Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

FWIW all the B-29 guys they interviewed said they had grave misgivings about what they did, and that it had haunted them for their entire lives. All of the B-29 crews were officers, and in the WW2 military that almost universally meant they were from a more educated pool of men than the enlisted ranks. These guys were flying at 5000' which is incredibly low altitude, and they all knew those bombs weren't hitting the Imperial Japanese Army, they knew what those incendiary devices were doing and who they were doing it to, and many reported that when they would come in behind a long line of B-29s that had laid down prior incendiary bombs you could smell the odor of cooking flesh as you passed over--multiple of these guys made that same comment.

Purely as an aside, and not negating your point at all, but

The air crew of a B-29 generally included eleven people. Each occupation had a different MOS ("military operating specialty"), and required special training. The Airplane Commander, Pilot, Navigator and Bombardier were generally officers. The Flight Engineer, Radio Operator, and the Gunners were generally enlisted men.  The Radarman was initially an enlisted man but was later an officer.  The following is a list of the crew members, with the MOS indicated in square brackets.

Airplane Commander [1093]
Pilot (or Co-Pilot) [1092]
Navigator [1034]
Bombardier [1035]
Flight Engineer [737]
Radioman (or Radio Operator) [2756]
Radarman (or Radar Observer) [0142]
Central Fire Control (or CFC Gunner) [580]
Right Gunner [611]
Left Gunner [611]
Tail Gunner [611]

So, four or five of the eleven-man crew were commissioned.

Interesting--back when they did these interviews everyone listed was officer rank, so I probably just assumed the entire crews were. Maybe they didn't interview any of the enlisted because they were all dead or harder to locate, everyone in the interview series was at least 95.

[Jacob]

My mistake, I misunderstood what you meant.

It's hard for me to fathom how little concern how little concern Hamas has for its own people.  The "Day of Rage" can only make things worse for the Palestinians living in Europe; it justifies the perception that they are of the enemy within.  If something does happen today it's going to make the western countries even less willing to accept Palestinian refugees. 

I think the willingness to accept Palestinian refugees in Europe - and probably North America also - is really quite low already.

[Caliga]

So, four or five of the eleven-man crew were commissioned.

My grandfather served in the USAAF on B-29 aircrews during WWII (as a Radioman I believe) and he was an NCO of some sort.

[OttoVonBismarck]

After Israel warned Palestinians at midnight on Friday to evacuate northern Gaza within 24 hours, the State Department circulated internal memos to its officials warning them against using the phrases "de-escalation/ceasefire;" "end to violence/bloodshed" and "restoring calm," the Huffington Post reports.

The memo indicates that the US does not plan to call on Israel to exercise restraint when responding to the Hamas onslaught.

[Valmy]

My mistake, I misunderstood what you meant.

It's hard for me to fathom how little concern how little concern Hamas has for its own people.  The "Day of Rage" can only make things worse for the Palestinians living in Europe; it justifies the perception that they are of the enemy within.  If something does happen today it's going to make the western countries even less willing to accept Palestinian refugees. 

I think the willingness to accept Palestinian refugees in Europe - and probably North America also - is really quite low already.

Or anywhere else for that matter. Palestine has no friends at this point.

I mean there is Iran and Hezbollah but...they aren't so much friends as people who find Palestine useful.

[Jacob]

I'm sure you've seen the news that Israeli commandos rescued ~250 hostages yesterday, killing 60 Hamas militants in the process.

[Hamilcar]

My mistake, I misunderstood what you meant.

It's hard for me to fathom how little concern how little concern Hamas has for its own people.  The "Day of Rage" can only make things worse for the Palestinians living in Europe; it justifies the perception that they are of the enemy within.  If something does happen today it's going to make the western countries even less willing to accept Palestinian refugees. 

I think the willingness to accept Palestinian refugees in Europe - and probably North America also - is really quite low already.

Not a single one should be allowed into Switzerland.

