Egypt doesn't want to help the citizens of Gaza.

Egypt moves to prevent exodus of Palestinians from besieged Gaza

Egypt is moving to avert a mass exodus from the Gaza Strip into its Sinai Peninsula, as Israeli bombardment halted crossings at the main exit point from the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday, Gaza officials and Egyptian security sources said.

 

Security in the area around Rafah is also of concern to Egypt because Sinai has been the site of an Islamist insurgency that flared a decade ago. Hamas, which has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, shares the Islamist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement outlawed in Egypt.

10 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

you and 3YearLetterman will bring peace in our time 

If only everyone was as progressive and ahead of the curve as I am.  

16 minutes ago, paco said:

If only everyone was as progressive and ahead of the curve as I am.  

If everyone was as ahead of the curve as you are, you wouldn’t be ahead of the curve at all…

Just now, Imp81318 said:

If everyone was as ahead of the curve as you are, you wouldn’t be ahead of the curve at all…

Yes, but then the world would be a perfect utopia.  I'm ok with that.

46 minutes ago, jsdarkstar said:

The Palestinian supporters are always quick to blame Israel for killing civilians yet they never hold Hamas to the same standard. Hamas is free to slaughter women and children the defenders don't blame them for it. 

From what I've seen it looks like Palestinian supporters are basically calling Israel supporters hypocrites 

It's interesting that what seemed like the only Palestinian supporter on here was banned. Seems like CVON is on Israels side

Disclaimer: not suggesting he was banned because of it

3 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

It's interesting that what seemed like the only Palestinian supporter on here was banned. Seems like CVON is on Israels side

Bummer for you.  I guess when you mass murder civilians, burn people alive, behead victims, commit mass rapes and kidnappings, these sort of things happen.  You seem to fine with these actions by Hamas.

If you don't like it here, don't let the door slam your tuccus on the way out.

1 minute ago, Procus said:

Bummer for you.  I guess when you mass murder civilians, burn people alive, behead victims, commit mass rapes and kidnappings, these sort of things happen.  You seem to fine with these actions by Hamas.

If you don't like it here, don't let the door slam your tuccus on the way out.

Point to me where I've taken any side at all

1 minute ago, Procus said:

Bummer for you.  I guess when you mass murder civilians, burn people alive, behead victims, commit mass rapes and kidnappings, these sort of things happen.  You seem to fine with these actions by Hamas.

If you don't like it here, don't let the door slam your tuccus on the way out.

Unless we're talking about Ukrainian women and children being mass murdered/raped/kidnapped, amirite?

Just now, VanHammersly said:

Unless we're talking about Ukrainian women and children being mass murdered/raped/kidnapped, amirite?

Acts of war are terrible against civilians.  Go show us this level of brutality against civilians in Ukraine against civilians.  We're all ears.

Just now, Procus said:

Acts of war are terrible against civilians.  Go show us this level of brutality against civilians in Ukraine against civilians.  We're all ears.

Are you being serious right now?

1 minute ago, Procus said:

Acts of war are terrible against civilians.  Go show us this level of brutality against civilians in Ukraine against civilians.  We're all ears.

Is that a F'ing joke?

https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/events/russian-war-crimes-ukraine

Quote

Well-documented Russian bombings and missile strikes in Ukraine have decimated hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings, including a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of children were sheltering and the Kramatorsk rail station where thousands were waiting to escape the Russian onslaught. The withdrawal of Russian troops from towns like Bucha, Chernihiv, and Sumy has revealed horrific scenes of civilian carnage, mass graves, and reports of rape and torture. Several world leaders have accused Russia of committing genocide against the people of Ukraine.

 

You're lucky you haven't been banned again, Procus.  You've been defending mass murder since you got back on here.  You're as big of a POS as Abra is.

@Procus  Do you say completely insane things like that because Fox News has been broadcasting these Hamas attacks non-stop since Saturday whereas they barely covered what happened in Ukraine? I'm not even trying to be funny here, I'm legitimately interested at how someone could arrive at that conclusion.

16 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

It's interesting that what seemed like the only Palestinian supporter on here was banned. Seems like CVON is on Israels side

 

11 minutes ago, Procus said:

Acts of war are terrible against civilians.  Go show us this level of brutality against civilians in Ukraine against civilians.  We're all ears.

Russia isn't posting it to facebook. They are trying to hide what they're doing. Hamas wants the world to know what monstrous F's they are. That's the only difference. 

1 minute ago, Gannan said:

 

He's doing that thing where he's "just asking questions" and then immediately tells everyone to drop it and move on when they point out how stupid the questions are.

