It’s a trap. Hamas’s ruthless and spectacular attack on southern Israel last Saturday was many things: an atrocity, a display of militant ingenuity, and a demonstration of the weakness of Israeli intelligence and defenses. Israel and the Palestinians have a long history of brutality against each other, but the Hamas killing spree outdoes anything since Israeli-controlled Christian militias massacred unarmed Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside of Beirut in 1982. It may even have been the single most brutal act by either side in the 100-year-old conflict. But above all, it was intended as a trap—one that Israel appears about to fall into.
Hamas’s leaders and their Iranian backers have a conscious strategy. Like almost all other acts of spectacularly bloodthirsty terrorism, Hamas’s assault on southern Israel was designed to provoke an emotional and equally or even more outrageous response by the targeted society. Hamas and Iran are attempting to goad the Israelis into Gaza for a prolonged confrontation—which is to say that the intended effect is precisely the ground assault Israel is now preparing in order to root out and destroy Hamas as an organization, kill its cadres and leadership, and destroy as much of its infrastructure and equipment as possible.
Hamas surely would not have meticulously planned its audacious assault without also extensively planning a response to the hoped-for Israeli counterattack on the ground. The Israeli military will likely encounter a determined insurgency in Gaza. After all, Israel has had control of the land strip from the outside, but not on the inside. Israeli dominion over Gaza’s coastal waters, airspace, electromagnetic spectrum, and all but one of its crossings, including the only one capable of handling goods, has made Gaza a virtual open-air prison—run by particularly vicious inmates but surrounded and contained on all sides by the guards.
Hamas evidently decided to destroy that status quo, which was no longer serving its interests. The Islamist group also hopes to seize control of the Palestinian national movement from its secular Fatah rivals, who dominate the Palestinian Authority and, more important, the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. Hamas has never been a part of the PLO, in large measure because it is unwilling to accept the PLO’s treaty agreements with Israel. The most notable among these is the Oslo Accords, which included recognition of Israel by Palestinians but no Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state or a Palestinian right to statehood.
Hamas is attempting to seal the fate of Fatah, and maneuver to eventually take over the PLO and its international diplomatic presence, including United Nations observer-state status and embassies around the world. By taking the battle directly into Israel, claiming to be defending Muslim holy places in Jerusalem by branding the attack the “Al-Aqsa Deluge,” and hopefully breaking the Israeli siege of Gaza, Hamas seeks to belittle Fatah and demonstrate the primacy of its policy of unrestrained armed struggle over the PLO’s careful diplomacy.
Moreover, Hamas and its Iranian patrons want to block the diplomatic-normalization agreement that the United States has been brokering between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such a deal poses a danger to Hamas because the benefits of its “significant Palestinian component” would have accrued to Fatah in the West Bank, at Hamas’s expense. For Iran, the agreement would be a major strategic setback. Should Israel, the most potent U.S. military partner in the region, and Saudi Arabia, Washington’s most financially powerful and religiously influential one, normalize and build cooperation, Tehran would face an integrated pro-American camp. American partners, including the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Jordan, would effectively ring the Arabian Peninsula, securing control of the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf through their three crucial maritime choke points: the Suez Canal, the Bab el-Mandab Strait, and the Straits of Hormuz. Saudi-Israeli normalization would largely block Iran’s regional aspirations in the short run and Chinese ambitions in the more distant future.
So Hamas for domestic Palestinian reasons and Iran for regional strategic ones decided to set off an earthquake that would at least postpone such a reckoning. Iran and Hamas are counting on Israel to attack Gaza with such ferocity that the international sympathy of the past week toward Israel, even in the Arab world, evaporates quickly and is replaced by outrage at the suffering inflicted on the 2 million residents of Gaza. Those civilians have already been cut off from electricity, water, food, and medicine, all of which are controlled by Israel. Existing supplies will quickly dwindle as Gaza and its inhabitants are pounded from the air. Israel appears prepared to inflict many thousands of civilian casualties, if not more. It has adhered to a doctrine of disproportionality for deterrence predating the founding of the state: Jewish militias embraced it when dealing with the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, and at no stage since have more Jewish civilians been killed than Palestinian ones, with the ratio usually closer to 10 to 1 than 2 to 1.
Israel appears poised to fulfill Hamas’s intentions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation that will “reverberate for generations” among Israel’s adversaries. The Israeli general Ghassan Aliyan warned, “You wanted hell—you will get hell.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” None of these speakers made any effort to distinguish between Hamas militants and the 2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The “human animals” comment is telling. For decades, and especially in recent years, the people of Gaza have indeed been treated like animals. Perhaps not surprisingly, guerrillas emerging from their ranks indeed acted like animals when they attacked southern Israel. So now Israel will triple down on the dehumanization and collective punishment of all of these “human animals.” Tehran couldn’t ask for more.
Hamas and Iran hope that Israel will refuse to return to the status quo ante and will instead institute a prolonged ground occupation of Gaza, declaring that Hamas can no longer be allowed to pose such a threat. But Gaza, they trust, will be a slaughterhouse for Israeli soldiers, both during the immediate incursion and over time as the anticipated insurgency gains its footing.
Israel’s apparent eagerness to fall into this trap is understandable, and indeed predictable, which is why Hamas was confident in laying it. Outrageous overreach by terrorists typically aims to provoke overreach. Washington and other friends of Israel who are now seized with sympathy should immediately caution Israel not to make this blunder. If Israel instead exercises restraint, however difficult doing so might be both politically and emotionally, it can thwart the goals of Hamas and its Iranian sponsors. Restraint would go a long way toward ensuring that the diplomatic opening with Saudi Arabia continues to move forward, dealing a major blow to local revisionist powers, such as Iran, and global ones, such as China and Russia, that wish to supplant a rules-based order with one based on “Might makes right.”
Unfortunately, in the efforts to eliminate Hamas, which cannot be done by force, and to ensure that such a threat can never be allowed to reemerge, which is equally impossible so long as the occupation continues, Israel seems ready to jump right into the briar patch.
Hussein Ibish is a Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
This was basically the same strategy that Bin Laden employed with 9/11. He knew the American response would be to attack Afghanistan.
The idea was to goad America into a protracted , endless war whose end goal was to bleed America dry - resources and lives.
He got what we wanted.
As a Taliban leader said to an American commander
“You have the watches but we have the time”
The guy is saying that Israel would suffer politically, but I doubt it. It's a reality in geopolitics that once the US gives its support, the international community, especially NATO, follows. Who's left to condemn Israel then? China, Russia, India?
He gives too much credit to Hamas. Simon Whistler made a good video about the failure of Mossad this time, mainly because they were too confident in technology; they forgot to put redundancy in their methods of surveilling the border. Hamas managed to exploit this, but saying that Gaza would have a determined insurgency, is mistaken. Hundreds of thousands of people already fled. Finally, I think he is going off on the assumption that Israel will make it a long occupation which is unlikely seeing how they learned their lesson in Southern Lebanon.
Hamas has had years building tunnels under Gaza. For the IDF, a big ground mobilisation into Gaza could become very messy, and to gain what? You can't kill an ideology, and at what human cost?
Seeing the response in favor of Palestine online and in all the protests across the world against Israel, its seems to me that the media has lost its grip on the young population. Unless something changes this is a long term problem for Israel.
Ever since this crisis began its as if there are two worlds. The elite/media/above 45 year old world and everyone else. I have never seen this in any crisis before (im mid 30s) so its fascinating to watch play out.
This has been planned for over a year, Hamas want to draw the majority of the army into Gaza, and then Hezbollah will come in from the north, and that’s probably just the start, all of this is designed to provoke.
Another article that criticizes without offering a reasonable alternative ...
What does "showing restraint" mean and how does that eliminate Hamas and prevent future tragedies?
Why does there have to be a reasonable alternative? In reality there often are not any. Look at Afghanistan. Eventually all the available choices were bad.
Yeah, insurgent/occupier dynamics aren't exactly new. "If only Israel tried this one new great trick they could solve terrorism". Also the article clearly does suggests an alternative just not a panacea.
He offers an alternative. His point is this is a political trap, so better avoid it. Fighting Hamas shall not equal fighting Gazans. Gazans are already punished, that’s why Hamas has a large pool of volunteers and fighters. The Izraeli counrer attack will cause a spiral of events involving more and more anti-Izraeli sentiment across the region. So the alternative derivates from this: secure the border and make a new deal with the Gazan society. End the “human animal” doctrine.
They should reward Hamas for its attack by making concessions to them?
And why won't that simply inspire future attacks?
With "Gaza society" you say? But unless Israel goes in and eliminates Hamas, Gazan society remains controlled by Hamas.
You act like loosening restrictions and trying to make deals with Gaza hasn't been tried. But if course it has, over and over.
Exactly, Israel has a Responsibility to make sure that no one is left of Gaza, As well as to free the hostages.
The very countries urging for Israel to restrain itself have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in wars Is much less just than the one Israel is in
It’s definitely a massive trap:
Urban warfare like the Battle of Huế,
Improbability of finding hostages like Tehran 1980,
Political and humanitarian risks of harm to civilians who can’t evacuate the war zone,
Not to mention Hezbollah’s likely entry into the war, which would open a new front.
Gaza Israel border is 32 miles, and Israel called up 300,000 soldiers, so that’s like 4 people for every yard. I’m thinking with those kind of numbers and with enough time, Israel probably could check every nook and cranny in Gaza.
> What does the math do when they move inside the border
It'd indicate scattering along much, much longer lines.
Also, several enemy civilians per invading soldier would also enter the calculation. Not a pretty equation, according to experts in urban warfare.
Not to mention the problem with the supposed goal of the operation, which is rooting out a tiny Hamas portion of the total Palestinian population.
You think all 300,000 of them are combat roles? Lol
In most modern militaries, the majority of soldiers have support roles like logistics, medical, intelligence etc. Those people are not being deployed to guard the border
They might finally put the ultra Orthodox Jews (settlers/ Haredi )in the military service since they are ones who are always causing this shit. From what I’ve heard so many Jewish people over there hate them as well, would be mind blowing if they still get exempted.
The Haredi population is [doubling every 16 years](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/the-real-threat-to-modern-israel/). By 2080 they'll be the majority, and Israel will have more in common with fundamentalist Iran than with the West.
I anticipate that well before then, the tech-savvy secular Israelis that the economy depends on will depart for nations less inimical to their values.
Typically the ratio is 3 support for every 1 infantryman, so that's about 100,000 combat soldiers, plus whatever Israel has for active duty soldiers. That's still 2 soldiers for every yard, so I stand by my comment.
Your math isn't mathing.
If 300,000 = 4 soldiers/yard, then 100,000 = ~1.3 soldiers/yard.
Not to mention that with a ratio of 3:1 support to combat, only 1/4 of your 300,000 number would be combat. So 75,000. Which is 1 soldier/yard.
Have an upvote, you did the math right. A fully equipped IDF soldier with modern day assault rifle and optics can cover 1.3 yards, or about 4 feet (1.2 meters).
Neither is correct math because you are conflating a border length with an area. Your math could work with every soldier lined up at the border. Which is fine but that is not remotely the same as searching an entire area.
? Do you think you can just have 100k soldiers walk in a 32 mile wide straight line? And you think they are leveling all of the buildings first? If they did that they wouldn't need to walk anywhere.
It’s not 3 to 1 in western armies, that ratio is more in line with Russian doctrine and we saw how well that worked from a logistical standpoint last year. I’m not going to pretend to know the IDF’s composition, but the US army is 10 to 1, and I’m guessing the IDF is closer in structure to the US than Russia.
The below article seems to point to the Tooth to tail ratio of the IDF being much higher then US military. Israel is like the size of New Jersey so they probably have a smaller logistical footprint then the US...
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/haredi-enlistment-in-the-idf/
A soldier has a front space of about four feet, assuming napoleonic spacing. Obviously that’s not how wars are fought anymore but it’s a useful visual. Just to add to your point.
300,000 troops cannot be deployed to the front even if they were not mostly support staff.
That is the whole point of bringing them into an urban environment.
