Is USA directly entering in the war, good or bad?

[moke123]

The problem has been and probably will continue to be that Hamas shields itself with civilians. I don't know if that action - using civilian shields - is a war crime in the context in which Israel is taking the military action to which you object. But if it isn't a war crime in that context, it should be.

I believe it is a war crime and has been called out as such. But in simple terms, Two wrongs don't make a right. Regardless of what your opposition does you are still obligated to follow international laws and norms.

 

[Isaac]

Right. Like even on the cop shows they don't just shoot their way THROUGH a hostage's chest to get to the bad guy

 

[Pat Hartman]

It's definitely awful and criminal that they do that, for sure.

But you think they should get away with it

 

[Isaac]

But you think they should get away with it

Did I say that?

Of course I'd rather they didn't get away with it, but the proper way to stop them is not to just torture/bomb every living civilian, you have to exercise common sense restraint to keep the moral mandate/high ground

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I believe it is a war crime and has been called out as such. But in simple terms, Two wrongs don't make a right. Regardless of what your opposition does you are still obligated to follow international laws and norms.

It is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, and in such situations, there IS no right answer.

If Israel continues to attack, they kill civilians.

If Israel enters into a cease-fire, Hamas will step up their attacks - based on history.

Nobody wants the Gaza civilians, so they are doomed to misery either way.

All of this is due to Islamic hardliners who CANNOT bring themselves to "live and let live" with Israel. I'm sorry, but in that context, all the pain and misery that falls to Islamic hardliners is brought on by their own actions. Basically, if you put a chip on your shoulder and make a lot of noise about it, you CANNOT be surprised when someone knocks that chip elsewhere... and knocks you with it.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Did I say that?

Essentially, yes. All you can say is that Israel must stand down. Why don't you ever say that Hamas must surrender? If Hamas surrenders, no civilian needs to die. If the civilians give information to the Israelis to help them find the terrorists, then no civilian needs to die. The terrorists will be prosecuted for war crimes at a minimum. Sounds to me like the civilians don't want to give up the terrorists so they are complicit in the war crimes and get what they deserve.

The Palestinians teach their children to count by counting dead Jews. What do you have to say about that? Hamas has broken every single cease fire they have asked for. They just use the quiet time to rearm.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

you have to exercise common sense restraint to keep the moral mandate/high ground

You presume that Hamas is capable of demonstrating common sense. You first have to demonstrate that they even CARE about "moral high ground" - which is a high hurdle, considering how they set up headquarters in tunnels under public buildings being used for civilian shelters.

When your opponent is a barbarian, the proper negotiating tool is a spiked club. The Oct. 7th attack showed NO common sense restraint. You are asking for something that, so far, Hamas has not displayed as having within their repertoire.

Hamas wears no uniforms, which is a requirement of one of the Geneva Conventions, and that lack of readily identifiable uniforms IMMEDIATELY disqualifies them from protection. It is that avoidance that means that Hamas, by their violation of the "uniforms" requirement, bears the blame for collateral civilian casualties.

The idea of "restraint" in wartime is of course a part of the Geneva Conventions - but Hamas, as a terrorist organization, has not agreed to those conventions. In fact, it currently CANNOT agree, since there IS no state of Palestine and therefore, Hamas is - in world viewpoint - stateless. It is sad but a fact of life that Hamas is neither obligated by nor protected by the Geneva Conventions (to which Israel IS a signatory). At the moment, Israel treats Hamas as either insurrectionists or mercenaries. "Insurrectionist" works because Hamas IS inside the state of Israel. "Mercenary" works because they are stateless and therefore cannot be soldiers from an enemy state at war with Israel. It is actually more complex than that, but this is a summary of what I found when I looked up the signatories to the Geneva Conventions.

 

[Isaac]

Essentially, yes. All you can say is that Israel must stand down

Nope, I never said that or anything like it.
I just said it is wrong to completely destroy/torture/starve 2 million civilians in order to hope to hit the bad guy with the bullet.

They can fight their war, but surely even you would agree that there is SOME line that shouldn't be crossed when it comes to killing civilians? Do you not agree that line exists or do you think when fighting a just war that there is absolutely no line that shouldn't be crossed?
On the extreme end of the spectrum, what if you could get one enemy combatant by bombing every human being's house in a city of 10,000. Is it OK? I'm asking this to establish some kind of baseline common ground between us on the issue

 

[Isaac]

You presume that Hamas is capable of demonstrating common sense. You first have to demonstrate that they even CARE about "moral high ground" - which is a high hurdle, considering how they set up headquarters in tunnels under public buildings being used for civilian shelters

No, just the opposite. I'm saying Israel , broadly speaking, has the moral high ground in terms of justifying going to war.
I'm saying that to keep that status, they have to act responsibly - whether the other side does or not.

