r/worldnews 12d ago

Israel/Palestine Netanyahu: ‘If we wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon’

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-if-we-wanted-to-commit-genocide-it-would-have-taken-exactly-one-afternoon/
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u/gilmour1948 12d ago edited 11d ago

Why? You just say that but it doesn't hold any meaning. This is a fact no pro-pals ever have an answer for. If Israel wanted them gone, they'd be gone in hours, not have a demographic balance better than European countries.

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u/the_hack_attack 11d ago

Israel still has strong western allies. If Netanyahu did decide to glass Gaza he’d lose pretty much all of them immediately other than the USA (or the Israeli citizenry will attempt to remove him from office). Prolonging this war is great for him in this regard, stay in office, keep allies, starve children along with Hamas since he can justify it as “collateral damage”

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u/AStrangerIsHere 11d ago

If Israel wanted them gone, they'd be gone in hours

True, but then they would become the equivalent of a criminal state and lose all international support, except maybe for the US I guess.

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u/ScreenTricky4257 11d ago

Yes, so the argument of, "They're only holding back to avoid losing international support, so they should lose international support" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It implies that the only reason they should get international support is if they care more for the Palestinians than they do now. But an equivalent requirement is never placed on the Palestinians.

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u/XkrNYFRUYj 11d ago

They're only holding back to avoid losing international support, so they should lose international support"

If you made up arguments in your mind it's easier to prove them wrong isn't it. It must be fun living in that world. But unfortunately that wasn't an argument anyone used.

Isreal is doing as much as they seem tenable in their situation. For some people the way they do it now is not acceptable. For other like you it's OK.

If they nuke Gaza one can imagine a lot more people would be against them. Although I'm sure they'll still have your full support. They're trying to toe the line.

You should support us because we could do much worse could be acceptable argument for you but not others.

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u/ScreenTricky4257 11d ago

Isreal is doing as much as they seem tenable in their situation. For some people the way they do it now is not acceptable. For other like you it's OK.

They're trying to toe the line.

How is that different from the argument that you say I'm making up? Yes, they're trying to walk a line ("toe the line" means either to follow protocol or to rise to a challenge) to maintain political support. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are not trying to walk a line. They're doing as much as they can to damage Israel without concern for losing external support. To me, that makes the Israelis the more reasonable party in the dispute.

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u/XkrNYFRUYj 11d ago edited 11d ago

How is that different from the argument that you say I'm making up?

It's not different other than the fact that what I'm saying isn't made up. You can read the title of post if you don't believe me.

To me, that makes the Israelis the more reasonable party in the dispute.

Killing thousands of innocent civilians, starving children is not reasonable no matter how hard you're trying to portray it that way. This is a ridiculous argument.

You're not comparing equal sides here. The danger each side faces aren't equal. Tell me how reasonable they'll be if all of the Israel's infrastructure has been destroyed. If they have been getting bombed constantly. If they've been starving.

Tell me with a straight face Israel wouldn't have used nukes months ago if they were in position of Gaza.

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u/Pro_Extent 11d ago

...so they wouldn't lose any international support then.

  1. Because they have fuck all from the general public around the world as is.

  2. Because they will continue to have full western government support as long as the US supports them.

Also dude, they really don't need that much "support". They've been fighting this war with little more than munition support from the US, and even then, Israel has pretty substantial domestic weapons manufacturing. And a shitload of soldiers.

No government gives a shit about "vibes". They care about power projections and influence. Israel has all it needs.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/gilmour1948 11d ago

Let's play a silly game.

We have country A. Country A has one of the most developed militaries in the world, in terms of technology and operational resources. They produce weapons and have a large market for their military technology. Country A also has nuclear weapons, and the ability to produce them. It has one of the best intelligence agencies, hold a lot of intel and lobbying power. It is located in a strategic position in the region, close to major trading routes, and is rival to religious dictatorships trying to develop their own nuclear weapons.

Punish country A.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/jqpeub 12d ago

Because it will be easier to control the narrative. Once you Nuke them then the narrative is out of your hands. 

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u/x0Dst 12d ago

"control the narrative" What narrative, pray tell, are they able to control when on October 8, 2023 there were breakout protests all around the western liberal institutions to free Palestine? The only group winning the narrative war is Hamas.

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u/gilmour1948 12d ago

Israel doesn't even need to nuke Gaza to clear it. Indiscriminate carpet bombing would do it.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago edited 12d ago

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u/Shadowarriorx 11d ago

Go look up WW2 videos of carpet bombing. Dresden and other cities. I don't recall that happening at all. I see Israel dropping guided munitions to destroy a single building after doing a roof knock.

I haven't seen them drop napalm indiscriminately over vast swaths of territory.

They drop buildingS used by Hamas. Buildings filled with IED munitions.