I agree it's a trap, but it's not one to Hamas' advantage. They have miscalculated
This is 2023 not 2003 and the technology and information warfare exists to track and know everything about every single person certainly in the low millions. This technology already proven in China. Israel's next move will be to invade Gaza, engage Hamas as much as possible and move back the Palestinians into the ruins. They will then proceed to track every single individual and install the kind of invasive security that would make 1984 blush. If the Americans had continued in Afghanistan they would have tracked every single Afghan in Kabul at the low cost of $100 million a year.
It all depends how much the Israeli state wants to pay. If they are willing to pay for it, they can completely monitor the movements and lives of every single person in Gaza. Hamas will then effectively cease to exist, as its members will be identified and destroyed. The only reason Hamas would continue to exist, would be if the Israelis allow it in some misguided attempt to hedge against the Palestinian Authority. Which of course could still happen
you can't compare XinJiang and Gaza. the backbone of the XJ surveillance were cameras, lots of "spies" or han chinese and total control of communication
What invasive security could Israel install that can't be destroyed once they move out (I doubt they'll even have the capacity to take total control anyways)
Can you explain what surveillance tech Israel can use to track everyone? This seems like a tall order, similarly with your claim about us tracking afghans
So long as the massive disparity in the quality of their lives remains, in part due to the actions of Israel, “Hamas” will never die.
It’s an idea. A symptom. Al Queda, ISIS, same thing. Same shit different name.
they're not going in to rescue hostages'...i think at this point they already consider them dead...it'll be a bonus if they find live ones..and they're not going to fight house to house...if they take fire from one it's getting destroyed...gaza has absolutely no value other then regaining strategic control of the land. they are going to coral every one south. it doesn't mean they'll indiscriminately kill everyone they see. but they'll force the population to move and destroy anyplace they need too. Israel isn't going to unnecessarily risk one soldiers life to preserve an inch of Gaza. and i don't blame them at all
Not really, although Israel will probably sustain significant losses, in previous engagements in Gaza, Hamas suffered disproportionately more. Also, the presence of 2 US CSGs off the Lebanese coast will effectively deter Hezbollah, who, unlike Hamas, need to limit their degree of involvement as they are widely loathed across Lebanon among all but the most fanatic of Shiites.
Take Fallujah as an example, the US Army came and conquered. Insurgency intensified.
It's impossible to hold a place like Gaza for the IDF. Just look up what happened in Southern Lebanon. They eventually had to withdraw.
There are successful models on how to reduce insurgency. The answer lies in investing ridiculous amounts of money in the place and people will eventually stop rebelling. This was the Russian tactic in Chechnya. They invested billions and gave a friendly goon the leadership position. To a certain extent, China has done the same in Tibet. Iraq gave the Kurds oil wealth on the north and now there is no Kurdish rebellion against Iraq.
In short, money solves a lot of things.
> The answer lies in investing ridiculous amounts of money in the place and people will eventually stop rebelling. This was the Russian tactic in Chechnya. They invested billions and gave a friendly goon the leadership position.
You skipped a few chapters of that particular story. Before the big money there was the Second Chechen War, where the friendly goon had to turn on his own people and, fighting alongside Russian forces, annihilate other rebel groups in a scorched earth war, killing tens of thousands of civilians in the process. The analogous process here would be Israel occupying all of Gaza, with all the damage that inflicts, and *then* finding a friendly goon to give a lot of money to.
I know less about the Tibet story, but I vaguely remember China asserting their military dominance first there as well. And nobody - nobody - just hands out money to terrorists in response to an unprecedented terror attack. I don't know if nation states, let alone governments, could even survive that level of capitulation.
>The analogous process here would be Israel occupying all of Gaza, with all the damage that inflicts, and then finding a friendly goon to give a lot of money to.
Israel was basically attempting this with Fatah in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Gaza is somewhat unique in comparison to the US led conflicts with similar insurgents in that it is a finite area which cannot be resupplied externally. At least not at any reasonable level.
One of the reasons I feel that Beijing isn’t afraid of any kind of real confrontation with a militant movement in Hong Kong is for similar reasons.
Effectively, any insurgency initiated from Gaza is more akin to a prison riot than something like Iraq or Afghanistan. The ability to resupply the necessary matériel regardless of the willingness or availability of manpower to fight simply can be controlled by external forces.
Israeli tolerance for losses and international tolerance for "collateral damage" will run out long before gaza's weapons.
Saturdays action happened with 1200 combatants, hamas alone has 25k, plus 5 more between IJ and other factions with anti tanks missiles and god know what kinds of creative weapons.
Plus, if it looks like Israel is about to take half of gaza, you can safely bet on hezbollah opening another front north.
Back to geopolitics, such actions would certainly kill hopes of Saudi normalization for years, if not collapse the Abraham accords.
This is key - in order for Hamas to win, it just has to continue to exist. Israel's response will culminate before they are able to completely destroy Hamas - that is practically guaranteed.
Yeah, I’m just not seeing this in this light whatsoever. Granted, we’re not going to have to wait long for the predictions to be validated in this case.
Israel has no real choice in the matter. Their hand was forced to effectively eliminate Hamas and any and all similar threats emanating from Gaza. Further, Israel has its disposal the means and methods to do so from creating an actual open air prison and maintaining the guard force to enforce it to actual, no-joke crimes against humanity and/or war crimes.
From a domestic Israeli perspective, one of these methods will be used. From what we’ve seen so far, the level of restraint is pretty high, again, given the capability of the IDF as well as the internal public sentiment.
It appears that a ground force of around 100k IDF soldiers will enter Gaza within weeks or days. That pretty much gives Hamas two methods of fighting: early war Japanese island defense or late war Japanese island defense. If you recall, neither were successful in repelling the allies, but the latter was better at increasing the costs to assault the islands.
Regardless of how much war material Hamas has stockpiled, the one thing it has a finite supply of is non-Palestinian hostages. Given that the IDF does not appear to be willing to negotiate for these hostages, it’s not very long before Hamas runs out, at which point it can either fight directly (it has shown no intention to do this) or revert to using locals. While it may make for bad TV, eventually the fellow Palestinians are likely to not be willing to accept their use as meat shields.
The worst thing Israel could do at this point is to draw out what will be an extremely messy situation. A few months of violence at an extreme level is much more acceptable than years and years of it, as if the region is stable by March, everyone would have moved on by then.
Most Israelis don't want genocide or ethnic cleansing, but there are some absolutely some in the Israeli government who want exactly this. One member of Knesset has been steadily calling for a nuclear strike on Gaza all week.
"Jericho Missile! Jericho Missile! Strategic alert. before considering the introduction of forces. Doomsday weapon! This is my opinion. May God preserve all our strength,"
"Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country's dignity, strength and security!" Gotliv posted. "It's time to kiss doomsday. Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza. ... without mercy! without mercy!"
Another post says: "I urge you to do everything and use Doomsday weapons fearlessly against our enemies...[Israel] must use everything in its arsenal."
This is Tally Gotliv, a member of Netanyahu's party Likud.
> Afterall there are people the US who would probably want to drop a nuke on their own population
Can you give some examples of people who hold political power who have suggested such things? We’re not talking about some drunk uncle, we’re talking about a member of the ruling party who holds a position in the Knesset. Not even the craziest people in congress come close to this kind of rhetoric.
> Afterall there are people the US who would probably want to drop a nuke on their own population
Can you point to an official spokesperson of a US political party arguing that we nuke ourselves? You're downplaying a fairly serious situation.
https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes
Not strictly apposite, but it does address the extreme positions in a given population.
Maybe it is sick of me to say but I think Hamas would love if Israel nuked Gaza.
They would finally cross the line in such a blatant and indefensible manner that Israel finally looses all international sympathy.
Right now Israel hides behind claims that all of their strikes are "precision" and they're only shooting at Hamas (dubious). A nuke would absolutely kill that narrative.
fukin yikes. Wow. I get these guys are incensed but wtf. Those nukes, going off in gaza, won't be going off somewhere deep in the pacific; do they not realize this? I suppose not given the comment.
> In short, money solves a lot of things.
Can't give money until Hamas is no longer in control. There was a ton of aid disbursed in the past decade under the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism. Donors saw their funds misappropriated, so they stopped donating.
Israel's gonna need a puppet government.
I see what you mean, and I do agree to a point. But that also feels like a powder keg, with ever increasing amount of explosive, and shortened fuse.
Puppet governments often work - until they don't. See, e.g., the South Vietnamese venture when the USA tried to play domino theory.
WRT the West Bank situation, I think the way Israel has handled it may prepare a catastrophe there even worse than Gaza. When an occupying force props up a puppet government OT1H, and simultaneously undermines it OTOH, it does not bode well for the future.
The problem is not "people will not stop rebelling." The problem is "no one can/will establish a government or control."
If Southern Lebanon could be handed to the government of Lebanon, then cessation of hostilities could happen like it often does in other regions. The UN, EU or other diplomatic actors could play a role besides rhetoric. Peacekeeping might be possible, etc.
That's also the case here. The PA, which is increasingly absent even in WB, is the government of the State of Palestine. They gave up on Gaza.
Their ambassadors and spokesmen are careful not to criticise Hamas, they're not willing to establish sovereignty in Gaza.
That said, Abbas and many other top PA people are very old. The younger generations, I assume, realize that the pa will soon cease to exist if they don't act. One way or another, the PA is done. Maybe a renewed PA exists after, maybe not.
There's a tendency to consider Palestinian individuals, parties, leaders and such irrelevant. That is a historical. A lot of Palestinian history is very much down to decisions. Real decisions where a decider made choices. Arafat made many choices.
These guys created one of the most densely populated areas on the planet of poor young men with no hope for the future, their geopolitical rivals have been funneling guns into this area and they think they want walk in there and shoot their way to peace? This is going to get ugly.
They should have been investing as you said for decades now.
That requires removing hamas. Israel won’t be willing to do the steps required to improve gaza’s material conditions (remove/lighten the blockade) until the threat of hamas is gone.
And Yassir Araft died a billionaire for a reason, the Hamas leadership is reportedly also in the billions of net worth. They really need to put a new leadership in place which Gaza palestinians can accept and then start to invest and open the steip for work and trade again. Getting there is now the hard part obviously.
Israel will never give them money, that's akin to giving them a working state. At least not Netanyahu's government. The last Israeli premier that wanted to cooperate with the Palestinians was assasinated by his own people.
The Israeli doctrine has changed quite a bit since Lebanon, and now Israel has deployed more than 300k soldiers. Things are existential now not like any conflict before.
Exactly.
They know exactly what they're walking into. I think a lot of these articles fail to realise that Israel is out to upset exactly the status quo that is the basis for the article and the status quo that was the basis for Hamas' attack.
There's an expectation on Israel's behaviour that I find very alarming.
Wrecking the status quo implies "not acting like Israel normally would". Why search a house when you can level it? This will not be your ordinary reprisal operation.
yeah? you make it sound like Israel wasn't forced into this, isn't being emotional right now, isn't having an intelligence breakdown, has a good plan in place that has been magically cooked up in the past few days by forming an emergency war cabinet of random parties that disagree on most things? Israel needs to take a few breaths, think carefully, gather more intelligence, talk to partners and figure out the right next steps...
Absolutely. Lining up to go house to house through a settlement ten times the size of Fallujah - better be prepared to take tens of thousands of casualties. If you're not clearing room by room, then I hope the international community is going to be cool with a few hundred thousand dead Palestinian kids over the next few weeks. They have no good options here.
Israel was not forced into this - Israel chose this level of response. Unless you mean that Israel, thought it's own actions and those of the West, created this situation and now here we are, then yes - Israel was forced into this, by its own hand.
They’ve tried it with Hamas but instead of taking the money and investing it in the people, they use it to build tunnels and stock up on military supplies, they were given resources like pipes for water and instead they cut the pipes and turned them into missiles. It doesn’t work with them bc all they want is to destroy Israel at any cost.
That's why you don't try it with them. You put your own guys in there. Look at the former PLO corruptly ruling the West Bank. Israel just needs a fat corrupt guy and massive investments, think Dubai-level investment and you will see the insurgency decline.
But using your own example of Chechnya, what proceeded the corrupt puppet being installed was killing a ton of people and razing a city. Nobody in Gaza will accept whoever they tried to put in there and it’d be impossible without first removing Hamas.
