maplebar

Now who's putting words in other people's mouths? 😂

If you had a leg to stand on in this discussion you wouldn't resort to pathetic non sequitur.

Hamas was [supposedly] the legitimately elected government of the Gaza Strip. To think that they could go on a murderous rampage (in which they killed more people in a single day than the Israelis have in any day since then, by the way), take hostages back into Gaza, hide behind innocent women and children like the worthless pathetic Islamist terrorist cowards that they are, and not face the direct consequences of their actions, is a joke.

I guess when you worship a pedophile who spread his ideology through violent genocide (including in historical Gaza), logic and consequence isn't your strong point.

Still, I don't understand why you are so dramatically opposed to the idea of releasing the hostages? What's in it for you that these people are needlessly tortured? Do you think it helps offset the harm against the innocent Gazans?

You keep posting these propaganda images every day, is it your job or just a hobby?

At any rate, all your image shows is that there was never a Palestinian nation state to begin with. So again, the question remains "what makes it Palestinian land in the first place?"

By your own admission, this region (home to both the original Israelites, Judea, Hebrews, Philistines, and dozens of other nomadic tribes) has been passed around by empire to empire for thousands of years.

It's cynical and frankly fucking disgusting that you view human lives as nothing more than numbers.

Is this just numbers to you? Is that how you quantify the value of human life?

If so, you are beyond help and reasoning.

Nothing can be done for the thousands of people on both sides of this conflict who have been tragically killed in a pointless war, but that does no mean that the people who can be saved right now, today, shouldn't be. I want the immediate release of the hostages, because 1 innocent person taken hostage and tortured for months in an injustice to people everywhere. I want a ceasefire because 1 innocent person killed in a pointless holy war is an injustice to people everywhere.

The real question, and the one to which I can only guess your disgusting answer, is why you don't...

Return the bodies then.

Frankly I hope that they are dead, because the idea of living in a dungeon under Gaza being raped and tortured every day for 13 months is horrific.

And if Hamas has lost track of even the hostages bodies then I don't envy them, because it seems that they've lost what little bargaining position they once had. Uh oh for them.

Well in that case I guess you'll be glad to know that a one-state solution seems to be on the horizon--where Israel is the one state that controls the region.

Not my preference, but I don't make the rules.

What makes it their land in the first place, some British mandate written by the same people who created the state of Israel?

100 years ago the entire area was part of the Ottoman Empire, both nations of Israel and Palestine are fabrications.

If you could argue against what I said you wouldn't resort to putting words in my mouth, mate.

And if you could read you would know that both Israelies and Palestinians are the "local population" with somewhat dubious historic claims over the land spanning back >3000 years.

Need I remind you that it was the British that drew the maps that have lead us to where we are today?

Who said they are? Only you so far.

You should be more precise with your weird, non sequitur questions.

I'm not putting words in your mouth...

The US's stated reason for rejecting the [toothless, unenforceable, bureaucratic, performative] UN ceasefire proposal was that it did not call for the "immediate release of Israeli hostages from Gaza".

To that end, you said that they "can’t even bother to do the right thing when it doesn’t even matter anymore", which to me very clearly shows that you believe that it is wrong (or, not right) to reject an agreement that fails to call for the immediate release of the hostages.

In my view, the right thing to do is very, very simple--as simple as it has been for over 13 months: agree to a ceasefire in exchange for the immediate release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza (dead or alive). A unilateral ceasefire that doesn't guarantee the immediate return of hostages doesn't make any sense to me, how about you?

It was also "collective punishment" for Hamas to go on a rampage on October 6th, 2023, raping, murdering and kidnapping innocent Israeli civilians, including men, women, children and seniors. Some of these hostages, if they are even still alive, have been held in what kind of horrific conditions for more than a year... Kept in a dungeon, repeatedly tortured, never having seen the light of day for over a fucking year... Something tells me you wouldn't be so quick to agree to a unilateral ceasefire if someone you loved was held captive for 13 months, now would you?

The US was right to reject this performative political UN bullshit.

There is no "justice" in any circumstances in which the hostages are not immediately returned.

Then, reach a deal for the hostages, like the ones Netanyahu has repeatedly shot down.

So you're literally just confirming this:

So in your imagination Israel unilaterally stops fighting against Hamas while (a) Hamas continues to hold civilians hostage, doing all manners of physical and psychological torture to people who only happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and (b) Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and tribal gangs continue to wage attacks against Israel? And then (and only then), Israel comes back to the negotiating table with Hamas once again for yet another round of negotiations to try to free the hostages, only for Hamas to decide to move the goalposts?

You must have read "Art of the Deal".

It was a rhetorical question.

IF one believes that Israel has no right to exist as a nation (anti-zionists) and that the land was stolen from the Palestinians (which, historically speaking isn't even true, because there was never a unified Palestinian nation until the Mandate for Palestine), then logic simply follows that by living in that "occupied Palestinian land" you are "an occupier", does it not?

Your specific analogies to that are bad, because you can live in America without participating in Trump's policies or the "war on terror".

A better American analogy would be to say that everyone who lives in America is complicit in benefiting from the genocide of the Native Americans, whose historically inhabited these lands. And in that case, yes, we Americans are just as guilty as benefiting from the actual genocide of the Native Americans to the hypothetical "genocide" of the Palestinians.

In other words, IF one believes that Americans are unjustly living on occupied Native American lands, then I am guilty of that, just as all Americans are. That's not a political statement, it's a logical one.

And yet, you don't hear anyone sane calling for the entirety of the United States to be returned to the Native Americans, because history doesn't work that way. The best Americans and Native Americans can hope for today is peaceful coexistence, equal treatment under the law, and a mutually beneficial society that acknowledges the wrongs of the past while working towards a better shared future.

Personally I believe in a peaceful two-state solution in which both Israel and Palestine can not just exist, but thrive harmoniously as neighbors destined to live in the same culturally and religiously significant slice of land. But unfortunately the people currently in charge, like Netanyahu and Hamas, do not think that way, and under Trump I believe there will be an unmitigated, scorched earth, full-fat genocide of Gaza Strip and probably the West Bank too.

There have always been pathways to peace, but they rely on the good faith actions of Israel and Palestine far more than anyone else.