So the IDF is bombing ambulances claiming they’re “Hamas”….pretty sure the stack of dead school aged children is somehow making Israel safer. Not linking the video, look for “woke doctor” on IG if you’re ghoulish. I’ve been around enough to know that “Hamas” is basically the same as “Taliban” or “suspected VC”…a convenient tag to justify something, divorced from evidence. Lots of dead Iraqis and Afghans were “terrorists”.
Seriously, I’m over the casual bigotry we show in the West. I’m a billion percent sure some smug person is going to come along and point out the obvious that ambulances have at times in the past been used as weapons, that it’s entirely possible a terrorist was riding out, etc, and claim that Israel is in the right because “Arab bad” or Islamophobia or whatever. And I’m fully aware that terrorists are indeed bad-faith actors, doing heinous things, and that they need to be stopped.
That still doesn’t make it ok to take shots at civilians. At ambulances, and hospitals, and people running away. We did that in Vietnam, in the GWOT, and we were wrong. We lost those wars and we soiled our reputation and we gave the world a reason not to trust us that we are still dealing with decades later. And those were from brush fire wars on the other side of the world!
I fear for Israelis, I really do. Because they’re collectively setting themselves up for a war without end that will see their liberties curtailed, their nation rendered a pariah state and their culture unjustly associated with the actions of a few (incidentally this is why ethnostates are a terrible idea!)
This war won’t end when every last Hamas militant is dead. It’s only just beginning, and Israel is going to have to find an answer as to how to keep hundreds of thousands of innocent, terrorized people from becoming radicalized on their own and starting Hamas 2.0. Because if I was fishing my kid out of the dead kid pile and pulling Raytheon circuit boards and Made-in-America shrapnel out of my spouse, I’d be fairly inclined to blame the people dropping those JDAMs and their suppliers. That’s making our lives less safe because those people are going to want revenge. Wouldn’t you?
Hamas is a damned prison gang with religious leanings that is fueled by longstanding grievances and problems, that’s how they’ve avoided becoming the next ISIS. Using them for justification of every strike and blaming them for every death is pointless- they have no agency, no courage and no responsibility to their fellows. Just like AQI and IS. But when we killed everyone around them, we became the enemy of everyone and they acted like it. And the Israelis are on that same path. Unlike us, they don’t have the luxury of distance or disengagement, and they’ve decided to lose the peace in pursuit of an impossible victory. I hate that truth, but the dead kid stacks are pretty hard to overlook. And as someone who isn’t an anti-Semite, I hate that the current Israeli government and their enablers have tied support for their ambitions and actions to support for the Jewish culture and faith and people. The two are not the same. Human greed and ambition should not be construed as faith or heritage. But here we are, stuck between two evils, because the extremes on both sides are in power and neither leading group wants any sort of peace. Hamas has already won, btw. Israel’s reputation with their neighbors is smashed beyond repair and normalized relations with pretty much anyone not already on-side is going to be effectively impossible, plus the IDF is going to be tied to Gaza for years to come and radicalized locals are going to be a never-ending insurgency that Israel cannot walk away from or surrender to. So, more brutal apartheid, more civilians dead, more oppression. Winners: Iran and Russia. Hate that it’s going to be that.
, so I think a 10/22 or 20-gauge kinda makes the most sense, coupled with cost of ammo. I definitely would need some training --will look into classes!