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2023/10/11/an-interview-with-a-senior-political-leader-of-hamas 

Senior political leader Moussa Abu Marzouk of Hamas interviewed by The Economist. The leader was in Doha, Qatar. 

There's no transcript, but I'm paraphrasing some of the back and forth here:

Economist: "how can you justify the atrocities that have been committed against innocent Israelis?"
Marzouk: "our fighters did not commit any atrocities. they were committed to international and moral laws. they were fighting against settlers and soldiers."
Economist: "I'm sorry, that is manifestly not true .. greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust"
Marzouk: "the main target was 15 military posts and the music festival was by coincidence; they were bypassers* to the festival of music"
Economist: "how can it be bypassers, when they were together in their 100s and they were clearly attacked. they were not random .. you could not have confused them with any other than innocent civilians. I'm sorry that's not credible."
Marzouk: "they were not in a music festival when the battle was begun. they were resting or sleeping, like the soldiers that have been killed in their military ports (bases?) and of course they were considered by fighters as settlers, not as tourists. I'm not sure if they knew they were knew that they were tourists and not settlers or soldiers, they would not kill them. that's why we challenge. there is one child to have been killed by al-Qassam [part of Hamas] fighters among the 1000 have been killed from the Israelis, I will not find a single child. but regarding the israelis, there have been 10s of those children that have been killed by the Israeli strikes"
Economist: "so you're saying no Israeli children were killed by the Palestinian fighters"
Marzouk: "for sure"

....

Economist: "clearly not true. we have video of families killed in their homes, at the festival, etc."
....

Economist: "could you explain to me what you were trying to achieve? how could this possibly further the Palestinian situation?"
Marzouk: "we are facing on a daily basis continuously lots of aggressions especially after the far right has controlled the Israeli government. ... they want dissolve the conflict upon four questions [hard to understand the translator] .. converting a building to a Synagogue, accordingly they are expelling Palestinians there and destroying their homes in Jerusalem, confiscating lands and building settlements over it. they want Jerusalem to be solely for the Israelis, and its' against the will of the international community and they want to dissolve the conflict in the West Bank to turn it as a land of Israel. That's why they want to increase the number of settlers to 1 million. they want also to dissolve the conflict and the future of Palestinians, that's why Netanyahu stated crystal clear that the Palestinians should not dream on their state.
Economist: "doesn't this kind of violence, massacre, close all the doors, makes it less likely that you achieve your goals"
Marzouk: "on the contrary, all the doors were closed, and this is the thing that will open the door. we know very well that the political solution is the way to achieve all the people in this region their rights, but unfortunately this is the only door we have been forced to knock."

....

Economist: "how closely is Iran involved?"
Marzlouk: "Iran has no relation with this operation."

....

Economist: "we know this is BS. we have the receipts. we don't know for sure what size role Iran had, it may have been small or large and may not have been part of the planning process, but we know there was support from Iran."

....

Economist: "let's talk a little more about why now. ... [what about] the potential normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabian? how much is that part of your calculus in the timing now to derail that process?
Marzouk: "Freedom fighters do not look on those questions at all. they planned way before the Saudi-Israeli normalization."

....

[regarding Israeli hostages]
Marzouk: "our religion, our morals, order us to keep the lives of those"
Economist: "just to be clear on your side you are categorically saying you will not kill the Israelis who are your hostages in Gaza?"
Marzouk: "for sure no"
Economist: "you called them POWs. these are - among them - are many Israeli civilians, these are not combatants. why do you not release the civilians?"
Marzouk: "it's too early to talk about this. we cannot differentiate between combatants and civilians yet."

he goes on to say they will not name a price for the hostages, but the time will come that they will and they will make demands and achieve all their goals.

....

Economist: "I hear you saying the State of Israel as a western project has no right to exist. I hear you refusing to acknowledge you have killed 100s of civilians. and I ask myself how can this situation possibly get better?"
Marzouk: "for sure there are some civilians. innocents. but it's your responsibility. and we are victims before they were victims."

...