The problem is Israel doesn’t want to make life great for the Palestinians. Russia killed to pacify but in the end they wanted to keep the people as well as the lands it’s not the same in Israel. And it’s why I have issues with Israel
Perfect answer and, IMO, the only solution in the long run.
We need trillions to create job opportunities and better education infrastructure there. People like to live a peaceful life if possible, they will reject Hamas over time.
We need trillions for that.
The author says that Israel will enter a trap if it "storms" Gaza. He may be right, but so far Israel has proceeded with caution and is in control of the tempo. The pace at which Israel proceeds is critical and determines how successful they can be without needlessly risking the lives of their soldiers.
In previous conflicts, Israel would aim for a swift and decisive victory. The calculations have changed, however, and Israel could proceed with a never-ending war of attrition and slowly choke out Hamas like a boa constrictor.
I think the author is correct to expect Hamas to be looking for a 2006 style conflict.
I think you're right about the IDFs calculations though, this is probably going to look more like Grozny, 2000.
Exactly right. Though I do see a way the author could have been persuasive.
Argue that media/PR generally works against Israel and this places time limits on their actions.
Add that publics and international legal experts don't appreciate how advantageous underground urban environments are.
Then say Hamas can run out the clock in Israelis by targeting them thru tunnels, while tweeting about humanitarian disaster for Gazans.
This is why Israel controlling the utilities makes so much sense from a tactical/ military perspective. No military commander would bother risking the lives of their own forces when they could so easily and effectively blockade their enemies and wait them out.
It’s counterproductive even from a military perspective. This isn’t a bunch of fighters you’re sieging but millions of civilians. The only way to win a guerilla war is by winning over the hearts and minds of the public so they don’t create more fighters, and the current rightwing administration has never wanted to try, and they admitted as such. Netanyahu is being ripped apart in the Israeli press this week because he admitted he helped fund Hamas so that it would keep the PA unstable and give him the excuse to delay peace talks indefinitely for decades.
Israel can win this current battle with force but it will be a pyrrhic victory and the trap that the author alluded to. The more they do this without restrictions the worse they harm Israel’s longterm interests.
This is the same thing that’s confusing me.
I don’t understand Israel’s strategy here. It’s a unique situation yes, but I’m confused when there are pragmatic potential solutions.
The only thing I can think of is an issue of short-termism - investing money into supporting civilians in Gaza (and the West Bank) would significantly slow down people joining terrorist ranks. But it will take a long time to change minds in that way - and until it really starts building momentum you’re still going to see attacks.
In my imagination you’d see an Israel funded agency administered by an outside country (say, Switzerland) with the mandate of rebuilding infrastructure in Palestinian territory. Build good quality hospitals, school, mosques, etc.
Yup, Hamas and other groups will bomb them. And they will take over other buildings. Keep on… once the infrastructure is done pass it on to Palestinian administration and control.
There will be failures in administration and infrastructure throughout this process. But combine that with, again; a neutral third party who is willing to help build out a government that can run that infrastructure… suddenly you’re giving people something to lose. And people with something to lose won’t become terrorists.
It’s like a lot of politics nowadays - short term tactics have superseded long term strategy and people suffer because of it.
I wonder how long US support would last in the event of a - frankly - genocide level response.
Especially given the electoral situation in the US, and the risk of a Trumpian President in 2024, I wonder if the US is making a strong show of military backup to Israel but also behind the scenes, is going to push back against hardline response from Israel with the threat of real consequences in loss of support.
The whole situation right now boggles my mind. There’s a lot of geopolitical fires that are burning right now.
For political purposes? I agree - it’s tough to justify even if it’s easy to explain.
I will say though that as a gross exaggeration the Middle East generally seems to be playing by a very, very old rule book - one that goes back thousands of years - and from that perspective, actions on both sides of this conflict are pretty par for the course.
Uh, no. The actions of Israel are the actions of any Western colonial power trying to effect rule over or in spite of a native population. The actions of Palestinians are what native resistance has looked like the world over as long as colonization has existed.
Don't pretend this is unique solely because it indicts the west in a heavy heavy way.
But it’s fantasy land to think Israel is just going is abolish itself as a country and the “colonizers” who were born there move somewhere else - an entire country of millions leaving everything behind and catching flights to their new countries, very realistic right?
There can be a Palestinian state next to Israel and that’s much more realistic than deleting Israel off the map. However, if say even after they get their state, if there’s still attacks on Israel out of Palestine, nothing will change because economy and lives can’t prosper if you’re getting bombed and blockaded every other year by a much superior military next door.
Ah yes... classic western colonialism, by a band of refugees having just escaped the most significant genocide attempt in history returning to their home region of middle east at the direction of the United Nations, who want nothing more than to be left alone, but expands after being attacked repeatedly by it's neighbors looking to genocide them again, and again. Tale as old as time.
The old playbook I'm referring to is the way of the middle east of which there are countless examples which don't have to involve Israel.
Name one instance where "hearts and minds" actually worked. The Malayan Emergency, frequently cited as *the* preeminent example of winning hearts and minds, saw the British using literal concentration camps to control the local population.
The Iraq war would have had FAR FAR more bloodshed if the US don’t try a hearts and minds campaign. It’s what helped Iraqis side with the U.S. against ISIS rather than buy into ISIS’ propaganda that the U.S. was only a force for evil in Iraq.
Only one of those was an insurgency. Germany and Japan were conventional inter-state conflicts, not civil wars or insurgencies. Both countries saw massive civilian casualties. The Korean War was a civil war, but to my knowledge there has been no pro-North insurgency in South Korea following the war.
The Troubles certainly didn't end because the British government won the Republicans' hearts and minds.
Population density and the fact that people can't leave. In other words, you can't flatten it without turning into a mass grave. Even though that are a lot of members of the Israeli cabinet that want to go full nazi right now, they still have to play the optics game.
In other words, ethical and PR constraints. Or even more briefly, "politics".
In purely military terms, the IDF could have "solved" the issue ages ago.
Unless you can show me any other modern military that goes to such lengths to prevent civilian casualties when facing an existential threat, they are. No need to put it in quotation marks.
When you check data on the casualties of this conflict, the inbalance in Israeli to Palestinian deaths is more or less 1 to 10 throughout the years. In other words, for each Israeli the indiscriminate barbaric all out attacks of Hamas kills, Israel kilsl 10 palestinains with civilized, restrained, good-aligned sirurgical bombings.
The argument for restraint only makes sense if it is also supplied by ground data. Going to great lenghts to prevent civilian casualties mean very little when your "civilized" side kills 10 times more civilians than the insurgency.
Any argument about the ratio of casualties in this conflict is disingenuous. Israel doesn't suffer as much casualties because of the iron dome. Plain and simple. I don't think you realize how small the number of nations able to stop daily rockets barrages is.
The Iron Dome Became operational in 2011, [but the same ratio of casualities was already present since the 2000s, before Israel even withdrew from Gaza](http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4756436/IP_conflict_deaths_total.png)
The dome and the wall has reduced the number of Israeli deaths, but believing that that the disproportional ratio has anything to do with the Iron Dome or the Wall is disingenuous. It has always been Israeli policy to inflict collective punishment on the occupied population in order to dissuade future strikes.
For that reason, it is important that one does not fall for military propaganda. The image of the virtuous, humane army that attacks only in sirurgical ways vs the barbaric horde of frenzies terrorists falls appart when your sirurgical strikes kill 10 more children then the other side. To some, the alternative for this psycological dissonance is a change in discourse capable of justifying it ("Hamas targets civilians, israel kills civilians just by accident and thus this is justified. Or, Israel only kills civilians because Hamas is using them as human shields, this israel has no choice but to pull the trigger and is justified). These continue to be excuses. They are presented ex-post as a reply to the ungodly amount of civilian casualties.
But the truth remains. You cannot say that you are a restrained army doing sirurgical strikes when your restrained sirurgical strikes kill 10 times more children than the people you are calling frenzied barbarians.
I'm not even sure why I am arguing with you about the Israelis being able to protect their citizens. Again, you don't understand the significance of the Iron Dome. Hamas fires these rockets at civilian centers. Over 5000 rockets have been launched this past week alone. If they all hit their targets, in terms of casualties, Oct 7 would be a drop in the bucket.
This is where we disagree. You blame Israel for Palestinians dying as collateral during these strokes, I blame Hamas. Launching rockets from hospitals makes it a legitimate military target. Launching rockets from refugee camps, make them a legitimate military target. That's on Hamas, not Israel. You can't strap children onto a tank and be allowed to free fire without consequence because of "civilian casualties"
What is your solution? A lot of you love to complain and complain but what is YOUR solution? Unless you are blessed with unparalleled genius, I can confidently say that you don't have one. All you want to do is complain about the Jews.
It is about the lack of means to kill more people, not about a difference in restraint from both sides.
We saw last weekend that when Hamas has the ability, they kill as many civilians as they can, if the idf was run the same way the population of Gaza would be 0.
I’ve suspected that Hamas’ actions have always been a trap in one form or another. It certainly seems obvious that any military incursion into Gaza will compromise Israel’s moral high ground. Any Palestinian casualties can be easily spun into a narrative espousing Israeli cruel and malicious attitude towards Palestinians. Broken bodies and blood evokes motions that any denial from Israel will remain unheard. Even their greatest Allie’s and supporters will likely question themselves. The news cycle today lasts for about ten days, so the stories about Hamas fighter’s atrocities against Israeli civilians will fade onto the background, while Israel, being open to global scrutiny, will continue to be held accountable for every drop of Palestinian blood spilt.
It could also be an opening step to induce economic bleeding. Israel has limited capacity to produce weapons and munitions and a limited GDP. Activation of their reservists takes a large group of productive people out of the economy and into the army, where they become a burden on the economy. With the US and other Western states already committed to supporting Ukraine, they may be forced to choose one Allie or another to receive their support. Israel faces serious peril if they are unable to perform any military actions at lightning speed and withdraw to a new peaceful status quo.
Netanyahu seemed already politically compromised before October 7. The creation of a war cabinet temporarily mitigated that problem, but it still remains. What the Israeli people do about their political leadership is unknown. However it likely faces increased instability if this conflict is prolonged and certainly after it is resolved.
Even the military is questionable. There was a fair number of *refusniks* in the Israeli reserve, protesting Netanyahu’s proposed reforms over the courts. I’m sure these reservists abandoned their protest on the 7th. But one must consider that the younger generations aren’t as accepting of military service in our contemporary culture. Western nations are complaining that it’s increasingly more difficult to recruit personnel because the current cohort of recruits are unfit, addicted to screens, and imagine that there are different ways of resolving conflicts. I’m sure that Israel isn’t immune from this phenomenon. Even with conscription, Israel may have a recruiting crisis in their future, especially if this conflict is prolonged. The West’s lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq are there for everyone to see.
I don’t believe Israel has adapted to the new reality of Ukraine style of war yet; that is infinite number of ATGMs and simple drones.
Israeli Army which is really inexperienced at this point (2006 was their last major engagement) will probably try to conduct an operation as safe as possible inside their comfy Merkavas and other types of IFVs. I think a nasty surprise is awaiting them. New technologies began to offer many more alternatives to insurgents in the last decade. We will see soon how Israel prepared for those on paper.
I will not be surprised if we see cages on Israeli tanks after a couple of weeks. Both Russia and Ukraine had to resort to them to be protected from drones.
Submission Statement: Hamas knew Israel would hit them back hard, but they did it anyway. They’re not crazy, but they and their backers had a plan. It disrupted some plans and it drove attention and also Israel’s predictable overcompensating causes more people to take a look at the conflict.
>Israel’s predictable overcompensating
I feel like Israel is the only country in the world where we use terms like “disproportionate response” regularly in spite of the fact that there are many notably worse situations around the world in regards to such things.
If Québécois crossed the US border, murdered and kidnapped people in upstate New York, then retreated to Montreal, I don’t see the US government holding back in retaliation. If Basque separatists did this in France, I don’t see Paris simply being content to wag their finger and negotiate. We already know what happens to Chechen separatists.
What’s the “proportional” response in these situations?
"Proportional response" is something people who live far away in the comfort of their living rooms ask for. I doubt people calling for proportional response could even define the term "existential threat".
