It's time to revisit 9/11 and think about what it means in the modern context

underlipton 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

We already did, on October 7th, 2023. Israel did not learn from our example, and they currently find themselves in a quagmire where they're spending billions to kill thousands of the people they're supposed to be saving from an authoritarian, terrorist-harboring regime, with almost no real benefit to their national security, and where they have most of the rest of the world bearing down on them diplomatically for their conduct and alleged war crimes. (This is the most charitable characterization I can muster.)

The response to 9/11 was one of the most foolhardy possible, and it's astounding that any other nature would attempt the same with it still in living memory.

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FridayoLeary 5 days ago | parent [-]

Take a better look at it from Israels perspective. Any other response after Oct 7 would have been unthinkable. No israeli is particularly happy with what's happening in Gaza (a massive understatement) but there is still broad support there for the war, because most israelis feel it's a matter of survival.

The rest of the world haven't been shy lately about expressing their opinion of the war, something that Israel recognises and care about, but they have provided no way out for israel to take any other course of action.

Our ideas and opinions should be as harmonious as possible with reality. If Israel was understood better and her concerns and fears engaged seriously it would go a long way to ending the war.

In the context of this assassination i feel the path forward is not empty platitudes of "deescalation" rather greater empathy and understanding of people you disagree with. This is mainly an internal process, but also one that should have outward expressions too.

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bccdee 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> there is still broad support there for the war, because most israelis feel it's a matter of survival.

A phrase like "the war" glosses over a lot. If the IDF were not deliberately shooting children¹, would the Israeli public be clamouring, "shoot more children"? If food shipments were not being blockaded², would the public be demanding that Gazans be starved?

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-... [2]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-malnutrition-children-blo...

I'm sure some form of military action was necessary in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks. Genocide³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ was not.

[3]: https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/isra... [4]: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/un-special-committee-pre... [5]: https://amnesty.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Amnesty-Intern... [6]: https://msf.org.uk/issues/gaza-genocide [7]: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/28/middleeast/israeli-human-righ...

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FridayoLeary 5 days ago | parent [-]

I didn't see anywhere in the article anything about israelis calling for more dead children. Even if that happened it's the actions of a fringe group, not idf policy. Food shipments are being restricted because it's not generally accepted that you have to feed your enemies while you're at war with them. In any case the GHF was set up to deal precisely with this problem and is doing a great job.

On the charges of genocide... Again what you say should be in harmony with reality. In truth all those sources have an anti israel bias. One can't help but think they started with a conclusion and found the evidence to fit in with it, which is the wrong way round. In any event other bodies like the UK government don't agree. Genocide requires intent and there is simply no intent for genocide from the Israeli government. One can also argue that if indeed genocide was the goal the war would have been much faster. anyway i hope that gives you a better perspective of Israels point of view and interpretation of events. Their stated goals in gaza are destroying hamas and ensuring gaza is no longer a security threat. Hamas is very large and quite well embedded in the civilian population and has a lot of infrastructure which means that even waging a war will lead to a lot of civilian casualties. Something that hamas exploits and people who claim genocide ignore.

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paintbox 5 days ago | parent [-]

>Food shipments are being restricted because it's not generally accepted that you have to feed your enemies while you're at war with them.

Funny way to put it. You do not feed the enemy, rest of the world feeds the enemy. You make all effort to prevent the enemy being fed, to starve the enemy to death. Starving the enemy is generally accepted as a war crime, but Israel disagrees. Oh yeah, and enemy in this case includes infants.

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FridayoLeary 5 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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disgruntledphd2 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The enemy does not include children, but hamas cannot use them as a shield to protect or even deflect attention from their own fighters. Again it's awful but not criminal.

When the Allies bombed Dresden, that was a war crime. When Israel kills children because it's operationally easier than figuring out how to just kill combatants, that is also a war crime.

Like, they appear to be able to do targeted attacks on Hamas people basically everywhere except Gaza, which seems pretty weird.

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bccdee 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> there has to be intent to prevent civilians from accessing food

Intent, in cases of genocide, is basically impossible to establish except in retrospect. We can only establish what is happening right now:

> “The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza,” UN-backed food security experts said on Tuesday, in a call to action amid unrelenting conflict, mass displacement and the near-total collapse of essential services in the war-battered enclave.

> The alert follows a May 2025 IPC analysis that projected catastrophic levels of food insecurity for the entire population by September. According to the platform’s experts, at least half a million people are expected to be in IPC Phase 5 – catastrophe – which is marked by starvation, destitution and death.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165517

> It is unclear to me how much actual starvation is taking place there.

