[invalidname]

> I sincerely hope you and your family stay safe and can know peace.

Thanks and appreciated.

> my genuine hope is that people everywhere can live in peace and safety.

Same. Unfortunately, bad people do exist and pacifism is a luxury we can't afford.

> unless you've got Bibi's private number, in which case - get dialing, damn

We demonstrate a lot. Some in-front of his house. He's an a*hole megalomaniac that just doesn't care about anything. But I guess you have your own version of that...

> If your people were under threat, would you sacrifice yourself to save them?

Self sacrifice is very different to walking into a bus in the middle of Tel Aviv where you have children and other Muslims and blowing yourself up. Notice that people did it during the Oslo accord period, not for the purpose of "protecting their family". They did it to stop the peace process from happening and were successful.

The goal of Hamas is the exact opposite of what you describe. Their goal is to prevent peace with Israel. Oct 7th happened because they were afraid Israel would make a deal with Saudi Arabia which would lead to a Palestinian state. They don't want that, they want the whole country.

I'll also say that if I say things like "Israel does X" or something, I'm not ascribing the actions or morals of the state to you personally - I live in America, I know the difference between the actions of a government and the opinions of its people (unless you've got Bibi's private number, in which case - get dialing, damn).

> Do you think they'd go to heaven?

They believe that if a Palestinian child dies during the conflict they go to heaven. That essentially gives them a license to "sacrifice" children of other Palestinians as part of their holy war.

> This is why I keep pressing on this: under what circumstances would you do the same things that they're doing?

No. I'd compromise and build a country. That is what the majority of Palestinians want. That is why the Palestinian authority never joined Hamas's war against Israel.

> (As a separate note, the concept of martyrdom doesn't start in Islam - there's a rich history of it across all the Abrahamic religions, and all of them presume the martyr's getting the fast track to paradise.)

Sure. It's in the old testament I know. תמות נפשי עם פלישתים Roughly translated: "My sole will die with the philistines" which is fitting. But we grew up as did the Christians who were also pretty crazy. The same is true for most Muslims, as I said... My kids study in school with Muslims. They are fine people. Hamas is a different breed.

> I'd say one other thing, which is that Hamas is a militant group which considers themselves under existential siege and behaves accordingly

That isn't true. They had the freedom to do whatever they wanted and made an explicit choice. Israel literally paid them billions in a failed attempt to make them more moderate.

They continue to make that choice by refusing the release of the 53 Israeli hostages which would end the war.

[roughly]

> But I guess you have your own version of that...

Indeed we do :-)

> That is why the Palestinian authority never joined Hamas's war against Israel.

The PA's reward for this is the settlers.

I think a basic problem for Israel here is that some relatively small percent of the population wants genocide, and they're the ones who've been driving the cart for the last decade or so.

What, to you, is the realistic road to a two-state solution?

With regards to the hostages - to an outside eye, Israel's bombing campaign doesn't really seem to indicate they're overly worried about the health and safety of those 53 remaining hostages.

[invalidname]

> The PA's reward for this is the settlers.

Yes. That should be the real outrage here.

The extreme-right fascists in the government are indeed using Oct 7th as an excuse to make the west-bank worse. I hope we can kick them out of office in the next election but the Iran thing shuffles the deck a bit and reduced some of the hate against Bibi.

> I think a basic problem for Israel here is that some relatively small percent of the population wants genocide, and they're the ones who've been driving the cart for the last decade or so.

I don't think they want Genocide. They look at the Palestinian extremists and say that they will never change. No matter what we try they will always try to kill us. So if it's us or them it should be us.

I get what they are saying. The fact that Palestinians voted for Hamas shocked us all back in the day. The problem is that Palestinians don't have stable leadership that we can talk to and trust. We also have pretty poor leaders since Rabin.

> What, to you, is the realistic road to a two-state solution?

I used to think there is no other option. That we might take a detour and get there eventually after all the pain since there's no other realistic option. Now I'm afraid that the Israeli extreme right might rise to power. The anti-Israel sentiment is actually fueling it which is pretty horrifying.

I hope calm voices will take the Saudi deal which can truly revolutionize the middle east. But right now I think we need to calm down. We've been in nonstop war since 2023 and it puts you in a fight or flight mode. People are picking up extreme stances as a result.

> With regards to the hostages - to an outside eye, Israel's bombing campaign doesn't really seem to indicate they're overly worried about the health and safety of those 53 remaining hostages.

Bibi doesn't want them back and Hamas don't want to release them. He knows that if they will be back he will have to end the war and then might lose his government. Now with the Iran campaign it might finally give him the incentive to close on a reasonable deal.