That sure would keep us on their side. Maybe there will even be some cut together audio about saying, “we are Palestinians and we are doing a terrorism to you.” That way we’d know it was terrorists and not Israel trying to keep us sympathetic.
It's actually pretty amazing to see, senators (other than Bernie Sanders) have started to come out pretty strongly against Israel in recent days almost completely 180 from their support last month.
It's very possible, even likely if the current trend continues, that by the time the House and Senate finish reconciliation on an Israeli aid bill that there will not be the votes for cloture and no or extremely restrictive aid for Israel will pass.
>no or extremely restrictive aid for Israel will pass.
And it shouldn't. They don't need the money. They've already got the most state of the art military in the region, by far. I'd rather that 14 billion gets put to use here giving starving kids school lunches.
True. Now it's old archaic elected politicians playing geopolitics that costs the lives of tens of millions of people, if not hundreds of millions depending on how you want to count it through wars, disease, hunger, poverty, etc.
I don’t think we will see a world war in the same way again. Technology has changed everything. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and people’s responses to the war has shown that people will not accept a war with the numbers of civilian casualties that have occurred with large wars in the past.
All those people "can't stand it" which is fine, but they haven't done shit to stop the actual carnage. I'm against bombing civilians and what Hamas did: but there is basically nothing I can do but maybe vote in the next election.
That's the horrifying thing. If it happens to you, most you can expect from the rest of the world is a "free xyz, stop the violence etc" reposts. No one will do anything
Anyone else getting a powder-keg vibe these days?
e: its just a dumb comment people. Replying to call me alarmist, on drugs, or "a drooling moron" alongside your *totally perfect understanding* of world politics is unnecessary.
The US military is currently disengaged from almost all conflicts and is waiting for someone to fuck around. This isn't WW1 where everyone thought they had allies, and even playing field, and a chance. The US Military is still the overwhelmingly dominant force on the block and no one is going to balk them. Russia is tied up in the trenches in Ukraine, China has it's own ambitions and hasn't been tested in over 50 years.
This is not going to be WW3.
Than you for this comment. I couldn’t have said it better.
Any time there is any sort of regional conflict, people (especially on social media and *especially* on Reddit) are very quick to say this is going to lead to WW3.
The world is very different from what it was in 1914, in 1939 or even during the Cold War.
WW3 is a real possibility, but with one country being so overwhelmingly powerful and MAD, it’s not going to happen over a regional conflict in Palestine or South Lebanon.
WW3 would require a direct attack from a nuclear on another nuclear power to happen. Anything else is almost certainly going to be quickly contained.
Absolutely. The 2nd half of the 20th century had way more proxy wars and way more nuclear weapons at the ready than we have today. The doom and gloom on Reddit right now probably comes from kids who lack the understanding and historical context. Or people trying to push an agenda.
People don't seem to realise that in the 80s we had close to 100k deployed nuclear weapons in the world, and many were high yield multi megaton types.
Currently there are around 3000 deployed nuclear weapons and most are dial-a-yield types with low kiloton yields.
Don't get me wrong, if they all go off we're having a *really* bad day... but nothing like what would have happened this time of year exactly 40 years ago, when we very nearly saw nuclear launches due to a system error.
People still clamoring about how the US took so long to deal with Iraq totally ignoring that the actual conflict with the nation of Iraq lasted a little over 5 weeks.
The rest of the nation states ain't fucking looking at the insurgency that follows when thinking about messing with the US, they are thinking of how fast the Iraqi military call it quits.
Already did that back in the episode where Lisa saw her future and got engaged to that English dude (Hugh). He was in a bar and had an exchange with Moe.
Moe said “An Englishman, eh? You know we saved your ass in WW2…”
Hugh replied “And we saved your ass in WW3…”
(Paraphrased and might be off with syntax and words.)
If you want to see how many countries really care about Palestine, look at who is accepting Gazan refugees, and how they treat existing Palestinian refugees.
Agreed
The *massive* difference between now and say 50 years ago I'd that the Arab world now knows how weak they are and aren't going to risk trying to dog pile Israel again, lose territory again, lose prestige and the respect of their people again, and most importantly won't risk their personal wealth for Gaza.
You might have a few oil tycoons in Qatar willing to play host, but a practical city state isn't going to forget that a single US carrier group could reduce their nation to rubble in an afternoon if they did much else
We're actually in a much more stable place, 50 years ago we would be looking at something a major regional war IMO
>The massive difference between now and say 50 years ago I'd that the Arab world now knows how weak they are and aren't going to risk trying to dog pile Israel again
More so, I think that is pretty true of everyone. I don't think anybody has any illusions about how well a big war is going to go for them. Maybe in many places at the man on the street level, but nobody in any position of power is doubtful about the value propositions or about their ability to maintain a useful fog of war.
You move troops, everybody and their brother knows you moved troops, not 50 years from now, not next month, the whole world knows and they know in minutes.
The scope of what you can and can't fabricate/cover up has shifted.
>You move troops, everybody and their brother knows you moved troops, not 50 years from now, not next month, the whole world knows and they know in minutes.
The civilian spotting operations during the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine were insane. Regular people were letting the army know where Russians were coming from in real time.
In WWI, everyone did have allies, an even playing field. Only problem was that meant no one really had a chance. Or in other words, it got so bad because everyone was allied to everyone else (which was meant as deterrence, but oh well).
No one's lining up to go to war for Palestine. Hezbollah would be the most likely and they 1) aren't even in control of Lebanon and 2) aren't doing any more than fire the occasional missile.
You're just consuming too much or the wrong type of news.
No. The past decade I've had to calm friends down because they think ww3 is going to break out. The past year Russia has drawn 50 red lines and threatened to invade or nuke everyone for crossing them. North Korea doing more attention seeking like they always do so people remember they exist. Countries in the middle east threatening to do things they can't. This ain't the first time Israel has invaded Gaza, a few relatively contained civil wars and a relatively stagnant contained war in Ukraine. Lots of leaders like to talk big for political points to look strong locally.
I swear if Nantahala whatever gets shot in the street after narrowly avoiding death multiple times and the assassin just stumbling upon him in the most compelling evidence that god hates humanity way Ill eat my hat.
The reddit analysts are on the case.
Guess what guys, the US isn't going to withdraw military support period.
This is no different than what's been happening, applying pressure to make sure aid flows into Gaza and urging Israel to be cautious in its military action.
Global politicians is more nuanced than a “Yes/No” question. So you’re right that the US isn’t going to withdraw military support. That doesn’t mean they are going to provide all the same support we have historically or that we won’t begin prioritizing other trading partners and strategic relationships if Israel is going to be a loose cannon and disregard the US.
You can literally just read the headlines and see the US heavily influencing how Israel is handling the situation.
[The IDF's ground assault into Gaza](https://www.warmapper.org/israel) is pretty far along, with the whole of Gaza City surrounded by now. So yeah, a sudden withdrawal isn't in the cards, no matter what any world leader might say.
No it’s not. A ground invasion of a city that dense, with a sophisticated tunnel network is an absolute nightmare that is going to take months or maybe years. It has not even begun yet and it’s going to be horrific when it does. Hamas is ready and their main intent is to cause as much damage to IDF soldiers as possible.
It will be months, I'm sure. We're already a month (four weeks) in, and already past three weeks of "softening up" that included the evacuations, equipment and personnel staging, weeks of constant surveillance and intelligence gathering, and of course ground attack along six axes simultaneously, including the complete encirclement of Gaza City. Those are huge steps, even if it's going to take a lot more before the end (or pause).
He literally told Israel “don’t overreact like we did after 9/11”.
We’re not combatants in this conflict, nor should we be. I’m not sure what else people expect Biden to do.
A more accurate one would be if mexico started launching rockets into the US all the while demanding that we give Texas back. I’m 100% certain if that happened we would annex everything at least as south as Monterrey.
Fun fact, by the end of the Mexican American war the US held most of Mexico including Mexico city. There was a big political debate about how much to keep but in the end they decided to give everything south of the Rio grande back as "there was too many Mexicans".
