Correct, it's not unique to Israel. This is the way most nations in the Middle East treat each other, but the Americans and the Europeans don't seem to know this. They have no recollection of what constant threat from one's neighbors was like. Even though it's been less than a century since the Europeans had been in a similar situation.
Now go look at how every other Middle Eastern nation has dealt with the situation. Do I need to talk about Syrian brutality and gassing people in their own capital? Do I need to talk about Iraqi brutality and their gassing of the Kurds? Saudi Arabia, chopping people to bits in their embassies? Iran, Qatar, Egypt?
When one looks at Israel's neighbors, there is no way to not conclude that Israel has been the gentlest of the Middle Eastern Nations. But now we've taken the gloves off, after the 7th of October 2023. Welcome to the new Middle East.
Nothing excuses the slaughter of thousands of civilians - but if you really believed that like I do then you would direct your anger at Hamas and UNRWA, not Israel. Hamas and Gazan civilians poured over the border and slaughtered people. Burned babies to death, beheaded adults, left fetuses with knives in their heads. Phoned home to brag to parents "I just killed ten Jews with my bare hands". It's all recorded - by Hamas themselves!
Not to mention how many Gazans killed by IEDs and failed rocket attacks in the Gaza strip, and how Hamas stoots at people fleeing buildings and areas that the IDF warned they are targeting. Or shooting at people collecting humanitarian aid from distribution centres instead of paying Hamas for it in markets. Or their human shields. Every one of those dead is counted against Israel because in Muslim culture, a martyr dies for a cause no matter which side's hand killed them. And even with those deaths incorrectly attributed to Israel, the civilian:combatant death toll in the Gaza strip is lower than any conflict that NATO or UN forces have ever fought in - by NATO and UN numbers themselves.
> in a tiny strip of land that poses NO fucking existential threat at all to the overall security of Israel?
That tiny step of land was educated by UNRWA to believe that the highest honour in their society is to kill Jews. There is ample video evidence of children stating this as their life goal, and parents stating they want this for their children. That does not justify killing them, but it demonstrates that when they do start killing us there is no easy tactic to calm the situation. They used to infiltrate our communities, we built a wall. We tried moving out of the strip and living further away, they start shooting rockets at us. We build defensive interceptor rockets at extreme cost, they put over the border en mass to put babies in ovens, rape wowen and even in one case I know of an man, enter medical facilities and execute the entire staff and patients. All documented by Hamas themselves.
You need to decide if you feel as strongly about protecting civilians as you do about destroying Israel. Because if you really feel that your ambition is to protect civilians (or at least to defend their cause online) then you need to reevaluate your position on the current conflict. Not because Israel is perfect, but because Israel is fighting to save human life and the Gazans are fighting to destroy it.
I have yet to even mention the hostages, dozens of whom are still in Gaza including people I know personally, which itself is justification for contributing the war no matter the cost to the aggressors. And when the aggressors decide that the civilians of the Gaza strip have suffered too much - the civilians they as the governing body are charged to protect - they can release the hostages and the war will be over.
> I have yet to even mention the hostages .... which itself is justification for contributing the war no matter the cost to the aggressors.
I'm sorry, but from the outside events would suggest that Bibi has little interest in the return, indeed welfare, of all the hostages. `Indeed he seems to have actively sabotaged efforts that would have returned them, in order to continue the war and the wider aims.
Many ex-hostages and families of hostages seem to agree.
> If you sincerely believe the grotesquely distorted nonsense you've written above, you're as much a deluded, fanatical lunatic
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. The guidelines call on us us to make our points without using abusive terms like this. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Now go look at how every other Middle Eastern nation has dealt with the situation. Do I need to talk about Syrian brutality and gassing people in their own capital? Do I need to talk about Iraqi brutality and their gassing of the Kurds? Saudi Arabia, chopping people to bits in their embassies? Iran, Qatar, Egypt?
When one looks at Israel's neighbors, there is no way to not conclude that Israel has been the gentlest of the Middle Eastern Nations. But now we've taken the gloves off, after the 7th of October 2023. Welcome to the new Middle East.