Israel - Hamas War October 2023

1400 dead Israeli’s disagree

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Easy to say that from the US. Also easy to say that if none of your relatives have to experience rocket fire, kidnapping, terrorist attacks as a part of daily life.

It’s just not true.

Gaza is just as much of a threat, (if not more) to Israel, as Japan was to the US.

Iran and China on board?

Thats going to be almost impossible. China doesn’t really care about the ME.

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I am not in the US at the moment.

I am in Europe, UK, Brazil. And the consensus in these countries is very much building now against what Israel is doing.

At first, people were generally supportive of Israel going after Hamas.

But due to its actions of indiscriminate bombing, public opinion has turned against Israel. This is also being reflected in the US which is why Biden is changing his tune.

You cannot kill 10,000 non-combatants and expect people to ignore it. You are in war crime territory now. And yes, the ICC is investigating it now as well.

The US won’t give you cover if you keep killing non-combatants. Biden’s poll ratings have already dropped 11 points with democrats and 2024 is an election year.

I don’t think you understand the term “military”.

Of course if you are in Europe or the UK that’s about the same as being in the US from the perspective of being comfortably away from terrorist attacks as a daily fact of life. Perhaps more so. I don’t much know about Brazil.

The quibble about military is just a quibble. If Hamas kills exclusively civilians, that doesn’t make them less of a threat than if they kill the military.

Europe has always tended to be more anti-Israel. People can speculate why.

Are you saying Democrats would prefer that a Republican wins? Because that’s probably what will happen if Biden doesn’t. A primary challenge seems less and less likely as time goes on.

In general, Europe is pretty anti -US. You’ll probably be more likely to hear doom and gloom about the US there. It’s like if I go onto Fox I probably won’t hear bad things about Republicans; if I go onto CNN, it’s less likely I’ll hear bad things about Democrats.

You are saying Germany is anti-Israel?

They usually bend over backwards to be supportive but even they are appalled at what is going on. We are talking about 10,000 deaths of women and children. You cannot sweep this under the carpet in the age of social media.

That should tell you just how seriously Europe is taking this. They do not approve of Israel’s actions. The only thing holding them back is the US.

And what Israel is doing right now is even making the US uncomfortable.

And if they don’t back Israel, they are in trouble.

And Biden cares way more about being re-elected in 2024 than he cares about Israel. Specially with Bibi around (whom he dislikes).

I don’t think this is the trump card you think it is.

Germany has quite a while to go before I think they’re the greatest, nicest country to Israel.

P.S. I’m sure Biden cares about being re-elected, however this doesn’t really affect things. The US is not Europe, they are not going to find fault as quickly with Israel as Europe is.

Personally, the anti-US bias in Europe is very understandable. It’s usually jealousy. :slight_smile:

Your understanding of geo-politics is rather simplistic.

The world doesn’t work like that.

EU is in direct economic competition with the US, but they also have shared security interests via NATO (amongst other things).

The only thing everybody agrees with in this instance is to not let the current conflagration start World War III.

Thats the main driver of why the US is helping Israel. And also why the EU has generally been supportive.

But all democratic governments answer to their populations come election time.

I doubt this will start WWIII.

The EU is generally more supportive of Gaza than they are to Israel. Check the aid expenditures.

Taiwan worries me more than Israel on WW3

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I disagree. If there was a Republican president they would be even more supportive of Israel’s actions. He is dropping in polls because he isn’t an effective communicator and because citizens are worried about the economy. Whether any of that would be different under any other president is debatable. Nonetheless, if a republican was president then there would be no wavering whatsoever about supporting Israel.

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The anti-Israel bias has always existed in Europe.

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Have any of you folks actually lived in Europe?

Just curious because you don’t seem to have a good understanding of European sentiment in general.

<raises hand, slowly>

Have you ever been to Israel? I don’t think it’s a fair question either way…

I will say that the persecutions Jews under went in Spanish inquisition and the Holocaust in Germany has basically left no Jewish population in Europe.

Jews live primarily in Israel and the USA. In the USA, Jews primarily live in NY, NJ, CA, CT, MA, and TX.

And while I can admit I don’t understand the European perspective, I think you don’t understand the Israeli perspective.

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There are 15 million Jews in the world. Roughly half of them live in Israel. I would say the majority of them have a deep connection to the land.

They believe the land is Abraham’s and his son’s land and that Jewish population lived there for 2000 years under the Davidic and Hashmonite dynasties. The Romans expelled the Jews renamed it to Palestine. The temple wall of the second temple still stands (the western wall). Many places in Israel is filled with archeology that has Hebrew writing.

Whether you believe any of the above or not is not so important. The Jews in Israel deeply believe that.

A lot of the “views” that I am reading are from people who consume media and have little “on the ground” knowledge. What they continually miss is that Europe is currently at War.

Ukraine was attacked by a superior military force (Russia), and tens of thousands of people have been killed before the US and EU stepped in. The EU granted Ukraine candidate status very quickly in order to help them.

And now, we have a superior military force (Israel) basically doing the same things to people in Gaza. It would be political suicide for European leaders to ignore this because its obviously a huge double standard.

Thats where in my view Israel made a mistake.

Public and political sympathy was hugely in their favour after the initial attack on non-combatants by Hamas. A more measured proportional response by Israel would have been of huge political benefit for them.

There was no reason to rush this entire operation. The people in Gaza are effectively penned in and they could have taken their time to get the hostages back (this is important) and/or systematically picked off Hamas areas one by one.

My own suspicion is that Bibi has effectively goosed the military option (as evidenced by his many unprofessional online comments) in order to provide some cover to try to save his political career. From what I have heard (not from Israel direct but via friends abroad) is that most people blame him for the attack (so his political career would be finished). So his strategy to survive is to keep the war going as long (and as intensely) as possible, as that keeps him in power and with the ability to muddy the waters (and pushback).