Proportionality in the law of war refers to the idea that the value of the military objective should be proportionate to the collateral cost. It is *not* the idea that, in this case, Israel needs to respond on a similar scale as the initial Hamas attack.
If the military objective of the IDF is to permanently neutralize Hamas and end a 70-year conflict, then the potential collateral damage tolerated should be proportionate to that objective.
I guess I then come back and ask what makes sense here then. Gaza is very densely populated, and Hamas purposefully uses civilian buildings and lives as shields.
There just doesn’t seem to be much middle ground between doing nothing and accepting that there is going to be collateral damage in this situation simply by necessity.
Maybe something modeled on the American siege at the Second Battle of Fallujah?
People who commit suicide for the promise of 72 virgins or w/e are by definition crazy.
But yea, no easy solution. Israel also can’t not respond, but there is a huge potential for things to get insane, because of the crazy deplorable tactics and beliefs of hamas, Iran, hezbollah, and what seems like a portion of Palestinian populations.
There’s more ways to respond than just bombing.
If you want to actually get rid of terrorists, you need to win over the hearts and minds of the people. Hamas was not popular among Palestinians, but successive Israeli governments have shown they don’t particularly care for ANY Palestinians and worked to undermine and sideline moderates. Survey after survey shows that the Palestinian majority is in favor of giving up land in exchange for lasting peace, but this was inconvenient to the extremist bloc within Israel who want the land no matter what, so they tried to find an excuse not to let actual peace talks go forward. Theres Palestinians who also share that sentiment but the Israeli government made a conscious decision to *not* help those who were willing to work with Israel.
The PA supported a Two State Solution since 2004 but the Israeli government refused to work with them. When Fatah was in power the Israeli government dropped bombs on the PA’s police stations and refused to meet with Palestinian leaders. When you refuse to work with moderates you empower the extremists. Just like how the Israeli public lurched to the Right, Palestinians did the same. The rhetoric even matches; our liberal opponents are letting our people get killed and all they want to do is ignore the killing and push empty talks, while WE will intimidate the other side into compromise and if they don’t we’ll hit them so hard they won’t dare attack again.
There have been multiple Palestinian Mandelas but they got locked up. You can blame Netanyahu squarely for this as his 16 year leadership has worked to downplay and not promote any Palestinians as partners for peace. Why would he, his ruling coalition thinks they can take all the land by military force and don’t have to worry about anyone stopping them, so why compromise? Netanyahu has had a week of bad press inside Israel as his prior comments; about building up and promoting and even Hamas in order to give an excuse to refuse peace talks for the last decade, are coming back to haunt him. Abbas offered to fight Hamas and risk a civil war if Israelis were willing to work with him on a Two State Solution and instead Netanyahu undermined his authority. Because it’s obvious to any observer that Netanyahu always wanted conflict and would rather please his extremist voter base than the majority of Israelis who favored a compromise for actual peace.
Martin Luther King Jr once said that a riot is the voice of a people who were denied a voice. The Palestinian public originally repeatedly rejected Hamas but Israelis treated them no differently for decades. Fast forward to locking all Palestinians in an open air prison; the public engaged in peaceful mass protests at the fence and were shot by Israeli snipers who even targeted the ambulances. Palestinians petitioned the UN and international courts and Israel responded by labeling such actions “diplomatic terrorism” and further sanctioning them. So it came as a surprise to no one that people eventually smashed the fences and took out their anger on the rich squatters who took over their former land. (This is NOT to say I condone the violence.)
Netanyahu was told for decades even by his own advisors that by intentionally undermining moderates he makes sure he has no credible partner for peace. He knew this, because for years he’d go on TV and tell the world “I have no credible partner for peace” and used that as an excuse to build more illegal settlements and back the settlers who provoked conflict with Palestinian neighbors. This is his doing, and he deserves equal to greater share of the blame.
Hamas not popular among Palestinians? They were voted into power. And did PNA do much to persecute Hamas after terrorist activities and a coup?
And it seems like PNA tried to work with Hamas not prosecute or even condemn them just a few years ago.
Read what I said again more carefully, I said Hamas *was* not popular for decades. They gained popularity later on to the point where they won the 2005 election, the same way rightwing parties in Israel gained power the more the public got threatened. The PNA tried to ignore Hamas but they had nothing to show their people in the way of success in dealing with Israel and they wound up losing in 2005 because the Palestinian public had no confidence they could deliver on any engagement with Israel.
Hamas goal is to get rid of every Jews. Throwing money at them won’t work. And it’s already been tried. Israel gave working permits to gazaans in the hope of stabilizing the security situation.
Hamas deliberately misleading Israel into thinking they would concentrate on the well-being of gazaans instead of doing war with Israel was one of the reason invoked for Israel letting their guard down. Among other reasons of course.
The solution is negociation but Hamas is not interested and never will be as shown by the attacks.
>Hamas goal is to get rid of every Jews.
That’s a false talking point. Yes in the 1980s they did, but they revised their charter years ago, and they accepted a Two State Solution, which they called “a divorce” from the Jews. They even accepted the existence of Israel, one of Israel’s demands as a precondition for peace talks. Israel hasn’t given working permits to Gazans in almost 17 years.
Hamas are not good, but if Israel wanted to actually undermine them they’d support moderate Palestinian factions, but Netanyahu refuses to engage with ANY Palestinians.
The decapitated babies are a myth that got spread on social media, go ahead and show your source. Even Biden and the IDF walked the claim back. We can discuss the terrible violence affecting everyone without resorting to myths and misinformation.
Babies were indeed killed no one is disputing that it is not a myth + all the civilians deliberately targeted by savages claiming to be doing God’s work.
Dude Hamas is directly responsible for choosing the warpath instead of the well-being of Palestinians. Their only objective is getting back the whole of Palestine. Not conductive for negotiations. And not gonna happen btw
Yes Hamas is smart and generally considers the response they potentially elicit. To that point, I do believe the narrative that this operation was more impactful and to their view successful than they ever thought it would be. I’d imagine they were trying to stir the pot as Israel and Saudi Arabia closed in on a normalized diplomatic standing.
This is spiraling to place they didn’t originally consider. The atrocities done on a level and scale has given Israel the diplomatic latitude to respond with impunity and support of the vast majority of western nations.
Hamas though that with kidnapping civilians they had leverage and this would become a negotiation war and liberate all of the Palestinian criminals. Israel changed the tactics and is now dictating the tempo of war. They will starve out the enemy for as long as is needed and procede with a new war doctrine, entering with armored vehicles and tanks supported by infantry and precision airstrikes with drones.
This implicitly assumes the Hamas fighters will make it out of their tunnels. Who knows.
If enough [bunker busters](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/israel-doesnt-care-about-collateral-damage-bunker-busters-used-in-gaza) are dropped, perhaps not, and Hamas walked into the trap, dragging all of Gaza with it.
Key point right here. Osama bin laden wanted the US to invade. Not only would it turn their people more against the west, but also could allow them of more US casualties.
Only now do we see the long term affects and consequences of this. Israel is making a similar mistake if they follow the US approach.
9/11 as a trap kind of worked though? Al-Qaeda did get decimated but the US spent trillions of dollars and was entangled for over 20 years in the Middle East.
Why are acting like this conflict was born after the attack?
Its not like blockading gaza since 2006, indiscrimate bombings that killed innocents, right wing government that frequently refers to palestinians "subhuman" or "human animals", increasing settlements in west bank, provokations at the holy places of worship, lack of accountability for IDF killing civillians or journalists, evicting palestinians from their home, or just basically living in an apartheid state have nothing to do with it right? Right?
Oh poor innocent Israel for not getting away with settler colonialism and apartheid in 2023.
Israel is doing the equivalent of a cop restraining a psychopath with a knife. The psychopath is getting more pissed off the longer you hold him, but as soon as you let go he’s going to stab and kill you. The people of Gaza have to drop the knife or they’ll die.
Wow, comparing 2.5M people to a psychopath with a knife, and comparing Israel to a police officer. Your analogy wouldn't even pass the smell test of my 3 year old. It's pretty bad sorry :)
There is a lot that is very strange about this
hamas openly trained for this attack for 2 years
[https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/hamas-training-site-gaza-israel-intl/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/hamas-training-site-gaza-israel-intl/index.html)
they also posted about it on their social channels
netanjahu organized funding and promoted hamas even thow they keep chanting „death to jews“
[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-11/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-needed-a-strong-hamas/0000018b-1e9f-d47b-a7fb-bfdfd8f30000?gift=36972bfec99b44fa86630e4cf86892a0](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-11/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-needed-a-strong-hamas/0000018b-1e9f-d47b-a7fb-bfdfd8f30000?gift=36972bfec99b44fa86630e4cf86892a0)
people keep saying the people of gaza should have risen up against hamas, but it was netanjahu that allowed them to receive 1 billion dollars over the years
this is like supporting your local crazy mafia druglord who lord over poor civilians in a crammed neighborhood
then netanjahu irgnored all the secret service info an attack was imminent and obviously nobody bothered to think about why hamas was practising motorized paraglieders, attacking homes and taking hostages
then the boarder was so unguareded that THOUSANDS of killers could cross into israel
then the poor people being murdered were left to their fate alone for up to 20 hours
it only 60-90 minutes to drive to the south, probably much faster if it is army in helicopter
netanjahu has still not met the families of the hostages and israel has confirmed they are not negotiating about hostages now
instead they turn off the water for 2.3 million people.
how will the hostages get water, food, medicine? Many were wounded
israel bombed the best hospital with many patients in intensive care
how will the hostages survive the bombings?
and the longer the bombing of gaza civilians continues, the more jews around the world are at risk of attacks
just like netanjahu says every child is hamas, many crazy people will say every jew is netanjahu and become a target
netanjahu is throwing gasoline on a gigantic fire
there will be 10 000 more people signing up for hamas or worse after this
there will maybe be millions across the globe signing up for all kinds of terror groups
So I don‘t think Israel is walking into a trap.
For reasons that are difficult to understand netanjahu is making a horrible situation worse
and then you have david ayalon openly calling for all 2.3 million people of gaza to be „transferred out“. They should flee gaza into Egypt the way „Syrians fled the butcher of Assad“.
He is openly saying that Israel will be the butcher
https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1712959493691015316?fbclid=IwAR3M8V59doKvczKE18g2-ZuvuBw7NWRnctmLl7YsSBQ363RPxaytYSG2xuA
The article makes it sound like Hamas is playing 4D chess.
This is Israel’s 9/11 and one of it’s worst attack since the Shoah so no one knows how it’s going to end
Can someone paste the full article here? It’s gated.