It sounds pretty clear to the UN.

Israel is in full control of this situation. If things were playing out differently to how they wanted, they could permit more aid to go through.

> They claim there's enough food entering gaza, but hamas is stealing it

The idea that there's plenty of food but Hamas has squirrelled it away so that everyone starves is ludicrous.

> so long as they are keeping international laws in good faith

The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel multiple times to permit aid into Gaza.

> You have to realise that genocide is not a realistic operational aim for the idf or the political establishment

Sure it is. They just have to keep doing what they're doing right now. It's worked so far.

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I cited a laundry list of expert organizations specializing in identifying crimes against humanity. You've cited an op-ed. The balance of evidence and expertise overwhelmingly indicates genocide, and it's not even close.

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FridayoLeary 5 days ago | parent [-]

The un has such a long and consistent anti israel bias i find it hard to trust anything they say. UNWRA basically is the de facto propoganda and civil administrators for hamas. Again the ipc changed their definition on famine in order to include gaza.

Israel is most definitely not in full control of gaza. They are trying to assert some with the ghf despite UN/Hamas strenuous opposition.

The idea that hamas isn't stealing all the aid is ludicrous.

And finally Israel does permit huge amounts of aid into gaza. I wonder what UNWRA are doing with it.

The only thing you have established is that gaza is indeed in the midst of a war and that resources are scarce for people there and lots of people are dying which is exactly what you would expect in a war.

Just because you want something to be true doesn't make it so. Israel isn't to blame for what has happened in gaza. Unless you claim having an interest in not being massacred, kidnapped and raped is unreasonable.

	▲	underlipton 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>Israel isn't to blame for what has happened in gaza. That's an astonishing thing to say.
	▲	bccdee 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> The idea that hamas isn't stealing all the aid is ludicrous. Bro what the fuck are they going to do with enough stolen food to feed an entire nation? It's not as if they can sell it. World's biggest mukbang tiktok stream? You're either wilfully blind or unspeakably obtuse. Open your eyes or shut your mouth.

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s5300 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>> because most israelis feel it's a matter of survival.

How do you think Palestinians have felt living in an open air prison next to genocidal maniacs with zero ability to control themselves for the past 50 years. USS Liberty should’ve been the end of things, but it wasn’t.

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underlipton 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>because most israelis feel it's a matter of survival.

It objectively isn't and that's what's so tragic. Israel doesn't need to be understood, it needs to work harder to understand. And, per 9/11, it specifically needed to understand that taking Hamas' bait was a straight shot to dashing international goodwill and benefit-of-the-doubt.

There's some far-off timeline where Israel negotiated in good faith for the return of all of the hostages without dropping a single bomb. The anti-war movement that finds one of its most fervent centers in Israel itself is driven by the dawning horror that many of those hostages are never coming home precisely because Israel (again) chose blind fury over reason. And that's not a matter of perspective, it's a simple fact.

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ForOldHack 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Bush threatened the Taliban, and they responded. How many is donald threatening?

The modern context is we have gone from a benevolent nation to a blidgerent nation. Not really progress. But the context is decisive.

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whackernews 5 days ago | parent [-]

Eh?

	▲	logicalmind 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think the point being made is that you can create your own enemies. In this case, meaning enemies of the United States or politics of the United States. Many of the radicals of the world become that way due to harm that became them or their family. If your family lived in a village in middle east and the military of another country came and seemingly killed your parents, you would think that the person would grow to have certain opinions on the things and certain enemies. A lot of the policies being enacted have the potential to create a lot of enemies. Just to name a few, there have been thousands of people fired from federal government. Those people and their families have had their lives changed. You have people from other countries who have lived here their entire lives who are now being separated and sent to other countries. You have people playing politics with Ukraine where many people are dying due to something that the rest of the world has the power to solve. Or people in Palestine being murdered while some talk of building a wealthy paradise on the land where they were raised. I'm not taking a side on these things. But you have to agree that these tactics have the habit of making very determined and malicious enemies. Many political policies, and the people who have strong opinions on them, have to realize that their opinions and the policies they support, do impact the lives of real people. Potentially causing devastating repercussions, death and suffering. If said people are determined to enact revenge, it is no surprise that feel justified in doing so. I'm not justifying their thoughts or actions. But you can understand that people who have felt these impacts aren't acting particularly rationally or are stable.