More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the month since Hamas’ terrorist attacks inside southern Israel, the group’s health ministry in Gaza says.
But Hamas officials say the mounting death toll, believed to include thousands of children, has not caused the group to regret its actions in southern Israel, which Israeli officials said killed 1,400 people.
In fact, Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war. It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.
Hamas, these officials say, is more interested in the destruction of Israel than what it sees as the temporary hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli bombardment.
“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s governing politburo, told The New York Times in an interview.
In fact, Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war. It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.
“This was our plan all along!” Lol? At this rate there won’t even be a Palestine to pay attention to…
“This was our plan all along!” Lol? At this rate there won’t even be a Palestine to pay attention to…
Try and remember where things were prior to the attack. There was a legitimate movement happening where people were starting to recognize the apartheid state that Israel had set up. The conversation was materially shifting to focus on the abuses of the Israeli government. Things were happening that seemed like the whole thing could come to resolution without Hamas being involved. The terrorist attack was as much about maintaining the status quo of conflict as anything else. Hamas and Netanyahu both had their power waning as a function of the failed strategies both have been employing for decades. The attack reset the clock for both of them. It justifies Israels decades of shitty policies that have objectively compounded the situation and made it much worse, along with justifying Hamas position about this being a war for survival. Both hawk factions benefit from this, no people benefit from this.
I never thought about it like this. I never realized that this was Hamas’ motivation. But yeah, it makes perfect sense when you look at it from this point of view.
I guess I thought that Hamas…cared(?)…more about the Palestinians, so when people would say that this is the reaction they wanted from Israel, I was confused. But yeah, okay. Thanks for that.
If it’s not a democracy, the leaders don’t have to care about what the normal people think. They will never have to risk getting voted out. All that matters is power and terror. Keeping people scared. Using violence to keep people’s heads down. Execute your enemies and allies perceived as weak. Imprison them if killing them would make them a martyr, such as Navalny.
China uses a much more refined version of this to keep people in legitimate concentration camps with forced sterilization. But they have such a grip on who gets in/out, and control so much trade, that even for people who do know of the Uyghurs can’t do anything aside from toothless statements about them. But most people don’t know. Or simply don’t care what happens in an authoritarian country half a world away.
Ideology is one hell of a drug.
They care more about the idea of destroying the state of Israel than about the liberation Palestinian people. Hamas was born out burning anger and vengeance, not a desire to rebuild. That would the PLO or PFLP.
The fact is a one state of Israel-Palestine with equal rights for all, reparations and right-of-return to displaced Palestinians, is the only real solution to end this cycle of violence once and for all.
But Hamas doesn’t want that. Neither does Bibi or the Israeli majority. Each are so filled with hatred, one side from revenge, the other from supremacy, that they can’t see a future where they live in peace with each other.
The best people who really want peace can do is support the PLO and the PFLP, imo. If they get strong enough to overtake Hamas in Gaza, that would be a very big step towards actual solutions. At least from the Palestinian side. And Israel wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on, “self-defence” wise.
things were happening that seemed like the whole thing could come to a resolution without hamas being involved.
This is utter fantasy. There was/is a growing movement on the left in the west recognizing the abuses of the Israeli regime but that movement was very marginal and would probably remain so in the near future. The governments and ruling elites in the west still overwhelmingly supported Israel and were willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses, even as they have increased under the new far right government that came to power recently. Even the Arab countries that previously championed the Palestinian cause were defecting.
The trajectory of this conflict before Oct 7th was a slow legalistic ethnic cleansing in the west bank backed unquestioningly by the United States. A few more leftists might protest it in the U.S. but they are fundamentally impotent against the inertia of the current system as a majority of the people don’t know or care about Palestine. Doesn’t matter if a tweet calling Israel an apartheid state gets millions of likes if the U.S. Congress still votes 430 to 5 for aid to Israel every time it comes up.
The Palestinian cause needed something to keep it relevant and shake up the status quo that was slowly killing it. Oct 7th was probably one of the worst ways to do it, but at least more people know about how horrible the system is.
Palestine isn’t the point. Destroying Israel was the point. And the more this goes on, the more likely other countries (such as Saudi Arabia) are likely to step in and go after Israel. Which could result in the destruction of Israel.
That’s my understanding of what this article was about anyway.
As long as Israel has Uncle Sam parked off the coast there is no destruction of Israel happening anytime soon. The us could decimate every nation surrounding Israel and then some, probably with just the assets we have in the region alone. They know that so there won’t be any mass attack on Israel. Hamas planned to trigger Israel into a genocide and then have all of the terrorist groups/ Muslim nations launch an attack on Israel. They want a massive world war. But that’s just not happening with where global politics are at. The us is going to provide the protection for Israel to do essentially what they want. We are too chicken shit to pressure Israel into stopping this genocide so we are stuck.
