[adastra22]

(1) If you are going to protest something, you need to show up with an answer to the question: “well, what should they have done?”

(2) That doesn’t matter to the situation at hand. The protests on college campuses got WAY out of hand and disrupted the purpose of the institution: teaching.

[direwolf20]

Western Palestine protestors want their countries to stop giving stuff to Israel. That's a very achievable goal. It would be good if the war stopped, but most of them recognize they only have influence over their own countries.

[dlubarov]

If that was what they actually wanted, why did none of them seem to care when Netanyahu proposed tapering off of US aid, or when a credible ceasefire agreement was finally being negotiated?

When opportunities arose to achieve the outcomes they were supposedly fighting for, they were suddenly very quiet.

[direwolf20]

Did the US cut off aid?

[dlubarov]

Trump is resisting the idea [1], though it's too early to say how it will ultimately go. It's a confusing time, particularly those who were fighting for an end to the aid, but couldn’t fathom supporting something that Netanyahu wants.

What not everyone understands is that US aid comes with strings attached. Israel developed multiple fighter jets in the past, for example, but canceled them mainly due to US pressure.

[1] https://jewishinsider.com/2026/01/trump-netanyahu-u-s-milita...

[adastra22]

Also the US aid is just credits for the purchase of US military hardware that can’t be resold. Yes it is subsidizing the Israeli military and some people don’t like that. But it is also propping up the US defense industry while keeping Israel “bought into” the NATO military tech standards, which has strategic benefit.

[mfru]

(1) The answer is simple: Stop the genocide in Gaza by any means necessary. The US has the power to do that with its proxy Israel.

(2) Reading that I wonder if you also supported violent dismissals of Vietnam war protests

[wqaatwt]

> by any means necessary

Not that carpet bombing a densely populated city wasn’t extremely horrible were there any better was to destroy or at least massively weaken Hamas?

For that matter Hamas could have stopped the Israeli atrocities any time they wanted, they chose not to.

[JasonADrury]

> were there any better was to destroy or at least massively weaken Hamas?

Perhaps not pursuing policies that create the conditions for Hamas to thrive in the first place?

[ZeroGravitas]

Also avoiding literally supporting Hamas would help weaken Hamas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas

[dlubarov]

Wikipedia has become a very poor source for anything Israel-related. The basis of the article is just

- Israel supported a non-violent predecessor org, which is pretty irrelevant to Hamas.

- Israel allowed Qatari aid to fund some Gaza infrastructure projects, salaries for civil servants, etc.

Neither is actually supporting Hamas, unless we say that allowing food to enter Gaza is also supporting Hamas.

[disgruntledphd2]

> Perhaps not pursuing policies that create the conditions for Hamas to thrive in the first place?

That sounds pretty easy when you're not involved, but things on the ground are rarely that simple. Much of Israeli society is convinced (somewhat accurately) that the Palestinians hate them and want them dead, as much of Palestinian society is convinced of the same (again, somewhat accurately).

I don't know how you get both sides to climb down from this, or does it just end with genocide (of one side or the other). Like, I'm from Ireland and the north of the island was engulfed in violence for the first half of my life (not to a Gaza standard but bad). That only got resolved because a superpower (the US) intervened to help mediate (and help the side that considered themselves Irish).

I would imagine that I might have been very angry at this if I were a member of the other side (the side that considers themselves British), but ultimately it worked out pretty well (modulo Brexit and potential other landmines).

But it's not over, the groups are still really segregated and people just don't talk about it. The Israel Palestine situation is much, much worse and I honestly don't see any superpower being willing or able to mediate this situation.

So yeah, it would be great if everyone could just sing kumbaya, but I don't see how we get there from here.

[direwolf20]

Benjamin Netanyahu literally made Hamas rise to power, on purpose, because he needed Gaza to look evil and they were getting too peaceful.

[disgruntledphd2]

> Benjamin Netanyahu literally made Hamas rise to power, on purpose

I think that's probably a pretty uncharitable take. Like certainly it benefits extremists on one side if the other side are also extremists, but certainly he didn't force them to start blowing up buses in Israel.

Did he benefit? Yes. Did he facilitate them? Yes, but mostly to damage the less extreme Palestinian side. Is it all his fault? Definitely not.

[direwolf20]

Hamas is an idea. Hamas is the idea that Israel must be destroyed. If you want people to stop thinking Israel is evil and must be destroyed, it would greatly help if Israel stopped killing their families. Usually, when you see someone kill your family and the people around you, you start thinking they are evil and must be destroyed. This is pretty basic human psychology.

To make people believe that Israel is a good thing instead, they could start by delivering lots of food and fresh water. Even more easily, they could start by letting in the food and fresh water that's lined up outside of the border.

[alighter]

Both sides have had family and people killed and can view the other as evil by this reasoning.

[direwolf20]

Have they? The Iron Dome blocks almost all Hamas rockets. The trauma suffered by Gazans is hearing the voices of their friends and family under collapsed buildings slowly fade away. The trauma suffered by Israelis is that sometimes there's a siren and they have to run to a bomb shelter just in case, which is also how the Japanese deal with earthquakes.

[alighter]

I don’t think it’s helpful to minimise anyone’s suffering. There are many deaths and permanent injuries on both sides.

But to your point about seeing the other as evil, living with missile shields and walls to guard against the terrors living on the other side, who have made it clear that would love to kill you if they can, has the same psychological effect you mentioned.

[adastra22]

Not what I was asking about. What should Israel have done in response to Oct 7th? What would be the downstream effects?

What should a country do when a neighbor invades and massacres entire towns, live-streaming the violent deaths and rapes for the world to see? What is the correct response to this?

You have clearly not thought through the game theory and repercussions of what you are suggesting.

Like many college protesters, you would do well to understand the complexity of the mechanics of the real world, and understand that reality ain’t rainbows and butterflies.

I have no clue how you drew the Vietnam war protest thing from what I wrote.

[direwolf20]

What should Palestine have done in response to Oct 6th?

[mhb]

Maybe you should be asking what it should have done on September 13, 2000.

[watwut]

First, genocide is not necessary response. Second, Israel hard right was working on that and moving toward genocide for years.

[solumunus]

So I guess no one is actually going to try and answer the question?

[disgruntledphd2]

I think that a better response would have been much, much more targeted. Strategically, Israel have put themselves in a much worse position vis a vis the rest of the world (and importantly the US) by the indiscriminate leveling of Gaza. So it would have been much more like a police action than a war. Maybe take lessons (god I can't believe I'm saying this) from how the British responded to the nationalist terrorism/freedom fighters in Northern Ireland?

[adastra22]

Targeted urban warfare is exactly what happened in Gaza, which had one of the LOWEST civilian death rates for urban warfare in this century. It was 1/4 that rate of the US army in fallujah for example.

Talk of “genocide” and “indiscriminate leveling of Gaza” indicates to me that you didn’t really understand the situation and probably get your news from propaganda sources - which, unfortunately, include nearly all media sources in this conflict.

Northern Ireland was a gang/rebel group in occupied territory. Hamas is the government of Gaza, and Israel had no boots on the ground on Oct 6th. The situations are not in any way comparable.