Where were we on 9/11 when Dick Clarke had been flashing the warning signals to Bush in August that Bin Laden was "determined to attack US homeland"?
Everyone--even the hardest defense hawks--miss the mark when they have "failures of imagination" that tend to relate more to the intelligence community and executive decisions more so than the military. The IDF were responding that day in force, but the intel side of things is where the let real downs were.
Again, downstream consequences of what their parents chose. See my other response. These kids are the unfortunate victims of their parent's decisions to materially-support Hamas by condoning tunnel construction and refusing to rat out their neighbors so that they can get killed by the IDF surgically *before* mass-military campaigns in the wake of the worst terror attack since 9/11. Ask their Palestinian parents why they weren't thinking about their children's future safety when they condoned Hamas and allowed them to build an ant's nest of tunnels under their homes and use their hospitals as operations centers and weapons caches. Because I know what *I'd* do if an open terrorist organization was using my kid's schools and hospitals as operational centers and trying to build tunnel networks under my home. Stop denying the choices these Palestinian parents made in condoning Hamas. Are you *ever* going to find any fault whatsoever with a Palestinian society who materially-supports a terrorist organization and refuses to report them or fight them on their own? Or is that just okay in your book?
Easy: Demand that your husband calls the IDF as soon as Hamas starts building tunnels under your neighborhood and using your kid's school and hospital as an outpost, or threaten to do it yourself if he refuses.
Palestinians are brave people who embrace martyrdom culture, so the will to die for one's society is already there culturally. They're just refusing to aim that courage at Hamas and their women are refusing to put sufficient pressure on their husbands to do so in the name of their children.
It *is* unfair, unfair to their children that their parents didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do this before it was too late after 10/7. They had from 2006-203 to do so, and they didn't, and now their children are the unfortunate victims of their collective inaction and their collective material support for Hamas.
Maybe residents they thought they were building a bomb shelter. It will be interesting now they know there was no access there when the chips were down. Maybe this war will encourage civilians to stand up to hate. In the meantime let's acknowledge the tunnel entrances could have been viewed as defensive... It's not like people were assembling rocket launchers!
Maybe you're right and the Palestinians of Gaza will know better moving forward, but when masked men start building tunnels in your backyard and telling you not to worry about it, I'd start asking myself some serious questions, because it's pretty clear those things aren't bomb shelters for your protection when the masked men building them tell you not to ask questions about them.
Would you care to explain the Gaza incursions in 2009, 2014, and 2018 by the IDF that targeted Hamas then?
Some history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict
Where were they on October 7?
Where were we on 9/11 when Dick Clarke had been flashing the warning signals to Bush in August that Bin Laden was "determined to attack US homeland"?
Everyone--even the hardest defense hawks--miss the mark when they have "failures of imagination" that tend to relate more to the intelligence community and executive decisions more so than the military. The IDF were responding that day in force, but the intel side of things is where the let real downs were.
And what is the military purpose of starving children who weren't even born yet when those tunnels were built?
Again, downstream consequences of what their parents chose. See my other response. These kids are the unfortunate victims of their parent's decisions to materially-support Hamas by condoning tunnel construction and refusing to rat out their neighbors so that they can get killed by the IDF surgically *before* mass-military campaigns in the wake of the worst terror attack since 9/11. Ask their Palestinian parents why they weren't thinking about their children's future safety when they condoned Hamas and allowed them to build an ant's nest of tunnels under their homes and use their hospitals as operations centers and weapons caches. Because I know what *I'd* do if an open terrorist organization was using my kid's schools and hospitals as operational centers and trying to build tunnel networks under my home. Stop denying the choices these Palestinian parents made in condoning Hamas. Are you *ever* going to find any fault whatsoever with a Palestinian society who materially-supports a terrorist organization and refuses to report them or fight them on their own? Or is that just okay in your book?
I won't argue with you Travis. It just seems so unfair. If I was a woman in Gaza I don't know what I could have done to prevent this.
Easy: Demand that your husband calls the IDF as soon as Hamas starts building tunnels under your neighborhood and using your kid's school and hospital as an outpost, or threaten to do it yourself if he refuses.
Palestinians are brave people who embrace martyrdom culture, so the will to die for one's society is already there culturally. They're just refusing to aim that courage at Hamas and their women are refusing to put sufficient pressure on their husbands to do so in the name of their children.
It *is* unfair, unfair to their children that their parents didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do this before it was too late after 10/7. They had from 2006-203 to do so, and they didn't, and now their children are the unfortunate victims of their collective inaction and their collective material support for Hamas.
Maybe residents they thought they were building a bomb shelter. It will be interesting now they know there was no access there when the chips were down. Maybe this war will encourage civilians to stand up to hate. In the meantime let's acknowledge the tunnel entrances could have been viewed as defensive... It's not like people were assembling rocket launchers!
That'd be a very generous assessment, given stories like this (one from as far back as 2014):
https://time.com/6693896/hamas-tunnels-gaza-home-ruin/
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/07/26/335332220/the-long-history-of-the-gaza-tunnels
Maybe you're right and the Palestinians of Gaza will know better moving forward, but when masked men start building tunnels in your backyard and telling you not to worry about it, I'd start asking myself some serious questions, because it's pretty clear those things aren't bomb shelters for your protection when the masked men building them tell you not to ask questions about them.