Economist: "just to be clear, Hamas's goal.. you do not recognize the state of Israel's right to exist, correct?"
Marzouk: "sure. they have no right to exist."
Economist: "from that goal, how can you possibly expect peace? why do you insist on not allowing the existence of the state of Israel, when that makes it impossible for progress to be made? that is why you are a terrorist organization. that is why you are seen as what you are being, terrorists, and not as potential partners"
Marzouk: "we give a chance, and we agreed upon what the world had been recognized with the Palestinian Authority, and we knew before and forecasted that this process would be failed, but we agreed upon a state in the west bank and the Gaza strip. and we issued a political memorandum talking about that. but you didn't give a chance for Palestinians to create their state, beside the Israelis."
Economist: "the failure of the Oslo accords is lamentable. but in the world of today the only progress is a progress that first of all recognizes the state of Israel's right to exist and secondly is progress towards peaceful coexistence. have you given up on a 2-state solution completely? and iof you have, what is the way forward for you? it is impossible for you to eliminate the state of Israel."
Marzouk: "no it is not. on the contrary, it's the nearest way to achieve a Palestinian state."
Economist: "why do you think the state of Israel has no right to exist?"
Marzouk: "because they country is not Palestine, Palestine belongs to the Palestinians"
Economist: "and you don't care how many Palestinians are killed in the process of you pursuing this dream"
Marzouk: "of course freedom is more valuable than my life**, dignity is more valuable than life. the homeland is worth more than life."
Economist: "many would listen to that and say those are the words of a fanatic."
Marzouk: "it's up to them what they are thinking about." 

...

Economist: "do you consider this to be a victory?"
Marzouk: "the image of the Arab defeat since 1948 have been ended after the year 2000. and the Israeli can't defeat the Palestinian. the wars of 2008, 2012, are significant proof. "

....

Economist: "do you think it will be better for the Palestinians? will it be better for Palestinian civilians after one year?"
Marzouk: "yes"
Economist: "let's meet again in one year. I find that hard to believe."
Marzouk: "I promise"
Economist: "I don't think violence and fanaticism..."
Marzouk: "I'd like to live in peace.. really.."
Economist: "really? I find that hard to believe."
Marzouk: "really. to gut the beast they have to fight."

 

 

 

* this is verbatim, but I take it to mean "wrong place wrong time people" 
** he says, from the comfort of Doha, Qatar.

3 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

He's doing that thing where he's "just asking questions" and then immediately tells everyone to drop it and move on when they point out how stupid the questions are.

Nope

I mean, he's not wrong that they seem to have banned Abra based on his support for Hamas, but good.  F him.  Now they should do the same to the scumbags that support Russia.

25 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

It's interesting that what seemed like the only Palestinian supporter on here was banned. Seems like CVON is on Israels side

you have to be baiting with this post. 

The Atlantic: Hamas’s Attack Confounds Middle East Experts 

Even those who understand the fundamentalist group best are struggling to understand what they are trying to achieve.

By Isabel Fattal

 

Israel is at war, and has ordered a complete siege of Gaza after Hamas’s surprise attack on Saturday. Hamas is holding at least 150 hostages, and more than 900 Israelis and more than 600 Palestinians have been killed. As we continue to follow these developments, we’ll take a step back today to focus on Hamas, its aims, and its influence on the region.

What Is Hamas?

Hamas, an Islamist fundamentalist group formed in 1987 as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has controlled the Gaza Strip since it won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006—the last time elections were held in Gaza. These elections took place a year after Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza. In 2007, Hamas ousted its rival political party, Fatah, from the strip during a military conflict within Gaza. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, the European Union, Canada, Egypt, and Japan.

What are the group’s long-term goals? First, "what every political party would want in their own country … ascendancy and supremacy,” the historian Arash Azizi told me. "It wants to be the most popular Palestinian party.” Second, Hamas is a member of the Axis of Resistance, Azizi noted. As he explained in The Atlantic yesterday, this unofficial alliance of groups supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran includes Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and several Iraqi and Syrian militias. These groups share key goals, Azizi explained: "the destruction of Israel” and the driving out of all the Jewish people living in the country. Finally, despite the fact that Palestinians "are amongst the most secular societies in the Arab world,” Hamas—a Sunni Islamist party—also wants "an Islamic society.” How it prioritizes between these three goals is a different question, Azizi noted.

The group seeks the elimination of Israel as a country—a point of contrast between it and the Palestine Liberation Organization. (The PLO’s official position holds that a Palestinian state could be created in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, though the former PLO chairman Yasser Arafat walked away from American-led negotiations meant to create such a state.) Taken as a collective, Hamas is "a Palestinian nationalist, anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic, and Islamist organization,” Azizi said. But "like all parties in the world, Hamas is not united … There are certainly parts of Hamas that do not have these more extreme goals.” Some factions, particularly those linked to the devout Palestinian middle class, are "not interested in fighting the Israelis this way, or in alliance with Iran,” he said. "Under the right circumstances, they might even accept, form, and run a state of Palestine without the destruction of Israel … But clearly the faction [of Hamas] that Iran has given a lot of power to is not the latter faction.”

