hundreth

In my opinion, it absolutely does. This is being president of the United States, not the manager at McDonalds. It is the most demanding job on the planet. You have to be mentally acute. We've seen him drastically degrade over the past 4 years. He can barely walk down a few stairs now. Just imagine how much more he will deteriorate over the next 4 years. It's dangerous. This is elderly abuse and everyone around him should be ashamed of themselves.

Sorry Barack, too little too late. Biden isn't "someone" anymore - he is a frail old man with dementia.

The Democrats deserve to lose. They've shown their incompetence. How can you interact with Biden on a regular basis and not see this coming from 100 miles away? This was predicted by many. They asked for this debate. Trump is dangerous and unhinged... the Democrats are incompetent and delusional. ... and then the third most popular candidate is RFK Jr. What does that say about this country? It is absurd and embarrassing. Our leaders are a joke, our people are dumb as rocks. A true idiocracy.

I'm happy to see a perspective which highlights some of the U.S. agenda... That said, it reeks of gaslighting. The urging of moving away from the U.S., demonizing their interests, and pushing his agenda - it's fairly transparent. The U.S. influences and pushes Israel to carry out their agenda sometimes, and sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes the initiatives are good, and sometimes they aren't. There isn't some black and white nefarious plot. We've had American leaders push us towards peace, and that is the closest we've been. Like friends in your personal life, you have good times, bad times, no one is perfect. And then he goes on to push the one-state solution. To me, this shows a misunderstanding of the dynamics there. Actually try to think about how that would play out. This region with two peoples who don't share a vision, with large constituents becoming more religiously extreme. Neither side will accept not being the majority, and a population war would ensue. That, or an all out civil war. Of all the ideas for how to move forward, the one state solution is the worst - and I don't know why it's pushed. I can kind of see why, because it leads to the elimination of present day Israel, for those who hate it... but it certainly does not lead to peace. And if peace is your northern star, you should change course.

Of course, I like most of you and often wonder how I would think if I was an outsider who didn't grow up in the environment I did and see what I've seen. I would likely think closer to you. Who knows to what extent.

The irony is that this is the reason we support Israel.

That you find it irrational doesn't stop people from doing so. It's happening. @zazen's quote: "This enforced pampering of Israel makes natives question their leaders loyalties and interests." I have seen this sentiment in the U.S. for awhile. We can point out the specifics and dynamics of Israel's relationship with the U.S., how the vast majority of funds are used specifically to purchase American weaponry, how the Arab world at large receives more funding than Israel, how these are mutually beneficial relationships driven primarily by the United States and not the other way around, etc - but at the end of the day people will believe what they believe... And so when we're making decisions, we have to combine emotional intelligence with pure reason and figure whether the juice is worth the squeeze for a gesture like this which in actuality doesn't achieve much. It's analogous to vaccines, where it was logical to provide Covid vaccines for free and enforce inoculation for certain occupations. However, this caused a huge conspiratorial issue, and we may have had more adoption by charging money for it and treating it as any other product.

I would agree that this is likely a bad way to filter out applicants as they will simply do as you said. This is likely some kind of symbolic gesture, but driven by who I don't really know. I don't have issue with Germany having cultural fit requirements for applicants, but gestures like this lead to more resentment than anything else. When you try to enforce ideas or practices like this, it tends to breed conspiratorial thinking. This was evident with vaccine rollouts in the U.S. and abroad, where even if the data backed up their efficacy there was widespread skepticism.

You're missing one piece here, these aren't citizens - they are applicants. https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/new-german-citizens-must-declare-israels-right-exist?nid=373676&topic=Israel%27s%20war%20on%20Gaza&fid=520481 They've determined this is a useful heuristic for them as to whether the applicant will be a good fit for them. There are likely many such questions.

I argued that you have to balance saving lives now vs. later because of follow up Hamas attacks. I think I was very clear. By your logic no military operation is ever justifiable because you "don't value life." I was just quoted a few minutes ago for sharing that Israel made a big mistake by harming too many Palestinian civilians. I was called out for being too apologetic. I have this sentiment both for those Palestinians and the resulting harm it has done to Israel on the international stage which you spoke to.

I don't see anywhere at all where I said anything like this. I was pleased to see you were conversing in good faith, but I'm really not a fan of the reductionist straw-man bullshit. Have a good one.

I agree. As I said, Hamas will never be a negotiating partner. If you reward Hamas, they gain influence and we are further from peace. If you hit them back, they are stationed among civilians and create new Hamas. It is a lose-lose situation for everyone. The only difference is that when you retaliate, they have less capabilities to hurt you again in the short term. It's like negotiating with a literal cancer.

