Israel/Palestine thread

Victor you are right.

Hamas has been great leadership for the Palestinian people the last 20 years, continues to be during this conflict, and clearly with Hamas seemingly staying in power no matter what (and by all accounts gaining influence in the West Bank), the Palestinians have nothing but great things to look forward to moving forward.

I have to say I do appreciate all the people criticizing Israel for allegedly helping Hamas gain power are the biggest cheerleaders for Hamas everytime they do something that has a 100% chance of resulting in a shitty outcome for the Palestinian people. That is really sticking it to Israel.

if the study says they arent using enough precaution then ok, but thats different than human shields. and its not enough imo, to conclude that they are trying to incite civilian deaths or that those deaths somehow benefit them.

also, as a captive occupied resistance, I am not sure of their lawful or moral obligation to mitigate civilian harm if it hampers their cause

I ofc would not agree with causing civilian death in a cynical ploy. from everything I have read about Hamas, I do not think would make that a core tenet or consistent goal simply bc I dont think it would benefit. however, like all entities, I would guess they would do if was worthwhile.

I dont think they have been great leadership. I really have no opinion on them historically. they did drive the Israelis out of Gaza but ofc there was a cost.

otherwise, despite listening to like 4 podcasts on them, I dont really understand their priorities. certainly they are far different than Al Qaeda or ISIS but I am not naive enough to trust they arent cynical operators.

they may have said this. I dont recall. regardless it is not what happened. Israel killed a lot of those people on Oct 7. we have multiple reports from survivors and IDF forces.

so what? they have a right to resist the occupation. its a densely populated area.

so what? they have a right to resist the occupation. its a densely populated area.

I think there are a few other reasons for why Hamas launches rockets from where they do other than using "human shields" to cause outrage.

regardless, what is going on right now is far beyond that. Israel is not bombing rocket sites. they are just bombinb civilians. they often just bomb tents now.

You seen the movie Casualties of War?

Maaaan, the director is a prolific son of a gun

Of course he's not a good leader. His main MO is bombing Kurds.

1) desert holocaust
2) see 1

They actively encourage and praise civilians for standing between Israeli weapons and Hamas.

Hamas has grown increasingly brazen about this because it has become obvious people like Victor will do mental gymnastics to deny the obvious.

show some examples

Even if Hamas does all of the things you guys are saying it does

Does that justify 20k civilians being killed in 90 days?

Not to you specifically Grizy
Is there any reputable reports of Hamas not allowing civilians to evacuate war zones?

Does "not allow" really matter when they openly, and publicly, praise people for staying?

Even in the most recent example, Hamas very publicly told people to stay home even as Israel told Gazans to evacuate.

israel be bombing the evacuees tho

Interesting interview. Ex-head of Shin Bet:

If they're not forced to stay and die then it's their choice and it's been shown over and over that Israel will accommodate.

Sinwar, a direct quote “decided to turn that which is most dear to us — the bodies of our women and children — into a dam blocking the collapse in Arab reality.”

Mushir Al-Masri, a direct quote "the citizens will continue defending their pride and houses and will continue to serve as human shields until the enemy will withdraw

Most recently Hamas gave orders to not flee the combat zones or risk death by their hand, and people think they don't use human shields? They broadcast it from the mosques to the entire community, this isn't some sort of conspiracy guys.

Then Hamas spent $0.00 on bomb shelters for civilians (out of billions), and people think they don't want to maximize the civilian deaths on their sides?

Dead Palestinian civilians and the amplification of said deaths are the entire play for them outside of their military objectives. NATO and the west call it Lawfare, you can read a lot of papers on it. I was just reading this one.

https://www.jwc.nato.int/images/stories/...

It gets them:

1) Funding (in the billions)
2) anger towards the murderous Jews (even globally)
3) penetration deep into the left where the killing of civilians is THE issue
4) huge strategic advantages, like countries who will potentially not do arms or trade deals with Israel due to civilian deaths
5) Impact on the Israeli economy from more BDS

Remember these are the people outfitting child-size suicide vests now. And their religious beliefs are that all the dead are martyrs and there is no sacrifice too great for this cause. How we view death and how they view death aren't even in the same realm.