The Hamas charter of 1988 laid out a brazenly anti-Semitic mission. The charter stated: "The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgment will not come until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’” As The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, noted in 2014, "This is a frank and open call for genocide, embedded in one of the most thoroughly anti-Semitic documents you’ll read this side of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Hamas issued a new charter in 2017, which retains the group’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist but removes some of the boldest anti-Jewish statements from the 1988 version. However, many Hamas officials have espoused equally strong anti-Semitic statements in the years since this new charter was released.

Key to understanding Hamas is the fact that its goals and those of the Gazan people are not necessarily in alignment. The Gazan people live under an Israeli blockade, backed by Egypt, that severely restricts the movement of goods and people in and out of the region; under Hamas rule, Gazans have reported repression and arbitrary arrests, and Human Rights Watch has chronicled what it calls systemic abuse on the part of Hamas in Gaza. In recent years, Gazan citizens have shown growing discontent with Hamas’s policies. According to The Times of Israel, a 2022 poll found that 53 percent of Gazans agree at least somewhat that Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction; a 2022 Palestinian public-opinion poll found that 71 percent of Palestinians believe there is corruption in Hamas institutions. "We have no idea” how much of the population of Gaza Hamas represents, Thanassis Cambanis, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, told me, because "there have not been elections there in decades. They’re not a unifying national movement.”

Azizi also reminded me that when Gaza held its last election, in 2006, only 44 percent of Palestinians voted for Hamas: "It won the election by a plurality, not a majority.” Right now, Azizi argued, Hamas is likely more popular in the West Bank than it is in Gaza; "it’s the force that has been fighting Israel, the country that has been putting Gaza under siege, but at the same time, people of Gaza look at Hamas and see a corrupt ruling authority.” Some Palestinians within Gaza have repeatedly protested Hamas, particularly over the past six months, Azizi noted. The Palestinian public-opinion poll from 2022 found that 54 percent of Gazans believe they cannot criticize Hamas’s authority without fear.

Hamas does not represent the whole of the Palestinian people—far from it. But observers of these attacks shouldn’t ignore the role of the broader Israeli-Palestinian relationship. "The decades-long delusion that Israel could ignore, manage, shrink, or simply forget its conflict with its Palestinian neighbors has been a costly blunder,” Azizi wrote in The Atlantic yesterday. "The Iranian regime is arming Palestinians and driving them toward its own murderous agenda vis-à-vis Israelis. But Israel’s continued subjugation of Palestinians is what allows such a festering wound to exist in the first place, giving Tehran an easy issue to exploit.”

What does Hamas want from this latest, unprecedented round of attacks? A spokesperson for the terror group has said that it wants to "liberate all Palestinian prisoners” from Israel and end Israel’s "provocations” in the West Bank and Jerusalem, specifically at Al-Aqsa Mosque. But the experts I spoke with struggled to understand how Saturday’s brutal attacks will help Hamas achieve its stated aims. "It’s hard for me to put my analytical hat on and figure out why Hamas would view this in their interest, because it’s so surely going to be terrible for them and for all the people in Gaza and probably the West Bank as well,” Cambanis told me. "It somewhat defies my 20 years of understanding how they operate.”

"This Hamas victory might prove Pyrrhic,” Natan Sachs wrote in The Atlantic on Saturday. "In fact, Hamas itself might have been surprised by the extent of its initial success. The trauma in Israel today should give pause to those thinking that Israel will simply acquiesce to a short boob for tat. As bad as things have been in Gaza in the past two decades—and they have been terrible—the coming weeks could prove even worse.”

13 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

you have to be baiting with this post. 

Added a disclaimer. Guess I should have expected that with CVON. My fault

Is the Atlantic not familiar with terrorism? It's never logical. It's never intended to further the cause for non-combatants. It's purely a result of ideological zealotry and blood lust. Are they really trying to understand the thought process of insane evil scumbags through an analytical lens? They were presented with an opportunity to inflict harm on who they viewed as their enemy and they took it. it really is that simple. The fact that the victims were civilians didn't matter. The fact that the response from Israel would surely force out all Palestinians from their homes didn't matter. The fact that this set back relations and stabiltiy in the region by decades doesn't matter. 

Why is the author referring to Hamas like it was actually interested in peace? If they replaced every reference to Hamas with Al Qaeda in that article, it would've never made it to print because of how ridiculous it sounds.

36 minutes ago, VanHammersly said:

You're lucky you haven't been banned again, Procus.  You've been defending mass murder since you got back on here.  You're as big of a POS as Abra is.

Go ahead Van - file a complaint with @Moderator12 if you aren't satisfied with my positions here.