I expect to see terrorist groups in all of the surrounding nations continue to try to trigger a global conflict by attacking Israel and US assets in the region, but its just unlikely to go anywhere.
So Hamas poked the hornets nest, gets nothing but thousands of their people dead. Israel is revealed to be the hard right genocidal dictatorship we have all known it to be. The US continues to sink millions into foreign wars. Round and round we go.
And the more this goes on, the more likely other countries (such as Saudi Arabia) are likely to step in and go after Israel.
No way would SA sacrifice their sweetheart deal with the US to do this. They are dependent on the US for security. This is about proxy sectarian politics between moral enemies Saudi Arabia (Sunni, ally of the US who is Israel’s pal,) and Iran (Shia, backers of Hamas and Hezbollah.)
Not to mention, SA probably isn’t stupid enough to attack with intent to destroy (relevant because a state being under credible threat to survival is the kind of scenario usually given for that state actually using weapons of mass destruction) an almost certainly nuclear armed state, especially one that is close enough by to have no time for warnings or interception, and especially when they have no equivalent weapons of their own as deterrent.
SA has already shelved normalization plans with Israel that took years for the US to broker.
Unfortunately it seems that they will get what they want.
Israel has been bombarded with nearly 10,000 rockets, ballistic missiles and bomb carrying drones over the last month - from Gaza to the centre, Lebanon to the north and Yemen and Iran to the south. In addition there are almost daily terror attacks coming from the west bank.
There are civilian fatalities every day there. A school was recently hit and destroyed from a ballistic missile hit. Thankfully the city that was hit moved to online studies due to the threats so it was empty.
The only reason we don’t see a death toll of thousands of Israelis is due to extreme defence measurements including the evacuation of more than 250,000 Israelis from the north and centre.
The whole situation is just escalating by the day and the massive attacks are fuelling Israelis rage.
Both the Houthis and Hezbollah hinted a massive attack tomorrow. Another serious hit to Israeli civilians will send this whole thing over a cliff.
The IDF rarely shows mercy. I don’t really understand what the surrounding countries are thinking. If they want to escalate things to remove the status quo they certainly are. But at what cost?
This isn’t about religion, at least not anymore. Palestinians have been oppressed by Israelis because they want the land. Palestinians want Israel dead because they’ve been oppressed and marginalized.
I think they’re trying to get Israel to act in such a way that they finally lose the American support. Israel currently gets to do whatever it wants without consequence because the US will seemingly back them unconditionally. Also, many countries, people, and organizations are afraid to criticize Israel because they get called anti-Semitic. But I think that only works while Israel can manage to convince people it’s the “good one”.
It’s like asking what the allies were thinking invading Normandy. Like, yes it’s a bad idea, but it needed to happen, and trying it once gets you one try closer to the 1000th try that actually works. Somebody’s gotta do it, so why not us?
That is one of the worst comparisons I have ever seen.
Normandy was an strategic attack at a high cost.
This conflict is so one sided that people here like to call it genocide.
You mention the ordinance going one way but not the other and claim Gaza is a crater because they don’t have as much defenses. This is simply not true, Israel has saturated Gaza 2000lbs at a time in such quantity only a nation backed by a world power could. Give Palestine the same iron dome system and Gaza would still be a crater because Israel will always have more. Similarly Israel claims 12000 successful strikes, meaning more than 12000 were attempted and I can guarantee they aren’t surplus ussr unguided bullshit.
There hasn’t been a major attack on Israel since the “war” began.
Duh, there’s probably going to be one more or less every month indefinitely. Knowingly bombing civilians doesn’t exactly engender good feelings.
I’m not sure I understand what you tried to say here. I was referring to Hamas’s leaders motivations and the current climate in Israel, not to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
There hasn’t been a major attack on Israel since the “war” began
That’s just incorrect.
Yes my point is you can’t analyze one without the other, it’s a two way street with an extremely steep power disparity. It’s a middle aged man repeatedly punching a child in the face because the child slapped at them.
It’s not, there have been attacks but not one single one that is on the same scale but you have hundreds dead in strikes literally every day or every other day in Gaza.
Ed: ie 1400 dead vr 14000.
Hamas spokesperson Taher El-Nounou told the Times that, rather than end with a cease-fire now, his group would prefer for the conflict to expand.
“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders and that the Arab world will stand with us,” he told the Times.
I suspect Hamas’s attack will cost Palestine many lives and more land but will not lead to a greater war. Every other time their Arab neighbors went to war for the Palestinians it did not work out well for them; Iran is likely to continue to put pressure on Israel via Hezbollah rather than blow their load with an all-out attack and lose their regional bargaining chip.
It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.
This may have stalled recognition by Saudi Arabia but things will normalize again once Gaza is pacified. Israel and the US are better international allies to have than Palestine.
Turns out a mass terror attack on a nation rarely benefits the attacker or the nation that was attacked, normally with the attacker coming away worse than their better armed opponent.
