hundreth

Because a ceasefire leaves things exactly where they started.

It's easy to reduce the entire conflict into this easy to understand narrative for you. The truth is much more complex and nuanced.

Even if I grant you that. No Israelis want this, so how is it viable?

Do you really believe this is viable? Neither side wants this.

Can you please explain this special forces obsession? How is this going to achieve anything when Hamas is spread out across 300 miles of underground tunnels? The hostages, spread out across 300 miles of underground tunnels. Are you going to plan an entire special ops operation for every single Hamas operative? That's even if you have a way of knowing where they are, which is basically impossible. It also achieves nothing, as it would take so long that over time Hamas would simply replace them and the status quo would continue. Then you might ask, so how does air striking help if they're under the tunnels? I'll save you the trouble of this response. Israel's objective is for Gaza to no longer be governed by Hamas. Full stop. This means a full on ground invasion in a dangerous urban warzone. Many of these buildings are used as Hamas military posts, with sniper positions, etc. Clearing as much of this terrain helps the IDF go in. Obviously, its debatable from a civilian casualty point of view as well as military strategy wise for how far they should take this. You can have those debates, but keep in mind the bigger picture. So I come back to special ops, what big picture objective would special ops forces achieve? A slow trickling of Hamas members being replaced over years, while the status quo continues? Seriously.

This would be nice. Though on its own wouldn't solve much. As long as Hamas still enforces Gaza, the status quo will go on. I don't know if Israel's current strategy will work out, but it is closer to actually addressing the issue. Which is that Gazans themselves are held hostage by Hamas.

While there's often times a good reason to use the justice system, in this case it's a pointless exercise for an arbitrary set of rules for outsiders who have never faced a situation like this. Also, I think you'll find that even if they were tried, it wouldn't hold up. For example, with the recent refugee camp bombing there was indeed a Hamas military leader there as a target - and so this is technically legal. And also, are you going to start making Palestinians who committed war crimes face the consequences, or are you just going to absolve them of all accountability because Zionism? Unfortunately there are extremist orthodox religious folk backed up by a right wing government. Nothing confusing about it. Until Netanyahu is replaced, this will continue happening.

You know what, I actually agree with your points here. I wish Israel's right wing government were replaced with a more reasonable kind. Not because of international law, but because our people really do want peace. We should treat those in the West Bank well, and I'm personally against the settlements. The reason our viewpoints clashed previously is because you continued to question the existence of our nation and going back in time 70 or so years and for us it's a rabbit hole of circumstance, opposing interpretations of history, and unsolvable moral quandaries. If you want to focus on the present and the future, many Jews and Israelis are with you. We want peace.

The whole chosen people thing is way overblown anyways. The actual story from the Torah is that the Jews were God's last choice to receive the covenant. He went to all the other nations and Jews were the only ones to accept it. So it's more, Jews accepted this religion rather than being chosen because they are special. Just some biblical context because some of y'all are making a biblical point.

Yes we know you are a trained military strategist who knows more than the IDF leadership.

Of course, but not because of the Bible. In 1948 this may have been viable, but now this is our home we fought for over decades which we have historical ties to. It's too late to undo history. Israel is there to stay. There will be those who can never accept it, and so war will continue. That's just how it is.

Respectfully, NO.

We already did relocate. We relocated from Europe and our native Arab countries to Israel.

Do you believe that what Hamas did on Oct 7 is an acceptable "armed resistance"? Yes. Are you saying Hamas = Palestinians?

I'm not going to play these semantic games with you. Of course nation states can commit terrorism. Every nation makes mistakes, has blind spots, go through eras with more reasonable and less reasonable leaderships. The difference is, those nations stand for much more than these isolated events. Hamas' mission statement is the extermination of Jews. Even today these events don't fit the criteria for Israel. There have been 7,000 airstrikes and 7,000 stated Palestinian civilian casualties. That's 1 civilian per airstrike. If the objective is the indiscriminate murder of civilians (what Hamas does) - would the casualties not be much higher? With all of Israel's high tech capabilities you like to speak to, why would they be so terrible at acting out said terrorism? Perhaps it's because the objective is beyond that, unlike Hamas.

Because obviously Israel isn't a terrorist state no matter how many times you try to jam this moral equivalence BS. Israel would love if Hamas isolated themselves and could fight a normal battle between militia. Hamas couldn't care less, their only objective is to kill civilians. If the situations were reversed and Hamas had Israel's firepower, how long would it take for Israel (Gaza) to be completely wiped off the map with all the inhabitants dead? Wouldn't take 75 years I can guarantee you that!

Question for you. Did the Jews forcefully remove anyone from their homes before the Arabs declared war on Israel?

I know what the Nakba is, but what I said is also true.

Yes well I'm glad you get to decide where the arbitrary cut off is for when nation states can come into existence. Apparently it's exactly when the Jews get one.

We bought land legally. The UN proposal gave us half the land, the Arabs declared war. We won. If you call that colonizing, sure. Most Palestinians left their homes because they assumed all Jews would be wiped out and they would be able to return. Didn't work out that way. Either way, Israel is there and it isn't going anywhere. You can cry forever that Israel's path to existence has a history of war and injustice the same as every other nation on the planet, but it won't achieve anything. The focus should be on forward thinking solutions.

You can't convince anything of anyone like this because they don't believe in any accountability for Palestinians. Everything is Israel's fault because Zionism and these are the factors that lead Palestinians to develop their culture and values exactly this way. They could not have made any other choices and they currently cannot make any other choices either. Everything is up to Israel, and the solution is to give the Palestinians everything they demand NOW. How dare you give the Palestinians a state with buffer zones and safety contingencies? They should be free to do whatever they want now!

It's good to see the ground invasion has finally commenced and we can move past the air strike phase. The sooner this whole saga is over, the better. It's clear Israel is committed to removing Hamas. All we can do is pray civilian losses are minimized and some positive change results from this. Personally, as a Jew with close ties to Israel I'm done arguing morals with outsiders who have no skin in the game and want to tell Jews what level of safety and survival is appropriate for them. You believe we shouldn't have our own state? You believe we should put our loved ones in danger with your half baked solutions? We don't care.

Finally the logic is exposed. The context of course matters, but it doesn't change the fact that Hamas is a level of deranged way beyond the IDF. And that's what is being dealt with on the ground, the reality of the situation. Murderous psychopaths often have traumatic childhoods, but it doesn't change the fact they are incredibly dangerous now and need to be dealt with accordingly.

Yes, you know more about what's possible there than the Hamas insurgents living there who carefully planned the attack for months and risked their lives. They have no idea, but you do.

Yes you can continue adding levels to the house of cards case you've built, but it doesn't help much. Occam's razor is pretty strong. A weak and divided Israel going through political strife, during holiday season got caught with their pants down.