Gaza has been burnt to the ground

[Orrex]

201. Do you honestly believe that Netanyahu would settle for a partial release?

Of course not, and it's frankly disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

There's little to suggest that Netanyahu even wants the conflict to end, so he would almost certainly--given what we have seen of his totalitarian, unilateral actions--use any excuse to reject any conciliatory steps that Hamas might take.

Let's say that Hamas releases all but 10 of the surviving hostages, because they don't have access to the rest. Netanyahu would claim--and his apologists would support his claim--that the bombing must continue until all hostages are freed.

Let's go a step further and say that Hamas somehow releases ALL surviving hostages. Everything we know of Netanyahu suggests very strongly that he would either continue the bombing "in retaliation for the innocent Israelis murdered by Hamas terrorists," or--more likely--he would continue "until Hamas no longer poses a threat," a deliberately open-ended deadline that will never arrive.

Do you honestly believe that Netanyahu would end the campaign if the hostages were released? Do you you honestly believe that Hamas has any reason to believe him?

And, when they don't release the hostages, how many dead Palestinian civilians do you consider an acceptable exchange for 134 hostages?


Standing disclaimer, because I've been baselessly accused on DU many times before: Hamas is a terrorist regime and should be wiped out. They have no moral standing in this or any other matter, and their October terrorist attack cannot be justified.

Regardless, thousands of civilians have been killed, and even if we accept the dubious claim that 70% of Palestinians support Hamas in a way that somehow justifies their deaths, that still leaves nearly 10,000 innocent Palestinians dead, according to AP's reported estimate of 33,000 dead.