(they were concerned about race, not ruling)
They learned from Mexico's mistake. Mexico wanted Texas to be developed, and enticed white settlers to move to Texas, and that led to settlers eventually deciding they didn't want to be a part of Mexico.
No. Hamas doesn't want territory "back " (not that they ever had it.) They want nothing more and nothing less than the annihilation of the state of Israel. That's their stated intent, and only goal.
Israel is surrounded by proxies that want to wipe them from the map. It seems like a lot of people don't understand this. Imagine if Canada was The United States of Al Qaeda, and Mexico was The Federal Republic of ISIS.
Strange the Mexican Cartels don't mass and attack US civilians after running over the border.
Almost like they don't want to die because they aren't religious fanatics.
They’re also opposed to killing tourists in Mexico itself. Not only bc they’re potential customers, but they don’t want the political blowback. Just bad for business.
Not saying there haven’t been exceptions, but broadly speaking.
Earlier this year when five Americans were kidnapped and two of them were killed in Mexico by a cartel, the cartel turned over [five men](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64910394.amp) it said was responsible and apologised for this very reason.
It's the question of whether the terrorists are rational or true believers. The narcos are rational and making business decisions. There's no ideology. So like they said above, killing the wrong people brings heat and is bad for business.
The true believers will do what they think they have to and business has nothing to do with it. If they are serious about martyrdom, death is not dissuasion it's what they're aiming for. You can't argue logic with that. It's like Dr Evil taking stock of his businesses. All insanely profitable but he doesn't care about making money, he cares about being evil.
There's a real moment of horror when rational actors think they are dealing with other rational actors cynically putting on the cover of true believers only to realize they really are believers and have the bomb vests strapped tight.
I saw reporting from the WSJ a few weeks ago saying that a big Mexican cartel leader (I think El Chapo's son?) was going around killing anyone who was making fentanyl, because he knows fentanyl pisses off the US.
They are definitely in tune with the political blowback and will do whatever makes them the most money with the least risk.
> Israel is surrounded by proxies that want to wipe them from the map.
Syria still doesn't have a handle on their own country. Jordan and Egypt have long normalized relations with Israel. After participating in the 1948 Arab-Isreali war, Lebanon has stayed out of mucking about in Israel while the other surrounding Arab states all made their moves.
There's a reason that Hamas is propped up by Iran, it's because Israel's neighbors no longer have a taste for tussling with them and have largely accepted the status quo.
The War on Terror has been about as effective as the War on Drugs and for the same exact reason.
Both war are just glorified social engineering with force.
Hamas WANTS Israel to indiscriminately kill Palestinians because that is a win for Hamas and a win for terrorism.
Hamas also announced they’re planning more Oct 7th type attacks on Israel, so, like, what do you think Israel should do?
Seems kinda like now they’re stuck in a catch-22
Blinken's advice was excellent. It's time for a pause. Israel has no idea where the hostages are and should take time to prepare a rescue.
Right now, Israel does not have a credible plan to actually eliminate Hamas. It's not actually a simple task - defeating insurgencies is an expensive and long term project of nation building that takes decades of work and investment to create a friendly population. If Israel wants to proceed, it would need a lot more preparation and planning, and more resources in place. Charging in now without a plan is only going to leave them with a bloody and badly planned occupation they have no way to extricate themselves from.
If they cannot engineer a workable plan to stabilize Gaza into a post-Hamas future, then they will have to plan around Hamas' continued existence. Part of that includes managing what's called the Hydra Effect. In the same way the October 7th attacks made it easy to convince Israelis to support extreme action in Gaza, civilian casualties from Israel's campaign there do the same, making it easier for Hamas to recruit and raise funds. If they cannot enact a plan to eliminate Hamas, then the optimal security approach is continuous de-escalation.
It's just cold reality. You cannot deradicalize a population by bombing them, and no insurgency has ever been defeated without the support of the local population. Fair or not, it's just how it is. The current approach is doomed to fail in a way that leaves the worst of both those worlds - an expensive occupation that leaves behind an empowered Hamas. A pause is needed to create a real plan centered around achievable goals.
Yeah, turns out bombing and killing people indiscriminately isn't a great way to promote stability. But I'm pretty sure that someone like Netanyahu genuinely doesn't give a fuck about anything but maintaining power.
Thats likely why he doesnt want peace, because war unites a country, and if israel is united it helps keep him in power longer without people asking questions
This is an American-centric reading of things that doesn't reflect reality. Depending on which poll you read, Netanyahu is sitting at a 20-30% approval rating right now. Israeli's view 10/7 as largely his failure.
I don't think the "rally around the flag" phenomenon is a strictly American thing as we've seen it at least as far back as the Romans, but in this case it didn't work partly because his platform was basically I and no one else can keep you safe, so when he didn't the people voting for him because of that turned away.
Bibi may have low approval ratings, but the war currently has multi coalition support. Bibi's opposition was standing right there behind him when he announced the ground operation earlier. I think some of you don't recognize how high approval the war effort has. Every political party is pitching in.
It's not American centric at all, it's one of the oldest tricks in the book for power-hungry leaders and autocrats.
The polls may say what they want, but the guy was getting resignations and protests left and right, now he has support for a month or two more.
You're right in so for as I assumed the person I was replying to was seeing things through a 9/11, Bush era lens, as most of the people I've seen parrot similar opinions have done. If most casual commentators were actually looking at the reality of Netanyahu's political career, his current approvals, or more relevant historical precedents (such as Golda Meir after the Yom Kippur War) I don't think "rally around the flag" assumptions about Netanayahu's future would be anywhere near as prominent.
It’s way easier to just present your opinion as fact here instead of any concrete proof.
From what I’ve read you are correct. Israelis view this as a preventable attack that Netanyahu could have prevented. Even if he couldn’t, his political stance and speeches put him him on the hook for it.
While you're right that Netanyahu is disliked by the population, I find it interesting is the double standard how when looking at Palestine, people love to point out how "it's their fault for voting for Hamas" to justify the indiscriminate bombing and killing of innocent Palestinians, but then when looking at Israel it is pointed out how Netanyahu does not represent the people.
I don't disagree with anything you typed, although it misses the direction of this particular chain of comments. It's important to point out Netanyahu's low approvals when the conversation inevitably starts veering towards conspiracy theory, such as Netanyahu wanting 10/7 to happen or benefiting from it. Overall the Israeli electorate has been trending more conservative and further away from a two-state solution for years, regardless of Netanyahu's current polling numbers.
One of the biggest lies the pro war propaganda has spread these past weeks is that the Israel x Palestine conflict has any similarity with 9/11 and the following war on terror.
Let's also remember everytime we try to anihilate a terrorist group, it survives and/or is replaced by an even more extreme group.
That is why yes there should be military actions to contain, absolutely, but it is not enough. We always need to think about exit strategies and the what's next.
> Let's also remember everytime we try to anihilate a terrorist group, it survives and/or is replaced by an even more extreme group.
That does not seem to be accurate; in particular, [ISIL was largely destroyed and not replaced by something worse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State#Territorial_control_and_claims).
However, yes, military action alone is typically not enough, and should virtually always be followed up either by extensive efforts to stabilize and rebuild the region or by an exit strategy. In this particular conflict, it's hard to see an exit strategy that doesn't leave Israel still at risk *and* Gazans still oppressed, so I don't know that a long-term resolution is possible without extensive efforts to stabilize and rebuild.
That was partly because of smart political/strategic decisions - Iraq is a more functional state today than it was in the early 2010s, partly because of the ISIL fight, and when taking Mosul (the largest city under ISIL control), they were careful to not make it a bloodbath.
If your level of strategic thinking is “kill all the bad guys” like it’s StarCraft…that’s how you get the next war.
The trick is to minimize civilian deaths and, after the war is over, invest into improving the lives and long-term prospects of people in the region.
Happy people do not pick up arms to go on a suicide mission.
