There are very rarely wars between similar sides. This war is not unusual for that at all. In fact, after WW2, most conflicts have been asymmetric. You are also omitting that Hamas have launched thousands of rockets against Israel since October 7, have tried countless times to breach border defenses and repeat the October 7 massacres. Do not belittle the threat that Hamas poses despite being nowhere near as powerful as the IDF. Hamas have no chance of winning a war, but they can inflict a great deal of damage.
They’ve killed more hostages themselves than Hamas has.
According to whom? It's Hamas who reports how hostages have died and more than once, hostages that according to Hamas died due to bombing were in fact executed: "Forensic officials have said that autopsies of slain hostages who had been recovered found causes of death inconsistent with Hamas' account they had died in air strikes."
I get the feeling that this war is the first one many people are trying to pay attention to and I'm under the impression that the horrors that exist in every war are so totally new and alien to these well-meaning, but poorly informed people that they have no way to deal with them but through superlatives and exaggeration, including the almost dogmatically repeated claim that there is a genocide happening here.
That is a remarkably uninformed statement. Israel is a center of cutting-edge research and leading production. Name any field from biotech to semiconductors, from robotics to defense and there's likely an Israeli research institute or startup at the forefront. That's a huge asset to have. American tanks would not have a missile defense system without Israel, Intel's computer chips would be significantly slower and the entire global drone industry, both civilian and military, would be set back by many years if it wasn't for this small nation, just to name a few examples.
So much power and treasure? The amount spent on arms sent to Israel is not even a rounding error compared to the entire federal budget. Power? Netanyahu can huff and puff all he wants, Israel is clearly acting within tight limits set by the US.
Russia is more or less openly supporting Hamas and China is choosing a transparent and clumsy policy of endearing themselves with the global South by only condemning Israel and not even mentioning Hamas. Neither nation should be admired for what they are doing.
They did not say that. The safe zone was solely meant to protect people from the bulk of the ground fighting in Gaza city. That's it. Don't make up nonsense.
What an incredibly idiotic thing to do. Trump is hell-bent on destroying American democracy and giving both China and Russia all the Lebensraum that they want while enriching himself. And do look up his Israel policy, while you're at it.
The amount of suffering a Trump victory has a high chance of creating makes the war in Gaza look like a picnic.
To be fair, the Aurus is effectively a European luxury car. Made in Russia, but all of the tech was developed by German firms (Porsche and Bosch - I suspect the Russian portion of the engineering was nominal at best) and it is modern in terms of specs and equipment, if ridiculously overpriced for what it is.
Don't put words in my mouth. That's not at all what I said and you know that, but you cared more about making a cheap shot than having a serious discussion.
If what you said were true, then Hamas would be more popular in Gaza (where Israeli bombs are falling) compared to the West Bank (where they are usually not). Except that's not at all the case.
Also, don't think I didn't notice how you glossed over me correcting your ridiculous claim about Israel having created Hamas by moving the goalposts to another generic social media talking point. Why are self-proclaimed pro-Palestinians only using the same small number of paper-thin talking points?
What a ridiculous argument. Hamas outlawed contraceptives, legalized marital rape, forbids accurate sex education and heavily encourages large families. This young population was intentionally created for two reasons: A large surplus of especially young men with no prospect of finding jobs is fertile ground for recruitment and so that naive people like you can spin this into some ridiculous war against children talking point. Where does this even come from? There have been countless wars against countries with young populations before, but before this war, I've never heard this kind of spin before, until people began parroting it everywhere. Is this something you picked up on TikTok?
Don't forget that Hamas started this war with their slaughter of 1200 Israelis, including children, by the way. Not a single bomb would have fallen on Gaza any time soon without this heinous attack. If anyone is to blame for this, it's Hamas and their enablers.
The Israeli government has done many things, but they did not create Hamas and neither are they committing a genocide.
We as a public are just not used to a high intensity conflict with this much media coverage. Horrors of war that usually go unnoticed are instead broadcast into the world in real-time, which creates an effect similar to how sensationalist coverage of violent crime creates the illusion that there is more of it, whereas in reality, crime rates are going down. This war, as horrible as it is, is not even the worst war that is currently happening.
Exactly. Make no mistake, decoupling from China would hurt the West greatly, but the consequences for China would be devastating, to the point of threatening the regime's rule. I don't think they quite realize that this would be the immediate and most painful consequence of an invasion of Taiwan. Given how irrational Xi has acted in response to COVID-19 however, I'm not certain he or the yes-men surrounding him are looking at this situation objectively.
It's a long and proud tradition that has existed for as long as there have been windows at higher than ground level. Entire wars were started over this:
I am however convinced that in Putin's Russia, defenestrations aren't always the actual cause of death. It's a far too convenient method for covering up torture.
If you really think that's the reason and not something else entirely, I've got a bridge in Tehran to sell to you.