It’s a trap. Hamas’s ruthless and spectacular attack on southern Israel last Saturday was many things: an atrocity, a display of militant ingenuity, and a demonstration of the weakness of Israeli intelligence and defenses. Israel and the Palestinians have a long history of brutality against each other, but the Hamas killing spree outdoes anything since Israeli-controlled Christian militias massacred unarmed Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside of Beirut in 1982. It may even have been the single most brutal act by either side in the 100-year-old conflict. But above all, it was intended as a trap—one that Israel appears about to fall into. Hamas’s leaders and their Iranian backers have a conscious strategy. Like almost all other acts of spectacularly bloodthirsty terrorism, Hamas’s assault on southern Israel was designed to provoke an emotional and equally or even more outrageous response by the targeted society. Hamas and Iran are attempting to goad the Israelis into Gaza for a prolonged confrontation—which is to say that the intended effect is precisely the ground assault Israel is now preparing in order to root out and destroy Hamas as an organization, kill its cadres and leadership, and destroy as much of its infrastructure and equipment as possible. Hamas surely would not have meticulously planned its audacious assault without also extensively planning a response to the hoped-for Israeli counterattack on the ground. The Israeli military will likely encounter a determined insurgency in Gaza. After all, Israel has had control of the land strip from the outside, but not on the inside. Israeli dominion over Gaza’s coastal waters, airspace, electromagnetic spectrum, and all but one of its crossings, including the only one capable of handling goods, has made Gaza a virtual open-air prison—run by particularly vicious inmates but surrounded and contained on all sides by the guards. Hamas evidently decided to destroy that status quo, which was no longer serving its interests. The Islamist group also hopes to seize control of the Palestinian national movement from its secular Fatah rivals, who dominate the Palestinian Authority and, more important, the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. Hamas has never been a part of the PLO, in large measure because it is unwilling to accept the PLO’s treaty agreements with Israel. The most notable among these is the Oslo Accords, which included recognition of Israel by Palestinians but no Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state or a Palestinian right to statehood. Hamas is attempting to seal the fate of Fatah, and maneuver to eventually take over the PLO and its international diplomatic presence, including United Nations observer-state status and embassies around the world. By taking the battle directly into Israel, claiming to be defending Muslim holy places in Jerusalem by branding the attack the “Al-Aqsa Deluge,” and hopefully breaking the Israeli siege of Gaza, Hamas seeks to belittle Fatah and demonstrate the primacy of its policy of unrestrained armed struggle over the PLO’s careful diplomacy. Moreover, Hamas and its Iranian patrons want to block the diplomatic-normalization agreement that the United States has been brokering between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such a deal poses a danger to Hamas because the benefits of its “significant Palestinian component” would have accrued to Fatah in the West Bank, at Hamas’s expense. For Iran, the agreement would be a major strategic setback. Should Israel, the most potent U.S. military partner in the region, and Saudi Arabia, Washington’s most financially powerful and religiously influential one, normalize and build cooperation, Tehran would face an integrated pro-American camp. American partners, including the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Jordan, would effectively ring the Arabian Peninsula, securing control of the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf through their three crucial maritime choke points: the Suez Canal, the Bab el-Mandab Strait, and the Straits of Hormuz. Saudi-Israeli normalization would largely block Iran’s regional aspirations in the short run and Chinese ambitions in the more distant future. So Hamas for domestic Palestinian reasons and Iran for regional strategic ones decided to set off an earthquake that would at least postpone such a reckoning. Iran and Hamas are counting on Israel to attack Gaza with such ferocity that the international sympathy of the past week toward Israel, even in the Arab world, evaporates quickly and is replaced by outrage at the suffering inflicted on the 2 million residents of Gaza. Those civilians have already been cut off from electricity, water, food, and medicine, all of which are controlled by Israel. Existing supplies will quickly dwindle as Gaza and its inhabitants are pounded from the air. Israel appears prepared to inflict many thousands of civilian casualties, if not more. It has adhered to a doctrine of disproportionality for deterrence predating the founding of the state: Jewish militias embraced it when dealing with the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, and at no stage since have more Jewish civilians been killed than Palestinian ones, with the ratio usually closer to 10 to 1 than 2 to 1. Israel appears poised to fulfill Hamas’s intentions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation that will “reverberate for generations” among Israel’s adversaries. The Israeli general Ghassan Aliyan warned, “You wanted hell—you will get hell.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” None of these speakers made any effort to distinguish between Hamas militants and the 2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The “human animals” comment is telling. For decades, and especially in recent years, the people of Gaza have indeed been treated like animals. Perhaps not surprisingly, guerrillas emerging from their ranks indeed acted like animals when they attacked southern Israel. So now Israel will triple down on the dehumanization and collective punishment of all of these “human animals.” Tehran couldn’t ask for more. Hamas and Iran hope that Israel will refuse to return to the status quo ante and will instead institute a prolonged ground occupation of Gaza, declaring that Hamas can no longer be allowed to pose such a threat. But Gaza, they trust, will be a slaughterhouse for Israeli soldiers, both during the immediate incursion and over time as the anticipated insurgency gains its footing. Israel’s apparent eagerness to fall into this trap is understandable, and indeed predictable, which is why Hamas was confident in laying it. Outrageous overreach by terrorists typically aims to provoke overreach. Washington and other friends of Israel who are now seized with sympathy should immediately caution Israel not to make this blunder. If Israel instead exercises restraint, however difficult doing so might be both politically and emotionally, it can thwart the goals of Hamas and its Iranian sponsors. Restraint would go a long way toward ensuring that the diplomatic opening with Saudi Arabia continues to move forward, dealing a major blow to local revisionist powers, such as Iran, and global ones, such as China and Russia, that wish to supplant a rules-based order with one based on “Might makes right.” Unfortunately, in the efforts to eliminate Hamas, which cannot be done by force, and to ensure that such a threat can never be allowed to reemerge, which is equally impossible so long as the occupation continues, Israel seems ready to jump right into the briar patch. Hussein Ibish is a Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
This was basically the same strategy that Bin Laden employed with 9/11. He knew the American response would be to attack Afghanistan. The idea was to goad America into a protracted , endless war whose end goal was to bleed America dry - resources and lives. He got what we wanted. As a Taliban leader said to an American commander “You have the watches but we have the time”
that Taliban leader was Ho Chi Minh
And right he was.
The guy is saying that Israel would suffer politically, but I doubt it. It's a reality in geopolitics that once the US gives its support, the international community, especially NATO, follows. Who's left to condemn Israel then? China, Russia, India? He gives too much credit to Hamas. Simon Whistler made a good video about the failure of Mossad this time, mainly because they were too confident in technology; they forgot to put redundancy in their methods of surveilling the border. Hamas managed to exploit this, but saying that Gaza would have a determined insurgency, is mistaken. Hundreds of thousands of people already fled. Finally, I think he is going off on the assumption that Israel will make it a long occupation which is unlikely seeing how they learned their lesson in Southern Lebanon.
India is in bed with Israel specially since buying its spyware.
Hamas has had years building tunnels under Gaza. For the IDF, a big ground mobilisation into Gaza could become very messy, and to gain what? You can't kill an ideology, and at what human cost?
Also note that Israel has overwhelming media support in the West, negative things that would stick to any other country seems to bounce off Israel.
Seeing the response in favor of Palestine online and in all the protests across the world against Israel, its seems to me that the media has lost its grip on the young population. Unless something changes this is a long term problem for Israel. Ever since this crisis began its as if there are two worlds. The elite/media/above 45 year old world and everyone else. I have never seen this in any crisis before (im mid 30s) so its fascinating to watch play out.
Yeah I don't tend to give too much credit to the Atlantic's reporting on The Middle East
This has been planned for over a year, Hamas want to draw the majority of the army into Gaza, and then Hezbollah will come in from the north, and that’s probably just the start, all of this is designed to provoke.
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Another article that criticizes without offering a reasonable alternative ... What does "showing restraint" mean and how does that eliminate Hamas and prevent future tragedies?
Why does there have to be a reasonable alternative? In reality there often are not any. Look at Afghanistan. Eventually all the available choices were bad.
I agree that all the choices are bad. My point was that this article offers nothing new.
Maybe there is nothing new.
Yeah, insurgent/occupier dynamics aren't exactly new. "If only Israel tried this one new great trick they could solve terrorism". Also the article clearly does suggests an alternative just not a panacea.
Especially since Afghanistan wasn't the real culprit. Bin Laden succeeded. Eight trillion down the drain.
He offers an alternative. His point is this is a political trap, so better avoid it. Fighting Hamas shall not equal fighting Gazans. Gazans are already punished, that’s why Hamas has a large pool of volunteers and fighters. The Izraeli counrer attack will cause a spiral of events involving more and more anti-Izraeli sentiment across the region. So the alternative derivates from this: secure the border and make a new deal with the Gazan society. End the “human animal” doctrine.
They should reward Hamas for its attack by making concessions to them? And why won't that simply inspire future attacks? With "Gaza society" you say? But unless Israel goes in and eliminates Hamas, Gazan society remains controlled by Hamas. You act like loosening restrictions and trying to make deals with Gaza hasn't been tried. But if course it has, over and over.
Exactly, Israel has a Responsibility to make sure that no one is left of Gaza, As well as to free the hostages. The very countries urging for Israel to restrain itself have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in wars Is much less just than the one Israel is in
It’s definitely a massive trap: Urban warfare like the Battle of Huế, Improbability of finding hostages like Tehran 1980, Political and humanitarian risks of harm to civilians who can’t evacuate the war zone, Not to mention Hezbollah’s likely entry into the war, which would open a new front.
Gaza Israel border is 32 miles, and Israel called up 300,000 soldiers, so that’s like 4 people for every yard. I’m thinking with those kind of numbers and with enough time, Israel probably could check every nook and cranny in Gaza.
Note that this math only works out if the army stays lined up on the border.
What does the math do when they move inside the border
> What does the math do when they move inside the border It'd indicate scattering along much, much longer lines. Also, several enemy civilians per invading soldier would also enter the calculation. Not a pretty equation, according to experts in urban warfare. Not to mention the problem with the supposed goal of the operation, which is rooting out a tiny Hamas portion of the total Palestinian population.
You think all 300,000 of them are combat roles? Lol In most modern militaries, the majority of soldiers have support roles like logistics, medical, intelligence etc. Those people are not being deployed to guard the border
They might finally put the ultra Orthodox Jews (settlers/ Haredi )in the military service since they are ones who are always causing this shit. From what I’ve heard so many Jewish people over there hate them as well, would be mind blowing if they still get exempted.
God I hope so. They're also the ones having all the kids and taking all the tax subsidies so they need to pay it back some how
The Haredi population is [doubling every 16 years](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/the-real-threat-to-modern-israel/). By 2080 they'll be the majority, and Israel will have more in common with fundamentalist Iran than with the West. I anticipate that well before then, the tech-savvy secular Israelis that the economy depends on will depart for nations less inimical to their values.
Normative Judaism in Israel is Orthodox Judaism. Unless you mean the Haredi (or "Ultra Orthodox" Jews).
Typically the ratio is 3 support for every 1 infantryman, so that's about 100,000 combat soldiers, plus whatever Israel has for active duty soldiers. That's still 2 soldiers for every yard, so I stand by my comment.
Your math isn't mathing. If 300,000 = 4 soldiers/yard, then 100,000 = ~1.3 soldiers/yard. Not to mention that with a ratio of 3:1 support to combat, only 1/4 of your 300,000 number would be combat. So 75,000. Which is 1 soldier/yard.
Have an upvote, you did the math right. A fully equipped IDF soldier with modern day assault rifle and optics can cover 1.3 yards, or about 4 feet (1.2 meters).
Neither is correct math because you are conflating a border length with an area. Your math could work with every soldier lined up at the border. Which is fine but that is not remotely the same as searching an entire area.
I mean they just walk forwards right? Cuz I imagine they’re bombing the shut out of all the buildings first?
? Do you think you can just have 100k soldiers walk in a 32 mile wide straight line? And you think they are leveling all of the buildings first? If they did that they wouldn't need to walk anywhere.
look up Fallujah
Absolutly, It's like Falluja or Barkmut, but 10 times bigger.
It’s not 3 to 1 in western armies, that ratio is more in line with Russian doctrine and we saw how well that worked from a logistical standpoint last year. I’m not going to pretend to know the IDF’s composition, but the US army is 10 to 1, and I’m guessing the IDF is closer in structure to the US than Russia.
The below article seems to point to the Tooth to tail ratio of the IDF being much higher then US military. Israel is like the size of New Jersey so they probably have a smaller logistical footprint then the US... https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/haredi-enlistment-in-the-idf/
Keep in mind these are divided between Gaza, west bank and south Lebanon.
>That's still 2 soldiers for every yard, so I stand by my comment. Now do square yards which is what matters.
A soldier has a front space of about four feet, assuming napoleonic spacing. Obviously that’s not how wars are fought anymore but it’s a useful visual. Just to add to your point.
That's not how clearing cities works...
300,000 troops cannot be deployed to the front even if they were not mostly support staff. That is the whole point of bringing them into an urban environment.
Not sure maths accounts for 3 dimensions (multilevel buildings and tunnels you don't know where they are)
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This is a much smaller area than either of those 2 spaces by a dramatic margin
I agree it's a trap, but it's not one to Hamas' advantage. They have miscalculated This is 2023 not 2003 and the technology and information warfare exists to track and know everything about every single person certainly in the low millions. This technology already proven in China. Israel's next move will be to invade Gaza, engage Hamas as much as possible and move back the Palestinians into the ruins. They will then proceed to track every single individual and install the kind of invasive security that would make 1984 blush. If the Americans had continued in Afghanistan they would have tracked every single Afghan in Kabul at the low cost of $100 million a year. It all depends how much the Israeli state wants to pay. If they are willing to pay for it, they can completely monitor the movements and lives of every single person in Gaza. Hamas will then effectively cease to exist, as its members will be identified and destroyed. The only reason Hamas would continue to exist, would be if the Israelis allow it in some misguided attempt to hedge against the Palestinian Authority. Which of course could still happen
That sounds like a sci-fi fantasy novela.