I have absolutely no problem saying too many civilians died, and there were spots where certain adjustments could have saved lives. But don't be naive on what Hamas and radical Islam is and what it will do to achieve its goals.

first quote is simply a fact about guerilla warfare. if you decide to fight a resistance guerilla campaign, then you have essentially consigned your civilians to death. thats how Western nations act.

second quote is from 2006.

that article says nothing of the bolded unless I missed it.

Kudos to bluegrass for continuing to engage with someo who is too biased to accept the points you proved. I couldn't do it

And browser

Mets, what do you think about American Jews who do not support Israel’s war? What would you say to them?

As Clausewitz famously said in his book On War, "War is politics by other means". He stresses that the objective of war is always a political objective. War is just the means to that objective. That's why achieving the military objective doesn't mean you actually achieve the political objective of the war.

US military doctrine seeks to connect those objectives by stating the need to clearly define the desired End State when the fighting is done. This End State should facilitate achieving the political objective. In other words, it defines what success looks like. But the US is traditionally bad at doing this. We have had a tendency to conduct military operations, win on the battle field, yet "lose" the war by not ending up with the political outcome we desired.

Vietnam ends up with the North Vietnamese taking over the entire country; Afghanistan results with the Taliban still in power; Iraq is far from the cohesive democracy we envisioned. The US tends to be good at winning the battles but losing the peace. We usually give little real thought to what the situation on the ground will be after the fighting stops until the fighting stops.

I bring this up because I feel the same thing is happening in Gaza. Yes, Bibi has said his goal is to kill all the Hamas and destroy all their infrastructure (even if that means the killing of tens of thousands of civilians and destroying all civilian infrastructure). And Israel is certainly capable of doing that. But then what? What will all the death and destruction bring? What is the desired political endstate?

Without having that defined now, there is no way to determine if the military operations are actually working towards achieving the political goals or setting the conditions for future failure. I think all the vague proclamations about Israel not wanting to stay in Gaza or govern Gaza are useless. Same for the inability of the western countries and Arab countries to be able to envision an end state acceptable to all.

Without this, I fear all the killing and destruction will be for nothing. The world can spend billions of dollars over the next decade to rebuild all that they turned to rubble. But the hatred built up will never dissipate. Hamas will eithervregenerate or be replaced by other similar groups. Israel will not achieve the security they desire by purely military means. I think 10 or 20 years from now the destruction of Gaza and Hamas in 2024 will just be seen as a footnote in a continuing conflict.

I certainly don't have any answers. Israel cant just return to the status quo prior to this latest terrorist attack. But the goal of eliminating all of Hamas and turning Gaza to rubble will not, imo create an endstate other than a temporary period of increased security bought at a terrible price. Sadly, rather than seeing this war as a transformative event that leads to peace in the region, it seems to me it is setting up to be a huge humanitarian disaster on many levels that in the end will have been for nothing.

They're entirely entitled to.

There are a lot of Muslims and Arabs who support Israel's actions here (some who fight IN the IDF). They're entitled to also. There's a few BIG Arab influencers on X that are very anti-Hamas and pro-Israel.

That said, one thing that some very accomplished thinkers have mentioned in this regard, is that it's a bit of a trap on those Jews in question. They've being given a bargain: denounce Israel (even Israel's right to exist), and we'll accept your Jewishness. It seems like a fair trade in the moment. Only history has shown that it's short-sighted. The trade over the long run does not play out in favor of that Jew. Jews need Israel like oxygen now. And in the last few months, the world is definitely proving that to be true. You'd need to be a Jew to get it, however.

Now you didn't ask "who don't support Israel". Who said "who don't support Israel's war". So I guess my comment veers a bit off course there. I'm more interested in the Jews who fundamentally don't believe Israel should exist.

Best case scenario now is Palestinian Authority takes over Gaza as part of the Saudi negotiations. Occupation will be a mess, requiring way more troops than Israel is going to be able to place there.

Saudis are unlikely to come to terms while Israel is occupying Gaza, but it pretty much needs to be occupied. No one wants Fatah there. No one is going to want to rebuild a place that is likely to get destroyed again.

It's going to be a mess.

The problem is not that the US fails to think through the invasions. The problem is that the military is given impossible jobs. It is asked to fight colonial wars against the will of the locals.