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With respect, a few points of order:
1. Supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against its enemies, be they Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Iran, or extremist political voices worldwide, does not excuse Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza or absolve them of responsibility to avoid civilian casualties.
2. Israel and her allies are not innocent bystanders here. Opportunities to make real progress have been squandered time and again since the creation of Israel and more relevantly, since the Oslo Accords failed. There is absolutely blood on Israeli leaders’ hands and you can be sure that at least some will be held accountable for this attack on Israeli civilians.
2. That said, while pro-Palestinian voices are worth hearing out to a degree, the truth remains that Hamas started this war on October 7th and they must be defeated. Hamas will obviously fight until the death of the last innocent Palestinian child. Hamas is a criminal organization and terrorist dictatorship in Gaza as well as a proxy for Iranian objectives across the region. Any positive future for Palestinians cannot begin until Hamas is eliminated as a threat to Israel and as a political power anywhere. The path to get there is going to be bloody and unlikely to be settled soon. How Israel arrives at an acceptable outcome there still matters.
3. Equating Democrats to Nazis is not just unhelpful to considering the problem at hand, it’s historically ridiculous, intellectually lazy, and reflective of one who is not serious about finding solutions to these difficult problems.
4. If non-Democrats, i.e. Republicans, are so clear in their support for democracies under attack, why hasn’t the majority GOP Congress passed funding for the wars in Ukraine and Israel? Holding up support is effectively the same as supporting Putin and Hamas, full stop. That’s on the GOP, not on the Democrats, regardless of what AOC, Omar, Tlaib, or other minority House members say. They don’t speak for everyone.

It is more than possible that two ideas that are direct opposites can be true at the same time. Things do occupy the same space simultaneously. Israel can be justified in doing whatever is necessary to clean out the Hamas vipers. Israel can also be on the razors edge of committing war crimes as it dies so. Pro-Palestinian protests can be misguided and hypocritical, especially when Hamas still holds more than 130 hostages including at least one infant, but the attack on October 7th was preceded by decades of failures on all sides. Failures to prevent the rise of Hamas, failures to uplift Palestinians especially in Gaza, and failures to work hard enough on a peaceful coexistence. I wish Gen Xers, Millenials, and Gen Z all the best in finding solutions. My generation failed miserably, but not for lack of trying. However, I can assure you that turning up the rhetorical heat will not help. Never has and never will.
1SG First Sergeant
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10 mo
All valid points. As we know NO side of any conflict is without sin. Having said that, if any nation launches an attack so civilian- centric, they must expect a similarly unrestrained response.
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10 mo
There is a natural human response to the atrocities Hamas carried out on October 7th. Revenge. An eye for an eye - something the Israelis know a thing about. It’s the reaction that drives many responses to violence from the individual level to the national across human history. I get that. After hearing the stories of women being raped until their pelvic bones broke then being set on fire, others stripped and paraded through Gaza, parents slaughtered in front of their children, viewing the videos taken by Hamas killers…well, I feel it deeply. They weren’t an out of control mob when they did these things. It was planned to be that way and they came prepared to record it for recruiting propaganda. We’ve seen that many times in the last twenty odd years. So when I see the IAF drop entire buildings in Gaza using 1,000 and 2,000-lb bombs, my reptile brain cheers. Hell, I was part of the greatest revenge plan ever designed, thermonuclear Mutual Assured Destruction.

But then my boiling blood cools a little and I recall my training, education, and experience. A disciplined western army, operating under the Laws of Armed Conflict, doesn’t respond in kind. We do not do what they did. Some will cry, “Why the hell not?!?.” Here are some things to consider:

- Unrestrained revenge is not a rational basis for an effective war plan. The results of revenge are short-lived. The results are imprecise and gives the truly evil enemy leaders operational advantages. The holes in the net of a revenge-based plan are large and the vipers slither away.
- The atrocities we commit in the name of revenge backfire and undermine our cause. We see that across history and we see it today. It feeds our enemies the stories they need to draw support to their side, undermines our allies’ support, erodes public support, and creates multi-generational animosities that ensure we can never achieve an enduring peace. Revenge motivations are a recipe for endless wars.
- Killing comes at a high physical, moral, and psychological cost to our side. That’s true even when we’re acting with civilized norms and even if we win. PTSD, suicides, amputees, lifelong effects of TBI — as a society we will be affected deeply long after the war “ends.” In fact, for many families, the war never ends. Adding the guilt of having killed innocent families, children, or increasing the callousness of our forces so they devalue the lives they take, is expensive far away from the battlefield. And it’s cruel to our service members. I don’t expect political leaders to care much about this math when they deploy us. But as a commander, I care.

I don’t want the Israelis to pull their punches. I want them to land their punches where they do the most damage to Hamas. That’s the enemy, not Palestinian civilians, even if they march in support of Hamas. They’ve been taught to do that, to hold those beliefs, and really, what choice do they have? How we re-educate them is a task for another day, but Israel does today will make it more or less possible to do.

Some innocent Palestinians will die, that’s unavoidable. Children will die, become orphans, become amputees. I know. Is Israel acting with this reality in mind? Are they working to minimize it, or are they making a feature of their battle plans? It’s not an all or none situation. Some of each motivation is probably in play. Hamas emphasized the latter. I’m hoping that Israel is emphasizing the first.
MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D.
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Amazing stat . . .
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LTC Trent Klug
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Remember, this Israeli Arab will be denounced as a brainwashed lackey for the zionists.

And I just have to say it's good to see that we have a senior officer who's all in on 'proportional response' as the only course of action Israel should be taking because of civilian casualties. Proportional response is a surefire method for guaranteeing defeat down the road
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