It should be very, very, very rare that a country--even one who had the just war defense when starting out--takes a "Hiroshima" approach to try to finish winning the war. If not for no other reason that you will generate a hatred of you by people more and wider than was there before, and put yourself in extreme danger.

 

[Pat Hartman]

They can fight their war, but surely even you would agree that there is SOME line that shouldn't be crossed when it comes to killing civilians?

What part of Hamas ALWAYS hides behind civilians do you not understand? Why do you not call for Hamas to surrender to save the civilians? Why do you not call Hamas girly boys for hiding behind the skirts of women and children?

What part of "from the river to the sea" do you not understand? What part of teaching your children to count by counting dead Jews do you not understand? The Palestinians will keep killing Jews by targeting schools and hospitals deliberately until all the Jews are dead. The Israeli's target the positions from which the bombs are launched. They do not target civilians. The fact that the terrorists keep their citizens hostage and prevent them from leaving the city seems to totally escape you. The terrorists do not care about the lives of their civilians. If they did, they wouldn't steal food and other aid from the civilians. They wouldn't have destroyed the viable businesses the Israelis left behind when they left Gaza to rule itself? They wouldn't spend every penny they beg or steal on armaments and bombs. They would improve the infrastructure of the dump they all live in so the civilians would have a better life and a real country they could call their own. Instead for the past 20+ years under self-rule, they have blamed Israel continuously for all of their problems.

All you can think about is the poor Palestinians. Boo Hoo. Give some thought to the poor Israeli citizens who have to live in constant fear of bombs that are targeting THEM, not military installations.

If not for no other reason that you will generate a hatred of you by people more and wider than was there before, and put yourself in extreme danger.

So, they are not in danger from the bombs now?

 

[Isaac]

It's not that I don't care about the Israelis nor that I don't agree that Hamas is terrible and at fault.
However, it just so happens that at the moment I am talking about what the Israelis are doing.
"But Hamas is so bad" isn't a defense/justification of what Israel is doing.
Yes, Hamas is bad, Hamas is terrible, for pretty much everything they do. OK. I said it, now back to the subject at hand - what the Israelis are doing.

Honestly, step back for a moment, close your eyes and pretend that you were just born today. Someone explains to you that the most powerful military (additionally with some of the most skilled covert intelligence) in the world has spent two years "trying" to eliminate a tiny faction of insurgents inside an extremely tiny stretch of land but continues instead to bomb it to smithereens, killing a huge number of civilians in the process. And all this happened after the tiny faction did something horrible to the powerful military's country.

You'd easily conclude the powerful country was getting revenge and that was that.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I'm saying that to keep that status, they have to act responsibly - whether the other side does or not.

Why do you want the Jews to roll over and die? You leave them no way to stop the carnage against their people. Do you think NATO would come to their aid? How about the UN? Get real. They hate the Jews. The UN didn't even come to the aid of the Ukraine. They just let Russia roll right over them. Just as they have allowed Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and Iran bomb the hell out of Israel. The UN has allowed countless attacks by Israel's Arab neighbors since 1948. So far the Israelis have pushed back all attackers and been condemned by the UN for doing it. Who cares about the Jews. You don't. You support the terrorists.

 

[Pat Hartman]

"But Hamas is so bad" isn't a defense/justification of what Israel is doing.

That isn't it at all. IT is "but Hamas will never stop until every Jew is dead". Big difference. The problem is Israel is being too soft by trying to not kill civilians. They should have never stopped their first hard attack. They should have pushed Hamas into the sea the first day.

You can't just ignore history because you don't know it.

 

[Isaac]

Why do you want the Jews to roll over and die? You leave them no way to stop the carnage against their people. Do you think NATO would come to their aid? How about the UN? Get real. They hate the Jews. The UN didn't even come to the aid of the Ukraine. They just let Russia roll right over them. Just as they have allowed Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and Iran bomb the hell out of Israel. The UN has allowed countless attacks by Israel's Arab neighbors since 1948. So far the Israelis have pushed back all attackers and been condemned by the UN for doing it. Who cares about the Jews. You don't. You support the terrorists.

