zlacker

>>anigbr+(OP)
Despite all this, as a casual observer, my general impression is Israel has done terribly at making the case for war, and specifically the kind of war their military seems to be carrying out.

The most relevant comparison seems to be with the Russians. Russia has no credibility in the West and Israel is rapidly losing any they had, at least with younger people. My general impression is of a Russian-level intensity of destruction, too.

But perhaps these impressions are wrong. I would normally assume the Israelis aren’t complete idiots. I’d like to read a “steelman” case for this military campaign, if anyone knows of one. Why are these impressions misleading? What’s really going on?

(Yes, a major difference is that this is a counter-attack, but beyond that?)

>>skybri+CG
Are you serious? They were attacked first and invaded, experiencing the equivalent of Pearl Harbor + 9/11 together in relative terms, or in absolute terms the 2nd worst terrorist attack EVER. Entire communities viciously wiped out, and hundreds of hostages taken, followed by a barrage of thousands of rockets on the cities of Israel.

I'm at a loss of words. What kind of explanation are you missing?

>>adastr+zX1
Yes, they were attacked first and that’s a traditional justification for war. If a government wants to go to war, this is the time to do it, while they have the support of the public.

However, as we saw after 9/11, that doesn’t necessarily mean that whatever war a government proposes is a good idea. A counter-attack could still be foolish or unnecessarily brutal (as it seems to be). It might still result in a strategic failure.

The kind of explanation I’d be interested in would be why the way Israel is prosecuting this war is something the US (and other countries) should support.

(Your comment is about what Hamas did, and that’s a different sort of thing than a justification for what the Israel military is doing.)

>>skybri+6k2
Do you think the NATO invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 was not a good idea? You are free to your opinion, and there are those idealists who believe such, but it would be counter to widespread consensus. The faults people have with the war on terror were/are (1) the two-decade-long occupation that followed, and (2) the completely unrelated war with Iraq.

But invading Afghanistan to capture/kill the al Qaeda organization, to prevent another 9/11? It is widely understood that the US was in the moral right and on the right side of international norms for its policy actions in 2001-2002.

If one accepts that, then how is what Israel is doing in Gaza any different?

>>adastr+gm2
Blowing up civilian infrastructure that they, as an occupier, actually have a duty to protect and restore to order and safety [1], after posing for selfies? [2] Calling people animals, rounding them up just because why not? [3] Talking about making Gaza "unlivable"? [4] The minister of defense handing out automatic weapons to settlers in the West Bank?

Meanwhile, half of the population of Gaza is under the age of 15, in one of the most densely populated areas of the world. It's unadulterated genocide in service of an expansionist, right-wing extremist government. Another difference is this media (and social web, down to HN) effort to silence and smear any and all criticism of it, to turn it into a dichotomy of who you're for (rather than what international law and basic fucking human decency would require), while Joe Biden talks about having seen photos of beheaded babies. Contrast to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_war_in_Af...

[1] https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc....

[2] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17330661183302657...

[3] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17328125940611608...

[4] https://twitter.com/NimerSultany/status/1731736295666282707

[5] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-security-minister...

You can't just do random shit and say "it's for X" and that makes it okay. I can't just take everything you own and say it's to achieve world peace, you know? Or nuke the world to prevent car theft since no more world means no more cars means no more car theft. That's the level of the argument you have; zilch, backed by brutality and nothing else.