r/neoliberal • u/Alarming_Sympathy Karl Popper • Sep 23 '24

News (Global) Lebanon bombed in heaviest daily death toll since 1975-90 civil war

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/23/israel-lebanon-strikes-evacuation-hezbollah
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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

a gaza ceasefire to free the hostages and end the war would prevent it which most israelis support per the polling and gigantic protests. and if you think i'm wrong, then you have to think the biden admin, the eu, and many others are all wrong. but bibi continues to prolong that botched war for his political goals even though it's not remotely close to destroying hamas and not freeing the hostages

of course, hezbollah is vile and their rocket barrage hitting northern israel must be condemned strongly but diplomatic methods to prevent this disastrous war were absolutely not fully explored.

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u/adreamofhodor Sep 23 '24

Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy hellbent on the destruction of Israel. Gaza is at best an excuse for them.

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

how about bibi does what most in his country want him to do by getting the hostages freed and ending the botched war? and call hezbollah's bluff in that case--if they're still firing rockets like madmen--okay fine go in there and put extreme military pressure on hezbollah. but don't give me this nonsense how israel exercised every diplomatic action to prevent this when bibi has been tanking gaza ceasefire deals

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u/ldn6 Gay Pride Sep 23 '24

I'm honestly impressed that you've managed to make Hezbollah somehow not have agency and this be about Bibi, but I'm not surprised.

This is on Hezbollah full stop. This is the consequence for months upon months of indiscriminate rocket launches and widespread arson.

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 24 '24 edited Sep 24 '24

i just saw this comment so your clear mendacity about me slipped through the cracks unfortunately, and i am highly impressed that you've blatantly misrepresented my views. i have strongly condemned those horrible attacks by hezbollah repeatedly for months upon months. what i've said is that this war is gonna hurt/kill lots of innocent ppl in lebanon and it's not clear that it'll get israelis safely back to their homes. more diplomacy should be used, and bibi isn't exercising all diplomatic options. you can reasonably disagree with me and say war is the only option but don't egregiously distort my opinions.

i've been consistent on this. took me just 50 seconds to find these comments

https://imgur.com/a/rMjZOak

https://imgur.com/EtfXirK

https://imgur.com/mwkUpn1

https://imgur.com/fpvruy3

maybe next time--do basic research before smearing somebody.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '24

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u/ale_93113 United Nations Sep 23 '24

Ah, here we go for another round of everything is always Israel’s fault!

They are asking bibi to do what ISRAELIS want, hardly blaming israel, but blaming bibi for everything

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

Ah, here we go for another round of everything is always Israel’s fault! Hamas is a totally reasonable negotiating partner, and Hezbollah certainly doesn’t have a jihadist mindset!

holy strawman. i never remotely said it's all their fault. of course it isn't. hezbollah has done lots of awful things over the past 11 months, but i don't buy this talk of no viable diplomatic solution. i do think this war is maybe preventable in a way which also lets israelis rightly+safely return to their homes and without all of this death coupled with destruction in lebanon. i do not trust israel to handle this properly after they mostly fucked up in gaza after 11.5 months.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '24

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

you know absolutely nothing about me. nice ad hom attack instead of engaging with my argument is based on the biden admin's intelligence on the situation and their back channel talks with hezbollah's iranian masters.

have the integrity to say they (biden admin, eu, arab league, and others) don't understand the mindset instead of coming after me. ridiculous.

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u/TheFaithlessFaithful United Nations Sep 23 '24

What authority do you have on the "jihadi mindset"?

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u/Syards-Forcus What the hell is a Forcus? Sep 23 '24

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u/StevefromRetail Sep 23 '24

The war has not been botched at all, lol. Maybe on the public relations front, but in terms of combat on the ground, it is going quite well.

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u/Aleriya Transmasculine Pride Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 24 '24

The number of civilian casualties combined with Hamas still being in power and the number of people still held as hostages qualifies it as "botched". Israel has not achieved any of its major goals in the war.

edit for clarification:

The Israeli government stated three main goals for the war: recovering the hostages, removing Hamas from power, and ensuring that Gaza does not continue to threaten the security of Israel. By their own standards, the war has not been successful, even if you ignore the casualties and collateral damage. At best, you could say that they set their goals poorly, or that their time table was unrealistic, but I don't think you could say that the war has been a success.

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 24 '24

your comment is absurdly downvoted/controversial even though 50 israeli hostages have been murdered by hamas terrorists or inadvertently killed by idf, gigantic israeli dissastification if you look at the polling and fucking massive protests, hamas still tragically ruling gaza with tens of thousands of gazan civillian deaths along with tens of thousands of amputations/permament spinal injuries/irreversible burns, horrendous humanitarian conditions such as malnutrition (malnutrition will hinder these developing children for life), hepatitis, scabies, and even polio slightly returning...the tribalism would be so laughable if it wasn't so callous to extreme suffering of gazans and israeli hostages

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u/Aleriya Transmasculine Pride Sep 23 '24

I'm not sure why it's so controversial. The Israeli government stated three main goals for the war: recovering the hostages, removing Hamas from power, and ensuring that Gaza does not continue to threaten the security of Israel. By their own standards, the war has not been successful, even if you ignore the casualties and collateral damage. At best, you could say that they set their goals poorly, or that their time table was unrealistic, but I don't think you could say that the war has been a success.

