[bigyabai]

> What would you do if you were Israel?

Stop pretending like collective punishment produces results? It obviously doesn't, Israel's strikes on Lebanon have gotten to the point that it feels like another illegal expansion project.

[MotiBanana]

You're right, they should just let indiscriminate rockets hit their civilians. If it was not for the iron some, there would be 100k dead Israelis. It's disgusting how westerners think their high and mighty approach works in the middle east.

[bigyabai]

Israel was never forced to commit war crimes in retaliation. If they truly want peace, they should submit to the ICC or prepare to fight the long war.

[komali2]

Blowback. Israel is responsible for being an impossible neighbor.

A better question to ask: what do you do when an ethnosupremacist state sets up shop near you and immediately begins territory expansion and meddling in your local politics while funding militant groups to destabilize your government? That's the question all of Israel's neighbors have had to answer for the last 60 years.

[caminante]

>impossible neighbor

The entire neighborhood sucks.

Doesn't this also apply to Hezbollah in Lebanon?

> "[Hezbollah's] struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated" [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#Attitudes_and_action...

[komali2]

The entire neighborhood was already there, and then Israel showed up as a settler-colonialist state.

I don't really sympathize with any State's desire for self preservation (especially since, like Israel, most states will happily sacrifice their citizenry to do so).

The radicalization necessary to feed recruitment to Hamas and Hezbollah is only possible because of the incredible violence Israel subjects the region to. Without Israel, Hamas would almost certainly not even exist, or at least would be some minor radical group with no political power.

[caminante]

Your argument isn't principled because starting in the 20th century is arbitrary. Why not go back in time to the 15-1600s when the Ottoman Empire went "colonial" on Jews?

We don't have a time machine.

In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.

[komali2]

> Your argument isn't principled because starting in the 20th century is arbitrary.

No it isn't, we were alive in the 20th century, it's recent and we are fully capable of, and responsible for, handling fallout from decisions made during it. Your argument justifies any imperialism. "Last year Israel occupied more Palestinian territory - it's the same as ancient history, demanding they give it back is like demanding Greece re-establishes the sovereignty of Athens."

> In the present, Israel could go full pacifist, and Hezbollah doesn't go away.

Pretty speculative. An Israel that gives back sovereignty and autonomy as well as stolen land back to Palestine (and now Lebanon), releases prisoners, and regime changes out the ethnosupremacist government takes basically all the wind out of the sails of groups resisting it as the evil it currently is.

Actually negotiating and following through is something current Israel can't swallow because it's deeply racist against the people with whom it's meant to be negotiating.