‘Nobody’s hands are clean’: Obama urges reflection amid Israel-Hamas conflict

Thank you so much.

This is way more complex than it's getting credit for.

It always has been.

Anyway, I miss having a better leader. He was just so presidential. Not perfect, but no one can be.

Even the dead children?

It's also pretty rich coming from guy who thought drone collateral was not a problem in Afghanistan.

He's lucky we wasn't president during the last time there was a huge Israeli-Palestinian blowout, otherwise he'd have a 1:1 comparison with Biden.

Presidents/Prime Ministers become beacons of morality once out of office.

Wasn't that Hamas who did the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing? Though it's debatable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/briefing/gaza-hospital-explosion.html

And while much about the hospital explosion remains unclear, the available evidence points toward a Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, as the more likely cause.

I don't see where Obama said anything about things being proportionate, and I don't know what "proportionate" has to do with the fact that heinous acts have been taken by both sides.

Terrorists consider civilian casualties to be a scorecard. Hamas benefits when there's Israeli civilian casualties. Hamas also benefits when there's Palestinian civilian casualties.

That's the whole point of taking hostages isn't it? To force Israel into a ground campaign which will cause Palestinian civilian casualties.

The military forces of civilized nations don't consider civilian casualties to be a victory no matter which side it's on. They have an objective and need to achieve that objective while minimizing civilian casualties. The objective of the IDF is to free the hostages. They will make an effort to minimize civilian casualties. But they must achieve that objective even while know civilian causalities are a certainty even when they make an to keep those casualties to a minimum.

This is the nature of war. And this is a war Hamas started. And remember there could be significantly fewer casualties (and a humanitarian ceasefire) if Hamas released the hostages.

But they won't do that because their objective is to maximize the number of Palestinian casualties because many people look at those casualties and become angry and want to support them.

Netanyahu will lose power because of 1400 Israeli deaths. Both Israeli and Palestinian civilian casualties are considered to be a failure by Israelis.

Both Israeli and Palestinian civilian casualties are considered a success by Hamas. They are psychopaths that know how people react to these numbers.

But only because they are the ones in power. If the positions of power were reversed, it'd be pretty much the same thing, except Hamas would be the one performing the apartheid and the genocide.

You seem to not understand what a proportionate response in war is. Israel's goal is extermination of the terrorist threat in Gaza, their actions are proportional for those goals. Not lost in the calculation is the terrorists saying they intend on continuing their terror attacks on civilians, making a ceasefire all but impossible to institute.

The question of whether or not it's humane or ethical is a different question that should be debated.

Have you considered that if Gaza didn’t have terrorist groups they might a functioning society and government?

I'd rather have an effective leader than a charismatic one. I don't elect presidents to assuage my fee-fees, and the fact that the rest of the population does is the problem.

We (the US) are the weapon's manufacturers and we (the US) sell them the weapons.

We do it because if we didn't, Russia and China would effectively conquer the middle east, and they'd allow a lot worse things to happen as long as raw materials, oil, and cheap labour kept flowing back in their favor.

It's a complex subject any way you slice it because it's possible inaction has worse consequences than complicity.

Yes, it's normal for past presidents to kind of step aside except for some small fundraising and party politics. It's not always what happens but it's more common than the alternatives.

Bush Sr certainly fell of the map and Carter basically went on to do a lot of charitable work but wasn’t particularly vocal in the media.

Normal in the modern era.

In the 1800s they'd run as senators after their presidential terms if they were young enough.

No advocating violence.

Touch grass and get therapy.

Obama's opinion here is obvious, because Hamas and Israel have both done terrible things. But because Obama doesn't reaffirm your opinion like every other tanky so now he's a race traitor, and should be murdered.

You're no better than the brown coats.

Get the fuck out of here with your Tucker Carlson "I'm just asking questions" bullshit. The little kids table is to the left of the soft serve machine.

There is absolutely nothing “complex” about white supremacist settler-colonialism. End of story.

It's a rarity to see someone with their head so far up their own ass as to say something like that and be completely serious.

He’s talking more broadly about governments and factions, not individual people