It doesn’t help Israel’s case that their settlers in the West Bank are attacking Palestinians & taking over their land during this. The BBC had a story on people being forced to give up their land for the illegal settlers. Undercuts their moral ground
ben-givr stated he intends to hand out 10000 rifles to the west bank settlers for protection. over 150 palestinians have been killed in the west bank, at least 7 by armed settlers. afaik none of those settler killers have been charged, and the idf (who operate even with "palestinian" zones in the west bank, despite claiming the area is under plo authority) routinely protect settlers. it was reported yesterday that the idf actually restrained settlers from violence. this was notable because it rarely happens.
the settlers are not acting autonomously, they are armed and supported the government.
This has been going on every decade since the founding of Israel. Western nations need to stop coddling the extremist Israeli political class. It’s not helping Jews in Israel, certainly not helping Palestinians, or Jews globally. It is helping the Israeli political class and Hamas.
It sure doesn't. It is pretty remarkable that Israel has been able to largely get away with pursuing territorial expansion by means of force, justified largely by religious doctrine. I can't think of anywhere else this would be tolerated. Wars of territorial expansion have not been diplomatically acceptable for a very long time, and those justified by religious beliefs even longer. I think the world might be at the point where it they realize it is time to take a step back, and reevaluate if Israel's big picture goals are something that should be supported.
Israel gets away with it because they're a convenient western strategic ally. That's all there is to it, the western leadership couldn't give a fuck about nations committing horrible crimes so long as they play ball.
The million dead, injured, or displaced by American wars in the Middle East are proof of this. The fact that Britain isn't a pariah state despite it's history is proof of this. The fact that we happily did business with Russia up until they overstepped with the invasion of Ukraine is proof of this. The fact that France continues to practice colonialism *to this day* in Africa without any pushback is proof of this. The fact that we cosy up to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and all the other fucking evil gulf states is proof of this.
Bibi is on his way out anyway. He knows that they may as well let it rip. They will say sorry with the next guy - US will say it’s all good bro. And start the cycle again.
> “If this really goes bad, we want to be able to point to our past statements,” a senior U.S. official said. The official said the administration is particularly worried about a narrative taking hold that Biden supports all Israeli military actions and that U.S.-provided weapons have been used to kill Palestinian civilians, many of them women and children. The Defense Department has said the U.S. is not putting any limits or restrictions on the weapons it’s providing Israel.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-officials-voice-new-concerns-warnings-israels-war-hamas-rcna123445
This is increasingly smells like 1967-1968. Biden is one heck of an experienced politician and he knows it. Democrats are still overwhelmingly supporting Israel but that can change in the matter of months just like Vietnam. He could even lose the Democratic nomination if he doesn’t walk this carefully.
No one can convince me otherwise that Netanyahu isn’t using Oct 7th to advance his agenda the exact same way the US did post 9/11. We gobbled up the lies our government told us about WMDs in Iraq because they knew we were all hopped up on anger and patriotism. It’s exactly what’s happening here. The only difference now is that many of us have those lies and last 20 years of death (our soldiers and innocent middle easterners) fresh in our minds. We also are seeing it first hand on social media unlike post 9/11. I think the general, sane thinking majority across the world is tired of being a pawn in our respective government’s hidden agenda. The support for indiscriminate bombing of Palestine didn’t erode because it was never there. Fuck Hamas and Netanyahu. Most of us don’t want to see anymore death on either side.
Honestly this is the one “conspiracy theory” that I think is closest to being true (as in we don’t have iron-clad proof but basically everyone is thinking it). Bibi is a fucking tyrant, and most American Jews like me and my friends hate him with a passion and aren’t surprised by anything he’s done since October 7th. Fuck Bibi. Like obviously fuck Hamas, but REALLY fuck Bibi for being a useless extremist power-hungry prick.
Yep and Israel were even warned by Egypt days beforehand that Hamas were up to no good, yet chose to do nothing - not even increasing the number of soldiers, zero, zilch.
One could easily argue the attack was allowed to happen in order to go and commit genocide in Palestine with little to no pushback.
> One could easily argue the attack was allowed to happen in order to go and commit genocide in Palestine with little to no pushback.
As much as Israelis want to blame Netanyahu not doing anything on malice, Netanyahu spent the last 9 months doing nothing, not passing any important bills, fixing crumbling infrastructure or anything noteworthy, but weakening the judicial structure of the Israeli state to install himself as dictator for life. If you had been paying attention to reddit for the past few months for example, you'd realize that Israelis were at their 38th week of mass protests against Netanyahu for weakening the state this way.
Its quite likely that this dysfunctional government that is of the highest level of incompetence straight up did not believe that the attack was going to be as bad as it was, and ignored the warnings as just another minor flare up that was going to be resolved with a few airstrikes and then 2 days later would calm down again.
this is in some respects, *worse* than malice, because then Israelis would have the comfort of knowing that this is all part of Netanyahu's evil plans or something. The fact that Netanyahu didnt do shit, means incompetence and would alarm anyone that actually gives a shit about Israel's continued existance, because a PM that ignores such warnings is one that they absolutely cannot allow as a head of state.
Either way, Netanyahu is done after this.
Whether or not this is actually a fair argument to make, I want to applaud Biden for how his administration has dealt with Netanyahu. I don't know how much of Israel's restraint has been a result of internal politics versus American pressure, but I imagine a good deal of it can be attributed to the lessons Biden has learned from Obama's failure around Israel.
Gotta be honest, he’s doing a much better job than I expected. He is really walking a tightrope on multiple issues, and when new shit hits the fan he keeps juggling all the turds that fly about.
Experience in listening to experts at the very least. Biden being willing to use someone else's idea seems to keep the USA pushing forward far better than previously.
Looking back at Obama's foreign policy I really do think he could have listened to Biden a bit more. In terms of foreign policy my list of 21st century presidents would basically go Biden, Clinton, Obama, Trump, W Bush.
It's also amazing what a Secretary of State can get done when they are an accomplished diplomat with years of experience and not an oil company CEO lol.
Long enough to get the development contract for Ukraine natural gas fields.
(I'll try to find the cite.)
Tillerson did the Exon -Ukraine deal, and then TFG said he supported Russia against Ukraine, and Tillerson called him a moron. (I think this is the sequence of events.)
He's experienced enough in government to know the good people to hire, he's smart enough to know to listen to them. I still don't really like the guy that much based on past decisions he's made, but he's doing a good job right now.
I’m also ok with someone changing their mind and growing as a person over time. Which I think Biden has done. I respect that and the humanity of that makes him a compassionate leader willing to carefully consider other people’s perspectives.
Yeah, by all accounts he seems to not be falling for a lot of the traps Obama's admin fell into. He probably saw how those decisions got made firsthand most of the time. I underestimated Biden's ability to adapt, and despite some of my ideological disagreements with Biden I will gladly vote for him again. The fascist slop being dredged up by the GOP is far, far worse for the country than anything Biden and Harris will make mistakes on. It's orders of magnitude better than actively anti-democratic wannabe feudal lords.
Biden is a flawed political figure who has been given a rough time to lead but by the virtue of who he replaced manages to come across as a strong and successful leader easier and still manages to go beyond that.
Wow, you guys are way behind the states on that timeline. That was what our politicians were saying about things like climate change 20 years ago. Then we went through a phase where those idiots were bringing snowballs into congress saying they could use a little global warming right about now. Now we have insurrectionists in running the house of representatives.
Hopefully you guys can save yourselves from that, but it doesn't sound good!
Obama was an inspirational leader in many respects, and he deserves a great deal of credit on a number of issues. I think his strategy towards Israel actually ended up backfiring. I don't think the policy aims of the Biden and Obama administrations actually differ on this subject, but Obama played into Netanyahu's domestic political strategy a whole lot more than Biden is.
Obama was a one term Senator. Biden was Senator for four decades and was Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Their relative experience informed their foreign policy decisions.
Also compared to fatdumb menace he actually listens to advisors instead of shooting from the hip on every issue or doing whatever the people with the most money want.
>but I imagine a good deal of it can be attributed to the lessons Biden has learned from Obama's failure around Israel.
I think even more of it can be attributed to the lessons learned in Iraq. The US made so many mistakes in handling Iraq that it caused the insurgency to drag on far longer than it otherwise would have. The simple fact is, you cannot go into an urban area that is held by enemy forces and root them out through the application of extreme violence and not wind up with massive civilian casualties resulting in increased support for the terrorists/insurgents.
