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Comment by maxbond | Hacker News Reader

Given current events, I don't understand how you can hold this view? We've recently seen a truly horrifying terrorist attack, and the response was as brutal as you would expect. Surely the people who planned and executed it knew that better than we do, since presumably it's their business to know such things.

Surely that's a constructive proof that this notion is mistaken?

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> We've recently seen a truly horrifying terrorist attack, and the response was as brutal as you would expect.

Indeed. And the reason why such an attack happened is because the people who did the attack were the ruling government body of 2 million people for almost 2 decades, and were left to their own devices to build up a large scale attack, involving 1 thousand+ combatants.

And in a few months, those combatants and military infrastructure will be destroyed and not much of a threat.

It turns out that killing your enemies leaves them no longer able to attack you. And leaving them alone and in charge of a psuedo country, lets them built up the capacity to harm you.

> And in a few months, those combatants and military infrastructure will be destroyed and not much of a threat.

Along with everything else, constituting a bigger crime than this is claimed to be an attempt to prevent.

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...

https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue...

https://twitter.com/jocelynhurndall/status/17330649265606495...

Uhm, no, they are not the "ruling body," I think you should revisit the fundamental facts of the situation and reevaluate your perspective.

To be frank your comment has a really disturbing undertone of bloodlust. I don't know a nice way to say that. You should really reexamine what your attitudes are here and how you came to them, this is not an appropriate way to discuss the deaths of thousands of people.

> Uhm, no, they are not the "ruling body," I think you should revisit the fundamental facts of the situation and reevaluate your perspective.

After Israel voluntarily withdrew its military and displaced all Jews out of Gaza, Hamas painted it as "powerful Hamas won" to get elected and since then is in fact the ruling party in Gaza territory (even if not very popular among the citizens there anymore for obvious reasons). What are the alternative facts?

Hamas is the ruling body in Gaza.

My mistake. I got them confused with the Palestinian Authority.

They're a fig leaf and asset [1] for those who use them as an excuse for collective punishment and genocide. With predictable and predicted [2] results.

[1] Smotrich: "In the context of delegitimization, Hamas is an asset and the authority is a burden" -- https://twitter.com/pgosh_MTP/status/1741169302051402195

[2] https://twitter.com/Rachael_Swindon/status/17417897483670733...

They are the governing body of Gaza, and have been since 2006.

That's great. The claim was "the reason why such an attack happened is because the people who did the attack were the ruling government body of 2 million people for almost 2 decades". And that's transparent nonsense in service of the colonialists committing genocide right now. Do you disagree?

My claim was that Hamas is the ruling body in Gaza, which is a simple fact. It responded to a comment saying that Hamas was not the ruling body in Gaza. That comment was false. Your political advocacy isn't relevant to what I'm saying.

Got it.

This is a fascinating take: what do you suggest the proper response would be to the current event you referenced in light of your opinion that any response will only radicalize the local population?

First let me say, I'm not trying to make a policy prescription. I'm pointing out what I thought was a misconception about how terrorism works.

But to answer your question, I have absolutely no idea. I follow a military news YouTuber named Ryan McBeth, and something he says that makes sense to me is that effective strategies present adversaries with dilemmas rather than problems, where each option is terrible but you have no choice but to pick one. The reason terrorism is effective, to the extent that it is effective, is that no one has discovered an effective means to counter it.

When I initially engaged with you in this conversation I did so because you appeared to be discussing things honestly but based on other comments you've made here its clear you are in fact trying to push an agenda that denies reality and instead excuses murder.

Pardon? When did I do that?

Murder is inexcusable. Terrorism is inexcusable. I don't see where I ever implied otherwise.

You forcefully made a claim that was totally false that essentially firmly excused murder. I see you finally kinda corrected in it a follow up, but of course the follow up will not get nearly as much attention as the very false initial statement.

I think you should take a step back and engage differently. You say you're here to engage in good faith, but you're interpreting people's statements with very little charity. It seems like you're very quick to jump to the conclusion that someone who says something you don't like is a supporter of mass murder, you've accused two people in this thread. Which is both uncharitable and straight up flamebait.

Remember, Hamas was openly throwing rockets at Israel and probing its defenses for years. (From outside it may sound unreal but for many years even in fancy glittering Tel Aviv people are really familiar with air defense sirens and sitting in air defense shelters because they do it a few times a year.) You can't say that about US.

So two things how I hold this view.

First in all those years Hamas didn't manage to make a dent in Israel. Which makes me really think even Hamas leaders didn't expect this attack to go this far. But it so happened Israel was unprepared with its military all busy defending illegal Jewish settlements on the West bank. Maybe they got complacent. Or a conspiracist might say Netanyahu set it all up (but I doubt it). Whatever it was, Hamas did way more damage than anyone expected so things got out of hand

And second in all these years of throwing rockets, smuggling weapons and all the stuff they were getting away with they got no serious retaliation. Paradoxically because Israel's defenses were so good. So maybe Hamas also got a bit complacent and thought they are immune camping there under civilian hospitals and schools.

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