Israel/Hamas War Superthread

[Dill]

(1 hour ago)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Hmm, I guess freeing all Palestinian prisoners doesn't include freeing convicted terrorists.  We've gone over this before.  What I am acknowledging is the shockingly ignorant character of these people, including yourself who are inadvertently or willfully ignorant of the Hamas strategy to maximize civilian casualties to get simpletons in the west to be sympathetic to their "plight".

Hamas is playing you and your fellow lefties like a fiddle, grinning and raping all the while.  You're a useful tool to them, and that's it.  Not many things sadder than someone who allows themselves to be used by rapists and murderers.

As a matter of fact, I have long been aware of what you call "Hamas' strategy" and can accurately summarize a number of professional-quality analyses of it, such as this 2019 report from StratCom COE https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf, and other uses of "lawfare."

Where we differ is that I also understand 

1) how one-sided such analyses tend to be, ignoring Israeli use of Palestinians for involuntary human shields, and
 
2) how Israel rejects recommendations for how to handle that problem within the limits of humanitarian law, while appealing to this "well-known Hamas' strategy"
to explain away indiscriminate bombing and legitimize gunning down civilians in free fire zones.

I.e., the so-called "Hamas strategy" is also a mainstay of IDF/Israeli propaganda--that there is no "plight" beyond what Hamas has created. It's their fault if Israel bombs a an apartment building full of civilians and arrests thousands without charge. And it requires Western audiences, especially in the US, to think that Hamas somehow has a better, more effective propaganda machine and press savvy than does Israel, whose officials are interviewed by our press every day and has
lobbying organizations composed of US citizens. 

That's how we get to a point where those protesting Israeli war crimes are called "tools"; but not those giving the IDF cover.  

But where we primarily differ is on the issue of universal human rights. You don't have a problem with the Israeli military occupation or the dispossession it protects.