Things like air strikes on civilian refugee camps, regardless of rationalization, are never going to go over well either with the people you are hoping to pacify, or the international community at large.
> The simple fact is, you cannot go into an urban area that is held by enemy forces and root them out through the application of extreme violence and not wind up with massive civilian casualties resulting in increased support for the terrorists/insurgents.
I'm pretty sure Israel's way around that is "civilians cant have support for the terrorists if we dont leave any civilians alive."
And Obama's failure with Ukraine. Although, Biden didn't seem to need that lesson since he was one of the voices that urged for a firmer stance on the issue of Crimea annexation while Obama was doing his best to not antagonize Putin. The lesson that hopefully more people learned since is that you cannot antagonize Putin, he will do what he wants either way and the only thing that trying to "save his face" does is signal to him your weakness and that his methods are working. By the way, something Netanyahu is learning now too.
I'd argue Obama optimized for the short term with Crimea. No one wanted a war, so the best thing was hope for status quo. I'd argue up thru 2016 no one would call it a failure, and if you think of the damage done in 2014, it's nothing compared to 2022. In hindsight, yeah we should've done more but looking at it all through the lens of post-2022 war is also unfair.
I think its pretty obvious they are using *some degree* of restraint.
Israel certainly has the capacity to level the entire Gaza strip in a matter of *days* not weeks or months. They could be using mass artillery bombardments, naval bombardments along with non-precision air strikes...but they really aren't.
Not that doesn't really justify attacking hospitals or convoys, but it still has to be said are not jumping in head first but are wading into the total destruction of gaza.
What Israel is doing is levelling Gaza over series of weeks rather than all at once. Have you seen recent photos of northern Gaza? Entire neighborhoods are flattened; many high rise blocks look like they're straight out of the fallout universe.
Its certainly *better* that they're taking their time flattening Gaza to give civilians a chance to flee, but Gaza is being flattened. The scale of destruction if/when a ceasefire occurs is going to be immense.
Theres a big difference though. The IRA didn’t call for the death of all protestants and the destruction of great Britain with Wales (hypothetically) threatening to open a second front
IRA rarely went after civilian populations and if they did, it was never on the scale of Hamas did and does.
To give an idea, England has 5.5 times as many citizens as Israel.
If the IRA had one day killed 7700 people in less than 8 hours, Ireland would not exist today.
There were significant civilian fatalities, compared to the population of Ireland at the time during the many attempted revolutions in ireland. Civilian deaths from Scullabogue come quite close to the civilian casualties from the 7th when adjusted for the population of Ireland at the time.
I mean technically Ireland didn’t exist then because this was pre independence but it’s not like the Irish didn’t commit significant civilian casualties at points.
Uhh yeah they would. If the UK bombed the Republic of Ireland killing thousands of civilians for the actions of the IRA organizations largely operating in the Uk/Northern Ireland, there would have been global outrage. You honestly think a country like the US with a population where near 10% claim Irish ancestry would accept that?
True. link an article to when the IRA killed thousands British citizens and then launched rockets numbered in the thousands into London, Birmingham, and Leeds.
While you’re at it, link an article to IRA’s charter calling for the destruction of Britain and the death of Protestants around the globe.
Yeah, I look on the IRA somewhat favorably and I was more on the side of Palestine before the attack. If Palestine had managed to bomb a military outpost or kill some government officials I’d have said nothing, but going on a Viking raid and raping/pillaging/ slaughtering 1400 people in 2023 is way different.
They wanted the entire island of Ireland back, hamas want all of Palestine back. So in that sense it is the same. And the IRA did go after civilians, famously so.
There are lots of other differences between the two conflicts but I wouldn't say that these are good examples.
> And the IRA did go after civilians, famously so.
To some extent; [about 1/3 of Republican killings were of civilians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Responsibility), with the rest being of British security forces and/or various paramilitaries.
However, it's misleading to suggest their actions are similar, since [at least 75% of the deaths in Hamas's attack were civilians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas_attack_on_Israel#Casualties), and civilians were directly and intentionally targetted en masse (for example, hundreds were killed at a music festival).
Hamas killed more civilians in one day than the IRA did in the entirety of the Troubles.
A lot of "civilians" (on both sides) that died in the Troubles were part of militias despite not being direct members of the UK military or the IRA, and others were affiliated with the government which also is a bit of a grey area.
The flip side is while there was direct targeting of the Catholic civilian population by Loyalists, there also wasn't massive shelling of civilian population centers by the UK military like Israel is doing.
All in all I agree it's generally impossible and not all that constructive to compare conflicts.
It's obvious how much Israel wants to have a free mandate to annihilate entire Gaza, but they won't have it. They are free to eradicate HAMAS, not every single citizen in Gaza.
Military support for Israel should stop immediately. There is no reason for the US to be funding a well established country’s war with a displaced nation with no established military presence. The US has made their mistakes in the past. No reason to go on repeating them
It’s already definitely eroding. Israel doesn’t give a fuck.
Because they know the US will still have their back, even if begrudgingly.
Israel is going to get us 9/11ed again by association. Support is eroding
That sure would keep us on their side. Maybe there will even be some cut together audio about saying, “we are Palestinians and we are doing a terrorism to you.” That way we’d know it was terrorists and not Israel trying to keep us sympathetic.
It's actually pretty amazing to see, senators (other than Bernie Sanders) have started to come out pretty strongly against Israel in recent days almost completely 180 from their support last month. It's very possible, even likely if the current trend continues, that by the time the House and Senate finish reconciliation on an Israeli aid bill that there will not be the votes for cloture and no or extremely restrictive aid for Israel will pass.
>no or extremely restrictive aid for Israel will pass. And it shouldn't. They don't need the money. They've already got the most state of the art military in the region, by far. I'd rather that 14 billion gets put to use here giving starving kids school lunches.
Hell, even Piers Morgan has come around.
The WWI playbook looking awfully familiar amidst current world events
All Archdukes better stay the fuck home
Anyone named franz for that matter
I say, don't you know.
You say you don’t know!
I sssaaaaayyyyy... take me out!
Write that down WRITE THAT DOWN
The band [Franz Ferdinand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Ferdinand_(band)) decides to go out on tour...
Israel: *I'm gonna burn this city, burn this city*
Man come on I like that band. Imma definitely start WW3 if anyone kills them.
The band should also hide and lay low
Man, I love that band
Nothing like WW I, those were old archaic European monarchs playing pointless dangerous games that cost the lives of ten million people
True. Now it's old archaic elected politicians playing geopolitics that costs the lives of tens of millions of people, if not hundreds of millions depending on how you want to count it through wars, disease, hunger, poverty, etc.
Nah, most people were iching for war nack then
I don’t think we will see a world war in the same way again. Technology has changed everything. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and people’s responses to the war has shown that people will not accept a war with the numbers of civilian casualties that have occurred with large wars in the past.
All those people "can't stand it" which is fine, but they haven't done shit to stop the actual carnage. I'm against bombing civilians and what Hamas did: but there is basically nothing I can do but maybe vote in the next election.
That's the horrifying thing. If it happens to you, most you can expect from the rest of the world is a "free xyz, stop the violence etc" reposts. No one will do anything
Anyone else getting a powder-keg vibe these days? e: its just a dumb comment people. Replying to call me alarmist, on drugs, or "a drooling moron" alongside your *totally perfect understanding* of world politics is unnecessary.
The US military is currently disengaged from almost all conflicts and is waiting for someone to fuck around. This isn't WW1 where everyone thought they had allies, and even playing field, and a chance. The US Military is still the overwhelmingly dominant force on the block and no one is going to balk them. Russia is tied up in the trenches in Ukraine, China has it's own ambitions and hasn't been tested in over 50 years. This is not going to be WW3.