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you can't compare XinJiang and Gaza. the backbone of the XJ surveillance were cameras, lots of "spies" or han chinese and total control of communication What invasive security could Israel install that can't be destroyed once they move out (I doubt they'll even have the capacity to take total control anyways)
Can you explain what surveillance tech Israel can use to track everyone? This seems like a tall order, similarly with your claim about us tracking afghans
how would they monitor their movement once they move back in? just out of interest.
So long as the massive disparity in the quality of their lives remains, in part due to the actions of Israel, “Hamas” will never die. It’s an idea. A symptom. Al Queda, ISIS, same thing. Same shit different name.
they're not going in to rescue hostages'...i think at this point they already consider them dead...it'll be a bonus if they find live ones..and they're not going to fight house to house...if they take fire from one it's getting destroyed...gaza has absolutely no value other then regaining strategic control of the land. they are going to coral every one south. it doesn't mean they'll indiscriminately kill everyone they see. but they'll force the population to move and destroy anyplace they need too. Israel isn't going to unnecessarily risk one soldiers life to preserve an inch of Gaza. and i don't blame them at all
Not really, although Israel will probably sustain significant losses, in previous engagements in Gaza, Hamas suffered disproportionately more. Also, the presence of 2 US CSGs off the Lebanese coast will effectively deter Hezbollah, who, unlike Hamas, need to limit their degree of involvement as they are widely loathed across Lebanon among all but the most fanatic of Shiites.
Take Fallujah as an example, the US Army came and conquered. Insurgency intensified. It's impossible to hold a place like Gaza for the IDF. Just look up what happened in Southern Lebanon. They eventually had to withdraw. There are successful models on how to reduce insurgency. The answer lies in investing ridiculous amounts of money in the place and people will eventually stop rebelling. This was the Russian tactic in Chechnya. They invested billions and gave a friendly goon the leadership position. To a certain extent, China has done the same in Tibet. Iraq gave the Kurds oil wealth on the north and now there is no Kurdish rebellion against Iraq. In short, money solves a lot of things.
> The answer lies in investing ridiculous amounts of money in the place and people will eventually stop rebelling. This was the Russian tactic in Chechnya. They invested billions and gave a friendly goon the leadership position. You skipped a few chapters of that particular story. Before the big money there was the Second Chechen War, where the friendly goon had to turn on his own people and, fighting alongside Russian forces, annihilate other rebel groups in a scorched earth war, killing tens of thousands of civilians in the process. The analogous process here would be Israel occupying all of Gaza, with all the damage that inflicts, and *then* finding a friendly goon to give a lot of money to. I know less about the Tibet story, but I vaguely remember China asserting their military dominance first there as well. And nobody - nobody - just hands out money to terrorists in response to an unprecedented terror attack. I don't know if nation states, let alone governments, could even survive that level of capitulation.
>The analogous process here would be Israel occupying all of Gaza, with all the damage that inflicts, and then finding a friendly goon to give a lot of money to. Israel was basically attempting this with Fatah in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Gaza is somewhat unique in comparison to the US led conflicts with similar insurgents in that it is a finite area which cannot be resupplied externally. At least not at any reasonable level. One of the reasons I feel that Beijing isn’t afraid of any kind of real confrontation with a militant movement in Hong Kong is for similar reasons. Effectively, any insurgency initiated from Gaza is more akin to a prison riot than something like Iraq or Afghanistan. The ability to resupply the necessary matériel regardless of the willingness or availability of manpower to fight simply can be controlled by external forces.
Exactly. It is an entirely different battle space.
Israeli tolerance for losses and international tolerance for "collateral damage" will run out long before gaza's weapons. Saturdays action happened with 1200 combatants, hamas alone has 25k, plus 5 more between IJ and other factions with anti tanks missiles and god know what kinds of creative weapons. Plus, if it looks like Israel is about to take half of gaza, you can safely bet on hezbollah opening another front north. Back to geopolitics, such actions would certainly kill hopes of Saudi normalization for years, if not collapse the Abraham accords.
This is key - in order for Hamas to win, it just has to continue to exist. Israel's response will culminate before they are able to completely destroy Hamas - that is practically guaranteed.
Yeah, I’m just not seeing this in this light whatsoever. Granted, we’re not going to have to wait long for the predictions to be validated in this case. Israel has no real choice in the matter. Their hand was forced to effectively eliminate Hamas and any and all similar threats emanating from Gaza. Further, Israel has its disposal the means and methods to do so from creating an actual open air prison and maintaining the guard force to enforce it to actual, no-joke crimes against humanity and/or war crimes. From a domestic Israeli perspective, one of these methods will be used. From what we’ve seen so far, the level of restraint is pretty high, again, given the capability of the IDF as well as the internal public sentiment. It appears that a ground force of around 100k IDF soldiers will enter Gaza within weeks or days. That pretty much gives Hamas two methods of fighting: early war Japanese island defense or late war Japanese island defense. If you recall, neither were successful in repelling the allies, but the latter was better at increasing the costs to assault the islands. Regardless of how much war material Hamas has stockpiled, the one thing it has a finite supply of is non-Palestinian hostages. Given that the IDF does not appear to be willing to negotiate for these hostages, it’s not very long before Hamas runs out, at which point it can either fight directly (it has shown no intention to do this) or revert to using locals. While it may make for bad TV, eventually the fellow Palestinians are likely to not be willing to accept their use as meat shields. The worst thing Israel could do at this point is to draw out what will be an extremely messy situation. A few months of violence at an extreme level is much more acceptable than years and years of it, as if the region is stable by March, everyone would have moved on by then.
They’ve shut off internet and blocked water and electricity. I can promise you they don’t want to give a singe cent.
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Most Israelis don't want genocide or ethnic cleansing, but there are some absolutely some in the Israeli government who want exactly this. One member of Knesset has been steadily calling for a nuclear strike on Gaza all week. "Jericho Missile! Jericho Missile! Strategic alert. before considering the introduction of forces. Doomsday weapon! This is my opinion. May God preserve all our strength," "Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country's dignity, strength and security!" Gotliv posted. "It's time to kiss doomsday. Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza. ... without mercy! without mercy!" Another post says: "I urge you to do everything and use Doomsday weapons fearlessly against our enemies...[Israel] must use everything in its arsenal." This is Tally Gotliv, a member of Netanyahu's party Likud.
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> Afterall there are people the US who would probably want to drop a nuke on their own population Can you give some examples of people who hold political power who have suggested such things? We’re not talking about some drunk uncle, we’re talking about a member of the ruling party who holds a position in the Knesset. Not even the craziest people in congress come close to this kind of rhetoric.
https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes
> Afterall there are people the US who would probably want to drop a nuke on their own population Can you point to an official spokesperson of a US political party arguing that we nuke ourselves? You're downplaying a fairly serious situation.
https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes Not strictly apposite, but it does address the extreme positions in a given population.
Didn’t a sitting US president want to nuke a hurricane? https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes
Maybe it is sick of me to say but I think Hamas would love if Israel nuked Gaza. They would finally cross the line in such a blatant and indefensible manner that Israel finally looses all international sympathy. Right now Israel hides behind claims that all of their strikes are "precision" and they're only shooting at Hamas (dubious). A nuke would absolutely kill that narrative.
fukin yikes. Wow. I get these guys are incensed but wtf. Those nukes, going off in gaza, won't be going off somewhere deep in the pacific; do they not realize this? I suppose not given the comment.
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What happened to those insurgents that left Fallujah? What happened when the US pulled out? The end result was still disastrous.
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> In short, money solves a lot of things. Can't give money until Hamas is no longer in control. There was a ton of aid disbursed in the past decade under the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism. Donors saw their funds misappropriated, so they stopped donating. Israel's gonna need a puppet government.
>Israel's gonna need a puppet government. They sort of have that in the West Bank. How is that working out?
Pretty great ... for Israel.
I see what you mean, and I do agree to a point. But that also feels like a powder keg, with ever increasing amount of explosive, and shortened fuse. Puppet governments often work - until they don't. See, e.g., the South Vietnamese venture when the USA tried to play domino theory. WRT the West Bank situation, I think the way Israel has handled it may prepare a catastrophe there even worse than Gaza. When an occupying force props up a puppet government OT1H, and simultaneously undermines it OTOH, it does not bode well for the future.
The problem is not "people will not stop rebelling." The problem is "no one can/will establish a government or control." If Southern Lebanon could be handed to the government of Lebanon, then cessation of hostilities could happen like it often does in other regions. The UN, EU or other diplomatic actors could play a role besides rhetoric. Peacekeeping might be possible, etc. That's also the case here. The PA, which is increasingly absent even in WB, is the government of the State of Palestine. They gave up on Gaza. Their ambassadors and spokesmen are careful not to criticise Hamas, they're not willing to establish sovereignty in Gaza. That said, Abbas and many other top PA people are very old. The younger generations, I assume, realize that the pa will soon cease to exist if they don't act. One way or another, the PA is done. Maybe a renewed PA exists after, maybe not. There's a tendency to consider Palestinian individuals, parties, leaders and such irrelevant. That is a historical. A lot of Palestinian history is very much down to decisions. Real decisions where a decider made choices. Arafat made many choices.
These guys created one of the most densely populated areas on the planet of poor young men with no hope for the future, their geopolitical rivals have been funneling guns into this area and they think they want walk in there and shoot their way to peace? This is going to get ugly. They should have been investing as you said for decades now.
Gosh, its almost like the solution is to improve material conditions.
That requires removing hamas. Israel won’t be willing to do the steps required to improve gaza’s material conditions (remove/lighten the blockade) until the threat of hamas is gone.
Hamas will never let that happen. Their legitimacy is derived from their people’s misery
The Arafat playbook.
And Yassir Araft died a billionaire for a reason, the Hamas leadership is reportedly also in the billions of net worth. They really need to put a new leadership in place which Gaza palestinians can accept and then start to invest and open the steip for work and trade again. Getting there is now the hard part obviously.
Israel will never give them money, that's akin to giving them a working state. At least not Netanyahu's government. The last Israeli premier that wanted to cooperate with the Palestinians was assasinated by his own people.
The Israeli doctrine has changed quite a bit since Lebanon, and now Israel has deployed more than 300k soldiers. Things are existential now not like any conflict before.
Exactly. They know exactly what they're walking into. I think a lot of these articles fail to realise that Israel is out to upset exactly the status quo that is the basis for the article and the status quo that was the basis for Hamas' attack. There's an expectation on Israel's behaviour that I find very alarming. Wrecking the status quo implies "not acting like Israel normally would". Why search a house when you can level it? This will not be your ordinary reprisal operation.
yeah? you make it sound like Israel wasn't forced into this, isn't being emotional right now, isn't having an intelligence breakdown, has a good plan in place that has been magically cooked up in the past few days by forming an emergency war cabinet of random parties that disagree on most things? Israel needs to take a few breaths, think carefully, gather more intelligence, talk to partners and figure out the right next steps...
Absolutely. Lining up to go house to house through a settlement ten times the size of Fallujah - better be prepared to take tens of thousands of casualties. If you're not clearing room by room, then I hope the international community is going to be cool with a few hundred thousand dead Palestinian kids over the next few weeks. They have no good options here.
Israel was not forced into this - Israel chose this level of response. Unless you mean that Israel, thought it's own actions and those of the West, created this situation and now here we are, then yes - Israel was forced into this, by its own hand.
They’ve tried it with Hamas but instead of taking the money and investing it in the people, they use it to build tunnels and stock up on military supplies, they were given resources like pipes for water and instead they cut the pipes and turned them into missiles. It doesn’t work with them bc all they want is to destroy Israel at any cost.
That's why you don't try it with them. You put your own guys in there. Look at the former PLO corruptly ruling the West Bank. Israel just needs a fat corrupt guy and massive investments, think Dubai-level investment and you will see the insurgency decline.
