For onlookers: the final paragraph is in Swedish. It calls me a far-right nationalist and racist. Draw your own conclusions about how that fits the pattern of this exchange.
On substance: 72% of October 7th victims were civilians by Israel's own social security data [1]. tovej's argument that this was primarily a military operation depends on not counting them.
The Hannibal directive is a separate and legitimate concern. It has nothing to do with whether Hamas targeted civilians — it addresses what Israel did in response.
[1] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social...
I'm going to call a racist a racist when I see it. I've had enough interactions with you on this site (and have given you many second chances to show good faith) to see a blatant pattern.
You're playing devils advocate any time a white supremacist, Israel, or racist bigot is under scrutiny.
And every time you deploy bad faith debate tactics. E.g. here you're strawmanning my argument to say I ignore the percentage of civilians dead. That's not true at all. My argument does not depend on not counting civilian victims. October 7th was a military operation, a guerilla warfare operation.
Most of the Supernova ravers Hamas killed on October 7th who died that day did not die at the rave, but at ad hoc checkpoints far away from the rave. Military checkpoints set up to intercept military re-inforcements.
The rave was not announced until the 6th of October, and Hamas was not aware of it. When people fled the rave, this triggered a massive flow of car traffic. And based on Hamas' limited intelligence, it is not unreasonable to assume that a sudden rush of car traffic could be related to the conflict.
The IDF also set up a road block near the rave, which led to a huge throng (3000 ravers) being caught near the site of the firefight.
In other words, the biggest tragedy of October 7th, the Supernova rave, was not a target, and the deaths in this tragedy seem to have been due to an unfortunate coincidence.
And the Hannibal directive absolutely plays a role. We don't actually know how many civilians died due to it. It could easily be hundreds. The only actor who could verify this is Israel, and they are not keen to do so.
Playing devil's advocate for consistency isn't racism. I'm not Israeli, not Jewish, this isn't my nation. I object to the reasoning.
You're defending a position that doesn't actually care about Palestinian lives. Iran has funded Hamas for decades not because it wants a Palestinian state: it wants the end of Israel. Those aren't the same goal. You've let a theocracy that hangs gay people and flogs women position itself as the voice of Palestinian liberation and you haven't noticed.
I've seen the footage of Shani Louk. German tattoo artist, half-naked, paraded on a truck while people celebrated. Then months of stories she was alive in a Gazan hospital, used to extort money from her family. I saw a Thai farmer gruesomely beheaded by a shovel while the perpetrator screamed with joy on camera. You want to call that resistance? Go ahead. I'll call it what it is.
Criticising Hamas doesn't mean supporting the IDF. Find one line in this thread where I defended an Israeli war crime. One.
You called me far-right. The far-right wants ethnic cleansing. I want a two-state settlement and both sides held to the same legal standard... which is apparently a controversial position in this thread.
Palestinians are people. Israelis are people. The children dying in Gaza are a catastrophe. So is raising children to believe their highest calling is killing their neighbour. You can hold both of those thoughts unless you've decided one side's dead children count and the other's don't.