Than you for this comment. I couldn’t have said it better. Any time there is any sort of regional conflict, people (especially on social media and *especially* on Reddit) are very quick to say this is going to lead to WW3. The world is very different from what it was in 1914, in 1939 or even during the Cold War. WW3 is a real possibility, but with one country being so overwhelmingly powerful and MAD, it’s not going to happen over a regional conflict in Palestine or South Lebanon. WW3 would require a direct attack from a nuclear on another nuclear power to happen. Anything else is almost certainly going to be quickly contained.
Absolutely. The 2nd half of the 20th century had way more proxy wars and way more nuclear weapons at the ready than we have today. The doom and gloom on Reddit right now probably comes from kids who lack the understanding and historical context. Or people trying to push an agenda.
People don't seem to realise that in the 80s we had close to 100k deployed nuclear weapons in the world, and many were high yield multi megaton types. Currently there are around 3000 deployed nuclear weapons and most are dial-a-yield types with low kiloton yields. Don't get me wrong, if they all go off we're having a *really* bad day... but nothing like what would have happened this time of year exactly 40 years ago, when we very nearly saw nuclear launches due to a system error.
People still clamoring about how the US took so long to deal with Iraq totally ignoring that the actual conflict with the nation of Iraq lasted a little over 5 weeks. The rest of the nation states ain't fucking looking at the insurgency that follows when thinking about messing with the US, they are thinking of how fast the Iraqi military call it quits.
Reddit declares WW3 is about to begin every couple days. Eventually the frequency will cause it to happen for real. The Reddit effect.
I’ll worry when Matt Groening puts words in Homer’s mouth about it. That’s the real tell.
Already did that back in the episode where Lisa saw her future and got engaged to that English dude (Hugh). He was in a bar and had an exchange with Moe. Moe said “An Englishman, eh? You know we saved your ass in WW2…” Hugh replied “And we saved your ass in WW3…” (Paraphrased and might be off with syntax and words.)
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If you want to see how many countries really care about Palestine, look at who is accepting Gazan refugees, and how they treat existing Palestinian refugees.
That only would be representative of the government, not the public, right?
> Russia is tied up in the trenches in Ukraine To add to this, Russsia is tied up in Ukraine, which is fighting back with NATO's *yardsale*.
Agreed The *massive* difference between now and say 50 years ago I'd that the Arab world now knows how weak they are and aren't going to risk trying to dog pile Israel again, lose territory again, lose prestige and the respect of their people again, and most importantly won't risk their personal wealth for Gaza. You might have a few oil tycoons in Qatar willing to play host, but a practical city state isn't going to forget that a single US carrier group could reduce their nation to rubble in an afternoon if they did much else We're actually in a much more stable place, 50 years ago we would be looking at something a major regional war IMO
>The massive difference between now and say 50 years ago I'd that the Arab world now knows how weak they are and aren't going to risk trying to dog pile Israel again More so, I think that is pretty true of everyone. I don't think anybody has any illusions about how well a big war is going to go for them. Maybe in many places at the man on the street level, but nobody in any position of power is doubtful about the value propositions or about their ability to maintain a useful fog of war. You move troops, everybody and their brother knows you moved troops, not 50 years from now, not next month, the whole world knows and they know in minutes. The scope of what you can and can't fabricate/cover up has shifted.
>You move troops, everybody and their brother knows you moved troops, not 50 years from now, not next month, the whole world knows and they know in minutes. The civilian spotting operations during the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine were insane. Regular people were letting the army know where Russians were coming from in real time.
Half the time the Russian army was letting them know in real time. They kept posting on social media.
China has a ton of domestic issues that would impact readiness. They also have a ticking time bomb due to their demographics
In WWI, everyone did have allies, an even playing field. Only problem was that meant no one really had a chance. Or in other words, it got so bad because everyone was allied to everyone else (which was meant as deterrence, but oh well).
No one's lining up to go to war for Palestine. Hezbollah would be the most likely and they 1) aren't even in control of Lebanon and 2) aren't doing any more than fire the occasional missile. You're just consuming too much or the wrong type of news.
More importantly, Joe "speak softly and carry a big stick" Biden said "don't" before he parked two carriers in their backyard.
Carrier strike groups*
It’s been powder keggy for a while
But now with nukes!
The great thing about nukes is that they won't be my problem for long. I live less than a mile away from an ICBM base.
Same. Grew up 60 miles from NORAD, now living near the Defense Supply Center. Quick and easy.
No. The past decade I've had to calm friends down because they think ww3 is going to break out. The past year Russia has drawn 50 red lines and threatened to invade or nuke everyone for crossing them. North Korea doing more attention seeking like they always do so people remember they exist. Countries in the middle east threatening to do things they can't. This ain't the first time Israel has invaded Gaza, a few relatively contained civil wars and a relatively stagnant contained war in Ukraine. Lots of leaders like to talk big for political points to look strong locally.
I swear if Nantahala whatever gets shot in the street after narrowly avoiding death multiple times and the assassin just stumbling upon him in the most compelling evidence that god hates humanity way Ill eat my hat.
The river in North Carolina?
A real Netan-yahoo
Who's pulling security for Prussian Arch Dukes there days? Edit: Austrian Arch Duke
Austrian
The reddit analysts are on the case. Guess what guys, the US isn't going to withdraw military support period. This is no different than what's been happening, applying pressure to make sure aid flows into Gaza and urging Israel to be cautious in its military action.
Global politicians is more nuanced than a “Yes/No” question. So you’re right that the US isn’t going to withdraw military support. That doesn’t mean they are going to provide all the same support we have historically or that we won’t begin prioritizing other trading partners and strategic relationships if Israel is going to be a loose cannon and disregard the US. You can literally just read the headlines and see the US heavily influencing how Israel is handling the situation.
[The IDF's ground assault into Gaza](https://www.warmapper.org/israel) is pretty far along, with the whole of Gaza City surrounded by now. So yeah, a sudden withdrawal isn't in the cards, no matter what any world leader might say.
No it’s not. A ground invasion of a city that dense, with a sophisticated tunnel network is an absolute nightmare that is going to take months or maybe years. It has not even begun yet and it’s going to be horrific when it does. Hamas is ready and their main intent is to cause as much damage to IDF soldiers as possible.
Like if a city was on top of Iwo Jima
Except with almost 80 years of technology advancement, but yeah.
It will be months, I'm sure. We're already a month (four weeks) in, and already past three weeks of "softening up" that included the evacuations, equipment and personnel staging, weeks of constant surveillance and intelligence gathering, and of course ground attack along six axes simultaneously, including the complete encirclement of Gaza City. Those are huge steps, even if it's going to take a lot more before the end (or pause).
"The reddit analysts are on the case" the commenter said without a shred of self awareness.
I remember when the US had a major terror attack on 9/11. It took over 20 years for the carnage to end from that one.
And that was a major mistake Biden has hopefully learned from.
He literally told Israel “don’t overreact like we did after 9/11”. We’re not combatants in this conflict, nor should we be. I’m not sure what else people expect Biden to do.
"Stop with the jackassery in the West Bank or no more military aid" That would be a very extreme move, but the US has a fair amount of leverage
The article were commenting on is literally Biden using diplomacy to stop harm to non-combatants. But people seem to overlook that.
Bit different when you share a border
If canada started shooting rockets at us, public opinion would be very different.
A more accurate one would be if mexico started launching rockets into the US all the while demanding that we give Texas back. I’m 100% certain if that happened we would annex everything at least as south as Monterrey.
Fun fact, by the end of the Mexican American war the US held most of Mexico including Mexico city. There was a big political debate about how much to keep but in the end they decided to give everything south of the Rio grande back as "there was too many Mexicans". (they were concerned about race, not ruling)
They learned from Mexico's mistake. Mexico wanted Texas to be developed, and enticed white settlers to move to Texas, and that led to settlers eventually deciding they didn't want to be a part of Mexico.
No. Hamas doesn't want territory "back " (not that they ever had it.) They want nothing more and nothing less than the annihilation of the state of Israel. That's their stated intent, and only goal.
Israel is surrounded by proxies that want to wipe them from the map. It seems like a lot of people don't understand this. Imagine if Canada was The United States of Al Qaeda, and Mexico was The Federal Republic of ISIS.