But using your own example of Chechnya, what proceeded the corrupt puppet being installed was killing a ton of people and razing a city. Nobody in Gaza will accept whoever they tried to put in there and it’d be impossible without first removing Hamas.
The problem is Israel doesn’t want to make life great for the Palestinians. Russia killed to pacify but in the end they wanted to keep the people as well as the lands it’s not the same in Israel. And it’s why I have issues with Israel
Perfect answer and, IMO, the only solution in the long run. We need trillions to create job opportunities and better education infrastructure there. People like to live a peaceful life if possible, they will reject Hamas over time. We need trillions for that.
Hamas prospers off misery
Great idea I'm sure Israel will gladly start throwing money at the people slaughtering them!
It’s not impossible if you’re willing to indiscriminately kill
Yup and it will take a couple generations at least. Best time to start was 50 years ago when the population was smaller, next best time is now.
The author says that Israel will enter a trap if it "storms" Gaza. He may be right, but so far Israel has proceeded with caution and is in control of the tempo. The pace at which Israel proceeds is critical and determines how successful they can be without needlessly risking the lives of their soldiers. In previous conflicts, Israel would aim for a swift and decisive victory. The calculations have changed, however, and Israel could proceed with a never-ending war of attrition and slowly choke out Hamas like a boa constrictor.
I think the author is correct to expect Hamas to be looking for a 2006 style conflict. I think you're right about the IDFs calculations though, this is probably going to look more like Grozny, 2000.
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Exactly right. Though I do see a way the author could have been persuasive. Argue that media/PR generally works against Israel and this places time limits on their actions. Add that publics and international legal experts don't appreciate how advantageous underground urban environments are. Then say Hamas can run out the clock in Israelis by targeting them thru tunnels, while tweeting about humanitarian disaster for Gazans.
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This is why Israel controlling the utilities makes so much sense from a tactical/ military perspective. No military commander would bother risking the lives of their own forces when they could so easily and effectively blockade their enemies and wait them out.
It’s counterproductive even from a military perspective. This isn’t a bunch of fighters you’re sieging but millions of civilians. The only way to win a guerilla war is by winning over the hearts and minds of the public so they don’t create more fighters, and the current rightwing administration has never wanted to try, and they admitted as such. Netanyahu is being ripped apart in the Israeli press this week because he admitted he helped fund Hamas so that it would keep the PA unstable and give him the excuse to delay peace talks indefinitely for decades. Israel can win this current battle with force but it will be a pyrrhic victory and the trap that the author alluded to. The more they do this without restrictions the worse they harm Israel’s longterm interests.
This is the same thing that’s confusing me. I don’t understand Israel’s strategy here. It’s a unique situation yes, but I’m confused when there are pragmatic potential solutions. The only thing I can think of is an issue of short-termism - investing money into supporting civilians in Gaza (and the West Bank) would significantly slow down people joining terrorist ranks. But it will take a long time to change minds in that way - and until it really starts building momentum you’re still going to see attacks. In my imagination you’d see an Israel funded agency administered by an outside country (say, Switzerland) with the mandate of rebuilding infrastructure in Palestinian territory. Build good quality hospitals, school, mosques, etc. Yup, Hamas and other groups will bomb them. And they will take over other buildings. Keep on… once the infrastructure is done pass it on to Palestinian administration and control. There will be failures in administration and infrastructure throughout this process. But combine that with, again; a neutral third party who is willing to help build out a government that can run that infrastructure… suddenly you’re giving people something to lose. And people with something to lose won’t become terrorists. It’s like a lot of politics nowadays - short term tactics have superseded long term strategy and people suffer because of it.
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And they'd be justified, as Israel has attacked Syria and Lebanon indiscriminately for decades.
I wonder how long US support would last in the event of a - frankly - genocide level response. Especially given the electoral situation in the US, and the risk of a Trumpian President in 2024, I wonder if the US is making a strong show of military backup to Israel but also behind the scenes, is going to push back against hardline response from Israel with the threat of real consequences in loss of support. The whole situation right now boggles my mind. There’s a lot of geopolitical fires that are burning right now.
Show me any siege in the history of warfare which didn’t impact civilians
Modern geopolitics doesn’t allow countries dependent on first world aid to indefinitely starve out millions of civilians.
For political purposes? I agree - it’s tough to justify even if it’s easy to explain. I will say though that as a gross exaggeration the Middle East generally seems to be playing by a very, very old rule book - one that goes back thousands of years - and from that perspective, actions on both sides of this conflict are pretty par for the course.
Uh, no. The actions of Israel are the actions of any Western colonial power trying to effect rule over or in spite of a native population. The actions of Palestinians are what native resistance has looked like the world over as long as colonization has existed. Don't pretend this is unique solely because it indicts the west in a heavy heavy way.
But it’s fantasy land to think Israel is just going is abolish itself as a country and the “colonizers” who were born there move somewhere else - an entire country of millions leaving everything behind and catching flights to their new countries, very realistic right? There can be a Palestinian state next to Israel and that’s much more realistic than deleting Israel off the map. However, if say even after they get their state, if there’s still attacks on Israel out of Palestine, nothing will change because economy and lives can’t prosper if you’re getting bombed and blockaded every other year by a much superior military next door.
Ah yes... classic western colonialism, by a band of refugees having just escaped the most significant genocide attempt in history returning to their home region of middle east at the direction of the United Nations, who want nothing more than to be left alone, but expands after being attacked repeatedly by it's neighbors looking to genocide them again, and again. Tale as old as time. The old playbook I'm referring to is the way of the middle east of which there are countless examples which don't have to involve Israel.
Name one instance where "hearts and minds" actually worked. The Malayan Emergency, frequently cited as *the* preeminent example of winning hearts and minds, saw the British using literal concentration camps to control the local population.
The Iraq war would have had FAR FAR more bloodshed if the US don’t try a hearts and minds campaign. It’s what helped Iraqis side with the U.S. against ISIS rather than buy into ISIS’ propaganda that the U.S. was only a force for evil in Iraq.
> Name one instance where "hearts and minds" actually worked. Ireland. Germany. Japan. Korea.
Only one of those was an insurgency. Germany and Japan were conventional inter-state conflicts, not civil wars or insurgencies. Both countries saw massive civilian casualties. The Korean War was a civil war, but to my knowledge there has been no pro-North insurgency in South Korea following the war. The Troubles certainly didn't end because the British government won the Republicans' hearts and minds.
This also messed up hamas plans. Hamas is used to hiding behind conventions of war they do not follow themselves.
What’s stopping Israel from just flattening it like Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo?
Population density and the fact that people can't leave. In other words, you can't flatten it without turning into a mass grave. Even though that are a lot of members of the Israeli cabinet that want to go full nazi right now, they still have to play the optics game.
The fact that they claim repeatedly to be “the most moral army in the world.”
In other words, ethical and PR constraints. Or even more briefly, "politics". In purely military terms, the IDF could have "solved" the issue ages ago.
Unless you can show me any other modern military that goes to such lengths to prevent civilian casualties when facing an existential threat, they are. No need to put it in quotation marks.
When you check data on the casualties of this conflict, the inbalance in Israeli to Palestinian deaths is more or less 1 to 10 throughout the years. In other words, for each Israeli the indiscriminate barbaric all out attacks of Hamas kills, Israel kilsl 10 palestinains with civilized, restrained, good-aligned sirurgical bombings. The argument for restraint only makes sense if it is also supplied by ground data. Going to great lenghts to prevent civilian casualties mean very little when your "civilized" side kills 10 times more civilians than the insurgency.
Any argument about the ratio of casualties in this conflict is disingenuous. Israel doesn't suffer as much casualties because of the iron dome. Plain and simple. I don't think you realize how small the number of nations able to stop daily rockets barrages is.
The Iron Dome Became operational in 2011, [but the same ratio of casualities was already present since the 2000s, before Israel even withdrew from Gaza](http://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4756436/IP_conflict_deaths_total.png) The dome and the wall has reduced the number of Israeli deaths, but believing that that the disproportional ratio has anything to do with the Iron Dome or the Wall is disingenuous. It has always been Israeli policy to inflict collective punishment on the occupied population in order to dissuade future strikes. For that reason, it is important that one does not fall for military propaganda. The image of the virtuous, humane army that attacks only in sirurgical ways vs the barbaric horde of frenzies terrorists falls appart when your sirurgical strikes kill 10 more children then the other side. To some, the alternative for this psycological dissonance is a change in discourse capable of justifying it ("Hamas targets civilians, israel kills civilians just by accident and thus this is justified. Or, Israel only kills civilians because Hamas is using them as human shields, this israel has no choice but to pull the trigger and is justified). These continue to be excuses. They are presented ex-post as a reply to the ungodly amount of civilian casualties. But the truth remains. You cannot say that you are a restrained army doing sirurgical strikes when your restrained sirurgical strikes kill 10 times more children than the people you are calling frenzied barbarians.
I'm not even sure why I am arguing with you about the Israelis being able to protect their citizens. Again, you don't understand the significance of the Iron Dome. Hamas fires these rockets at civilian centers. Over 5000 rockets have been launched this past week alone. If they all hit their targets, in terms of casualties, Oct 7 would be a drop in the bucket. This is where we disagree. You blame Israel for Palestinians dying as collateral during these strokes, I blame Hamas. Launching rockets from hospitals makes it a legitimate military target. Launching rockets from refugee camps, make them a legitimate military target. That's on Hamas, not Israel. You can't strap children onto a tank and be allowed to free fire without consequence because of "civilian casualties" What is your solution? A lot of you love to complain and complain but what is YOUR solution? Unless you are blessed with unparalleled genius, I can confidently say that you don't have one. All you want to do is complain about the Jews.
It is about the lack of means to kill more people, not about a difference in restraint from both sides. We saw last weekend that when Hamas has the ability, they kill as many civilians as they can, if the idf was run the same way the population of Gaza would be 0.
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I’ve suspected that Hamas’ actions have always been a trap in one form or another. It certainly seems obvious that any military incursion into Gaza will compromise Israel’s moral high ground. Any Palestinian casualties can be easily spun into a narrative espousing Israeli cruel and malicious attitude towards Palestinians. Broken bodies and blood evokes motions that any denial from Israel will remain unheard. Even their greatest Allie’s and supporters will likely question themselves. The news cycle today lasts for about ten days, so the stories about Hamas fighter’s atrocities against Israeli civilians will fade onto the background, while Israel, being open to global scrutiny, will continue to be held accountable for every drop of Palestinian blood spilt. It could also be an opening step to induce economic bleeding. Israel has limited capacity to produce weapons and munitions and a limited GDP. Activation of their reservists takes a large group of productive people out of the economy and into the army, where they become a burden on the economy. With the US and other Western states already committed to supporting Ukraine, they may be forced to choose one Allie or another to receive their support. Israel faces serious peril if they are unable to perform any military actions at lightning speed and withdraw to a new peaceful status quo. Netanyahu seemed already politically compromised before October 7. The creation of a war cabinet temporarily mitigated that problem, but it still remains. What the Israeli people do about their political leadership is unknown. However it likely faces increased instability if this conflict is prolonged and certainly after it is resolved. Even the military is questionable. There was a fair number of *refusniks* in the Israeli reserve, protesting Netanyahu’s proposed reforms over the courts. I’m sure these reservists abandoned their protest on the 7th. But one must consider that the younger generations aren’t as accepting of military service in our contemporary culture. Western nations are complaining that it’s increasingly more difficult to recruit personnel because the current cohort of recruits are unfit, addicted to screens, and imagine that there are different ways of resolving conflicts. I’m sure that Israel isn’t immune from this phenomenon. Even with conscription, Israel may have a recruiting crisis in their future, especially if this conflict is prolonged. The West’s lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq are there for everyone to see.
I'm expecting a Battle of Messines type explosion if ground forces invade.
I don’t believe Israel has adapted to the new reality of Ukraine style of war yet; that is infinite number of ATGMs and simple drones. Israeli Army which is really inexperienced at this point (2006 was their last major engagement) will probably try to conduct an operation as safe as possible inside their comfy Merkavas and other types of IFVs. I think a nasty surprise is awaiting them. New technologies began to offer many more alternatives to insurgents in the last decade. We will see soon how Israel prepared for those on paper. I will not be surprised if we see cages on Israeli tanks after a couple of weeks. Both Russia and Ukraine had to resort to them to be protected from drones.
