I don't think that's really true, though. Sometimes the framing of things in terms of statecraft is abandoned entirely: There are many other statements from top government officials in this vein. The hatred runs deeeeeeeeeep. Goes both ways, of course, but this is incredibly asymmetric warfare, if it's warfare at all.it's aims aren't genocidal, they're statecraft
This week alone, a parliamentarian from Netanyahu’s Likud party went on television and said it was clear to most Israelis that “all the Gazans need to be destroyed.” Then, Israel’s ambassador in Britain told local radio that there was no other solution for her country than to level “every school, every mosque, every second house” in Gaza to degrade Hamas’s military infrastructure.
Right, but think about the ambassador's words for a minute. Early in the war there was a lot of handwringing about Israeli soldiers shooting up a hospital. The fact is, when you suspect that there's a weapons cache inside a hospital, you try to enter it. When people start shooting at you from inside, then you shoot your way in. The trouble is that Hamas freely admits to using hospitals, schools and mosques as places to shield fighters and materiel. That's the context around what she's saying there. It's shitty, but you still have to leap a giant chasm to get from there to genocide (there's a good reason that Arabs can be doctors, lawyers and cabinet ministers in Israel, but Jews (not Israelis) aren't even allowed to be tourists inside many Muslim countries). From October 7 onward, Hamas could have saved every single Gazan civilian by offering an unconditional surrender. They haven't and they won't. That's on them.
This is not to defend what Hamas did on Oct 7. But Ukraine could also stop all the killings with unconditional surrender. Israel wants complete military domination and will not accept any Palestinian state.
nah, you're right though. this sucks. i'm sorry for hubski being nothing but politics, i take the blame for a lot of that. it's not helpful. it's not fun. i like this place and the people a lot, I don't wanna be the one making it worse. i have a hard time not engaging and its clearly not making things better or anyone including myself happy see you in a while hopefully. can't wait to catch up on the CNC machine progress & the watch drama, that's been my favorite part & it's getting drowned out
It'd be nice if substantive debates were happening anywhere else. The ICJ and UN are about it.