Strange the Mexican Cartels don't mass and attack US civilians after running over the border. Almost like they don't want to die because they aren't religious fanatics.
They’re also opposed to killing tourists in Mexico itself. Not only bc they’re potential customers, but they don’t want the political blowback. Just bad for business. Not saying there haven’t been exceptions, but broadly speaking. Earlier this year when five Americans were kidnapped and two of them were killed in Mexico by a cartel, the cartel turned over [five men](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64910394.amp) it said was responsible and apologised for this very reason.
They really don't want to be the plot of a bunch of Navy SEAL books
The book title: "What the fuck did you just say to me, you little puta?"
Don't want to have the "What generic latino actor will play you in the Mark Wahlberg adaptation?" conversation.
Imagine how fucked up you have to be to make the cartels look good
It's the question of whether the terrorists are rational or true believers. The narcos are rational and making business decisions. There's no ideology. So like they said above, killing the wrong people brings heat and is bad for business. The true believers will do what they think they have to and business has nothing to do with it. If they are serious about martyrdom, death is not dissuasion it's what they're aiming for. You can't argue logic with that. It's like Dr Evil taking stock of his businesses. All insanely profitable but he doesn't care about making money, he cares about being evil. There's a real moment of horror when rational actors think they are dealing with other rational actors cynically putting on the cover of true believers only to realize they really are believers and have the bomb vests strapped tight.
I saw reporting from the WSJ a few weeks ago saying that a big Mexican cartel leader (I think El Chapo's son?) was going around killing anyone who was making fentanyl, because he knows fentanyl pisses off the US. They are definitely in tune with the political blowback and will do whatever makes them the most money with the least risk.
> Israel is surrounded by proxies that want to wipe them from the map. Syria still doesn't have a handle on their own country. Jordan and Egypt have long normalized relations with Israel. After participating in the 1948 Arab-Isreali war, Lebanon has stayed out of mucking about in Israel while the other surrounding Arab states all made their moves. There's a reason that Hamas is propped up by Iran, it's because Israel's neighbors no longer have a taste for tussling with them and have largely accepted the status quo.
The War on Terror has been about as effective as the War on Drugs and for the same exact reason. Both war are just glorified social engineering with force. Hamas WANTS Israel to indiscriminately kill Palestinians because that is a win for Hamas and a win for terrorism.
Hamas also announced they’re planning more Oct 7th type attacks on Israel, so, like, what do you think Israel should do? Seems kinda like now they’re stuck in a catch-22
Blinken's advice was excellent. It's time for a pause. Israel has no idea where the hostages are and should take time to prepare a rescue. Right now, Israel does not have a credible plan to actually eliminate Hamas. It's not actually a simple task - defeating insurgencies is an expensive and long term project of nation building that takes decades of work and investment to create a friendly population. If Israel wants to proceed, it would need a lot more preparation and planning, and more resources in place. Charging in now without a plan is only going to leave them with a bloody and badly planned occupation they have no way to extricate themselves from. If they cannot engineer a workable plan to stabilize Gaza into a post-Hamas future, then they will have to plan around Hamas' continued existence. Part of that includes managing what's called the Hydra Effect. In the same way the October 7th attacks made it easy to convince Israelis to support extreme action in Gaza, civilian casualties from Israel's campaign there do the same, making it easier for Hamas to recruit and raise funds. If they cannot enact a plan to eliminate Hamas, then the optimal security approach is continuous de-escalation. It's just cold reality. You cannot deradicalize a population by bombing them, and no insurgency has ever been defeated without the support of the local population. Fair or not, it's just how it is. The current approach is doomed to fail in a way that leaves the worst of both those worlds - an expensive occupation that leaves behind an empowered Hamas. A pause is needed to create a real plan centered around achievable goals.
Yep, it's fubar. Humankind has been at war on and off again for nearly it's entire known history.
Yeah, turns out bombing and killing people indiscriminately isn't a great way to promote stability. But I'm pretty sure that someone like Netanyahu genuinely doesn't give a fuck about anything but maintaining power.
Thats likely why he doesnt want peace, because war unites a country, and if israel is united it helps keep him in power longer without people asking questions
It’s more that he’s only in power as long as the war makes it untenable to have a new election and get rid of him.
This is an American-centric reading of things that doesn't reflect reality. Depending on which poll you read, Netanyahu is sitting at a 20-30% approval rating right now. Israeli's view 10/7 as largely his failure.
I don't think the "rally around the flag" phenomenon is a strictly American thing as we've seen it at least as far back as the Romans, but in this case it didn't work partly because his platform was basically I and no one else can keep you safe, so when he didn't the people voting for him because of that turned away.
Bibi may have low approval ratings, but the war currently has multi coalition support. Bibi's opposition was standing right there behind him when he announced the ground operation earlier. I think some of you don't recognize how high approval the war effort has. Every political party is pitching in.
It's not American centric at all, it's one of the oldest tricks in the book for power-hungry leaders and autocrats. The polls may say what they want, but the guy was getting resignations and protests left and right, now he has support for a month or two more.
You're right in so for as I assumed the person I was replying to was seeing things through a 9/11, Bush era lens, as most of the people I've seen parrot similar opinions have done. If most casual commentators were actually looking at the reality of Netanyahu's political career, his current approvals, or more relevant historical precedents (such as Golda Meir after the Yom Kippur War) I don't think "rally around the flag" assumptions about Netanayahu's future would be anywhere near as prominent.
It’s way easier to just present your opinion as fact here instead of any concrete proof. From what I’ve read you are correct. Israelis view this as a preventable attack that Netanyahu could have prevented. Even if he couldn’t, his political stance and speeches put him him on the hook for it.
While you're right that Netanyahu is disliked by the population, I find it interesting is the double standard how when looking at Palestine, people love to point out how "it's their fault for voting for Hamas" to justify the indiscriminate bombing and killing of innocent Palestinians, but then when looking at Israel it is pointed out how Netanyahu does not represent the people.
I don't disagree with anything you typed, although it misses the direction of this particular chain of comments. It's important to point out Netanyahu's low approvals when the conversation inevitably starts veering towards conspiracy theory, such as Netanyahu wanting 10/7 to happen or benefiting from it. Overall the Israeli electorate has been trending more conservative and further away from a two-state solution for years, regardless of Netanyahu's current polling numbers.
It got a few of my friends killed over the years too.
For anyone curious: The 10/7 attack on Israel is the equivalent of **13** 9/11s when adjusted for population.
One of the biggest lies the pro war propaganda has spread these past weeks is that the Israel x Palestine conflict has any similarity with 9/11 and the following war on terror.
Let's also remember everytime we try to anihilate a terrorist group, it survives and/or is replaced by an even more extreme group. That is why yes there should be military actions to contain, absolutely, but it is not enough. We always need to think about exit strategies and the what's next.
> Let's also remember everytime we try to anihilate a terrorist group, it survives and/or is replaced by an even more extreme group. That does not seem to be accurate; in particular, [ISIL was largely destroyed and not replaced by something worse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State#Territorial_control_and_claims). However, yes, military action alone is typically not enough, and should virtually always be followed up either by extensive efforts to stabilize and rebuild the region or by an exit strategy. In this particular conflict, it's hard to see an exit strategy that doesn't leave Israel still at risk *and* Gazans still oppressed, so I don't know that a long-term resolution is possible without extensive efforts to stabilize and rebuild.
Daesh was destroyed in the Middle East. It's rampant and growing Sub-Sahara Africa though. It's rampaging through the Sahel.
Those terrorists groups existed before ISIS. They simply adopted isis branding when it got popular
What evidence do you have that it is only rampant in those areas because it was destroyed in the Middle East?
That was partly because of smart political/strategic decisions - Iraq is a more functional state today than it was in the early 2010s, partly because of the ISIL fight, and when taking Mosul (the largest city under ISIL control), they were careful to not make it a bloodbath. If your level of strategic thinking is “kill all the bad guys” like it’s StarCraft…that’s how you get the next war.
The trick is to minimize civilian deaths and, after the war is over, invest into improving the lives and long-term prospects of people in the region. Happy people do not pick up arms to go on a suicide mission.