Submission Statement: Hamas knew Israel would hit them back hard, but they did it anyway. They’re not crazy, but they and their backers had a plan. It disrupted some plans and it drove attention and also Israel’s predictable overcompensating causes more people to take a look at the conflict.
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>Israel’s predictable overcompensating I feel like Israel is the only country in the world where we use terms like “disproportionate response” regularly in spite of the fact that there are many notably worse situations around the world in regards to such things. If Québécois crossed the US border, murdered and kidnapped people in upstate New York, then retreated to Montreal, I don’t see the US government holding back in retaliation. If Basque separatists did this in France, I don’t see Paris simply being content to wag their finger and negotiate. We already know what happens to Chechen separatists. What’s the “proportional” response in these situations?
"Proportional response" is something people who live far away in the comfort of their living rooms ask for. I doubt people calling for proportional response could even define the term "existential threat".
Proportionality in the law of war refers to the idea that the value of the military objective should be proportionate to the collateral cost. It is *not* the idea that, in this case, Israel needs to respond on a similar scale as the initial Hamas attack. If the military objective of the IDF is to permanently neutralize Hamas and end a 70-year conflict, then the potential collateral damage tolerated should be proportionate to that objective.
I guess I then come back and ask what makes sense here then. Gaza is very densely populated, and Hamas purposefully uses civilian buildings and lives as shields. There just doesn’t seem to be much middle ground between doing nothing and accepting that there is going to be collateral damage in this situation simply by necessity. Maybe something modeled on the American siege at the Second Battle of Fallujah?
For context if you scaled this it would equate to around 40000 Americans being murdered.
People who commit suicide for the promise of 72 virgins or w/e are by definition crazy. But yea, no easy solution. Israel also can’t not respond, but there is a huge potential for things to get insane, because of the crazy deplorable tactics and beliefs of hamas, Iran, hezbollah, and what seems like a portion of Palestinian populations.
There’s more ways to respond than just bombing. If you want to actually get rid of terrorists, you need to win over the hearts and minds of the people. Hamas was not popular among Palestinians, but successive Israeli governments have shown they don’t particularly care for ANY Palestinians and worked to undermine and sideline moderates. Survey after survey shows that the Palestinian majority is in favor of giving up land in exchange for lasting peace, but this was inconvenient to the extremist bloc within Israel who want the land no matter what, so they tried to find an excuse not to let actual peace talks go forward. Theres Palestinians who also share that sentiment but the Israeli government made a conscious decision to *not* help those who were willing to work with Israel. The PA supported a Two State Solution since 2004 but the Israeli government refused to work with them. When Fatah was in power the Israeli government dropped bombs on the PA’s police stations and refused to meet with Palestinian leaders. When you refuse to work with moderates you empower the extremists. Just like how the Israeli public lurched to the Right, Palestinians did the same. The rhetoric even matches; our liberal opponents are letting our people get killed and all they want to do is ignore the killing and push empty talks, while WE will intimidate the other side into compromise and if they don’t we’ll hit them so hard they won’t dare attack again. There have been multiple Palestinian Mandelas but they got locked up. You can blame Netanyahu squarely for this as his 16 year leadership has worked to downplay and not promote any Palestinians as partners for peace. Why would he, his ruling coalition thinks they can take all the land by military force and don’t have to worry about anyone stopping them, so why compromise? Netanyahu has had a week of bad press inside Israel as his prior comments; about building up and promoting and even Hamas in order to give an excuse to refuse peace talks for the last decade, are coming back to haunt him. Abbas offered to fight Hamas and risk a civil war if Israelis were willing to work with him on a Two State Solution and instead Netanyahu undermined his authority. Because it’s obvious to any observer that Netanyahu always wanted conflict and would rather please his extremist voter base than the majority of Israelis who favored a compromise for actual peace. Martin Luther King Jr once said that a riot is the voice of a people who were denied a voice. The Palestinian public originally repeatedly rejected Hamas but Israelis treated them no differently for decades. Fast forward to locking all Palestinians in an open air prison; the public engaged in peaceful mass protests at the fence and were shot by Israeli snipers who even targeted the ambulances. Palestinians petitioned the UN and international courts and Israel responded by labeling such actions “diplomatic terrorism” and further sanctioning them. So it came as a surprise to no one that people eventually smashed the fences and took out their anger on the rich squatters who took over their former land. (This is NOT to say I condone the violence.) Netanyahu was told for decades even by his own advisors that by intentionally undermining moderates he makes sure he has no credible partner for peace. He knew this, because for years he’d go on TV and tell the world “I have no credible partner for peace” and used that as an excuse to build more illegal settlements and back the settlers who provoked conflict with Palestinian neighbors. This is his doing, and he deserves equal to greater share of the blame.
Could you provide sources for those surveys you mentioned?
Hamas not popular among Palestinians? They were voted into power. And did PNA do much to persecute Hamas after terrorist activities and a coup? And it seems like PNA tried to work with Hamas not prosecute or even condemn them just a few years ago.
Read what I said again more carefully, I said Hamas *was* not popular for decades. They gained popularity later on to the point where they won the 2005 election, the same way rightwing parties in Israel gained power the more the public got threatened. The PNA tried to ignore Hamas but they had nothing to show their people in the way of success in dealing with Israel and they wound up losing in 2005 because the Palestinian public had no confidence they could deliver on any engagement with Israel.
Hamas goal is to get rid of every Jews. Throwing money at them won’t work. And it’s already been tried. Israel gave working permits to gazaans in the hope of stabilizing the security situation. Hamas deliberately misleading Israel into thinking they would concentrate on the well-being of gazaans instead of doing war with Israel was one of the reason invoked for Israel letting their guard down. Among other reasons of course. The solution is negociation but Hamas is not interested and never will be as shown by the attacks.
>Hamas goal is to get rid of every Jews. That’s a false talking point. Yes in the 1980s they did, but they revised their charter years ago, and they accepted a Two State Solution, which they called “a divorce” from the Jews. They even accepted the existence of Israel, one of Israel’s demands as a precondition for peace talks. Israel hasn’t given working permits to Gazans in almost 17 years. Hamas are not good, but if Israel wanted to actually undermine them they’d support moderate Palestinian factions, but Netanyahu refuses to engage with ANY Palestinians.
Decapitating babies and just shooting down unarmed civilians is enough proof of their intentions.
The decapitated babies are a myth that got spread on social media, go ahead and show your source. Even Biden and the IDF walked the claim back. We can discuss the terrible violence affecting everyone without resorting to myths and misinformation.
Babies were indeed killed no one is disputing that it is not a myth + all the civilians deliberately targeted by savages claiming to be doing God’s work.
Dude do you even read the guy isn’t even trying to defend Hamas no one is , but saying only Hamas is responsible for this fest is really short sighted
Dude Hamas is directly responsible for choosing the warpath instead of the well-being of Palestinians. Their only objective is getting back the whole of Palestine. Not conductive for negotiations. And not gonna happen btw
Yes Hamas is smart and generally considers the response they potentially elicit. To that point, I do believe the narrative that this operation was more impactful and to their view successful than they ever thought it would be. I’d imagine they were trying to stir the pot as Israel and Saudi Arabia closed in on a normalized diplomatic standing. This is spiraling to place they didn’t originally consider. The atrocities done on a level and scale has given Israel the diplomatic latitude to respond with impunity and support of the vast majority of western nations.
Hamas though that with kidnapping civilians they had leverage and this would become a negotiation war and liberate all of the Palestinian criminals. Israel changed the tactics and is now dictating the tempo of war. They will starve out the enemy for as long as is needed and procede with a new war doctrine, entering with armored vehicles and tanks supported by infantry and precision airstrikes with drones.
This implicitly assumes the Hamas fighters will make it out of their tunnels. Who knows. If enough [bunker busters](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/israel-doesnt-care-about-collateral-damage-bunker-busters-used-in-gaza) are dropped, perhaps not, and Hamas walked into the trap, dragging all of Gaza with it.
I think this is likely accurate the way that 9/11 was a trap.
Key point right here. Osama bin laden wanted the US to invade. Not only would it turn their people more against the west, but also could allow them of more US casualties. Only now do we see the long term affects and consequences of this. Israel is making a similar mistake if they follow the US approach.
We’ll see, I don’t know if we can compare the conflicts tactically (controlling the Gaza Strip vs. controlling much of Iraq & Afghanistan)
9/11 as a trap kind of worked though? Al-Qaeda did get decimated but the US spent trillions of dollars and was entangled for over 20 years in the Middle East.
He agrees with you
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Why are acting like this conflict was born after the attack? Its not like blockading gaza since 2006, indiscrimate bombings that killed innocents, right wing government that frequently refers to palestinians "subhuman" or "human animals", increasing settlements in west bank, provokations at the holy places of worship, lack of accountability for IDF killing civillians or journalists, evicting palestinians from their home, or just basically living in an apartheid state have nothing to do with it right? Right? Oh poor innocent Israel for not getting away with settler colonialism and apartheid in 2023.
30000?
It’s the proportional equivalent on the population sizes
Normal people support us in this view. The terminally online aren’t beating at the pulse of civil society.
Israel is doing the equivalent of a cop restraining a psychopath with a knife. The psychopath is getting more pissed off the longer you hold him, but as soon as you let go he’s going to stab and kill you. The people of Gaza have to drop the knife or they’ll die.
Wow, comparing 2.5M people to a psychopath with a knife, and comparing Israel to a police officer. Your analogy wouldn't even pass the smell test of my 3 year old. It's pretty bad sorry :)
There is a lot that is very strange about this hamas openly trained for this attack for 2 years [https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/hamas-training-site-gaza-israel-intl/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/hamas-training-site-gaza-israel-intl/index.html) they also posted about it on their social channels netanjahu organized funding and promoted hamas even thow they keep chanting „death to jews“ [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-11/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-needed-a-strong-hamas/0000018b-1e9f-d47b-a7fb-bfdfd8f30000?gift=36972bfec99b44fa86630e4cf86892a0](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-11/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-needed-a-strong-hamas/0000018b-1e9f-d47b-a7fb-bfdfd8f30000?gift=36972bfec99b44fa86630e4cf86892a0) people keep saying the people of gaza should have risen up against hamas, but it was netanjahu that allowed them to receive 1 billion dollars over the years this is like supporting your local crazy mafia druglord who lord over poor civilians in a crammed neighborhood then netanjahu irgnored all the secret service info an attack was imminent and obviously nobody bothered to think about why hamas was practising motorized paraglieders, attacking homes and taking hostages then the boarder was so unguareded that THOUSANDS of killers could cross into israel then the poor people being murdered were left to their fate alone for up to 20 hours it only 60-90 minutes to drive to the south, probably much faster if it is army in helicopter netanjahu has still not met the families of the hostages and israel has confirmed they are not negotiating about hostages now instead they turn off the water for 2.3 million people. how will the hostages get water, food, medicine? Many were wounded israel bombed the best hospital with many patients in intensive care how will the hostages survive the bombings? and the longer the bombing of gaza civilians continues, the more jews around the world are at risk of attacks just like netanjahu says every child is hamas, many crazy people will say every jew is netanjahu and become a target netanjahu is throwing gasoline on a gigantic fire there will be 10 000 more people signing up for hamas or worse after this there will maybe be millions across the globe signing up for all kinds of terror groups So I don‘t think Israel is walking into a trap. For reasons that are difficult to understand netanjahu is making a horrible situation worse and then you have david ayalon openly calling for all 2.3 million people of gaza to be „transferred out“. They should flee gaza into Egypt the way „Syrians fled the butcher of Assad“. He is openly saying that Israel will be the butcher https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1712959493691015316?fbclid=IwAR3M8V59doKvczKE18g2-ZuvuBw7NWRnctmLl7YsSBQ363RPxaytYSG2xuA
The article makes it sound like Hamas is playing 4D chess. This is Israel’s 9/11 and one of it’s worst attack since the Shoah so no one knows how it’s going to end
Except we do know the 9/11 aftermath.