I'm not going to respond point by point just to avoid going in circles. The idea behind "mowing the grass" is to push back Hamas for short term peace in response to attacks. That's literally what is going on now, this is a giant mowing of the grass so to speak. What is Hamas' rationale? What does Oct 7 achieve? All of their actions are a lose-lose for everyone. But ok, let's entertain your idea of rewarding Oct 7 as an alternative. Let's put our weapons down and calmly speak with Hamas and say "Ok, you brutally murdered our people, live streamed it, celebrated, took hostages... we get it, you're upset. How many prisoners do you want back?"' What do you think happens next? Those same Hamas militants who brutally murdered in cold blood are going to think "Wow, look how great these Jews are... maybe let's stop with the attacks?" It's laughable. Unfortunately Hamas will never be a negotiating partner. The sooner Hamas is replaced, the sooner something meaningful can actually happen.

No matter how many times you try to equate Israel's actions with Hamas, it's never going to stick. Sorry. Maybe, maybe not. The alternative is, Hamas comes to your country, brutally murders and kidnaps your people, and you reward them for it. That's absurd. What message does that send? Think about it. Do you know what happened immediately preceding Oct 7th? Israel increased their work permits and cooperation with Gaza. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20709/israel-work-permits-palestinians There is no proof of anything, neither of us have proof our proposals will benefit anyone. What is your proof your ridiculous proposal of rewarding Oct 7th would work? Ripping the band-aid dismantles much of Hamas' capabilities at least in the short term and sends a message this type of attack will not be tolerated. What happens next depends on many factors. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem anyone has a day after plan. Like I said, no matter how many times you try to equate the deranged actions of Hamas, it never works. It's really just blind rationalization. There are specific instances when the IDF goes too far, but every Hamas action is heinous and causes extreme damage to everyone in the region including the Palestinians. Hamas has kept the entire Gazan population hostage, and if Israel did literally nothing they would still have little opportunity because of Hamas.

I just wanted to add that on this specific point I think Israel made a tactical error by harming too many civilians vs militants. I believe if the IDF's ratio was better and they were more careful, both Hezbollah and the international community at large would understand. Even if Israel was walking on eggshells, there would still be tons of criticism - but not at the scale you see today.

You cannot allow a group to come in, murder and kidnap your populace, and then reward them with a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. Which government on the planet will do that?? You absolutely need a response that hurts Hamas significantly. Did the IDF carry this out in the most careful way possible? I don't think so. Your proposal only trades short term peace for more long term turmoil. Westerners can't understand that you cannot show weakness like this in the Middle East. Quite frankly, no nation would respond the way you proposed. Perhaps, there is also the possibility that a weakened Hamas creates a power void where other groups can take hold. This war could also lead to such international pressure on both sides that some form of progress is forced as opposed to the Hamas ceasefire / containment you proposed earlier. I feel it's better to rip the band aid off personally, but only if there is some positive outcome. Then why did they murder in cold blood the vast majority of Israelis they encountered when they could have taken them all hostage? It's unlike the IDF who can't isolate Hamas militants. On Oct 7th, they were up close and personal with unprepared civilians which they had complete control over - and they chose to live stream horrific massacres instead of taking them all hostage. But yes, they did take some for that purpose. You're conflating different events, we were talking specifically about the hostage rescue mission. No one on the Israeli side seeks death. The most you can say about the Hannibal directive is that you're making a cold and logical decision during a horrific event to prevent the opposition from repeating said event. Hamas willfully sends innocent civilians on suicidal death missions and entrenches their operations in civilian quarters. The one thing I will agree with you on is that the IDF can be more careful about killing Palestinian civilians. That doesn't equate them to Hamas who go up and personal and murder civilians in cold blood en masse.

This isn't so complicated. The IDF needs to weigh these specific hostages lives vs. their populace as a whole. Do you have a permanent ceasefire, reward Hamas and then encourage them to do another attack against your citizens? Of course you need to consider which ultimately saves more lives. Like I said, I believe defeating Hamas means destroying the tunnels and their military outposts. Not the ideology and every single member. So by that criteria, if that doesn't happen I will agree with you. If the ideology of Hamas persists, I expect that. I would not consider that a failure but a given. You aren't making any sense here. We don't keep Palestinian prisoners or hostages in those areas. There was no valid military objective Hamas had except to kill and kidnap as many Jews as possible. If Israel put prisoners in civilian areas, of course that's stupid and their fault. Also, Israel is to blame for not having enough security near the border - absolutely. No, Israel didn't choose to strike civilians, they chose to provide air cover to their people so they could get out. One is a primary motive, and the other is secondary. That's a big difference and the international law you love to cite distinguishes as such. Motives matter. I don't know that this is what happened on Oct 7th, purposely killing your own - and you don't either... but the Wikipedia page outlines the rationale. This is designed to discourage the taking of hostages because you risk your life in the process of taking them. In some ways it makes sense, but I personally don't agree it's the best approach and am glad they formally stopped it.