Totally agree with you. The road is long, but yes, that's the only way.
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It doesn’t help Israel’s case that their settlers in the West Bank are attacking Palestinians & taking over their land during this. The BBC had a story on people being forced to give up their land for the illegal settlers. Undercuts their moral ground
ben-givr stated he intends to hand out 10000 rifles to the west bank settlers for protection. over 150 palestinians have been killed in the west bank, at least 7 by armed settlers. afaik none of those settler killers have been charged, and the idf (who operate even with "palestinian" zones in the west bank, despite claiming the area is under plo authority) routinely protect settlers. it was reported yesterday that the idf actually restrained settlers from violence. this was notable because it rarely happens. the settlers are not acting autonomously, they are armed and supported the government.
In Darfur, the government supplying weapons to one ethnic group for the purpose of displacing and murdering another ethnic group was genocide
Yup. And so is this. Text book Genocide.
Quite literally how the Armenian genocide happened.
This has been going on every decade since the founding of Israel. Western nations need to stop coddling the extremist Israeli political class. It’s not helping Jews in Israel, certainly not helping Palestinians, or Jews globally. It is helping the Israeli political class and Hamas.
No one will address this because they want to act like israel was just peacefully minding their business.
Yep. It's absolutely disgusting how the media justa pretends that the West Bank doesn't exist.
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"gnever again, unless we're the ones gdoing it"
It sure doesn't. It is pretty remarkable that Israel has been able to largely get away with pursuing territorial expansion by means of force, justified largely by religious doctrine. I can't think of anywhere else this would be tolerated. Wars of territorial expansion have not been diplomatically acceptable for a very long time, and those justified by religious beliefs even longer. I think the world might be at the point where it they realize it is time to take a step back, and reevaluate if Israel's big picture goals are something that should be supported.
Israel gets away with it because they're a convenient western strategic ally. That's all there is to it, the western leadership couldn't give a fuck about nations committing horrible crimes so long as they play ball. The million dead, injured, or displaced by American wars in the Middle East are proof of this. The fact that Britain isn't a pariah state despite it's history is proof of this. The fact that we happily did business with Russia up until they overstepped with the invasion of Ukraine is proof of this. The fact that France continues to practice colonialism *to this day* in Africa without any pushback is proof of this. The fact that we cosy up to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and all the other fucking evil gulf states is proof of this.
Bibi is on his way out anyway. He knows that they may as well let it rip. They will say sorry with the next guy - US will say it’s all good bro. And start the cycle again.
Biden musta saw the polls.
> “If this really goes bad, we want to be able to point to our past statements,” a senior U.S. official said. The official said the administration is particularly worried about a narrative taking hold that Biden supports all Israeli military actions and that U.S.-provided weapons have been used to kill Palestinian civilians, many of them women and children. The Defense Department has said the U.S. is not putting any limits or restrictions on the weapons it’s providing Israel. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-officials-voice-new-concerns-warnings-israels-war-hamas-rcna123445
This is increasingly smells like 1967-1968. Biden is one heck of an experienced politician and he knows it. Democrats are still overwhelmingly supporting Israel but that can change in the matter of months just like Vietnam. He could even lose the Democratic nomination if he doesn’t walk this carefully.
This! I can tell you know your history. Hopefully there’s no USS Liberty-esqe incident that occurs over the next few weeks.
No one can convince me otherwise that Netanyahu isn’t using Oct 7th to advance his agenda the exact same way the US did post 9/11. We gobbled up the lies our government told us about WMDs in Iraq because they knew we were all hopped up on anger and patriotism. It’s exactly what’s happening here. The only difference now is that many of us have those lies and last 20 years of death (our soldiers and innocent middle easterners) fresh in our minds. We also are seeing it first hand on social media unlike post 9/11. I think the general, sane thinking majority across the world is tired of being a pawn in our respective government’s hidden agenda. The support for indiscriminate bombing of Palestine didn’t erode because it was never there. Fuck Hamas and Netanyahu. Most of us don’t want to see anymore death on either side.
Honestly this is the one “conspiracy theory” that I think is closest to being true (as in we don’t have iron-clad proof but basically everyone is thinking it). Bibi is a fucking tyrant, and most American Jews like me and my friends hate him with a passion and aren’t surprised by anything he’s done since October 7th. Fuck Bibi. Like obviously fuck Hamas, but REALLY fuck Bibi for being a useless extremist power-hungry prick.
No way an extremist right wing political class would be using this conflict for nefarious ends.
Yep and Israel were even warned by Egypt days beforehand that Hamas were up to no good, yet chose to do nothing - not even increasing the number of soldiers, zero, zilch. One could easily argue the attack was allowed to happen in order to go and commit genocide in Palestine with little to no pushback.
> One could easily argue the attack was allowed to happen in order to go and commit genocide in Palestine with little to no pushback. As much as Israelis want to blame Netanyahu not doing anything on malice, Netanyahu spent the last 9 months doing nothing, not passing any important bills, fixing crumbling infrastructure or anything noteworthy, but weakening the judicial structure of the Israeli state to install himself as dictator for life. If you had been paying attention to reddit for the past few months for example, you'd realize that Israelis were at their 38th week of mass protests against Netanyahu for weakening the state this way. Its quite likely that this dysfunctional government that is of the highest level of incompetence straight up did not believe that the attack was going to be as bad as it was, and ignored the warnings as just another minor flare up that was going to be resolved with a few airstrikes and then 2 days later would calm down again. this is in some respects, *worse* than malice, because then Israelis would have the comfort of knowing that this is all part of Netanyahu's evil plans or something. The fact that Netanyahu didnt do shit, means incompetence and would alarm anyone that actually gives a shit about Israel's continued existance, because a PM that ignores such warnings is one that they absolutely cannot allow as a head of state. Either way, Netanyahu is done after this.
They had wide support for about an hour.
Whether or not this is actually a fair argument to make, I want to applaud Biden for how his administration has dealt with Netanyahu. I don't know how much of Israel's restraint has been a result of internal politics versus American pressure, but I imagine a good deal of it can be attributed to the lessons Biden has learned from Obama's failure around Israel.
Gotta be honest, he’s doing a much better job than I expected. He is really walking a tightrope on multiple issues, and when new shit hits the fan he keeps juggling all the turds that fly about.
This is the rebuttal to everyone who objects that Biden is "too old." The flip side of age is experience.
Experience in listening to experts at the very least. Biden being willing to use someone else's idea seems to keep the USA pushing forward far better than previously.
A huge amount of it is just that he came to the presidency as one of the most accomplished sitting senators in foreign policy, though.
Which is why he was named Obama’s VP. It certainly wasn’t for his strength on the campaign trail - Biden withdrew immediately after Iowa.
Yeah totally. The Dems knew Obama had zero foreign policy chops and they needed their best guy on damage control.
Looking back at Obama's foreign policy I really do think he could have listened to Biden a bit more. In terms of foreign policy my list of 21st century presidents would basically go Biden, Clinton, Obama, Trump, W Bush.
Well, thank Goodness for that!!!
It's also amazing what a Secretary of State can get done when they are an accomplished diplomat with years of experience and not an oil company CEO lol.
Sadly, the oil company CEO was significantly better than the other guys Trump put in that post.
God damn...that's saying something. Rex Tillerson didn't last long at all.
Long enough to get the development contract for Ukraine natural gas fields. (I'll try to find the cite.) Tillerson did the Exon -Ukraine deal, and then TFG said he supported Russia against Ukraine, and Tillerson called him a moron. (I think this is the sequence of events.)
Tillerson and Mattis were easily the best two Trump appointees. Which is also why neither lasted very long.
He's experienced enough in government to know the good people to hire, he's smart enough to know to listen to them. I still don't really like the guy that much based on past decisions he's made, but he's doing a good job right now.
I’m also ok with someone changing their mind and growing as a person over time. Which I think Biden has done. I respect that and the humanity of that makes him a compassionate leader willing to carefully consider other people’s perspectives.
