[samjones33]

>(For example, see how Hamas will not surrender

Yup.

Hamas will fight to the last Palestinian. They could have ended the Gaza war a year ago (or more). All they have to say is: "Here are the hostages. Here are our weapons. We are now shoemakers."

Why don't they do this?

Because they would rather fight to the last Palestinian child.

Hamas has agency. They could end war any time since October 8, 2023.

[mattmaroon]

Because they are a death cult. They sincerely believe exactly what they profess, everyone who Israel kills is a martyr and goes to heaven with extra benefits.

From their perspective it’s all wins. Every bomb Israel drops sends their people to heaven and makes Israel look bad to the world.

The hardest part of conversing with a lot of people about this situation is getting them to understand the idea of a death cult. Once you accept that some people not only don’t fear death but actively seek it for themselves and their tribe, the Middle East makes a lot more sense. There’s so much evidence both in what they say (they do not hide it) and what they do but so much of the west refuses to accept it.

[samjones33]

Well said.

What I try to emphasize is that Hamas has agency. They make the decision to keep fighting, or stop fighting.

To deny Hamas agency is to dehumanize them. They have as much agency as Israel or any other actor.

And they are a death cult.

With two million Gazans between their tunnels and the IDF.

There is no way to make that nice or neat or pleasant.

[mattmaroon]

Yep. The western liberal is well-intended and can’t get behind the idea that anyone should ever kill anyone. But Hamas’s order of preference is:

1. They kill you (because God will give them the eternal hookup)

2. You kill them (same as #1)

3. Nobody kills anyone

Suicide bombing seems crazy and far from rational to those of us who aren’t in the death cult. But if you look at the actions of radical Islamists from that perspective, it is entirely rational and in line with both their stated beliefs and their actions.

[8note]

israel could also end it at any point, by not shooting, or by dissolving the whole state.

why do they not do this? israel has had the ability to end the war since before its inception.

the answer to why is no surprise, the same as hamas' reason to not surrender. the israeli goal is the disappearance of all palestinians, and hamas so happens to be made up of palestinians.

[samjones33]

>dissolving the whole state

What?

You understand what would happen next, right?

Is there a single time in history when that has occurred? And if so, what happened next?

What a fantastically violent thing to say or propose.

>the israeli goal is the disappearance of all palestinians

If that is true, why are so many Palestinians alive?

If that is true, how do Palestinians have a population growth rate higher than any European country?

Palestine: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/state-of-pale...

Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...

[dreghgh]

The PLO pulled out of Beirut in the early 1980s after being given guarantees from the international community that the remaining Palestinian population, unarmed civilians, would be protected both from Lebanese Christians and Israeli forces.

Then Israeli forces colluded with Christian militias to massacre Palestinians in their camps.

Hamas was never going to disarm and hand back the hostages based on "Trust me, bro".

[samjones33]

There is not a single person in the Middle East who maps the behavior of Hamas to that of the PLO in the 1980's.

Hamas is a death cult. They will fight to the last Gazan child.

They have agency. They could end the war tomorrow, or a year ago.

[GordonS]

> Hamas is a death cult. They will fight to the last Gazan child.

This is just... utterly absurd. The entity killing children (literally on a daily basis!), bombing hopsitals, schools, water treatment facilities etc, and carrying out campaigns of terrorism across the Middle East, is the rogue nuclear state of Israel.

'Propaganda' doesn't quite cover it; I think we need a new word for propaganda that is so delusional and verifyiably false, that it has no basis in any reality.