[C6JEsQeQa5fCjE]

> If Hamas would take up a defensive stance, there would never be any conflict. The only reason Israel attacks has been in response to terrorism.

Proof that this claim is not true is the occupation of West Bank which has submitted itself to Israeli rule without violent opposition. I am sure that you have heard the long list of grievances of its population against the Israeli occupation a million times by now, so I will spare you from going much into it here (military law for Palestinians, imprisonment of children, night raids just to show force and keep IDF soldiers trained etc).

Additionally, using the "terrorism" label is fairly meaningless when the label is assigned by one's enemy that keeps the land under occupation. An enemy that has an overwhelming technological, economical and military advantage that makes a direct confrontation impossible. While Israeli airplanes and drones are leveling residential buildings from distance, they are calling shooting of primitive rockets and guerrilla-style warfare terrorism. Every occupying power in the history of humanity, ever since the word "terrorism" has been introduced into our vocabulary, has called every resistance group terrorists. Also, the countries that you named that have publicly proclaimed Hamas a terrorist groups are all close NATO allies that mostly follow the lead of USA, which in turn strongly supports Israel's position.

We can all agree that Oct 7 attack of Hamas was horrible and that attrocities were committed during which a little under 400 soldiers and a little over 800 civillians were murdered. But if you will call that terrorism, then you have to be logically consistent and call the subsequent revenge-bombing of Gaza (in order to punish Gazans and Hamas alike for striking) what it is, given the death toll, siege conditions, genocidal rhetoric of Israel's leadership, and the devastation inflicted even just in the first few weeks, before the ground offensive even began. About 4000 children were dead before the ground invasion. Children. Children are not Hamas fighters who invaded Israel. Call Hamas whatever you want, but be consistent and just when applying labels.

[esyir]

Can't give anything but acceptance of civilian casualties when the Hamas gameplan is literally to attack from civilian areas.

At the end of the day, Hamas is deliberately putting civilian lives in the line of fire, and are wholly to blame for this. Chastising Israel for deaths caused by this strategy is as good as legitimizing attacks from civilian territories, and will only increase this in the future.

This is considering that Israel had done a degree due diligence in harm mitigation (roof knocking, evacuations). Contrast this with Hamas, which deliberately attacks civilian areas.

[C6JEsQeQa5fCjE]

See my reply here for why the claim that Israel is actually trying to prevent civilian deaths (except to the point at which USA stops using its veto power to protect it, at least) is not taken seriously by almost anyone other than Israel's staunchest supporters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38589626 . The level of devastation and the amount of killing that has been inflicted on Gaza by Israel so far deserves chastising regardless of one's opinion on viable military strategy — and this is not just a personal opinion of a random guy on the internet; refer to UN General Assembly resolutions (such as the one passed yesterday, Tuesday Dec 12) for what the vast majority of the world thinks about it.

West Bank is the best example of how Israel treats Palestinian civilians when there is no armed conflict. Hamas cannot be used as an excuse in that territory. To remove the reason for violent resistance to exist, there needs to be a viable alternative provided that would take away the reason to keep fighting. When Gazans look at the West Bank, they do not see a viable alternative but a life of enslavement, and that gives Hamas an easy way to recruit from a brutally oppressed population that feels that they have nothing to lose anyway.

Has Israel, being the overwhelmingly dominant force in the territory that holds all the cards, made an effort to provide that alternative? The evidence presented in [1] seems to suggest the contrary — that Netanyahu explicitly supported Hamas in order to keep violent resistance active and prevent Palestine uniting behind the peaceful faction of PA that he would then be forced to negotiate a two-state solution with. He, and those like him who do not wish to see the conflict end (for reasons that I imagine are related to the end-goal of establishing Greater Israel?), have actively decided to keep the violent resistance ongoing.

> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...