was in the original agreement.

However, it's still true that phase I had ended and there was no automatic progression onto stage 2. Both sides were in limbo after stage 1 ended.

As it says in the article posted above, Netanyahu's office said that the initial deal allowed Israel to resume war at any moment after 1 March if negotiations were deemed ineffective.

I am Jewish but I don’t support Israel whatever they do.

Hamas should be destroyed and eliminated, no question.

But, the question I always ask my Jewish friends is where is your line in the sand with respect to Israel.

Can they destroy Gaza, expel the Palestinians and fully settle the West Bank and Jerusalem….because Hamas?!

Israeli people are not all Jews and Jews are not all Israeli or required to ‘support’ Israel regardless of what Israel does. Hopefully, moderate Muslims would also say the same about the various Palestinian factions.

It is not a game of football and a human being is a human being. What is happening at the moment is a religious war, on both sides and that bodes ill for both the Palestinians and the Jewish diaspora.

Why were Israelis chanting ‘death to Arabs’ in the demonstrations at the illegal settlements on the West Bank

They chant it every year and Israel allows it to happen every year.

May your village burn is another popular slogan that is not just a slogan but Palestinian villages are attacked and torched on a regular basis.

But October 7th did happen. Nothing anybody can do changes that. Much as we may want to you can’t go back in time and change it.
And then you could argue what caused October 7th in the first place. And so on it goes. As I said upthread you could argue till the end of time over who is a fault and who did what to whom. IT CHANGES NOTHING!

And whilst October 7th triggered this don’t pretend that Israel didn’t have choices here. Israel made the decision to massively escalate this. Self defence is one thing, killing innocent women and children, bombing schools, hospitals and refugee camps is something quite different.BOTH sides have done terrible things.

Hamas are not going to surrender. Why would they? Surrendering equals either being killed or imprisoned and probably tortured by the IDF. The only way Hamas surrender is if they are given some way out of this. It might not be particularly palatable for most but perhaps they should be given the option of surrendering to being imprisoned by someone other than Israel or the US. And Peacekeepers taking control of Gaza to protect both Israel and Palestinians.

And yet neither Palestinian Christians or Muslims say this.

Release the hostages and surrender.
When did Hamas offer to surrender?

So what would you suggest Israel could do? What kind of “way out” could they offer Hamas? Why do you think they’d agree to being imprisoned by someone else?

I don’t know. I don’t know what would be considered acceptable by any of the parties involved.
What I do know though is that right now Hamas have nothing to gain on an individual level by surrendering. And people don’t tend to choose an option that doesn’t benefit them in some way.

Surrender what? Their lives? Gaza as a land? All the Palestinians living in Gaza?

It’s certainly not “surrender” and both sides go back to a peaceful life.

I'm not Jewish, but I struggle to see how these guys follow the Jewish faith properly - they seem like a bunch of nutcases twisting and using religion selectively to further their aims.

I agree. With this - extremism in the Middle East is funded by Wahabists in the Arab emirates and some members of Hamas acting out horrors will use religion as a backdrop to this, but for the majority of Palestinians this is about having their land back. I'm Jewish and I think people need to understand that there isn't some historical beef between Jews and Muslims; pre-Israel we really got on quite well and even worked very well and happily together such as in medeival Muslim Spain (unlike Christian Spain later!).

Neither Palestinians nor Israeli Jews on the whole believe they should have the land 'because God said so'; they both lay claim to it for historical reasons. Most non-Orthodox Israels are irreligious as hell and I don't imagine Palestinians are mostly more religious than that either.

I'm Jewish and I think people need to understand that there isn't some historical beef between Jews and Muslims; pre-Israel we really got on quite well and even worked very well and happily together such as in medeival Muslim Spain (unlike Christian Spain later!). @Echobelly

Pretty much this. For centuries up until WW2, Jews from Morocco to Persia were leading pretty good lives and they had absolutely no need or desire whatsoever to establish a Jewish homeland. They didn't need one and were not in the least bit interested in one. Every year they would say "Next year in Jerusalem"... but no one ever went through with it because life in Muslim countries wasn't too bad. However, in C20, Arab hatred of the British, who with the French had carved up the middle east for themselves, caused many, not all, Arab leaders to side with Hitler and life became far more difficult. With the formation of Israel a few years later, the die was cast and it's got progressively worse ever since and that hasn't been helped by the superpowers having their own agenda in the region.

@inamarina ,

I don’t think any quarter should be given to Hamas, at least all the senior figures and anyone actually involved in 07/10. The rest should be offered a full amnesty as long as they agree to stopping the armed struggle.

What I believe Israel should have done is to properly invade and hold Gaza but with a view to re building it and returning it to the Palestinians on the condition of an elected government that supported living in peace with Israel (so Hamas and all Iranian allied parties banned from standing).

This is kind of what we tried to do in Iraq and Afghanistan but would be far easier in a small city state.

The way to peace is through both sides getting richer through trading with one another and being able to achieve their aspirations, like Germany after WW2.