• TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Israel could have broken the back of Hamas by simply helping the Palestinian people develop a bit of infrastructure and economy. If the Palestinians have something worth losing, Hamas has no power. Hamas is as powerful as it is because of Israels policies over the last 20 years.

    • shadysus@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Policies and direct funding

      They’ve openly bragged about funding Hamas in order to keep the Palestinian population divided and prevent any kind of formal government from forming.

      Hamas and Likud/Netanyahu need each other to stay in power. Without them, the people in the region may actually move towards peace.

    • V17@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      And Hamas could have built Gazans an OK place to live in if they used the literally billions of dollars of foreign money for investments instead of for weapons and tunnels. Didn’t happen either.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        With what economy?

        Israel is a first world nation with a high performance technocratic economy. What does Palestine have to work with?

        • V17@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          We’re again talking about what should have been done, and my point is that it’s a pointless exercise, but if you really can’t see any ways to build a functioning economy with literally billions of free money, then let’s continue the exercise: about half of Palestinians used to have permits to work in Israel before Hamas fucked them over by attacking Israel. In the recent years the number of Israeli work permits has been increasing again, unfortunately Hamas decided to fuck them over again. So even if they had a small economy of their own, there was a way to work and bring money to then spend in Gaza.

          But I find it really hard to believe you couldn’t imagine a dozen things more useful for Gazans than things to wage war against Israel that ultimately only ever made their situation worse.

          Another episode of “what should have been done” is that while with humanitarian aid it’s not really possible, we never should have sent Gaza any development money without any conditions based on outcomes of their usage. But as with the above, what’s done is done.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Ok, well, right now, Israel is a first world nation with a high performance technocratic economy and Palestine is rubble being ground into dust. Israel has the privilege to do better.

            • V17@kbin.social
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              8 months ago

              I’m not sure what else they’re supposed to do. After a terrorist attack like this one, I don’t really see any other option that would realistically be accepted by the government and the population other than attempting to wipe out Hamas completely. Israel is risking many lives of Israeli soldiers in order to reduce Palestinian civilian casualties by deciding to do a terribly difficult ground invasion instead of levelling Gaza to rubble, Grozny style. I don’t blame them for trying to make the situation at least a bit easier by blocking communication of all things.

              • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                are you making the argument that the correct response to a terrorist attack is to genocide the people where the terrorists are based? because that’s what Israel is doing right now It doesn’t matter that they are Jews and have also suffered a genocide in their past. this is material, here and now, and happening. and you just argued for it.

                Israel is a powerful nation with all the options they can imagine on the table. If they can’t imagine another option then that’s on them.

                • V17@kbin.social
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                  8 months ago

                  Israel is a powerful nation with all the options they can imagine on the table. If they can’t imagine another option then that’s on them.

                  You say that, but I don’t see any other way to remove the Hamas threat than what they’re doing. Is your argument just “Israel is all-powerful and they should find a different way even if we don’t see any!”?

                  are you making the argument that the correct response to a terrorist attack is to genocide the people where the terrorists are based?

                  What? I’m mentioning Grozny. Have you heard about Grozny? If you haven’t, maybe I understand how you could interpret my message in that way, though I still don’t think it makes sense. In the second Chechen war, this is what Grozny looked like after Russia was finished with it, most likely on false pretenses (putin faking appartment bombings around Russia and blaming it on Chechens). They simply turned it to rubble.

                  Israel could do this and get away with it just like Russia did, and their reasons for attacking Hamas are more serious than reasons Russians had to attack Chechnya. Instead of doing that they chose to do a ground invasion, which will reduce the loss of civilian lives and infrastructure, despite the fact that it will dramatically increase the casualties on Israeli side.

                  That is not genocide, that is deciding to avoid genocide in a situation where they could likely get away with it.

                  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    I don’t see any other way to remove the Hamas threat than what they’re doing.

                    Then you need to do better. They can use special ops. They can appeal to the Palestinian people. They can revise their foreign policy to not set these situations up in the first place (see the previous 20 years of Israeli policy towards Palestine).

                    They arent’ targeting Hamas, they are targeting any Palestinian with a pulse. Right now, you are acting as an apologist for a genocide and you should seriously reconsider your position. It will not age well.