It's not about genocide but about winning

[Mikkymik]

Further to my reply in the (now full) famine thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/conflict-in-the-middle-east/5396637-a-famine-has-been-declared-in-gaza-city?page=40&reply=146639624

I should point out that in my above post I've accepted - for argument's sake - that Israel is committing war crimes in its mission to win.

What Israel is absolutely not doing nor is it intent on doing, is genocide. Israel's aim is to win, which means disarming of Gaza and the return of the hostages. Once that happens not one more Palestinian has to die. It's not about killing a people (genocide) but about winning at all costs.

And frankly, as I said, the onus is on Gaza to surrender, seeing as they started this futile war.

It’s a little rich claiming Israel is the aggressor and has been for decades.

I’m 55. I don’t think I can remember a time when Israel’s neighbours weren’t lobbing missiles at Israel. I can’t list them all, it’s just a litany of Israel pushing back here and there while various neighbours try and destroy them.

With 7/10, the disgusting scenes distributed by jubilant Palestinians, and then the evident nesting of Hamas in among the UN, hospitals and so on.

I do not trust the UN they have lost all authority due to this and other issues. They have become a Trojan horse.

Legal opinions differ. Because in May 2025 the Guardian reported that No evidence has been seen that a genocide is occurring in Gaza or that women and children were targeted by the IDF, UK government lawyers have claimed, as a high court case opened into the handling of arms exports controls to Israel.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/13/no-evidence-of-genocide-in-gaza-uk-lawyers-say-in-arms-export-case

They have been vulnerable to radicalisation after decades of interactions with the Israeli government and being under terrorist rule themselves. To stop this cycle, Israel have to invest in the future of Palestinians. And by this I don’t mean just financially. I mean treating them as equal. Otherwise, a group with a new name will step in, show the displaced Palestinian people some humanity and turn their collective hatred back towards Israel. Terrorists aren’t all psychopaths. Some definitely are. But lots are just angry people who have lost everything and are looking for somewhere to ‘belong’. If Israel don’t want to do this again, they need to change their behaviour too.

In my opinion, this means the government needs to be more moderate, it shouldn’t interfere with the daily lives of Palestinians, it should collaborate with the any Palestinian government on security, settler violence and settlements must be banned and Islamophobia/racism in Israel needs to be addressed through education.

They have been illegally occupying Palestinian territory since before you were born.

Your question makes no sense.

War

They have been illegally occupying Palestinian territory since before you were born.

Maintaining an occupation is inherently an act of aggression because it involves the forceful taking of control over another population and territory, a hostile act that establishes a new, often violent, power dynamic. While the occupying power might attempt to frame it as necessary for temporary administration or security, the underlying act of occupation begins with aggression, and its continuation relies on the imposed authority and the subjugation of the occupied people.

So its not a bit rich its clear as daylight to me.

Wow, a terrorist apologist 😅

‘Terrorists aren’t all psychopaths.’

You think war is the systemic destruction of a country’s infrastructure?

Warfare involves bombing and destroying infrastructure, yes. Do you know what war involves? Death and destruction. You might not like it, but that is the reality of war. And Israel is at war with Hamas.

True. The info I was looking at was from this month - I don’t know whether the aid situation has made experts change their mind.

But as you say, I’m sure there are plenty of lawyers who wouldn’t deem it genocide in the legal sense.

Why are teachers trained to spot signs of radicalism? Because normal kids stumble across extremist content and it snowballs form there. Or live in homes where that’s the norm. Or angry people want to hurt people to feel better. Yes, some psychopaths become terrorists to fulfil their own sick desires but many are not.

It’s hard to accept but most terrorists are just people when they start down the path of extremism. They’re not special or different. The sooner we accept this the sooner we can actually deal with the problem.

I’ve said this before but I’m happy to repeat that I don’t condone any terrorists acts. I don’t believe their anger/sadness/background excuses their actions. Terrorists who plan to or commit crimes against people should be arrested or, in the case of Hamas, killed in a warfare. But dismissing terrorists as just evil people who are different to us means we miss a huge part of why people turn to extremism.

Happy people, for the most part, don’t go down that path. But angry people who have lost children or children who are orphaned are much more likely to turn to extemism. People aren’t born terrorists. Time and energy needs to be spent stopping people from being radicalised. This goes for people in Gaza, teenage boys in the US who shoot their classmates, Brits who set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers.

Personally I don't like all hospitals in a country being bombed, no.

Nobody does? But that’s what happens during war. We’ve just never been as exposed to it as we are today due to social media.

You seem to be bending over backwards trying to garner sympathy for Hamas terrorists.

Anyone who ties up a mother and rapes her in front of her children before killing all of them is a psychopath in my eyes.

.

Nope, what I’m trying to think about is how to protect those women, children and men from being killed by terrorists in the future. If you don’t deal with the actual issue (which involves questioning why people turn to extremism) you have zero chance of actually stopping it.

So you can convince yourself that some people are born terrorists and tiny babies or toddlers or school kids are set on the path to murder/rape/plot terrible attacks from day 1 but I think a much more useful thing to do is to question what conditions lead to people turning to extremism and try to avoid those conditions at all costs. That includes getting rid of extremists in government, protecting children from extremists and ensuring vulnerable people (those who have lost family/homes/hope) are given a different option.

It hasn't happened in Ukraine.

Not suddenly... It follows years of oppression and murder from israel.... They throw a stone, israel destroys a city.

They're currently winning about 100-1... Maybe time to stop.

Yes ‘getting rid of extremists in government’ is exactly what Israel is trying to do with Hamas in Palestine. We should be grateful that Israel is trying to tackle radical Islam, whether in Palestine, Iran, or Yemen (as evidenced today). It is the only country actively doing so.

Israel hasn’t been ‘oppressing’ Iran for years, so care to explain why it’s supreme leader stated in 2015 that ‘Israel won’t exist in 25 years’? Sounds to me like it has nothing to do with oppression and everything to do with visceral hatred of the only Jewish state in the world.

Where can i find out more about this?

The ultimate goal is to be able to live in peace without ongoing threats from the neighbor. As soon as that goal is achieved, which can happen by Gaza being disarmed and neutralized as a threat, not one more Palestinian from Gaza has to die
Do you not realise that the exact same logic applies just the same the other way?

Palestinians want to live in peace without ongoing control and threats of being further deprive of freedom. As soon as this is achieved, they can release the hostages and no further attacks will take place.

@PinkBobby is spot on and I completely agree with them. This is not talked about enough. You cannot eradicate a belief through bombing and starvation. Handing over the hostages will not stop this. Thinking like that is so very simplistic when it is an extremely complex situation.

And there are radicalised people in the Isreali government without a doubt. They are as bad as any Hamas terrorist. What's worse is they have money, status and power to pretend to be on the "right" side.

Before I get accused of siding with Hamas terrorists, I think what they did was awful. But why should the general population suffer because of them?

Because they also have extremists in government there too. There’s the religious element - they don’t want any other religion in the region. Then, digging deeper, there’s the US argument. Iran and Israel (and the US) used to have pretty strong connections. But the Iranian government was deeply unpopular and was replaced by people who hated them, their allies (Israel and the US even more so for staging a coup and then supporting the Shah). They see Israel as a proxy US and don’t any them to have any power in the region. There’s also a view that the Iranian government use anti-Israel ‘they’re trying to destroy us’ rhetoric to justify/distract from their own deeply problematic way of ruling.