Own a musket for home defense, since that’s what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. “What the devil?” As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he’s dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it’s smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, “Tally ho lads” the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.

It’s all so politicized now its just never going to happen. Half the country will literally lose their minds because they’re children who think owning a gun is a god given right

Let me own a tank damnit!

Here, you probably haven’t gotten to the class in college yet where you learn what words mean, but this is the definition of “genocide”:

the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

Now please answer my question, if it was a genocide, and they were trying to destroy all Palestinians, why would there be 2m Palestinians living in Israel? Wouldn’t they have killed them first? Or expelled them? Could it be that the Palestinians being killed now are collateral damage in a war?

Who was there before the Palestinians? Jews right?

Yes, if Israel wanted to kill all Palestinians, why would there be nearly 2m in Israel?

Why would they allow almost 2 million Palestinians to live in their country if they wanted them all dead? You’re in denial that civilians are killed during wars

I’m not ignoring the suffering of Palestinians - the only way anything can progress however is the complete surrender of Hamas. Israel will just continue the killing until then. Why do you think they’ll suddenly stop without a complete surrender?

How many Palestinians live in Israel?

“Approximately 1.8 million Palestinians form around 20.8 per cent of Israel’s population.” Source: https://minorityrights.org/communities/palestinians/

Is that what Genocide looks like? I think it’s fair to say that their military tactics in Gaza are extreme, we can agree there. But I would also say that dropping bombs on Gaza is a direct result of Hamas’ actions and existence. Hamas cares as little about Palestinians as Israel (actually less I would argue). They have no interest in diplomacy or a two state solution, they’re only interested in the complete destruction of Israel

Has that had any effect? Has international pressure ever had any effect on Israel?

Again, you might HOPE and WISH that the US will put immense pressure on Israel, but like I stated before, we won’t. There are reasons why our leadership will continue to back them.

So while maybe we can all agree that it would be the best possible scenario, hoping and wishing is far from reality in this situation. Given the facts of reality, the only way this war ends is by Hamas surrendering and returning the hostages

That’s the only way this war ends. I’m just being realistic, not emotional

We have a convicted felon as a nominee of a major party, who is a severe threat to national security. What the fuck are Republicans smoking?

I’m vehemently anti-Hamas. Very pro-Palestine. Hamas is a cancer to Palestine.

Israel is America’s closest ally in the region, and an important factor in maintaining our global influence. I don’t agree with their tactics, but I understand why our leadership will never turn their backs on them

There’s this thing called nuance, and you need to understand that the world is far more complicated than just “stop fighting”

“Joe Biden is causing WW3 OMG!!!” is definitely a right wing talking point. “No wars started under Trump, 2 wars started under Biden!!!” See?

War and genocide can both be happening, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. As history has proved many times.

Hey I’m a liberal, I’m not trying to make some left-right argument. But what I see, there’s a section of the far left that looks at any situation, determines who is disadvantaged, and takes their side. No matter what.

If Hamas cared about their civilian population, they would have come to the table already and given Israel what they want (full surrender of all Hamas fighters and leaders, return of all hostages). But they don’t care. Hamas does not deserve any sympathy or leeway here. Not excusing the brutal tactics of Israel either. But the fact is, they see this as a war and children dying as collateral damage in pursuit of victory.

We should be admonishing both sides, but recognizing that Hamas has the ability to end the death and are unwilling to surrender completely

War and genocide can happen at the same time… they aren’t mutually exclusive

Merriam Webster? The dictionary?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war

Go read the definition of war again. It doesn’t require a functioning state with a standing army. It doesn’t mention anything about civilian deaths. It’s literally just 2 sides engaged in an armed conflict. Want to argue about the definition of war? Write to Merriam Webster. I don’t care

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war

Ugh man, sure, if you want to go that far, Jews who armed themselves and fought against Nazis were in a war. Whatever. But in war, civilians are killed.

“Between 300,000–600,000 German civilians and over 200,000 Japanese civilians were killed by allied bombing during the Second World War, most as a result of raids intentionally targeted against civilians themselves.” Source: https://academic.oup.com/book/9859/chapter-abstract/157134577?redirectedFrom=fulltext

“Some 75 million people died in World War II, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians” Source : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/casualties-of-world-war-ii/

Please recognize that you are trying to twist the definition of war here, not me.