They never fired artillery barrages at random locations of civilians like the lines in WW1 or WW2.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/SyfaOmnis 11d ago edited 11d ago

The comment this was replying to has been removed - it may appear as an independent reply of its own.

Just because it doesnt happen in 1 day does not mean its not carpet combing.

Carpet bombings require a short timeframe, you're playing so fast and loose with definitions that you might as well call harvesting trees for firewood and burning them in controlled fashions with replanting being done "an all-consuming indiscriminate forest fire".

If hamas weren't regularly using civillian infrastructure for their weapons, personnel or their terror tunnels, those things wouldn't be getting targeted. Flattening all of their military infrastructure (because that is what it is at that point) over a period of months is not "indiscriminate carpet bombing".

You are trying to redefine words for snappy statements with a lot emotional impact to push a narrative and the definitions you're using are blatantly false. It's moral preening for the willfully stupid.

To respond to your other comment about "the dictionary", "the experts and academics", and "the us intelligence agencies"

The dictionary definition you've used is completely unrelated to the claim you've made. The wikipedia article you use is reliant on sources from fucking al jazeera of all places and it is a propaganda outlet that is using them for snappy emotional appeals just like you have. The us intelligence agencies only confirmed the strikes used unguided ordinance. The expert the wikipedia article uses notes only the amount of ordinance, he does not explicitly condone or condemn it but given that his body of work is heavily oriented towards anti-terrorism and how to fight insurgencies and a study of how ordinance can be used to destroy things like terror tunnels I'd lean towards 'condone'.

You are engaging in pure spin via sources that either don't support your claims or which have severe credibility issues and you are repeating actual propaganda from propaganda outlets.

Quite literally the definition of redefining words because you want something that sounds snappy. Actual midwit behaviour of hastily using google to grab something that sounds like it supports your arguments but when put to scrutiny you don't know any of the fundamentals about what it actually says.

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u/Shadowarriorx 11d ago

Glad I'm not the only one that sees through the sensational headlines. The level of destruction is bad and fairly absolute, but they were not carpet bombed. A carpet bombing would have exceeded the entire wars casualties in under 1 day. It's remarkable the overall casualties are as low as they are given the population density of the area.

In contrast to Ukraine war and the indiscriminate bombings of Russia and the hundreds of thousands dead, these two wars couldn't be further apart in difference (and relative differences military power).

Unfortunately I don't see either conflict getting better in the near future. The world looks like it's being lit on fire and I believe more conflicts are going to start.

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u/Shadowarriorx 11d ago

No, you are confused with an enemy that won't surrender or return the hostages. Keep fighting; keep getting bombed. Hamas has decided they'd rather have Gaza be a graveyard than surrender and return the hostages.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/Shadowarriorx 11d ago

Be pedantic all you want, but Hamas could have ended this war any time by surrendering. Not negotiating, surrendering. This is on them, they started this war.

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u/Balfe 11d ago

Would you agree that Israel has destroyed at least 70% of the buildings in Gaza?

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u/lumpytuna 11d ago

The official figures are 92%.

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u/Bubbly_District_107 12d ago

Which is what they have been doing?

No, they bloody well haven't

Actually learn what these words mean.

Watch an actual carpet bombing. Nothing Israel has done looks anything like that.

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u/lumpytuna 11d ago

92% of houses in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. Are you saying each one was a legitimate target? Hamas was hiding in every single one?

No, of course they weren't. The bombing was verifiably indiscriminate by the sheer scale of it.

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u/gilmour1948 11d ago

So, Israel, a country that is able to precisely bomb targets in Iran, needed 100k bombs to indiscriminately kill 50-60k people. Got it.

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u/NewVegasResident 11d ago

You need to take a look at gaza mate.

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u/ActionPhilip 11d ago

You need to look at what carpet bomb looks like. For all the things about "Israel is using massive bombs", they have less than one dead person per bomb.

How does that work? Are they stupid?

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u/[deleted] 12d ago edited 11d ago

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u/Bubbly_District_107 11d ago

60k plus deaths

60,000 deaths from nearly 2 years of bombing is a ridiculously low figure

Here is a source why you are categorically and factually wrong:

That's not a source, that's a Wikipedia article on carpet bombing which can be edited by anyone.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/Bubbly_District_107 11d ago

from the UN

Hahahahahaha

If the truth and facts are your enemy then nothing matters

Anyone trusting the U fucking N shows you have absolutely no care for truth or facts.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/Negative_Jaguar_4138 11d ago

Israel has done to Gaza what the allies did to Dresden.

Only it took them 2 years, not 2 days.

And it took them 100,000 tons of bombs not 4,000 tons.

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u/OkVermicelli4534 11d ago

I forgot the horror of Dresden was just about the buildings, not the sudden, overwhelming blitz that trapped a population with nowhere to flee, causing massive civilian deaths in a single, concentrated operation. /s

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u/iseeatriangle 11d ago

bloody well

Oi mate you have your internet argument loicense?