It’s basically 9/11 all over again. But on a smaller scale and with a Middle Eastern nation far happier to be brutal on the targeted side.
Saudi is probably more annoyed at Hamas for getting in the way of their plans than they are considering cutting off their deals.
I wouldn’t use 9/11 as an example, considering that Saudi Arabia, whose nationals formed the majority of 9/11 attackers and who heavilly promoted and promotes the radical Sunni Islam sect (Wahabism) that inspired said attackers, was just fine, whilst Iraq which has nothing to do with it was invaded.
At this point it is possible that Iran actually plays a role of pacifier with Hezbollah. If conflict is to expand, Iran might get its weapon and centrifuge factories destroyed. It does not need that. It gets no any advantage out of this and with possibility of US being involved it risks additional sanctions.
yeah Hamas bad. always
Curious to see how their apologists will spin that.
Every dead Palestinian Muslim is a martyr to Hamas, no? Every life just another tool to accomplish their religious-political objective, which afaik is solely the destruction of Israel. Or ask yourself why they intentionally link their paramilitary network to schools, hospitals, private residences and such.
Say whatever you want about Israel and Zionism, Hamas are NOT “the good guys” here and never have been. Their actions are indefensible. No amount of whataboutism changes that…
I’ve yet to see anyone defend Hamas’s actions, even from comments that have been reported by others. What people do say is that Hamas’s actions does not excuse Israel’s military committing the atrocities that they are doing. Sounds like you are making up an antagonistic group that aren’t really seen on Lemmy.
There are many people across Lemmy defending Hamas. There’s a few documented at the meanwhileongrad community.
If you go looking for them I’m sure you’ll find degenerates (why are looking for them though?), but they are absolutely not common in the all section from what I’ve seen.
They refuse to admit that Hamas committed a crime, or has a long history of deliberate terrorist behavior. Rather than saying that, they pivot to Israel/”Zionism" as the ultimate root of evil. I have no problem admitting both sides are at fault, and in fact the IDF response is well out of proportion at this point. But, poke a hornet’s nest, what do you expect.
How often do you interact with tankies…?
How often do you interact with tankies…?
Outside of dealing with the odd report on our instance, I don’t. I’m not sure what people get out of seeking communities they dislike/don’t care for.
I’ve muted hexbear and blocked some political leaning “world news” communities, programming.dev also hides political communities unless you specifically subscribe to them so that doesn’t show up for our users in all either.
Granted, I don’t see every report made on our instance, but from all the reports I’ve seen since Hamas’ terror attack, the worst one was someone wanting Israelis to leave the land and for the colonisers that are actively taking more land to repay the people they took the homes from with forced labour. Other than that one, even simple things like “Free Palestine” has been reported as hate speech. So you really can’t tell what a single person mean when they talk about hate speech or “supporting Hamas” without them elaborating on where they draw the line.
Of course there are places where people will defend Hamas’ terror attacks. You can also find people who claims Ukraine is ruled by nazis, that 9/11 was justified, covid is a hoax, Holocaust never happened, etc… The question is if you see those opinions popping up on “normal” communities and supported by upvotes.
there are literally comments in this thread and every thread like it defending their actions. anyone who refers to both sides being bad is bombarded with accusations of being pro Israel.
yes, there are LOTs of people here defending and justifying hamas actions specifically, and there’s always someone saying “noone is justifying hamas” too
I scrolled for a bit and didn’t see anyone supporting the terror attacks on this post. Could you link to some examples?
The closest I found was someone saying what boiled down “what do you expect will happen when people get desperate”
There is a *big *difference between understanding why people get desperate and radicalised to commit terror attacks, and actually condoning it.
Unfortunately it is entirely possible for there to be no good guys at all. Take a step back and realize that you can choose not to take a side in every issue.
Yep that is international relations in a nutshell. The worst expression of which is war, or violent conflict, subjugation, etc.
IMO as long as we divide the world by race, ethnic groups, tribes, religions - this is what we can expect. I’m a realist, but I would prefer something better…
If you hear run-of-the-mill Gazans when interviewed on TV (well, maybe not in the US because the propaganda over there is insane so I suspect there’s no showing of normal Palestinians up close and personal, as just people, on TV) they’re often saying of those run of the mill people who died (so children, family and acquaintances, not “fighters”) as being “martyrs” and of possibly dying, including themselves, as “becoming martyrs”.
So yeah, that’s probably a general coping strategy over there for the situation they’re in, which would mean that the occupying power increasing the indiscriminated killing of Palestinian civilians is bound to push them in even greater numbers towards Hamas’ ultra-radical take on how to resist the Occupier.
Hamas is an Insurrection Movement: whilst the means they used on the 7th are abhorrent, that does not change the fact that their reason to be, structure and purpose are those of an Insurrection Movement in a Territory controlled by an Occupying Power, same as the people fighing with guerrilla warfare tactics the US troops in Iraq and Cohalition troops in Afghanistan.