[Barrister]

I don't know what the answer is, but the issue is that if Gaza Palestinians become refugees, there's no way they're coming back since Gaza is such a terrible place to live.  EVen if it's just a refugee camp in Egypt it's bound to be better than Gaza.  Plus then it's seen as Israel "winning" by driving out Palestinians - neighbouring Arab countries have quite deliberately chosen to not accept refugees, or to not allow those refugees in their country to assimilate, in order to keep up pressure on Israel.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Of course none of the countries in the Middle East will do shit to help the Palestinians. But for whatever reason the Netherlands must have pressure put on them.

I think the Netherlands are afraid of the schools being attacked (Hamas has called for today to be a "Day of Rage" against the Americans and Zionists) not that they're permanently shutting down the Jewish schools.

Yes I know. I just meant European countries are really feeling pressure over this. Berlin and Paris shutting down protests. The Netherlands taking action to protect their Jewish citizens. As if these are the countries who could or should do something about this crisis.

Can't blame the Eastern European countries for wanting none of that BS

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know that Israel is willing to expend the resources required, but I think for any kind of future here Hamas does have to be removed from control of Gaza.

Israel has a lot to answer for here, frankly. As the occupying power of Gaza for decades, Israel in fairly Machiavellian fashion declined to do anything to help Fatah in its brief civil war and allow Hamas to embed itself in Gaza--one can argue they just didn't want to get involved in such a war, but statements Netanyahu and others have made over the years strongly suggests the Israeli right largely saw Hamas' control of Gaza, at least back then--and probably until the last 8 days, as to their benefit. Why? Because it made Palestinian statehood basically impossible, the West was never going to demand Hamas be recognized as a real state. And as long as the PLO/PNA's control over Palestine was divided into a region it quasi-controls and one it doesn't, that was going to put huge hurdles in their way.

As the occupying power, even aside from moral justification after the attacks, I think Israel has an obligation to remove an entity like Hamas from power.

It also has an obligation of course to try and move towards some actual diplomatic solution down the road, but that will require Israeli society to reject maximalist conservatives from running their country (I don't hold my breath on that.)

[grumbler]

Interesting--back when they did these interviews everyone listed was officer rank, so I probably just assumed the entire crews were. Maybe they didn't interview any of the enlisted because they were all dead or harder to locate, everyone in the interview series was at least 95.

Probably well-educated people are likelier to live to 95.  It was an interesting story in any case.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It took me a time to find it because I remembered it as a NYT article, but it ends up it was a "New York Times Magazine" article, but here is the link if anyone was interested:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/magazine/we-hated-what-we-were-doing-veterans-recall-firebombing-japan.html

And also shows the danger of memory--2 of the guys in the article were tech sergeants, I believe there were more interviews conducted as well, but this article were the ones published by the NYT.

[Legbiter]

Hamas is turning on the charm...

https://twitter.com/IbtihalGaza/status/1712873286399311941

I still think their PR needs some polish. It's perhaps not conveying the message they're going for.

[crazy canuck]

CC is literally foaming at the mouth over a mass murder for which there is no indication Israel plans to commit and certainly no evidence they are in the process of committing.

CC is literally repeating what the world's leading scholar on the topic says.  You are being wilfully blind now.

[mongers]

Just seen a interview with a Palestinian neuroplastic (sp?) surgeon at one of the hospitals and he said, people have been fleeing South in numbers, but that some who went to Kahn Younish have come back because it's not safe there and they felt they'd prefer to die in their homes rather than just die in the street.

He was in his third relocation since it started and said Hamas are saying people shouldn't leave the North because that would be another Nakbah. He didn't say he'd seen these roadblocks, but clearly was referring to several 2nd hand testimonies, at the least; later in the piece the film crew drove down the mainroad and didn't find any police roadblocks, but I guess any hamas officials or normal police will be keeping a very low profile given Israeli surveillance.

So many tens of thousands are on the road heading south, but it cannot be anywhere near the 1,100,000 the Isrealis are expecting/demanding to leave.