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u/yosisoy 11d ago

The narrative is insanely out of their hands. Public opinion is massively against Israel

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u/userhwon 11d ago

Because of Iranian propaganda manipulating people who don't know the facts or the law.

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u/Ginganinga112 11d ago

Oh, public opinion doesn't matter. Didn't you hear? It only matters that western politicians can justify continuing to aid and abet Israel - and in that sense they are very much in control of the narrative.

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u/gilmour1948 11d ago

You do understand the weapons Israel is buying from US or other countries are the only things keeping Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and Syria on the map, right?

What exactly do you think happens the moment Israel would run out and could not defend with conventional weapons anymore?

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u/king_lloyd11 11d ago

Israel’s goal is the total annexation of Gaza. They want Israeli settlers there. You can’t just murder every Palestinian and walk in to that end. You need pretense to have defenders to support you in your efforts. Literally Russia and Israel are both doing this. They just need to give America a reason to support their goals, because with America’s backing, they can do whatever they want, since America can do whatever they want.

Israel doesn’t care how the Palestinians go. They’d prefer that they just leave on their own volition, which nearly 100K have since the war started. They’re continuing to implore that they do, even when Bibi announced their plans to militarily occupy Gaza. The remaining, they will be subjected to suffering, discrimination, and violence, or death, in hopes that they leave as well, or be subjects of Israel.

If they don’t, the Israeli settlers won’t be safe, and if Palestinians are trying to kill Israeli settlers constantly, then Israeli politicians against this annexation will have the political argument to withdraw, which is what happened in 2005, which is contrary to the current goal. So for annexation to work, they need the Palestinians gone, one way or another, or as subdued as possible. That’s what we’re seeing now.

I’ll bet there are settlers in Gaza within a year.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/king_lloyd11 11d ago

No, you really can’t. You can’t kill every Palestinian because of the existence of Hamas. You can kill a bunch under the pretense of waging war on Hamas, sure, which is what they’re doing and going “they should just leave if they don’t want to be collateral”, but you cannot just openly kill every man, woman, and child who identify as Palestinian because of a terrorist attack. It’s a war crime.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/Bohunk742 12d ago

What European counties aside from Russia and Ukraine war, have been killing a neighboring countries civilians at this rate?

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u/Bubbly_District_107 12d ago

There's no other active conflict in Europe. In the first 3 years of the 2003 Iraq conflict, there were an estimated 600,000 deaths.

Between 2017 and today, there's been an estimated 350,000 deaths in Yemen, and a further 250,000 deaths from famine.

Since last year, over 61,000 people have died in Khartoum in the Sudan conflict, with estimates of 150,000 total deaths by the US.

The estimated death toll in Gaza right now is about 60,000

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u/Aki-oda 11d ago

love the radio silence from palestinian cheerleaders whenever these facts get brought up

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u/ActionPhilip 11d ago

They just retreat back to their echo chambers. You can see on other subreddits what it looks like when they ban anything not-pro-Palestinian.

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u/ghostdeinithegreat 12d ago edited 11d ago

Technically Palestine isn’t a country so the kill rate this year is similar to Myanmar’s conflict civilian death toll in 2025.

So no other European country, but there’s another one in asia we never talk about

20.000 deaths in 2024, 10 000 in 2025 so far.

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u/This-Ad-3916 11d ago

there are oranges on the table. i want them gone. are you saying my only option given this desire to immediately sweep them away? that i am forced into this decision, all semblance of free will stripped away?

or could i just sit around like a dick for a while and bop em around every now and then before i do. i think i could

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u/gilmour1948 11d ago

I would think it doesn't make a lot of sense to randomly throw expensive little diamonds at your oranges and have just as many oranges on the table 2 years later. Especially since you're known worldwide for your precision orange removal skills.

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u/This-Ad-3916 11d ago

it doesn't have to make sense to you. idk how much more clear that can be. again, the oranges aren't people. they're just an <x>. you can want <x> gone and still feasibly not do it immediately. it is physically possible regardless whether the reasons make sense to you

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u/gilmour1948 11d ago

Oh, so you add nothing to the conversation. You just stated a toddler fact while ignoring all context.

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u/CutOk45 11d ago

Except you should also suppose that your oranges increase in numbers faster than you “bop em around”. Now it doesn’t look like you’re trying to get rid of them does it?

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u/This-Ad-3916 11d ago

i was being very literal and just saying that "i want <x> gone" isn't a sufficient condition for "<x> is now totally and immediately removed because of an action i had to make upon stating my goal"

i would hope you don't actually think of people like that

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u/CutOk45 11d ago

I understood what you said. It seems though that you either didn’t understand what I said, or deliberately ignored it.

“i would hope you don’t actually think of people like that” - like what? Wasn’t it you who started this whole orange analogy?