Yes and like many of us, we question why there has been only one such operation. As for a ceasefire, of course the families favor this. The government and IDF need to weigh different options. Of course Israel will approve a temporary ceasefire with hostages returned because this allows them to continue their other military objectives. That's the deal you just described. There are two reasons a permanent ceasefire is not in Israel's best interest: 1.) A permanent ceasefire is a way to communicate to Hamas and the broader Islamic extremist world that this form of combat will be rewarded. 2.) Israel's broader military objective is to eliminate Hamas. That could mean multiple things, and we're all trying to parse that out and understand where the end is. I personally believe you need to destroy the tunnels and main Hamas military outposts. For your first question, it's because of the events that transpired. They went in under disguise, got the hostages out, and the vehicle got stuck on the way out of the operation - which then required air support. When your mission's objective is to retrieve the hostages in a stealthy way and get out, that means the operation had the minimization of casualties in mind. It didn't work out that way, but that's what happens when you put hostages near civilians. You can blame Hamas for that. If you put hostages in civilian quarters, don't blame Israel when the shit hits the fan. As for the Hannibal directive, this reeks more of conspiracy than any specific combat philosophy. You have these individual anecdotes, but when you look at the big picture all of October 7th - it was a giant mess with Israelis scrambling to get it under control. There were MANY errors that day. It's far more likely whichever soldier conducted friendly fire simply fucked up. It took the IDF hours to even begin responding to the situation. Your larger point about what Israel has done vs. achieving direct military goals such as getting hostages back is a valid one. This is where much of the criticism from within Israel stems.

It's possible to have both agreements and disagreements over different things. I think this idea of "you value your people over their people" as a bad thing is strange. Of course you value your own people over others, especially enemies. To think otherwise is absurd. The duty of governments and their militaries is to protect their citizens. You should value your own. If this was the perspective from both sides, this conflict would look very different.

I wouldn't agree that eye for an eye is the way to go here. In this way each side corrupts the other into losing their humanity. I generally agree with your big picture viewpoint that you do what you need to do to get the hostages back. That said, you don't kill civilians along the way for the hell of it. You set up a specific military operation with specific objectives while minimizing civilian casualties where possible. This is more or less what happened when they rescued the 4 hostages. They set up a covert operation, got the hostages, hit a snag during the operation where they needed cover, and unfortunately Palestinian civilians were a part of that. Now, if you take hostages and put them in civilian quarters - you better damn expect hell if you're around those hostages. That is fair game. For all intents and purposes, those hostages are radioactive material. You are in grave danger when you take them, and grave danger when you host them. And honestly, if Hamas or the Palestinians in general had objectives that were focused on rescuing / retrieving their prisoners - we would view them very differently. I think it would show a very different priority favoring life over death.

You are both wasting your time as he is a blatant holocaust denier and has proposed several times in this thread that Hitler had justified motivations. It is really far beyond the scope of Israel. I ignore both him and @Danioover9000 who is currently on some weird child sacrifice ranting flavor of anti-semitism. I find it kind of funny how they're all here patting each other on the back for posting cherry picked Israeli quotes, meanwhile among their ranks here is some of the vilest propaganda in plain sight.

The issue isn't these specific leaders per se. You have to realize that the Palestinian population at large will not accept the deal. They have been promised for decades the annihilation of Israel and that Jews are their sworn mortal enemies. They seek justice, not statehood. This was made clear decades ago when Arafat and his delegation went through the work to negotiate all the terms, but ultimately reached a dead end because he simply couldn't do it. It would require transcendent leadership from both sides to actually make it happen. The populations of both nations need to be on board.

Einat does a really good job of describing the problems in realistic terms.

It is very hard to do when there is no one serious on the other side to make the deal with. No Palestinian leader can go back to his millions who have been promised the entire region back and tell them they have a state now with those borders. That's the reality of the situation.

That same 70 year timespan is right around the end of Germany's Nazi regime. So even if you believe the history of Israel's formation isn't perfect, it happened during the World War 2 era and as a direct consequence of it. The United Nations was a part of this decision and it's history. That should tell you something, Israel's creation was NOT outside the norm of it's contemporary history. No one cares about your arbitrary cut off date of "the day after World War 2." There have been countless wars, massacres, land swaps, and conflicts since then around the world. The world didn't suddenly turn into this modern peaceful utopia the day after World War 2. Israel's formation is just as much a part of history as any other nation's. As for the plight of the Palestinians, it is sad but you need to understand something. The broader Arab world including the Palestinians values justice over the peace, progress, and statehood of the Palestinians. What does justice mean? It means the complete elimination of a Jewish state in the region. The top priority has been NO jewish state over having a Palestinian state. Each time the Palestinians had a chance towards statehood, the reality became apparent: There is no condition they will accept the deal if Jews are allowed to stay. Because of that, a toxic relationship between both parties has developed. When one side would rather see you die than them live, it creates a lose-lose situation for both parties. Hate festers like an open wound for decades and becomes a poison you see unfolding today. Israel has shown it is willing to make peace with it's neighbors, as it has with Egypt and Jordan. And in many cases, it has given up land and made concessions to do so, and it has held up it's end of the deal. Believe it or not, Israelis don't care as much about the Palestinians as you think. If they stopped wishing for our destruction tomorrow, everything would be fine. We don't have any reason to kill or harm Palestinians for the hell of it. We want our sovereign Jewish state, that's literally it.