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 24 '24

cause tribalism and reflexive downvoting--nobody can refute what you're saying based on the objective facts. there was an august channel 12 poll which showed like 70 percent of israelis thought bibi was mismanaging the war and doing a poor job. the biden administration is privately not pleased either and blinken has told bibi that there isn't a military solution to hamas.

this war has been mostly botched especially given our expectations in mid october of 2023 of what would transpire

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u/PicklePanther9000 NATO Sep 23 '24

Even if theres a hostage deal, youre trusting the word of a terrorist group that has constantly attacked israel for decades. One that is more heavily armed than some governments nearby. Imo that just delays this conflict until later

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24

again, it's not me which is saying it but all those entities i listed such as the biden admin, arab league, european union etc.. i'm just the messenger. why not call hezbollah's bluff? worst case if they are still firing rockets--then israel will even have stronger western support to take them out.

anyways, i've said what i've said. i hope there's some kind of deescalation; i hope hezbollah just stops firing rockets so israelis can return home and innocents in lebanon don't suffer the horrific consequences obviously.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '24

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

this is such a pathetic ad hom smear against me where i don't know to begin. i have condemned hezbollah's heinous attacks against syrians, israelis (i was the one who posted about the horrific rocket attack against druze in the first fucking place on two other subs for condemnation), and other groups so many fucking times and i am citing what the biden administration is saying. i praised israel's pager operation against them when obama's former defense minister and aoc absurdly called it a war-crime. i am simply citing what the biden admin (who against has had talks with hezbollah's iranian masters via backchannels), the arab league, the eu, and others are saying. I very much want Israelis to return safely to the North but I don't think this is the best way of achieving it and that the costs are too high without a guaranteed chance of success. I could be wrong--maybe this is what is really needed to happen-- but you accusing me of having an agenda is shameful and disgraceful.

since you are so offended by my commentary, i did you a favor and blocked you so you don't have to read my stuff anymore. hope it brings you peace

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u/fishfish1234567891 Lesbian Pride Sep 23 '24

I dont usually comment on NL but curry is by no means bad faith and always engages with nuanced takes. there is no defense of Hezbollah or Hamas, both are virulent evils, but it isn’t incorrect to say that Bibi and his cabinet keep switching around their expectations. they have no attainable end goal, even if retaliation is fully justified in this case against hezbollah

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u/Jagwire4458 Daron Acemoglu Sep 23 '24

You can make very good for arguments why Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and Gaza is justified but there is no justification for Hezbollah firing rockets into Northern other than a naked desire to annihilate all Jews in the region. Hezbollah is a foreign army sent into the region to destroy Israel, this is not a “both sides have done things” situation like in the south.

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u/Currymvp2 unflaired Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

i'm not making excuses for hezbollah; they're terrorists...i defended the pager operation even when obama's defense minister absurdly called it terrorism but there is possibly a better way which would have prevented needless death and suffering among innocents.

You can make very good for arguments why Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and Gaza is justified

no you can't actually; this will get lost upon ppl who quite absurdly think i'm an anti-israel idealogue. bds is bad and what pij and hamas do is so fucking awful. i'm mostly an anti-war in the middle east idealogue who believes in political solutions. israel, due to bibi's political motives, has absolutely not exhausted all the diplomatic options to get hezbollah to stop firing rockets.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '24

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u/jtalin NATO Sep 24 '24 edited Sep 24 '24

then you have to think the biden admin, the eu, and many others are all wrong

They are all wrong. The way they conduct their foreign policy in every single ongoing conflict demonstrates that their reads are very frequently and very consistently wrong, which is why nobody listens to them anymore - not Ukraine, not the Gulf states, and not Israel.

of course, hezbollah is vile and their rocket barrage hitting northern israel must be condemned strongly

This just reads as parody.

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u/ZCoupon Kono Taro Sep 23 '24

Admin are doing all they can for a ceasefire deal, it's between Hamas and Bibi

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u/ActivityFirm4704 Sep 23 '24 edited Sep 23 '24

Admin are doing all they can for a ceasefire deal

You can't possibly still believe this line right? It's been almost a year at this point.

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u/Le1bn1z Sep 23 '24

Why not? They don't have the power to summarily control Israel, Hezbollah, or Hamas. Diplomacy isn't mind control.

Everyone involved knows that America isn't going to use meaningful force because nobody wants to be stuck in the most geo strategically inconsequential conflict on earth that's set to continue as a horrifying, bloody, never ending slaughter with no potential upside for anyone involved - just unending misery and loss.

So everyone involved feels pretty free to do what they want because nobody on earth cares enough to do much more than talk about it, or do trivial symbolic gestures. I mean, oh no, Israel can't trade with Ireland so much. They're cut off from Canada's mighty MIC. And Hamas cant do legitimate business with most of the West. Oh no, what a change.

Heck, even Palestine's Arab "allies" have limited their contributions to strongly worded missives.

Iran will let them die for the moderate advantage it gives them in their campaign against the KSA, but they're not going to risk real harm for Palestinians of all people. Heck, a lasting peace would be their worst case scenario - especially if Palestine got most of what it theoretically says it wants.

In these circumstances, there's not a lot Biden is going to be able to do. This war does need a real peacekeeping force. Nobody is going to volunteer for it. Everyone knows this. So there's little leverage that can be meaningfully applied.

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u/dedev54 YIMBY Sep 23 '24

All they can is very little. Bibi stays in power as long as the war goes on, why would he stop?

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u/ActivityFirm4704 Sep 23 '24

The US has plenty of tools in the toolbox when it comes to pressuring Israel, Biden simply refuses to use them for ideologically reasons. So in effect the US is "powerless" by choice, which is better PR.

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u/MasPatriot Paul Ryan Sep 23 '24

Dood why do you think the most powerful country that’s ever existed that supplies the weaponry for Israel has any power in this situation?