Hamas’s Qassam Brigades has threatened to execute Israeli captives if Israel continues to bombard and kill civilians in Gaza.
“Any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully by executing one of the captives in our custody, and we will be forced to broadcast this execution,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.
“We regret this decision but we hold the Zionist enemy and their leadership the responsibility for this,” he said.
I’m not looking to debate right or wrong. Just like others said, I recognize war crimes on both sides. I would NEVER defend either side of this conflict.
But committing mass war crimes in the way they have, the norms are shattered, and Gaza, at the least, is done for.
As a realist, and without endorsement of any outcome–I think the best Palestians can hope for is being put into refugee camps on the Egyptian and Jordanian borders and those countries challenged to take them in.
Not that either of those countries will. They’ve refused in the past and will continue to.
It’s almost like most Arab countries don’t give a shit about Palastine
They give a shit about not being attacked by a country that’s got the nuclear bomb and the backing of most of the western world.
You do know that Arab countries have repeatedly attacked Israel, including on Yom Kippur which is the equivalent of attacking Mecca during Ramadan?
I’m not pro Israel, just calling out BS. In fact, this was, Iran, Lebanon, and the Palestinians coordinating.
Arabs only care about making sure the Palestinians suffer bc its a diplomatic bargaining chip and propaganda win. They adamantly refuse to help or taken in the Palestinians, but they actively support them for proxy wars. The notion that they care is disprovable.
There’s no good guys in this conflict.
Point here, it wasn’t Lebanon, it was Hezbollah. Hezbollah is tolerated within Lebanon because of a weak Lebanese central government, but they’re still a militia within Lebanon, not Lebanon itself. They more or less represent the Iranian-aligned portion of Lebanese Shiite Muslims, not Lebanese Christians or Sunni Muslims.
Agreed and I was being sloppy.
It was Hezbollah and not “officially” the Lebanese government. But I think there’s at least a solid debate (whether from weakness as you mentioned or active support) that the two are somewhat coupled. Since it allows/can’t stop hezebollah to operate with impunity.
And also waiting to see what happens to Iran on this one. There’s no way the proxy attack goes unanswered.
Lebanon is a failed/failing state with a weak centralized government that can’t exercise total control over the nation, but it’s also a super diverse country. Just saying, it’s a minority of the population which supports Hezbollah, it’s just not a minority which can be suppressed since they receive extensive military support from Iran and Syria. If they tried, it’d be the Lebanese Civil War again
Already told you I agreed and was being sloppy. You are right, and the points are dead on. Take another upvote. Heh.
There will be fighting in portions of Lebanon (geographicly) though where Hezbollah has presence. Israel won’t leave things unanswered.
Usually what Israel does is counter artillery action and maybe some airstrikes. They haven’t actually invaded in a while. I expect that’s what’s going to happen this time around too, they’re likely mostly focused on Gaza.
This was true in WW2 also but there clearly were fewer bad guys on the other side.
You’re comparing shit covered apples to shit covered oranges. You might be right about the differences, but at the end of the day both are covered in shit.
FYI, Blinken just had a conference stating there is no hard, tangible evidence that Iran was involved. That may have been Hamas trying to stir up some more shit.
From what I can gather, there are no good guys between Israel and Palestine because they were set up to fight each other. The UK saw that the Jewish people were desperate following the Holocaust and told them that they can have land that was occupied by other groups with a strong religious identity. The Palestinians were like “WTF? We live here and are Muslim.” Now, the two groups are fighting each other for survival while being supported and encouraged by external powers for their own political gain. This whole thing is fucked up since the victims are both Israel and Palestine.
The conversations about who did what and who’s at fault are SOOOOOOOOOO tangled and terrible at this point that if you’re a person of conscience the best you can do is condem the actions and crimes as they occur.
You’re right that inputs to this conflict are endless and do indeed include WWII. A lot of people don’t realize how terribly the allies carved up the Middle East after WWII. Look how young so many of the countries are there. They literally drew on a map flippantly at the Yalta conference and didn’t give a fuck. It was INSANE.
Israel lost support when the west needed oil reserves discovered in Arab countries… and that just one of a ton of reasons.
You will find people discussing all the times Arab nations have attacked Israel. The Yom Kippur war… imagine if Israel attacked the Saudis during Ramadan?
To anybody who’s paid attention Israel is guilty of horrible apartheid. The living conditions of the Palestinians has been crime against humanity IMHO. And if watching the Israelis demolish generational homes with bulldozers for occupation and fascist settlers doesn’t break your heart then you have none.
But the discussions often leave out the fact that all the Arab nations want the Palestian problem. None of those Arab countries will take them in bc its politically valuable in diplomatic negotiations and PR to have them there suffering.
To that point Lebbanon and Iran helped plan, fund, and execute this recent attack. Palestinians are a proxy for all the Arab nations.
None of these few points even comes close to touching on this conflict… my point is just that it’s so lengthy and convoluted that we need to stick to actions.
Crimes against humanity, though, are clear-cut, and ervytime either side commits them, we have to call it out.
Excellent comment. Thank you.
I tried to figure out who was really to blame for all this yesterday, and I stopped at the Russian revolution without an answer.
Nationalism and the desire for a Jewish state came from the pogroms of Jews in Russia – paraphrased, a Jewish scholar believed they would only have freedom and be respected if they had their own country.
Britain decades later wanted influence in an area that they had none in, and they wanted to grow a Jewish population to create that influence. Zionists happily accepted.
And from then on we’ve had the Arab/Palestine/Israeli enmity.
Everyone has been a victim. Everyone has been an aggressor. I suspect that if I were to follow the source of the Russian pogroms, I’d ultimately end up with the Romans in Israel.
The seeds of the conflict stretch back further. Essentially, the UK promised both Arabs and Jews a state in Palestine in exchange for fighting the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
As part of the aftermath of that conflict, Great Britain was assigned a League of Nations mandate to administer Palestine starting in 1923. It wasn’t exactly always peaceful and essentially the UK decided to nope out after WW2. Basically as soon as it was announced they were leaving there was a Civil War which spiraled into the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 literally the day the mandate ended and Israel declared independence. But yes the whole thing is fucked.
There’s so much fucked about it. Love your comment.
One I explain to people is that at one point there were Palestinian Jews. That tends to blow people’s minds.
The history of awful in the region and this conflict has a sad and crazy depth with no shortages of horrific incidents. That’s why when people are so comfortable calling out one side or another my alarm bells go off.
And honestly it kills me, bc I’m adamantly against centrisim. But the history of this one leaves me there no matter how much I hate it. I can’t see an innocent government in that entire region.
Neither Egypt nor Jordan want to deal with the kind of extremism rife within places like Gaza, and I can’t blame them
Idk if the translation is just wrong, but they’re using the word “regret” weirdly here. Almost seems like a slip of the tongue, betraying their actual regret to have done something so stupid and easily condemnable to such a degree that the international community has a very easy time holding back and not applying much leverage at all in trying to hold Israel back from absolutely obliterating them.
But frankly, I think they’re too zealous to actually regret it at all. They’ll probably live out the rest of their shortened lives in ignorant blissful fervor.