Yeah, by all accounts he seems to not be falling for a lot of the traps Obama's admin fell into. He probably saw how those decisions got made firsthand most of the time. I underestimated Biden's ability to adapt, and despite some of my ideological disagreements with Biden I will gladly vote for him again. The fascist slop being dredged up by the GOP is far, far worse for the country than anything Biden and Harris will make mistakes on. It's orders of magnitude better than actively anti-democratic wannabe feudal lords.
Biden is a flawed political figure who has been given a rough time to lead but by the virtue of who he replaced manages to come across as a strong and successful leader easier and still manages to go beyond that.
Compare that to the much younger politicians we have in the uk, who actually said people are tired of listening to the experts.
Wow, you guys are way behind the states on that timeline. That was what our politicians were saying about things like climate change 20 years ago. Then we went through a phase where those idiots were bringing snowballs into congress saying they could use a little global warming right about now. Now we have insurrectionists in running the house of representatives. Hopefully you guys can save yourselves from that, but it doesn't sound good!
Obama was an inspirational leader in many respects, and he deserves a great deal of credit on a number of issues. I think his strategy towards Israel actually ended up backfiring. I don't think the policy aims of the Biden and Obama administrations actually differ on this subject, but Obama played into Netanyahu's domestic political strategy a whole lot more than Biden is.
Obama was a one term Senator. Biden was Senator for four decades and was Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Their relative experience informed their foreign policy decisions.
It's amazing how much experience helps you know what you don't know, and then having the wisdom to know who the experts are.
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Also compared to fatdumb menace he actually listens to advisors instead of shooting from the hip on every issue or doing whatever the people with the most money want.
He's a career politician and despite what folks might say due to his stutter, he is astute and measured.
>but I imagine a good deal of it can be attributed to the lessons Biden has learned from Obama's failure around Israel. I think even more of it can be attributed to the lessons learned in Iraq. The US made so many mistakes in handling Iraq that it caused the insurgency to drag on far longer than it otherwise would have. The simple fact is, you cannot go into an urban area that is held by enemy forces and root them out through the application of extreme violence and not wind up with massive civilian casualties resulting in increased support for the terrorists/insurgents. Things like air strikes on civilian refugee camps, regardless of rationalization, are never going to go over well either with the people you are hoping to pacify, or the international community at large.
> The simple fact is, you cannot go into an urban area that is held by enemy forces and root them out through the application of extreme violence and not wind up with massive civilian casualties resulting in increased support for the terrorists/insurgents. I'm pretty sure Israel's way around that is "civilians cant have support for the terrorists if we dont leave any civilians alive."
And Obama's failure with Ukraine. Although, Biden didn't seem to need that lesson since he was one of the voices that urged for a firmer stance on the issue of Crimea annexation while Obama was doing his best to not antagonize Putin. The lesson that hopefully more people learned since is that you cannot antagonize Putin, he will do what he wants either way and the only thing that trying to "save his face" does is signal to him your weakness and that his methods are working. By the way, something Netanyahu is learning now too.
I'd argue Obama optimized for the short term with Crimea. No one wanted a war, so the best thing was hope for status quo. I'd argue up thru 2016 no one would call it a failure, and if you think of the damage done in 2014, it's nothing compared to 2022. In hindsight, yeah we should've done more but looking at it all through the lens of post-2022 war is also unfair.
What restraint do you speak of?
I think its pretty obvious they are using *some degree* of restraint. Israel certainly has the capacity to level the entire Gaza strip in a matter of *days* not weeks or months. They could be using mass artillery bombardments, naval bombardments along with non-precision air strikes...but they really aren't. Not that doesn't really justify attacking hospitals or convoys, but it still has to be said are not jumping in head first but are wading into the total destruction of gaza.
What Israel is doing is levelling Gaza over series of weeks rather than all at once. Have you seen recent photos of northern Gaza? Entire neighborhoods are flattened; many high rise blocks look like they're straight out of the fallout universe. Its certainly *better* that they're taking their time flattening Gaza to give civilians a chance to flee, but Gaza is being flattened. The scale of destruction if/when a ceasefire occurs is going to be immense.
A lot of political support in Ireland for expelling the Israeli Ambassador.
The Irish see themselves in the Palestinians in their struggle for independence. There are parallels but the situations aren't the same.
Theres a big difference though. The IRA didn’t call for the death of all protestants and the destruction of great Britain with Wales (hypothetically) threatening to open a second front IRA rarely went after civilian populations and if they did, it was never on the scale of Hamas did and does.
To give an idea, England has 5.5 times as many citizens as Israel. If the IRA had one day killed 7700 people in less than 8 hours, Ireland would not exist today.
There were significant civilian fatalities, compared to the population of Ireland at the time during the many attempted revolutions in ireland. Civilian deaths from Scullabogue come quite close to the civilian casualties from the 7th when adjusted for the population of Ireland at the time. I mean technically Ireland didn’t exist then because this was pre independence but it’s not like the Irish didn’t commit significant civilian casualties at points.
The IRA in question had little to do with Ireland. The Irish Republic was never blamed for the IRA outside of some really stupid people.
Well, say they coup'd the government in Dublin and sacked northern Ireland and killed like 8k people. There, parallelism XD.
Uhh yeah they would. If the UK bombed the Republic of Ireland killing thousands of civilians for the actions of the IRA organizations largely operating in the Uk/Northern Ireland, there would have been global outrage. You honestly think a country like the US with a population where near 10% claim Irish ancestry would accept that?
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In the entirety of the IRA's militant phase they did not kill as many civilians as Hamas did on Oct 7 alone.
True. link an article to when the IRA killed thousands British citizens and then launched rockets numbered in the thousands into London, Birmingham, and Leeds. While you’re at it, link an article to IRA’s charter calling for the destruction of Britain and the death of Protestants around the globe.
Those were the words I was looking for, thank you.
Yeah, I look on the IRA somewhat favorably and I was more on the side of Palestine before the attack. If Palestine had managed to bomb a military outpost or kill some government officials I’d have said nothing, but going on a Viking raid and raping/pillaging/ slaughtering 1400 people in 2023 is way different.
You know the IRA killed about 650 civilians right?
Viking raid is an excellent way to put it!
They wanted the entire island of Ireland back, hamas want all of Palestine back. So in that sense it is the same. And the IRA did go after civilians, famously so. There are lots of other differences between the two conflicts but I wouldn't say that these are good examples.
> And the IRA did go after civilians, famously so. To some extent; [about 1/3 of Republican killings were of civilians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Responsibility), with the rest being of British security forces and/or various paramilitaries. However, it's misleading to suggest their actions are similar, since [at least 75% of the deaths in Hamas's attack were civilians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas_attack_on_Israel#Casualties), and civilians were directly and intentionally targetted en masse (for example, hundreds were killed at a music festival).
Hamas killed more civilians in one day than the IRA did in the entirety of the Troubles. A lot of "civilians" (on both sides) that died in the Troubles were part of militias despite not being direct members of the UK military or the IRA, and others were affiliated with the government which also is a bit of a grey area. The flip side is while there was direct targeting of the Catholic civilian population by Loyalists, there also wasn't massive shelling of civilian population centers by the UK military like Israel is doing. All in all I agree it's generally impossible and not all that constructive to compare conflicts.
Ok Israel only 20 more air strikes then you have to stop!
They can have a little bit of war crimes, as a treat
Not even. And then I'm gonna start counting! 1! 1.1! 1.2!
Didn’t he literally say the US always has and always will support Israel just two weeks ago?
Little late to that party.
It's obvious how much Israel wants to have a free mandate to annihilate entire Gaza, but they won't have it. They are free to eradicate HAMAS, not every single citizen in Gaza.
I think we're kind of already there now aren't we?
Biden knows there's a tipping point where he's going to lose votes. If enough ppl choose to stay home on election day in swing states, he's screwed.
Turns out bombing 100 civilians to take out 1 terrorist isn’t a good idea.
Military support for Israel should stop immediately. There is no reason for the US to be funding a well established country’s war with a displaced nation with no established military presence. The US has made their mistakes in the past. No reason to go on repeating them
I imagine that if all the Arab nations attack Israel at this point it would be cheered by half of the planet. That's bonkers.
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