I support terrorists, ok Pat, take a deep breath. Just because I think Israel has been way too rough in its handling of civilian population doesn't mean I support terrorists. And Israel has not been soft, the entire Gaza strip is gone. It's nothing but rubble, dust and people wandering around needing medical help and food.

 

[Pat Hartman]

the entire Gaza strip is gone. It's nothing but rubble, dust and people wandering around needing medical help and food.

And yet they still find the money to bomb Israel most days. Too bad they have no money for food or medical care. You can't seem to lay the blame where it belongs. The Palestinians have become victims but only because Hamas keeps them hostage to use as human shields.

If you want to do something, write to the UN and tell them to make Hamas stand down.

 

[Steve R.]

Since the issue of Israel vs. Hamas came-up there is another significant story that points to how the perception of "genocide" gets distorted. In March of 2025, approximately 1,500 Syrian Alawites were killed by Sunni fighters in Syria. I did not know of this story till a few days ago. That points to this story not being considered real news. In terms of Israel vs. Hamas; when Muslims kill Muslims, it seems that many people simply don't care. However, when one Muslim person in Gaza is killed by the Jewish state of Israel, the world hysterically rages Gaza genocide and that Israel needs to be punished for war crimes!!!! This is antisemitism.
PS: Like the Jews, Alawites are discriminated against. "Alawites, considered disbelievers by classical Sunni and Shi'ite theologians, faced periods of subjugation or persecution under various Muslim empires such as the Ottomans, Abbasids, Mamluks, and others."

Link to my other post on this incident.

 

[SachAccess]

The problem is that by asking this question now and offering a dichotomous answer, you have asked the wrong question. Lawyers do this to witnesses all the time, by demanding yes/no answers to complex questions.

Hope you are doing good sir. Sorry for late reply, I was away due to some personal work. I admit, it is my mistake. I agree that everything can not be put under simple black or white category. I should have given more context at the time of posting the question only.
I may be completely wrong here, but for me, USA and Israel are 2 different countries, I was asking, how do people of USA see their country entering into the war for Israel. For a person like me who is neither from USA nor Israel, this might look like that USA is doing it for Israel. I am not questioning the cause or the suffering of Israel citizens. To put on record, even a single innocent life loss is sad, be it on any side. And I have 0 soft corner for the organizations doing it. To give you an example, both India and Pak were in conflict recently, if USA enters into this conflict and directly supports any of the nation, what would a USA citizen think, will he or she think, why my country is doing it? Why we are getting involved? Or you may take Russia and Ukraine, as per my knowledge, USA is not in direct action against Russia. So if USA does it, what will people of USA think about it, so the same question with the current scenario.

In the late 80, India tried to resolve a conflict in a neighboring country and sadly paid a price for it. For us, we should have avoided that.
My question is based on that context, about Israel V/s Iran and USA getting in action against Iran, not about Palestine. I am getting a feeling that most of the discussion is about Palestine. If you or anyone felt offended by question, my sincere apologies.
Have a nice day ahead.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

History will decide, long after both of us are gone and forgotten, whether the USA intervention in Iran was actually good or bad.

Sometimes, however, you have to step in and smack around a miscreant who is threatening escalation. I will agree that it is sad when war is necessary once diplomacy has failed multiple times in that part of the world. IF it is necessary to intervene, minimal action is best, seeking to achieve specific goals with focused attacks. We know that the only way to win a war against fanatics is genocide and that is off the table for now.

It is good to support Israel, and I'll be clear on that. When storms are around, take good care of your lightning rod. We can't forget 9/11, when we were careless and paid a steep price. We cannot forget the sentiments of Gen. George S. Patton, paraphrased: We must remember that the goal is not do die for our country. It is to make our enemies die for THEIR country. Well, Israel is making the other guys die for their country and that means we don't have to - most of the time.

 

[AccessBlaster]

We can't forget 9/11, when we were careless and paid a steep price.

That's a can of worms worth reopening. Did we ever really get the people involved? Some will say yes, we killed the mastermind. Honestly, I still have lingering doubts.

 

[Pat Hartman]

how do people of USA see their country entering into the war for Israel.

We didn't enter the war for Israel. We entered the war for ourselves AND the rest of the world, Israel included since they would be the first target. Iran is not looking for nuclear weapons to defend itself. It is looking for them to obliterate what it considers its two enemies. Israel and the US. If Iran were to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon, Israel would respond in kind. How does that affect the neighboring countries?

You all may agree with their chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" but not all of us think it is charming. We are finally taking their constant attacks through proxies at face value. They mean it when they use the "Death" chants and that needs to be prevented.