June 4 (Reuters) - Karine Jean-Pierre, who was former President Joe Biden’s press secretary at the White House from 2022 until 2025, has left the Democratic Party and is now an independent, according to the publisher of her forthcoming book.
“We need to be clear-eyed and questioning, rather than blindly loyal and obedient as we may have been in the past,” she was quoted as saying by Legacy Lit, part of the Hachette Book Group, that will release her book ‘Independent’ in October.
There’s a difference between counterinsurgency and just bulldozing entire neighborhoods, shooting children in the head, and preventing anyone from bringing food and medical aid to civilians. Yeah Hamas attacked first but Israel’s response is disproportionate and aimed almost entirely at civilians. Over 54,000 Palestinians have been killed while fewer than 2,000 Israelis have. Estimates vary for the civilian casualties in Gaza, but they’re almost all over 50%. So in the best case, you have Israel killing over 20,000 civilians.
Israel’s plan for taking out Hamas is eliminating the Palestinians. Otherwise, they would be taking even the most basic measures to avoid the mass slaughter of civlians that is going on right now. Before the war and even in the earliest days I leaned a bit more towards Israel because I didn’t realize the level of hatred they have towards the Palestinians and Hamas attacked first, but as the war has gone on it has become impossible to defend their actions. This is a genocide, plain and simple.
I don’t see an answer to my question there. We all agree the status quo is intolerable - so what’s the alternative? What should they do instead?
Can you point to another conflict that was resolved by doing all of these things clearly targeted at civilians? How exactly are the things I mentioned required for fighting a terrorist group? When ISIS was defeated, did the coalition forces come in and just murder literally everyone and flatten occupied villages to the ground, or did they take out leadership? I am not merely talking about civilian casualties when people are near a place targeted by an airstrike- I am talking about specific targeting of civilians.
As for what they should do instead - actually fight Hamas instead of the Palestinians as a whole. By taking actions aimed solely at Palestinian civilians, Israel has lost all claim that this is in any way self defense
You do see how extremely vague this “alternative solution” you’re offering is, right? I think the fact that people struggle this much to give anything resembling a concrete answer when this question is posed highlights just how impossible the situation is that Israel is facing.
I’m extremely sympathetic to the reluctance of going door to door looking for terrorists who are hiding among civilians - often dressed as civilians themselves. While I can’t defend bombing an entire city into rubble, I also don’t feel comfortable telling them not to when I have absolutely no idea what they should be doing instead.
Your solution is killing almost all palestinians under the pretext that hamas use human shields
I don’t think this is vague at all. Stop doing airstrikes on places that have civilians in them. Send in armed troops instead if shooting one or two Hamas assholes is so important to you, or just drop it and refocus on making your intelligence and security better so October 7 can’t happen again, but either way dropping bombs on places with civilians is never acceptable. “But Hamas [whatever]” does not change that.
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Please, at least they have guns and armor and squad mates and medics and it’s infantry v infantry for them, the poor civilian bastards have none of that and are facing a damn air force
It is vague.
Gaza is a city, not a country. Telling Israel not to strike where there are civilians is effectively the same as telling them not to fight back at all. Hamas operates from among the civilian population - often dressed as civilians themselves. It’s an enemy that doesn’t fight fair and deliberately exploits the rules of war for strategic advantage. They could relocate their civilian population into one part of the city and engage the IDF in another - but they don’t, and I’d argue that’s deliberate.
You don’t just “drop it” after 1,200 of your civilians have been brutally murdered.
So what should Hamas do in your ideal world? I am legitimately curious because you’re kind of making an argument in favor of Hamas here, since Israel has killed, at the absolute lowest estimates, 20 times as many civilians as Hamas has. I am obviously not saying they should fight to the bitter end, just that this reasoning means that the fighting should never stop.
What should Hamas do? Deradicalize or die. Israel isn’t going anywhere - so either they both learn to live in peace, or they don’t live at all.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking here. I do sympathize with Hamas in the sense that they’re fighting a vastly superior enemy, and fighting fair would likely lead to their defeat. But deliberately sacrificing their own civilian population as martyrs and human shields doesn’t seem like the way forward either.
Will deradicalizing hamas stop israel occupaying palestine? The obvious answer is no.
I love this reasoning. Do you apply this to literally anything else in your life?
Nobody forced you to engage with my question. It’s you who chose to. It’s pointless to get frustrated with me for your failure to come up with an aswer.
Realistically what do you want me to say? Should I come up with a fully fledged military plan to take out Hamas? There are plenty of articles you can read from people who are experts in counterinsurgency and military strategy that do have more detailed plans, but I have a feeling you won’t be satisfied with those either because you will just shift the goalpost to be a precise list of strike locations and tactical movements because fundamentally the issue is that you don’t want to feel complicit in something horrible.